Good for You

Based on presale numbers, it would appear right wing hicks have learned to read. Going Rogue may prove to be Sarah Palin's platform for 2012, giving her the opportunity to claim that she has improved literacy numbers in the southern states dramatically. Ah neocons....you always find a way to rally the (m)asses.

The Earth Is Flat....and Too Religious

I think religion is dumb. I know and enjoy the company of lots of "believers", my family included. I don't think they are dumb. I just think that their beliefs, where all things creationism, deity, and miracles are concerned, are dumb. I could choose a variety of current issues illustrating the hypocrisy and simple-mindedness of religion but today I am choosing Father Lahey. I mean, the guy and his church make the job of an atheist blogger stupid-simple. So here's the deal: Pedophile behaviour is wrong on every level imaginable and, as the father of an infant, I think the bastards that do it should be kept out of the vicinity of children for the rest of their history. Which leads to Exhibit A against religion: the willingness of the roman catholic church (I'm aware it's supposed to be capitalized) to jeopardize the innocence and sanity of "God's children" for the purpose of protecting the reputation of the molester in question and the church itself. I challenge any catholic reading this (my guess is that most would avoid it) to find the verse in your book of fables that supports this behaviour - although, there are many passages that condone beating women, killing "sinners", and selling daughters to slavery, so you might just prove me wrong. In which case catholicism is all it's cracked up to be and those that choose to defend it are also defending these practices.

But here is where I hold a somewhat sympathetic view towards the robed bastards. This does not equate to condoning the behaviour by any stretch. However, I am driven to find the reason (which is not an excuse) for deviant behaviour. Here is my unproven theory: I believe that, if not a majority, a significant percentage of priests are gay. I also believe they have chosen the priesthood as a method of avoiding the urge to act on it and hence expose their "gayness" to a society that still, for the most part, persecutes homosexuals on some level (mostly, I might add, because religion has declared homosexuality a sin – oh the irony). I also suspect that some gay men choose "the cloth" as an "intervention" in hopes of reversing their desire to get it on with men. Why do they feel the need to intervene? Because they grew up in a religious family or community and feel they are wired wrong. So they enter the priesthood and solemnly vow never to have sex while devising a plan to work with the man above in an effort to fix themselves. But here is where the plan goes terribly wrong. As men are the evolutionary catalysts to our existence, their physiological urge to act on their sexual desires kicks in exponentially the more they attempt to suppress it. The more they deny their urge, the more the desire eats at their will to a point where they eventually crack. Maybe first they turn to the internet; a "place" where they can observe their desires acted out on a stage. However, over time this is not enough as their genetic and hormonal reality plays out and eventually they are internally forced to become the actors on their own stage. At this point I am sure many priests quit the "'hood" while others choose to live a parallel life with consenting adults. However, a few choose to maintain their facade by forcing their desires on a group they have the most unbridled control over: children. The initial attempt of an internally conflicted gay man to come to terms with his "problem" ends up leading him to commit criminal behaviour caused, in part, by the illogical beliefs of the organization he has chosen to "cure" his condition. My "sympathy" is not a defence of the behaviour but rather a recognition of the fact that if religion didn't exist, or at least did not persecute homosexuality, these men would have been able to act openly on their desires and the lives of children around the world would not be scarred. And please, don't start a rant that I am saying only homosexuals are pedophiles. In fact, I am open to the theory that both straight and gay men who enter the priesthood end up in this horrible scenario. My point being that the ridiculous premise of suppressing natural, physiological, and evolutionary behaviour causes man to commit deviant behaviour.

Like I said, there is no empirical proof to this theory. However, I think the frequency and similarity of the stories unfolding on our 24-hour news channels speaks to the anecdotal evidence of something related to what my gut and brain tells me. Mark my words: at some point in our future humanity will look back at this point in history as a "the Earth is flat" moment and boy will we look stupid.

What's New(s)?

Sorry it's been so long. I have been too busy watching the "news." Are any of you starting to wake up to the fact that you are being herded by every bottom-of-the-screen-never-ending-scroll-of-"not news"-channel on television. I have fucking had it. Is there really enough "news" to keep a 24-hour news channel breathing? I don't think so. At least not if you are using my definition of news - my definition meaning the old (and correct) definition. The definition where there are several significant stories followed by a "filler" story at the end. So much insignificant bull shit is being passed off as news these days that I find the perfectly reasonable people delivering it such as Lloyd Robertson (his make up people make him look like a transvestite), Sandy Ronaldo, and Heather Hiscox to be flat-out assholes. Making matters worse is the "hollywood-ization" of news: using hyperbole and Powerpoint-like graphics and sound effects to make not-news appear to be news.

Case in point, yesterday I listened to Sandy Ronaldo state that US officials have captured the mastermind behind a terrorist plot that would have resulted in the worst terrorist act in the US since 9/11. Am I an arse-hole or has there not been a terrorist act in the US since 911? Maybe by "worst" Ms. Ronaldo meant "first," although somehow I think this was a conscious choice of words. Or how about the media clusterfuck that is H1N1. One day we should get the vaccine. The next it is a bad idea. The next day some epidemiologist states that it is nothing to worry about, followed by one who declares it the end of modern civilization. This is not news. This is ratings-grabbing, "scare-you-mentry" shit. How about you hold off on reporting H1N1 "news" until it is, in fact, fact. Or, how about mentioning that the regular old run-of-the-mill flu kills anywhere from 1500-2500 Canadians a year. I suggest concluding that it would appear the bacon flu appears to be a milder strain of flu and call it a wrap on that story until you have something to say about it that has occurred naturally rather than something engineered by writers and producers.

Reality TV has also seeped its way into 24-hour news. Sit down and watch the mindless scroll at the bottom of the screen or the "filler" stories and soon you will realize that most of this "news" is fluff that should be landing on the front page of the DesMoines Register or Cape Breton Post, not international news shows. I don't give a shit that some dude's front yard has sunken into a mine shaft in Glace Bay - and I grew up there. In fact it was my old yard, and I still don't care. I can't imagine what those who didn't grow up in Canada's dirtiest town think of that story. Yes I can: "I don't care." These stories are not newsworthy. At least not outside their town limits.

Check out this freak. Is this news or just an amusing story about a chick who is going to smell really bad 365 days from now?

Observations from a Seven-Week Old......Father

Yeah, yeah, yeah, my seven week old daughter shits a ton, has hijacked our sleep, and is exceptional. Blah, blah, blah, you've heard it all before. Nothing I hate more than new parents telling me the same old shit that new parents around the globe have been declaring as unique for decades. So I am going to go down a different path....the plight of the new father. No man would dare touch this topic within spit-up distance of his wife but seeing that I have an exceptional wife I am taking it on.

If I were to tell you the new father's typical day in isolation, away from the parallel 24 hours that are occurring for his wife, you would feel for him. Going to work every morning on five hours sleep. A rushed morning routine that includes getting his daughter up from a deep sleep and changing a repugnant shit-receptacle. Once at work he is forced to deal with the brain numbing demands of the office – " I would swear these idiots are less engaging than my seven week old." The drive home in traffic is interrupted only by the trip to the drug store to pick up breast pads and diapers. He finally returns home to a tired wife and a daughter who has decided that 4:30 -8pm will be her witching hours. He makes dinner, changes a few diapers, and attempts to tidy up the path of destruction from the day that was, all with a chorus of infant displeasure in the background. This leaves no time for an intellectual chat with his wife, sipping a California syrah, or enjoying a chapter or two of a good book. Don't even mention a beer with the boys, a trip to the gym, or the "s-word". Quite frankly – it sucks. We love the little angel to death, but anyone who tells you that the infant months are enjoyable is flat out lying. Either that or they had an absolutely uneventful and boring pre-baby existence. Mine was fantastic by the way.

So there's my day. Sucks eh? It does. However, it occurs simultaneously with the saga below:

My wife spends the hours of 12am to 7 am clinging to intervals of 1.5 hours sleep interrupted by 25-minute sessions of having her nipples alternately ravaged by a famished beast. She does this with her mate in a deep sleep in her bed knowing that there is nothing he could do even if she did wake him up. She then spends ten minutes playing percussion on the infant beast's back. Once the beast has released toxic gas from all of its orifices, my wife is then tasked with convincing the beast that having a nap is a good idea. The beast however is the oddest of creatures: it refuses sleep when it needs it most. Not sure about you, but I consider the following scenario absolutely idyllic: I am completely exhausted. My body feels like I have run a marathon and I just finished gorging on a breast oozing lasagne (insert your favourite meal here). Enter my wife declaring, "Honey please sleep for as long as you want. Don't worry about a thing." Apparently this fantasy is a result of nurture not nature, as I've heard countless stories (zzzzz) of the tired infant that refuses to sleep. Back to my wife.....when she finally does get the child into a state of slumber (I say fuck the phrase "sleeping like a baby") she has approximately sixty to ninety minutes to get some sleep for herself before the same barbaric cycle commences once again. At 7 am her husband wakes, retrieves the beast from her crib showering her with "Good morning Sunshine!" and "Boy...you were such a good girl last night. Honey, she must have slept for six hours straight no?" He then completes one requisite diaper change, enjoys a breakfast, throws on his work duds, and then heads off to expend cognitive energy with a group of peers. For her, this is the beginning of a day that consists of conversations that hit an intellectual peak during the monologue on the colour red. Other highlights of my wife's work day: four to six sessions of nipple torture; wiping feces that resemble butter chicken from between the shoulder blades of the beast; alternating the position of the beast from crib to swing to vibrating chair to crib to lap to arms to play pen to swing to crib to couch to bed to fireplace to dishwasher to compost pile all in an attempt to find that "sweet spot" where the beast appears content. By the way, none of the positions work. In the afternoon there's "the walk" – which us fathers sell to our belaboured wives as "pre-baby activity". Of course this is out of guilt, as we know that being outside walking aimlessly around the block really is nothing close to normal pre-baby activity, yet we need our wives to feel like nothing has really changed. Then, alas, dad arrives home from work with the breast pads and diapers that she forgot to pick up on her walk that afternoon. Finally she gets a rest – but man he has it easy.

I don't know....you be the judge.

There Is No God So Just Ride the Damn Bus

I can't believe the Ottawa Transit Committee has voted to prevent the Freethought Association of Canada from posting a paid advertisement on the city's buses (actually I can believe it – this city has a dearth of leadership and testicles). The ad would have stated, "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." My only problem with the ad is its lack of decisiveness. There is no god.

Once again, the loyalty to an invisible man prevents logic and free speech. Once again those who believe in the black book of fables have gotten their way and those of us with the ability to reason, deduce, and speak intelligently have been asked to just quiet down. I, as usual, fail to understand how a group of people who are able to throw so much blind faith into unproven stories of impossible acts can be so thrown out of kilter by a bus ad that claims their beliefs are "probably" false. Does it make any sense to you that those who see it logical to pray for outcomes rather than act for outcomes would be so offended by a statement from those who do not share their views? Surely such strength in conviction would give you the confidence and security that a claim of probable non-existence of your deity would be inconsequential to society. Plus, couldn't they just pray that those who read it will dismiss it? Hmm, maybe they prayed that the Ottawa Transit Committee would ban the sign outright. That's it – makes sense to me now.

You know, I come across public displays of religion all the time. I usually think they are dumb but they certainly don't insult me (although, I am insulted when they show up at my door in the form of a human placard asking me to "sign up"). Even if they did insult me, is that any reason to make it illegal for them to exist? Why can't the rigidly religious just "drop a set" and stop acting so insecure? Why do they fear that the sight of a mere bus sign will result in the annihilation of their faith? Maybe because deep in their hearts they know they are throwing their faith at a pile of crap but are afraid of the off chance that claiming such would result in eternal occupancy in the "hotlands." That's what I think. Most people who claim to be religious really aren't at all. They just don't have the courage to act and think freely and chalk their "sins" up to human nature.

This brings us back to the bus sign. I'm going to end this post as an insulting virtual religious salesman at your front door. If you're on the "bubble" of free thought and need a hand to guide you off the precipice to logical living - take mine. You'll love the freedom of knowing that you're a good person just because you are. Not because you're afraid not to be.