That Ad and Religious Repression

Harking back to that ridiculous Elizabeth Dole ad, I've taken the liberty of providing a transcript for the voice over and scenes, but I've also replaced the word "godless" with Jewish. It reads as follows:

Dole: I'm Elizabeth Dole and I approve this message.
Voice Over: A leader of the Jewish Americans PAC recently held a secret fundraiser in Kay Hagan's honor.
Typescript: 'Jewish Americans?'
[Cut-scene: Ellen Johnson, Executive Director Jewish Americans.]
Ellen Johnson: There was no Jesus.
[...]
Voice Over: Jewish Americans and Kay Hagan. She hid from cameras, took Jewish money. What did Kay Hagan promise in return?
Voice (not of Kay Hagan): There is no god!

Do as you're now tempted and start substituting other words in there too, such as "black", perhaps, or "homosexual". It's totally absurd. Paul Kurtz has taken the time to reprint the Humanist Manifesto he compiled in 1973 for this month's Free Inquiry magazine, to which he is the founder and editor in chief. Interestingly, written before the internet took off, he suggests: "Technology must, however, be carefully judged by the consequences of its use; harmful and destructive changes should be avoided. We are particularly disturbed when technology and bureaucracy control, manipulate, or modify human beings without their consent." Surely, this fits wetly under that category. For it's quarter-century age, the Manifesto holds up remarkably well. Is that necessarily a good thing, just like our reliving of Martin Luther King's speech is still culturally relevant? Perhaps this is different. Either way, I wholeheartedly scribe my signature alongside it.

The LZR Racer

Time has granted the Speedo LZR Racer swimming suit the prestigious mantle of the 26th best invention of the year. Perhaps a strange choice, you might say, but upon reflection, why is it not higher on the list? 94% of the races won at the Olympics this year were won by swimmers wearing the LZR. Never before has so much sporting success been down, arguably, to a single component (disregarding, of course, drugs and the Tour de France). This kind of publicity is worrying for someone in my position. The college swimming circuit here in the US is the best in the sporting world, and for swimmers striving to achieve the qualifying times set to attend the NCAA Championships we're obviously going to take every step we can to do so, including wearing the LZR. However, there have been rumours flying around that the board who assigns the qualifying times may lower the mark even further due to the introduction of the new suits. We shall see.

The Penultimate Day 2

"We need to win the argument in the developing world; we need to reach out and persuade the Muslim middle - especially the next generation in Iran and Iraq and Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and Turkey and Western Europe - about the virtues of democracy and constitutionalism. We cannot do that if we trash our own values ourselves. It is self-defeating."

~~ Andrew Sullivan endorses Barack Obama.

The Penultimate Day

One day before the crux of what has now become the only news-worthy discourse of the last four years, and I have found a new toy: a website called 270toWin. By clicking on the various states of America you can tot up the immediate totals for either candidate. What's strikes you first is the amount of land, in real terms, that remains red even though an Obama victory remains likely. If you turn all the toss-up states red, just for the sake of hypothesis, McCain is still lagging behind the magic number. My most positive accounting returns a landslide - 396 to 142. I recommend turning to Slate's final election scorecard, or Pollster as sources of reference for which states you can, or cannot turn blue. Either way, however, it's a game with only one outcome: an Obama victory. All reliable sources confirm this in even the layest of terms. Whilst I'm here, the term "intellectual curiosity" has been thrown around a lot in recent days, mainly dubbed as a positive characteristic of Obama, yet I doubt this would have ever been so externalised had it not been for the monumental ignorance of Gov. Palin. Is she seriously going to stand for the Veep without having faced a press-conference at all? Staggering.

Ba. Hons.

I am a happy man, dear reader. Not simply a new blog, but a new world of undertaking awaits. Christopher Hitchens has been writing a blog or the UK Mirror now for the last few days, documenting (mainly) the American elections under the title, Politics, War, and Religion. Once again, I'm left aghast, how did I not uncover this before? Moreover, you can now identify yourself as a regular pilgrim of this minor blogging foray - please join this very exclusive club by clicking the tab on the right. You are now a peer of the realm. It's time to muster some brand loyalty. Equally as important, though slightly more personal, is my recent dealings with the English Honors Department here at the university. My softly spoken, but highly intelligent (obviously) English Professor, Larry Evers, has passed my name on to the head of the department, a position he used to hold, as one of his best ever students. Apparently, this is a unique and unprecedented occurrence, and so, if I wish to be inducted into the honors department, they will accommodate my every desire. I could not be more proud, delighted, and, indeed, honored. Being recognised in such a way, as much as my ego purports, is highly gratifying. The application process for me individually, I'm told, is now merely academic for paper reference. It made me splutter my tea to read their email - never before have I been confronted with such a contradiction in teaching standards and expectations; on the one hand, I'm receiving well below the class average for essays that reveal a much higher intellect than that of their marker, yet on the other I'm being personally recommended to figureheads of the university. Perhaps now they'll take note. I shall keep you informed.

Something Nisexual

Something that's been on my thoughts now for sometime is the very obvious possibility of a previously unrecognised sexual identity: not heterosexual, nor homosexual, nor bisexual, but rather having no sexual attraction or arousal whatsoever. I've been scouring Google and JStor now for some time and there appears no definable term for this particular sexual anomaly. Although it appears to be acknowledged by some writers on the subject, even the most thorough in sexuality analysts sometimes neglect this latent state. The obvious conclusion, therefore, is that these such individuals merely assume themselves to be bisexual, thus circumventing the awkward questions that pertinently arise. Yet, there must be some sort of distinction between those who are actively and positively attracted to both male and female, in congruence with those who are simply attracted to neither. How could this be termed, I wonder? Asexual implies something else entirely. Nisexual, perhaps? In this sense, we can see how one might simply be nisexual and have experimented sexually with both sexes in a somewhat teenage curiosity test - which do I prefer, if any? Am I simply destined to never have a loving relationship like others report to because of some sort of unacknowledged sexual deviance? We can see how this may result in delusion - bisexuality appears less problematic than nisexuality. I feel there must be some sort of potential research to be done on this topic, or have I completely gone off the rails? Then again, I may be onto something...

Inquisitve innocence stumped again at the Hands of the religious

It still happens. If only this was an isolated example. What 'holy scripture' can instill in humans who would otherwise do nothing of the sort. Alas, a glimmer of guided hope: "militia members opened fire when some of the witnesses to the killing attempted to save her life, and shot dead a boy who was a bystander." Children do the darnedest things. Hmm, see below.

My One and Only

For children are innocent and love justice, while most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy.

~ G. K. Chesterton

Atheism and American Elections

American atheists should be delighted that this flapping mess of an advertisement is being widely trounced throughout the American media, calling it the "scummiest ad of this campaign" and other such well-deserved titles. There continues to be a kind of loathing for any kind of skepticism when it comes to the existence of god throughout the election campaign. It makes me wonder whether the bigoted America far-right would actually rather Obama be a Muslim than an atheist. After denouncing the recent preachings of his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, which I was wont to cover during its time, Obama has had to re-prove that he's a religious person in order not to alienate the reportedly mobile, and assumed undecided Christian voters. There's nothing wrong in appealing to the values and beliefs of a religious group, but why should the general ideology be constructed to eliminate the atheist population? Almost 20% of Americans now profess no specific faith, which infers that they don't attend a church. Indeed, atheists tend to think along similar lines anyway, and we don't need to meet in a grand hall every week to sing and chant about what we believe in some sort of attempt to remind ourselves of convictions we should maintain regardless. As an aside, isn't it strange that members of a congressional flock always vote the same way? Isn't that a direct encapsulation of the fickleness and unthinking of huge swathes of the American religious population? Whatever will become of election campaigns in the future? Perhaps at last, it is conceivable that candidates will wish to appeal to the atheist masses. Obviously, should the atheist population take up a greater role in the public sphere, any political electee will focus their policies or speeches around issues that concern unbelievers. However, it's depressing to hear of Obama or McCain reaching out to "swing voters" through the conduit of faith even though they may only enclose a very small number of the overall electorate, particularly in comparison to the number of atheists. Maybe I'm being pessimistic. Its quite possible that the candidates at present are merely ignorant of this fact and whomever comes to realise as such will benefit in ways never before thought possible by the promulgators of the sickening self-aggrandizing propaganda campaigns such as this one.

My Twelve Volume Autobiography

"I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself." ~ Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu (AKA Mother Theresa).

"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Sahara." ~ Richard Dawkins.

I have unearthed two articles today that are worth your attention on a Saturday. The first is from 2003. In an article for Vanity Fair, Christopher Hitchens claims a right to his own two cents on the abortion debate: "I claim an absolute right to be interested in the condition of the human fetus because … well, I used to be one myself." And as Dawkins points out in his introduction to Unweaving the Rainbow, there is unlimited scope for the horizons of "pro-life" pamphleteers. Where do the boundaries lie? What limits should be enforced? Are they right in Oklahoma to force women to have an ultrasound scan before undergoing the already traumatic procedure? Linking everything together once more, of course, is religion. In America, where the Roe v. Wade debate raged forever and rages forevermore, religious grounding, religious philosophies and doctrines are the cornerstones for all arguments on such issues. Hitchens also points out that the feminist movement was started in the States, which surely holds some significance. My second article dwells on similar fields and meadows. Richard Powers writes in The Guardian about the million souls who will never exist, the trillions of possible genetic sequences - indeed, the sand grains of the Sahara - as he bravely commits to the unravelling and documenting of his own genetic sequence. Only a handful of individuals have undergone the rather expensive experiment, but all it takes is a wad of cash, a few vials of blood and a sturdy stomach. How different would I be if that was there and this wasn't here? Do I have a susceptibility for Diabetes, cancer, heart disease? Will I develop schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, Huntington's? I struggle to articulate the many thoughts that these articles have amassed, yet I feel the need to throw them out there. To all the two-thirds of America who don't "believe" in the Law of Evolution, who claim they can't accept that we "descended from Apes" (not that we share a common ancestor with Apes anyway, rather from Chimpanzees), remember that even a 99.98% likeness still embodies tens of millions of genetic differences. Powers - "If a standard 250-page book comprises 500,000 printing characters, you'd need 12,000 books to publish an individual genome."