Monthly Archives: March 2012

Exposing Archaic and Arcane Laws and Social Justice: A new trend?

I know you are supposed to wait for three like things to happen before you declare it a trend, and I only know of two, but I figure it is worth mentioning. Maybe we can stretch this coincidence out and make it work for us.

A couple of months ago, it was revealed that a senior Republican legislator in Minnesota was having an affair with a staffer. This was a reasonably powerful individual (the elected official) having an affair with an adult who was also reasonably powerful (a senior staffer) and it was really just their own business, but since she was part of the Republican Leadership and Republicans have this idea of family values that they insist on legislating for the rest of us, her hypocrisy was noted. And, someone added some extra frosting to the icing on the cake by noting that the legislator’s husband had the right to file criminal charges using an arcane and archaic, and rather misogynist, state law. This law provides penalties for a woman who steps out on her husband, but only if the husband files criminal charges with the appropriate law enforcement agency. There is not an equivalent provision for penalties for a man who steps out on her husband. Either our state-wide founding fathers knew this never, ever happened, or …. they knew it happened all the time (with them) and chaos would ensue! Continue reading Exposing Archaic and Arcane Laws and Social Justice: A new trend?

Freethought M.C. on Atheists Talk #158, Sunday, March 11th, 2012

Freethought M.C. (M.C. standing for “Man of Conscience”) creates hip hop music that invokes compassion, spirituality and a language of reverence while grounded in reason, community, social responsibility, science and ethics.

Though he was raised Baptist, Freethought M.C. grew up questioning religion and philosophy. He became a Zen Buddhist at age 11, studied comparative religion in his 20s and now identifies as a Humanist and a Unitarian Universalist. His lyrics are influenced by Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris, as well as science fiction. His music also tackles political and social issues such as corrupt governments, nuclear warfare scenerios, African genocide, and the Iraq war.

In 2009 Freethought M.C. released two albulms: Diary of a Humanist and Modern Humanology, followed by Freethinker Vol. One in 2010, and at the end of last year he released The Categorical Imperative Strikes Back. Join us this Sunday when Freethought M.C. joins Atheists Talk to discuss his music, as well as his activism in the African American atheist movement.

Details here.

Peter Bergman is Dead

“…. The car stopped on a dime. Unfortunately, the dime was in Mr. Rococco’s Pocket….” and other great moments.

If you don’t know Firesign Theater, then a) your soul is empty and b) you won’t know who Peter Bergman is/was.

Here’s a post by a friend of his.

And now, go get and ingest some hallucinatory substances and listen, in no particular order, to the following: How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You’re and This Side and Don’t Crush That Dwarf Hand Me the Pliers and Everything You Know Is Wrong and Waiting for the Electrician Or Someone Like Him and Firesign Theatre’s Box of Danger and misplaced oxford comma I Think We’re All Bozos On This Bus.

That is all. If you were a faster reader, you’d be done with this blog post by now.

Hat Tip, Claudia Sawyer.

Cross Posted on the Other Side of my Blog

“…. The car stopped on a dime. Unfortunately, the dime was in Mr. Rococco’s Pocket….” and other great moments.

If you don’t know Firesign Theater, then a) your soul is empty and b) you won’t know who Peter Bergman is/was.

Here’s a post by a friend of his.

And now, go get and ingest some hallucinatory substances and listen, in no particular order, to the following: How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You’re and This Side and Don’t Crush That Dwarf Hand Me the Pliers and Everything You Know Is Wrong and Waiting for the Electrician Or Someone Like Him and Firesign Theatre’s Box of Danger and misplaced oxford comma I Think We’re All Bozos On This Bus.

That is all. If you were a faster reader, you’d be done with this blog post by now.

Hat Tip, Claudia Sawyer.

“By the authority invested in me by the GOP base, I thee rape.”

Next week. Doonesbury, the cartoon, will be addressing transvaginal ultrasounds that will be foisted on certain women by order of the government. Apparently, there are some newspapers that are on board with this institutional rape, and rather than allow criticism of it, they will not show those Doonesbury ads. One of our local papers, the Pioneer Press, is among them. I will be cancelling my subscription in the morning. Continue reading “By the authority invested in me by the GOP base, I thee rape.”