The List According to Mark Morford

I recently made a very happy discovery. A fellow runner, Greg Kuhl, who is in my 1/2 marathon group, recently revealed himself to be a writer. This does not exactly describe him, as he is a very prolific and regularly published, writer from the US.

He has a delicious, trivia-filled mind and happens to be on the same page as I am regarding a variety of issues, including politics and religion. He also runs just at my pace, which is great, 'cause he lets me chew his ear off when it's not too cold to talk and run at the same time (it was -47 today with windchill and we're in the southern part of our area - about 3 hours north of the 49th. If you werent' sure how HARDY we Canadians are, that should pretty much tell you).

He's been forwarding me these great columns by Mark Morford and, as I really like lists, I'm reprinting this one.

I like most of it but I disagree with Mark's point on the so-called "war on christmas." The sooner that beast is slain, the more fun we're all going to have NOT spending our money on crap nobody wants to celebrate the birthday of someone well dead - and who may never have even existed... but I digress...

Here's Mark's column.

Friday, January 25, 2008 (SF Gate)
29 things to be happy about
Yes, it's all doom and gloom and war and global warming and Bush. Except when it's not

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Happiness knows no particular order, and neither does this list:

1) We may very well, within a year's time, have a black president. We may have a female president. We may, unfortunately, also have a bizarre robotic nutball Mormon president. No matter how it turns out, it will be very strange and unnerving and different and a bit startling and therefore at least remotely interesting to watch. Which, you have to admit, is far better than how it's been for the past seven years, which is utterly humiliating, repellent, cancerous.

2) Here is this ingenious new alarm clock. It has an Internet connection that hooks directly into your bank account. If you oversleep, it begins to withdraw funds from your account. And donate them. To groups you really, really despise. Ten minute over snooze? Fifty bucks goes to the GOP. Oversleep a half an hour? There goes $100 to the NRA, the Heritage Foundation, the Bush Presidential Library (for all the crayons). Sleep till noon? Five hundred bucks to the Aryan Nation or National Right to Life or the Lindsay Lohan Cocaine Fund. Because nothing is more motivating than abject hate. Except, of course, abject love. But that's a completely different gizmo.

3) You're not imagining it. Your intuition was completely correct. Tom Cruise really is insane. Also, it is a safe bet that Tom and Jerry O'Connell will not be working together anytime soon.

4) Women and minorities appear to be galvanized by Hillary Clinton's presidential run. Youth and college-educated voters appear to be galvanized by Barack Obama's. No one at all is truly, deeply galvanized by Mitt Romney or John McCain or crazy little Mike Huckabee, and everyone is generally repulsed by the fetid little tyrant that is Rudy Giuliani. All of this, remarkably, seems just about exactly as it should be.

5) There is apparently a fairly good argument to be made as to why Google - a 10-year-old company worth $100 gabillion that's run by a pair of geeky 35-year-olds who still, to this day, in just about every photo, look like they can't believe this is all really happening to them - should buy the New York Times. Which seems, at first glance, totally insane. Then it quickly begins to make perfect sense.

Then you're like, wait a sec, you know what? Screw the Gray Lady; Google should buy General Motors, Wal-Mart, Coca-Cola, Kraft and Dow and Viacom and pretty much all of North Korea and just wipe them all away and replace them with nice organic flowerpots and solar farms and really big trampolines. How much better! (Note to Google: Forget the NYT. Please buy The San Francisco Chronicle. Way cheaper. Plus, we're local. I would very much like to eat free sushi in your amazing cafeteria every day. Thank
you.)

6) Gentle Giants rescue.

7) "I Don't Want to Blow You Up!" is a new children's book by the author of "It's Just a Plant" ( a children's story about marijuhana) It dares to tell children that the vast majority of scarf/turban/headband/burqa-wearing peoples in the world do not, in fact, wish to bomb them, eviscerate them, eat their brains with a rhino horn or hang them upside down and steal their Playstation 3 and rape their dog. Despite what Bill O'Reilly's children's book says.

8) Britain has officially dropped the "War on Terror" label, given how, well, it's not really a war, given how most terrorists are not exactly highly organized armies of well-trained soldiers and are, instead, mostly scattershot clusters of insane fanatical murderers and suicidal religious mutants, and should be treated that way. The war on Christmas, now that's a real war.

9) TheAtlantic.com is now free. No more paid subscriptions to gain access to its excellent archives and full-length pieces. Upside: You can now read David Foster Wallace's brilliant 2005 piece on right-wing radio. Downside: the giant, throbbing mixed blessing that is Andrew Sullivan's blog.

10) Dolphins love sex. Frequent, kinky, aggressive, even violent. Homosexual, bisexual, incestuous, you name it. Sometimes with other species. Sometimes gang-rape style. Sometimes in frothy orgies. Sometimes (sort of) with humans. Yes, dolphins.

11) This just in: The cosmos is actually filled with supermassive black holes. It is also packed with dark energy, a very strange and mysterious material that appears to be pushing out the edges of the universe at a faster and faster rate and no one knows why, or what the hell dark energy actually is or how it works and it might all merely point to the overwhelming fact that the universe is, in truth, a giant, random, unpredictable mindf- of a place that's not even really a place at all, but more of a concept, a theory, a wicked delicious shaman's peyote dream and consequently its mysteries can never be "solved" and its cosmic messages never fully decoded and therefore you get to sit back right now and take a deep breath and exhale very slowly, and smile, safe in the knowledge that we actually know very, very little about anything, and we always will.

12) You can now study, in academic circles, the glory that is the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

13) The pollutive factories, the mountains of plastic, the enormous carbon footprint, the illusion of better taste, the myth of health. Yes, people seem to be waking up to the giant $15 billion sham that is the bottled water industry. Fact: The EPA's regulations for tap water are actually more stringent than the FDA's rules for bottled water. Solution: Filter your own tap water, get a Sigg. Easy.

14) Dude, like, did your dad just post a message on your FaceBook wall? Is that your mom texting you from her iPhone? Yo, brah, is that your grandma doin' the jitterbug on her own MySpace page? Dude, WTF are all these old people doing all over the Web 2.0?

15) RU-486, that very safe, woman-empowering drug from France that induces a very early stage abortion, is proving to be a quiet, revolutionary, highly personal and yet very effective giant middle finger to the misogynistic Christian right, much of Congress and about half the Supreme Court.

16) Hormone-free, grass-fed beef really does taste better. Organic food really is healthier. Tell everyone you know.

17) Absinthe.

18) Whiskipedia.

19) Drawn!

20) Gary Vaynerchuk.

21) The disappearing car door.

22) Arts & Letters Daily.

23) Cate Blanchett.

24) Heath Ledger in "Brokeback Mountain."

25) Abstinence education is, of course, a dismal failure.

26) Karl Rove is gone. Trent Lott is gone. Rick Santorum is gone. Richard Pombo is gone. Sweet Jesus, a whole rancid stew of hardcore Bushites has vanished like rat-tailed thugs from a murder scene, leaving behind all manner of shrapnel and smoking craters and karmic wreckage for the next wave of politicos to try and clean up. But hey, at least they're gone.
Mostly.

27) Gay couples are just as committed in their relationships as anyone else, and are often more satisfied. I know, big shock. Will these two new studies matter a whit to the right-wing homophobes who ignore all such studies, including those that have proven, say, that the adopted kids of gay couples turn out just fine, or that married gays don't actually cause riots, floods, or Ebola virus outbreaks? Of course not. No matter. Still good fuel for the fight.

28) A whopping 84 percent of Americans claim to be somewhere between "pretty happy" and "very happy." No, no one knows what sort of crack they're smoking. I mean, haven't they all seen the global warming? The imminent apocalypse? The staph infections and the drug-resistant bacteria and the Islamo-fascists and Dick Cheney's black and vile stare? Why all the happiness? It is because of all the Prozac? Or is it because of No. 29?

29) 1.20.09.

Thoughts about this column? E-mail Mark.

Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SFGate and in the Datebook section of the San Francisco Chronicle. To get on the e-mail list for this column, please click here and remove one article of clothing.

Mark's column also has an RSS feed and an archive of past columns, which includes another small photo of Mark potentially sufficient for you to recognize him in the street and give him gifts. He also has a raw Facebook page, but has little idea why.

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Copyright 2008 SF Gate

Step parents and disrespect

How is it so many step parents do not understand that "step" is closer to "interim" or "momentary" than it is to "step in to someone else's shoes"? In old English, the word referred to bereavement or deprivation.

In my case, I have not ceased to exist, nor have I even remotely - like a billion time less than .0000000000090% remotely - stopped being the MAIN parent in my children's lives. I am also the foundation for these, well, orders: 'THINK for yourself" and "Challenge Everything."

So, when the step parent in my children's lives, who would very much like to have some respect, repeatedly disrespects my brilliant, thinking ADULT children by foisting off her inane brand of insanity (religion) on them, despite their repeated requests that she stop, I get a little hot.... It's way worse when I know more about what's going on with her kids at their universities than she does.... but I digress....

I have no particular quarrel with her having religion. I personally think religion is an absolute poison that blinds a person to reality and stifles their ability to love, live and reason. But that's my philosophy. I don't care if anyone else agrees with me.

She, on the other hand, is intent on foisting her stupid, childish 'faith' off on my children, who have patiently explained that it isn't something they're interested in or are going to come to or accept or whatever it is she wants of them.

Worse, her spouse, my X, not only participates in this lunacy, he also will not listen to his children when they say that his and his wife's religion and their determination to choke my children on it are spoiling an already distant relationship.

I am convinced that several really traumatic, damaging events in my X spouse's life have been quite conveniently covered up in the name of being the eldest son in a good, church-going family that not only doesn't talk about such things, they simply pretend they didn't happen, despite the wide-reaching damage done to at least three little boys and probably closer to five or six. I'm boggled by his commitment to a life in an open-topped, glass box called religion, all things considered.

Today this step parent forwarded a clip from the bizarre and weird GodTube. I would be writing 24 hours a day for the next month if I were to start pointing out the abject horror of logic that site is. Worried about indoctrination of children? Well here you go; GodTube is as base and scary and mind-warping as anything the Scientolgists can throw at you.

I'd contact this step-person directly but, well, suffice to say, I'm incapable of doing it for several reasons; mostly because I already question the sanity of someone who would marry my X - I certainly questioned my own for a few years - but more of someone who is perfectly capable of living a good, moral and logical life but chooses a demonstrably false paradigm by which to abandon her right to self determination.

Another reason is that I am fully aware that most 'religious people' are logical somewhere in their being and in order to force that logic down, they resort to intense verbal defensiveness when anyone touches that very tender spot they hide. In short, I don't want to be on the hot end of the defensive blast that's sure to occur were I to ask this insensitive person to quit.

But whatever. I don't actually care about that. I care only that each time she/they forward their ridiculous crap to my children, they further drive in the wedge of alienation between them and my very intelligent, world-minded girls.

Madam, if your religion and your "personal relationship" with the definitely-dead and probably never-existent Christ of the hilariously-impossible 'virgin' birth are more important than a logical, real relationship with my two children, then all I can say is it's absolutely your loss. But at least you spouses are equally yolked with the suffocating noose that is religion....

It is sickening and sad.

All Religions are NUTS.

Mr. (I love to) Cruise has done the world a great service by exposing the scary, illegal, persecutory ranks of Scientology.... He's weird, the bulk of those who are in the thralls of this religion are weird and the whole thing is just insanity.

A sci-fi novel that a lunatic drug addict manage to make live somehow....

Weird. Just simply weird.

There are some great docs on Scientology out there. One, BBC production called Panorama, was great... exposed the 'church' leaders for the crap they get up to in order to suppress by fear.

Link here: [video.google.com]

Wikipedia has a great explanation of the origins of this nutty sci-fi book gone live.
[en.wikipedia.org]

It is funny, but not surprising the number of 'celebridiots' who are attached to this weird CULT, including the not-as-larger-than-life Kirsty Alley... all seem to be quite surprised by the information that their 'religion' is founded on a science fiction novel about an alien invasion about 75,000 years ago...

Although they'd like to deny and suppress this info, the book, Dianetics, has a graphic (poor quality to be sure) of a volcano, where, according to L. R. was where all these aliens were sacrificed... this is after the sky god Xenu, found a location with 10 or more usable volcanoes.... and then flew the poor outcasts there on DC-8 like craft....

CRAzY People for sure.

From MomWithABrain, this comment (on the Gawker Website, where you can find the hilarious, weird and offensive Tom (I love to) Cruise video).

" BY MOMWITHBRAIN AT 01:33 PM

If you're wondering where Tom learned to ramble on so eloquently, take a look at this quote from Ron L. himself (ME: keep in mind, this guy did most of his writing "...drunk on pinks and blues" according to his own words, in a letter to his wife, which was reprinted in part in a book by an ex-scientologist):

"Well, I know this: that onto this planet there's a great deal of dumping has gone on. Stuff from the nearby galaxy -- not this galaxy but from the next galaxy over and so forth, is going on here. I know they take political prisoners and guys who they don't want around, but it's less personal than you think.

They just have excess population so they start to get rid of their excess population, you see? They've got a revolt, or you're on the wrong side of a war, or something like that, and they pick you up in droves, and ice-cube you and throw you into a sea someplace.

I know this planet has been subjected to that and several planets in this immediate end of this galaxy have been subjected to that -- that I know."

About Mr. (I love to) Cruise; rumor has it that in the earlier part of his career, sometime after Risky Business, he was discovered in the arms of a male lover by a scientologist 'friend' who reported her discovery to the higher ups (strange term, I guess, considering their belief in aliens). They, seeing a very tender prey, pounced, threatened to reveal Mr. (I love to) Cruise and volia! OT level 7 - or VII as they put it. He's on the same level as Kirsty Alley by the way... yeah, that makes ME laugh too....

Not sure what exactly happened to John Travolta, but seems like pretty much the same story. See this Article for more.

Weird.

Click this Google link for articles by Ex Scientologists....

935? Only 935?

One thing about living north of the US is that we're constantly inundated with stupid (as in the dumbing down kind of stupid) US news and that we're subjected to the garbage that passes for entertainment in the US.


By far the most appalling thing though is our awareness that, with very few exceptions - most of whom have moved to Canada already - there are some 330 million people who are so busy becoming fat and sick eating the crap that passes for food in the US, that they don't care what their so-called government is up to.


On Tuesday this week, the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism, published a study of statements that had been disseminated to the public following THE US Government's ATTACK ON ITS OWN PEOPLE (Sept. 11 2001). Yes, that was a terrorist attack but the attackers were not from abroad. They were directing traffic from the Oval Office (left untouched) and a rear section of the Pentagon (also untouched).


The events of that day galvanized public opinion towards war and the garbage and lies that were foisted off in the two years following on the fat, lazy and uneducated US public were designed to garner public support for 'war' in the middle east.


See 911: Fear and the selling of the American Empire: look for (Geo)Politics, Middle Eastern Issues and, near the bottom of the list, 911: Fear and.....


The thing is, since 2003, according to this study, 935 false and/or fabricated statements have been disseminated to the public, under the guise of news and with the complicity of the mainstream media who KNEW what they were reporting was total, utter crap.


I can guarantee you there will shortly be another huge event of some type, which will be a creating of the insane minds running the US, to get the collective US head around an invasion of Iran. You know they want to.


How does this happen? Well, if you've seen either of Zeitgeist or End Game you already know.


If you don't know, please pull the wool off your eyes and have a glance over this article.


I realise that many people are very opposed to the idea that their own government could possibly perpetrate such nefarious actions, but, my friends, this is exactly how and why your government - and mine too - get away with all the things they do; because we really, cannot fathom, and don't want to entertain the idea, that there's something far more sinister afoot than simply the running of a country.


More? Books by Jim Marrs will give you an excellent look inside a whole bunch of world events.
www.jimmarrs.com. The BBC film "The Great Global Warming Swindle" will give you a look inside THAT issue - which, in my opinion, has been used to take your mind off various world events by keeping you feeling guilty and crappy; The Global Warming bandwagon is Religion's evil atheist cousin.


I will stop at pleading with you, but I am feeling desperate enough to entertain pleading: please consider there might be a possibility that something is really not right. Our way of life - yours in the US, yours in the UK and ours in Canada - stands to be irreversibly altered if people continue refusing to consider the possibility that something is not right.


You're probably thinking "Freaking conspiracist." Well, my friend, yes, that would be true. The thing is, I'd rather be a thinking 'conspiracist' than someone who is terrified of the truth, fearful of challenging the people they elect (Ok that doesn't apply in the monkey president's case), avoidant of labels and cowardly about stepping out of line, than someone who, by being passive, facilitates the very events that y'all say aren't going on.

OH MY GOD!!! IMPEACH THIS INSANE FREAK!!!!

WHY is this idiot warmonger still in power???

WHAT on EARTH are the citizens of the US thinking!????

This man is clearly crazy and his administration is so terribly, obviously corrupt. It is ASTOUNDING that he was elected

Oh yeah, FRAUD. TWICE

DEAR U.S. of A: PLEASE IMPEACH THIS CRAZY MAN BEFORE HE LEADS YOU AND ME AND OUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN INTO A WORLD WAR!! PLEASE!

For those of you who are still hostage to the 9/11 myth: the US government staged that attack and no matter what you call it or how loudly you protest and protect the idiots that 'run' the US, there is every bit of provable, traceable evidence to show that 9/11 was orchestrated to bring you, dear uneducated US citizen, into line with your crazy 'president' and his daddy and all his freakish friends at the CFR and the TriLateral and the FED.

www.zeitgeistmovie.com
www.loosechange911.com
The Great Global Warming Swindle

Of the 19 SAUDI men who were supposed to have flown those plans, ELEVEN have been traced and are ALIVE AND WELL in Saudi.

The Guantanamo hostages know the truth. That's why they're held! Because, were they to speak, the lid would blow off!

Osama bin Ladin is DEAD.

ANYONE who can READ knows this. There are loads and loads of articles and tons of information to PROVE this.

Benazir Bhutto NAMED the man who killed bin Ladin 5 YEARS ago.

The reason the US is in such appalling turmoil and the reason everyone else detests "Americans" (such presumption! The US only makes up a PART of the Americas) is that they continue to support their country's illegal, scary, insane administration.

The US has no credibility internationally. Everyone else knows that the US administration is full-on pursuing an oil deal with their buddies in Saudi and that is why, despite the massive human rights violations that go on in that country and the rampant theft by its 'princes' and the rape and pillage of its resources by its 'princes', your idiot president is pictured holding hands and kissing those same 'princes.'

You, citizens of the US, are willing hostages in your own country. Your wonderful Patriot Act has effectively suspended your right to speak, think and make change, yet you do NOTHING about it.

There are two books you should all read (except that your educational levels are so appalling and have systematically PREVENTED you from reading and understanding what you read): Rule by Secrecy and The Terror Conspiracy, both by Jim Marrs.

Or you can keep your heads firmly planted in the poisonous sand that is your 'president's lying rhetoric.

Get OFF your obese butts and do something about this nutcase!

Robotic Sweeney Todd??

I can't exactly see how this is a good idea...

Religion does not equal morality. USA as the perfect example

I'm reading a spectacular book, which I will not name yet, because I know some of you will instantly stop reading this because of what you think you know about the book and it's author.

About 3/5ths of the way through the book is an extensive, well researched and very interesting analysis of morality and whether religion is necessary for morality. The short, provable answer is categorically no!

The book's author, who has a long career as both a researcher and author, cites several standardised studies where questions about moral actions are presented to subjects from a variety of cultures and societies and who may or may not be religious or who may be full on free of religion (atheist or completely un-introduced to religion). These results are on pages 222 - 226 of the book, which I will name shortly and NO, don't scroll down or your grandma will crack her back....

The results are clear: regardless of culture, language, religion or not, morality is a deeply ingrained human trait. With VERY high correlation, there was little difference in responses across the range of subjects.

Now about the US, where the country is described as being made of up red and blue states, with red states being the conservative/right-wing/religious states and the blue states being liberal and more inclined to humanism. Two things are notable; educational levels are much higher in the blue states although there is a larger population in the red states (and this supports my argument that some political structures prefer their constituents uneducated in order that they don't have enough understanding of processes to ask questions. In short, they like constituents who follow with little or no protest).

The second and significant detail is that in these religious states (and Christianity is the weapon of choice by a large margin), crime rates run anywhere from 35 % to 80% above those in blue states. Oh, and according to someone's research, the most 'religious' states have the highest rates of teen pregnancy. See what happens when you leave out sex ed?

So, according to my book, in a quote from another book, Letter to a Christian Nation, by Sam Harris, here's the scoop on crime in these 'religious' states - and oh, by the way, these are the guys and gals who claim that, without religion, one cannot be moral....

"While political party affiliation in the United States is not a perfect indicator of religiosity, it is no secret that the 'red (Republican) states' are primarily red due the overwhelming political influence of conservative Christians. If there were a strong correlation between Christian conservatism and societal health, we might expect to see some sign of it in red-state America.

We don't.

• Of the twenty five cities with the lowest rates of violent crime, 62 percent are in 'blue' (Democrat) states, and 38 percent are in 'red' (Republican) states.
• Of the twenty-five most dangerous cities, 76 percent are in red states, and 24 percent are in blue states.
• In fact, three of the five most dangerous cities in the U.S. are in the pious state of Texas.
• The twelve states with the highest rates of burglary are red. Twenty-four of the twenty-nine states with the highest rates of theft are red.
• Of the twenty-two states with the highest rates of murder, seventeen are red."

Einstein said "If people are good only because they fear punishment and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed."

In His book The Science of Good and Evil, Michael Shermer has a great 'debate stopper,' as he calls it, for those who claim there's no morality without god. Ask such a person whether, if (as is probable) there were no god, would they begin a life of robbery, rape and murder. Very likely, they'll say of course they wouldn't, to which you reply, "so you would continue to be a good person, even without the influence of god?? to which they'd likely say yes, thus allowing them to disprove, all by themselves, that morality does not come from religious motivation, but from human's ingrained sense of morality.

I am frightfully tired of the stupid, unresearched, knee-jerk, I-know-I'm-right-and-I-have-god-on-my-side arguments that I am bombarded with any time there's a sniff that I'm not on the 'right' page. If I could force these 'believers' to actually sit down, read and assimilate the myriad, well-written books they have full, unlimited access to, perhaps I could have a short debate with them.

But the defining characteristic of religious people and specifically those who presume themselves to be christians (as I live in a city that is rife with them) is that they are, firstly, completely blind to the realities of their religion and secondly, they prefer it that way. To quote my Ex, "don't confuse me with the facts."

As for facts, here's an interesting quote from the many that letter Letter to a Christian Nation: "Despite a full century of scientific insights attesting to the antiquity of the earth, more than half of our neighbours (assuming you're from the U.S) believe that the entire cosmos was created six thousand years ago. This is, incidentally, about a thousand years after the Sumerians created glue."

Last fact: some of you are about to utter, either out loud or in your head, a little curse over the writer and the book from whence I've taken my point of view for post. The book is The God Delusion and the very educated writer is Richard Dawkins, who holds two doctorates (philosophy and science) but doesn't use the title of doctor in his writing so as to not alienate any reader.

Some potential readers are quite happy to alienate themselves in order to avoid the truth they claim they so diligently pursue....

Osama Bin Ladin is Dead: confirmed in a November 2007 interview with Benazir Bhutto

According to the late Benazir Bhutto, Osama Bin Ladin is dead by murder/assassination.

WHY IS THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA NOT COVERING THIS??

The probability that the US government is somehow involved in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto cannot be overlooked.

Here is a page of links to the interview itself.

WHAT is going on???

Click here for more

Is THIS why Benazir was assassinated??

The Saddest Thing is...

...when a person (a parent in this case) uses religion as a shield against having relationships (in this case, with a child).

Two important details for context:
Religion is an interesting concept BUT no logical, thinking person should put stock, beyond interest, in any philosophy that is so fundamentally flawed and provably amalgamated from so many other, MUCH older philosophies.

As a sub detail specific to christianity, one cannot have any kind of "personal" relationship with a dead person. In the christian tradition, when people die, they go to 'heaven' and have no further contact with living humans. To say otherwise is to dabble in the occult and that freaks the christians out totally. Don't think so? Refer to any number of religious fanatics trying to ban the Harry Potter series because of it's so-called occult overtones.

Additionally, the probability that the person with whom christians are having the 'personal' relationship ever existed is questionable AT BEST! To believe otherwise is to simply be deluded in order to be part of a larger group of delusionals. Other than the christian bible, which is a strung-together collection of bad poetry, social control and politicial PR, there is no other historical, archival or archaeological evidence that the person in question ever existed. NONE. One cannot attempt to prove the truth of any philosophy by using the philosophy as the research document. That's called circular reasoning.

In the christian religion, the main character is certainly made up, as nearly identical characters appear in any number of other philosophies, many predating christianity by thousands of years. Same goes for Islam, which has as a central character, a person who may or may not have existed but who, if he did, was certainly afflicted with some disease, likely epilepsy.

In the case of 'virgin' birth, this is, first of all, a biological impossibility. Secondly, and this is where christians try to have it both ways, if one's 'father' is 'god', then one cannot have human ancestors on their male line. Therefore, "descended of the House of David," indicates that either this is a made up story (probably) or that 'virgin' in this case refers to 'first.' If Mary and Joseph trucked off to Bethlehem to pay taxes in the city of their ancestors (his ancestors, actually) then who's the ancestor? Pretty much sure 'god' isn't on the hook for taxes....

Second important point for context: as much as religion is mass idiocy and voluntary delusion, I defend absolutely the rights of people to have, or to have not, said delusion . You are welcome to your beliefs, views, philosophies, as am I to mine. I am not interested in bringing you over to my views and am staunchly opposed to anyone attempting to force their philosophy on me.

To the point of this post, entering into conditional relationships - unless I believe what you believe, we cannot be friends - proves two things:

• the 'believer' is essentially insecure about their beliefs;
• the 'believer' disrespects totally the rights of others.

In our case, a family member has come up against an immense, seemingly impassable wall of religion that is firmly between them and their parent. Despite almost two years of conversation between the two, the parent consciously refuses to countenance the damage being done to the relationship, nor do they allow themselves to see the ever-widening chasm into which the relationship presently teeters . This parent's "personal relationship" with a certainly dead and probably non-existent character is firmly and solidly in the way of a REAL personal relationship with a child.

To make matters worse, there is also a new spouse in the picture. Said spouse is also fanatically tied to a religion in addition to being, from all accounts, insecure and untrusting in the relationship. All this makes for a soon-to-explode keg of super volatile dependence on made up crap and fabricated 'togetherness' and 'sharing' in place of real, intimate and connected relationships.

The key element here - that somehow religion is supposed to make life nice and lovely - turns out to be far from the case; why are religious people still struggling, sad, 'sinning' (whatever that means) and incapable of acknowledging their pasts, let alone dealing with those pasts in a healthy and permanent way if religion is not their cure-all?

Seriously folks, if your deity is such a great and powerful 'guy,' what the heck is he/she/waiting for? Hmmm? It strikes me as really masochistic that this 'deity' needs such constant, world-wide adulation and that the penalty for failing (and the rules about what makes for failure being so unclear) is an eternity burning in some pit? That's just weird.

Religion was a great form of social control that worked really well way back in the day when science was in its infancy and almost nobody was able to read and when the 'religiopoliticals' were developing ways of controlling populations - necessary for economic development and profit - and we're back to the religiopoliticals and their gold-lined pockets. Modern equivalent is the modern 'church.'

In our time, however, belief in such fantasies is anachronistic.

On the micro level specific to this post, I truly cannot fathom how a parent's faith in falsehoods can so overwhelmingly blind them to reality that their flesh and blood relationships are in danger of ending.

The bottom line is this: a person has a right to believe whatever they wish; but with that right comes the responsibility to respect other's rights to believe or not; and the responsibility to UNCONDITIONALLY CHERISH real, flesh and blood human relationships above all else.

In Honour of the Writers Strike

In honour of the ongoing writers strike and in respect of reruns, I'm posting links to my favourite blogs - mine; those I wrote - from recently and from ages ago.
Oldest to newest

What's Up With Women and Shopping? Hang that up!

Untruths in Fundraising: a note about this; about 6 weeks ago, MacLean's Magazine ran a great article about breast cancer and where it is most prevalent in the world. No surprise, but in the 'civilised world' (read: Canada, US (ok, I'm including them out of pity), UK and Europe), the rates of breast cancer are astoundingly high when compared to disadvantaged countries. Interestingly, people in those 'disadvantaged' countries have limited access to processed foods and are not subject to Big Pharma, which medicalises anything that might for one second ail a person. It isn't difficult to see the link between processed everything and high rates of cancer. But hey, let's fundraise. At least we'll feel less guilty....

Bike Paths: NOT for dogs...

A Short, True Story: Ok. This story is true, but it isn't short. It's never ending I hope. It's here for Maria, who is dying for me to tell her what happened next....

Why Don't People Read: why exactly are people bothered by who sleeps with whom. And why exactly are you so bloody interested in what other people are doing in their own bedrooms? Shouldn't you be busy in your own???

Why Women's Libidos Decrease: well, they don't. But if your partner is a man who is a crappy lover and doesn't care to do anything about that, or if your partner uses your head as a means to stabilise his thrusting, then yeah, it'll reduce your y'know, involvement. Replace said idiot with a gorgeous, sexual, loves-it-all hunk? yeah. No problems. Screw Big Parma. Get a cabana boy.

Things One Remembers Whilst Brushing Teeth: 'kay, well this one's a downer but I needed to get it off my chest when I wrote it. If ever I were to meet up with this person again, I'm sure she'd do the same thing and I'm sure I'd still keep my mouth shut - but for different reasons now: she wouldn't be worth my bother. I can't fix her past.

The Falacy of Race: Just read it.

Damned Christmas Holidays

What's the New Pope Up To? I love it when an institution that pretty much makes things up and hates everyone ends up with one of its most hated at its helm. Pretty funny. Come out, come out, wherever you are.....

Fatties and How They Get That Way: Yes, I have a bias, but I think I might be on to something here....

Lies, Video Tape and Yes, Sex

Flying: Oh man, if I had the opportunity to educate the flying public.... Oh wait! This is it! Pass this on to anyone you know who flies or thinks about flying, especially if there's any possibility they're going to be on MY flight.... better they hear it from you than me. I'm sure you'll be much nicer about it.

AuntiAuntie: Yeah, and there's also a HUGE difference between a contract and a commitment. Some people get both, but usually, it's one or the other. Frankly, I can't imagine why people - women in particular - still take part in a ceremony that effectively transferred a chattle from one owner to another. Yes, that's right; until the early part of the 20th century, a woman was, by law, a chattle of her father until the marriage contract was signed, whence she became the chattle of her spouse. Go for commitment. Forget about the contract.

Sins and Sinning: Yah, this is for anyone who actually believes they know what perfection is....

Things That Get Top Billing as Stupid: Someone made a really great point the other day about the subject of this blog - hijab and adults imposing their stupid religion on kids. Muslim girls - but also girls affiliated with other religions where the women are required to follow a very distinct dress style, are being used as the poster girls for such religions. The reasons this pisses me off are myriad, but here's one of them: this week, a dad strangled his 16 year old daughter because she would not adhere to the dress trappings of HIS religion. This type of crap happens all the time - and before anyone says "Oh those Muslims," just don't: all religions have instances - many instances - of men presuming on women. Religion is a scourge. Especially for women, who are, at best, cast as dirty, shameful, manipulative and responsible for leading men astray.

The day religion recognises women as the goddesses they are and the day that religion tells men that they are fully and solely responsible for their thoughts and actions, I might consider returning. Probably not though. There's that suspension of reality thing that's tough to swallow.

Can You Become Ex-Gay? In a word, no. Read on.

Ok. That's enough self adulation for now. More in the archives.