“Before we marry the guy next door, don't you think we ought to have a fling with a tall dark stranger and see if he can support us in the manner to which we'd like to be accustomed? And if he can't, we can always marry the steady beau who lives next door.” —Richard Land, in an NPR piece that aired January 13th [Richard Land is the president of The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.] The quote above was made in an effort to explain the need for a meeting that was scheduled to happen this weekend. At that meeting, 150 influential religious Conservatives ended up deciding [on the third ballot] that Rick Santorum is the Republican candidate that they want to support, collectively, as the anti-Romney. I found it absolutely fascinating that Dr. Land chose the words he did in making his analogy. I was all set to send him a letter congratulating him for finally facing his own homosexual tendencies. I was all set to thank him for ta...

As this ninth anniversary of September 11, 02001 approached, I spent a lot of time listening to "news" programming on the Sirius while I drove around for work. I have been deeply upset about the overt bigotry that's been dominating the discourse over the last several weeks. This past week, it occurred to me that it's been over a quarter of a year since I posted anything to my blog. That, in itself is a shame. In light of the mood that's overtaken the country, it seems especially a shame that my most recent post was about having participated in Everybody Draw Mohammed Day. Don't get me wrong. I am proud to have participated in Everybody Draw Mohammed Day. I think it was a meaningful event, and I think that it was, at least in my case [and, frankly, in its origins], a properly directed protest. Its aim had something to do with saying "intolerance is not welcome", "bullying is not acceptable", "threats against freedom of expression are ...

I participated in Everybody Draw Mohammed Day on May 20, 02010 by drawing Mohammed thrice…not because I am ignorant, immature, or xenophobic; but because I believe that while there is a universal right to be offended by substantially harmless things that other people do, the acceptable options as regards recourse to any such offense DO NOT include violence or threats of violence! "Stick Figure Mohammed" "Mohammed, In From the Cold", or "Mohammed Ponders a Cup" "Mohammed Basks in the Darkness" In order, these are the three Mohammed drawings I did today. The first is a pencil sketch, which I basically did to ensure that I would have something to show even if the rest of my day was unproductive. The second is the first charcoal drawing I've done in probably 15 years. The third is the second charcoal drawing I've done in the same time span.

The established pattern of my thought processes is that I get funny notions into my head and sort of let them stew in there for a while, for no apparent reason and with no obvious trigger. Such has been the case with what I present today. This won't be structured and it likely won't be pretty. Think of it as a philosophical doodle—just a sloppy sketch that may or may not contain a kernel of something worth pursuing in a more formal structure at some point. ----- Based on what we generally know about physics [not including quantum mechanics, which very few of us have any reasonable conception of], it seems to me that a perfectly sane person might reasonably conclude the following: If we could accurately model the position, spin, direction, and velocity of every particle in the universe at any given moment, it would be theoretically possible to plug that data all into an imaginary supercomputer and predict with perfect accuracy the exact state of everything at any future poin...

I'm currently in the middle of reading The Troll Circle , By Sigurd Hoel. I have multiple Hoel books in my collection, but I haven't yet read them all. Despite not having read The Troll Circle or Meeting at the Milestone or Sinners in Summertime all the way through even once, I did get around to reading The Road to the World's End for a second time recently. It's really a beautiful book. Beautiful in the way I think of poetry in its most idealized state. Maybe the most beautiful book I've ever read. If you can get your hands on a copy, I highly recommend it. Anyway, as the receipt that's tucked in the book can attest, I have been in possession of The Troll Circle for over 12 years. I bought it as a special order (with a fairly steep $35 price) on January 13, 01997. And I'm just now getting around to reading it. I am also rereading The Catcher in the Rye for the first time since high school. On top of that, I am very lazily making my way through my hard...

I got invited by some Facebook friends to participate in this sharing exercise. To participate, you make a list of 25 random facts about yourself and share the list, inviting 25 friends to do the same. I found it an entertaining and challenging exercise. Just for fun, I figured I might as well also post my list to my blog. Here's what I came up with: 1) I tend to think in long, rambling sentences or even paragraphs, rather than simple declarative statements. 2) I have an astonishingly bad memory. This is especially true when it comes to remembering people's names, but that's certainly not the end of it. 3) I have started in the last few years to remember certain things about my childhood that I had thought were lost. For example, I now remember that at various times I thought I might like to become a stuntman, a lawyer, and a philosopher. These were never dreams, rather just ideas. 4) I am quite certain that I never had any desire to be a fireman, police officer, or soldie...

or: If I'm Destined to Get a Pulitzer Prize for 02008, This is the Line of Thought That Will Earn It For Me I'm pretty sure that it's been at least two decades since the idea of The Bell Ringer Joke started knocking around in my head. (I've mentioned the joke in a previous blog post .) There has been hope and despair, laughter and great disappointment, spread out over more than half my lifetime! On Thursday morning, out of the blue, I had a few epiphanies regarding the joke for all of these years. Epiphany #1: The first and second parts of the joke are spectacular, and if I had not been told at the time that I first heard them that there was a mysterious third part floating about in the ether, those two known parts would have been deeply satisfying. There would have been no disappointment associated with The Bell Ringer Joke whatsoever. The two parts stand together as a complete and brilliant story, riotously funny. Which is to say that the third part is only relevant...

Oftentimes, it is a mystery to me why my brain goes off in a particular direction. I have written before, on this blog, about having read an interesting book entitled The Clock of the Long Now . Having read that book is the reason why I try to use a 5-digit year in writing dates (for example, 02008 instead of 2008). It's a technique for trying to train myself to think on a longer term time scale. To think in terms of millennia instead of decades or centuries. I haven't yet fully trained myself on the 5-digit years (which is why sometimes I'll post a blog entry that mentions a 4-digit year and then go back and edit it afterwards--and I suspect there are times when the 4-digit year has simply slipped past my notice). Anyway, I've recently been thinking about nuclear power, but I've been thinking about it with that "long now" mindset. So, where previously I had mostly taken the view that nuclear power is actually a good idea (better for the environment than b...

Okay, so it's been a while since my last post. This has had nothing to do with the unhappiness at work that had previously coincided with my absences from blogging. I'm between full-time jobs, and I've been working more hours at the book store in the meantime. I've actually been having a blast! Working in retail during the holiday season provides a bizarre sort of thrill, and I've enjoyed it immensely. The new job starts in about a week. I believe it was the day after my last post that Mitt Romney gave the world his fantastic speech about how his religion would or would not influence him as president. From what I heard, he really gave a stirring, impassioned, convincing, honest, and reassuring speech. Really great! Congratulations, Mitt. However, as magnificent as his speech was, he made it clear that I and my ilk are what he considers to be the enemy. Truly. I think it's really that stark. The enemy. Why? Because I really do believe that we are better served if...

I was listening to NPR's "All Things Considered" the other day when they aired part of an interview with presidential candidate Mitt Romney . The interviewer (Robert Siegel) asked about Romney's belief in the literal truth of the Bible, and Romney very slickly evaded the question while trying to make Siegel feel somehow dirty for asking the question. What follows is the feedback I provided to NPR: Shame on Mitt Romney for trying to make Robert Siegel feel ashamed for asking a legitimate question and, by extension, trying to make NPR listeners feel ashamed for caring about the answer. Does it matter to me which specific book(s) of the Bible a candidate takes more literally than others? Nope. But does it matter to me whether my vote supports someone who believes in superstitious hokum, to the exclusion of reason, logic, science, sense, and critical thought? You bet! It's terrifying to me that Romney can, in one sentence, decry the "global jihad" that'...

Well, Beth was working this morning, so I was left to my own devices. After taking the recycling to the local recycling center, I popped into Shirley's Restaurant in Claremont for a Bill Richardson "Meet and Greet", which I knew from the local paper was scheduled for this morning. The owner of the restaurant, Dan Fillo, was quoted in the paper as having said, "We've been told by the campaign not to expect a question and answer format. He's probably just going to come in and speak, giving a brief 10- or 15-minute speech about his platforms." So I was quite pleasantly surprised when after giving his talk, Richardson did open the floor to questions. In my last blog post, I mentioned that Beth got in the last question from the floor at our session with John McCain. I didn't say anything about what she asked him, however. So here I'll mention that she asked him about Darfur. We were both bothered that it took until she got in (right under the wire) fo...

We went to our first presidential campaign town hall meeting today. This time was an event for John McCain at the American Legion hall in Claremont. I was surprised to get the phone invitation the other day from McCain's people. I guess he's courting the independent vote. As this will be our first presidential election cycle since moving to New Hampshire, I'm still not altogether certain of the process. From what I gather, we'll be allowed to choose which primary we want to cast our ballots in (assuming we wish to cast our ballots in either primary). If you've read my campaign web site, you'll probably already be aware that I am, on principle, opposed to the whole two-party system. By extension, I'm also of the opinion that there ought not to be a primary election cycle. I think we'd all be much better off if we just went straight to the general election. Stop playing this game of trying to determine which of our like-minded people would best represent a...

I watched some of the Republican debate the other night. There was a point at which the questioner asked for a show of hands of who does not believe in evolution. Much to my disgust, some hands went up. I didn't catch whose hands those were, but I checked the New York Times online edition for the transcript , and they reported that the hands that went up belonged to Brownback, Huckabee, and Tancredo. Assuming that the NYT transcript is correct, and assuming that the question's intent was clearly understood*, and assuming that we're not dealing with a semantic issue of what "believe in" means...these three men should automatically be deemed unelectable. So here's where the semantic issue comes in: Does "believe in evolution" mean "accept that evolution is a process that actually occurs"? or... Does "believe in evolution" mean "put your faith and trust in evolution"? If it means the former, then Brownback, Huckabee, and Ta...

I've been thinking for some time about some of the little things in the world that count as (or that should count as) tragic. (See my previous post about "Walking on Sunshine".) Note: These are not seriously tragic issues that are about real human suffering. They are minor things that don't have any really major implications. They are minor tragedies , with the emphasis on "minor". Tops on my list: Churches that have "hours of operation". There is something horrible about the notion that churches and synagogues (and mosques, I assume) have locks on their doors and that certain people hold the keys and that the doors are sometimes locked. It's a symptom of the world we live in, and I understand it. However, I believe in my heart that this is a very sad state of affairs. These places should offer sanctuary. They should be places of refuge. That's not a part-time endeavour. To my way of thinking, it's an all-or-nothing proposition. (All-o...