Combating Rationality with Irrationality
As a skeptic/atheist, I spend a fair amount of time reading popular blogs by individuals who think like I do. It makes sense, right? We all seek our tribe.
I do try to read stuff written by people with whom I disagree as well but that sort of thing tends to piss me off (I can only read so many creationist screeds) so I confess I don’t do nearly as much of that.
So in the last week, there has been a dust-up at FreethoughtBlogs (FtB) over the issue of harassment policy at skeptical conferences.
Shit That Pissed me Off This Week – 6/29
Iranian Americans Told They are Not Allowed to Buy an iPad because Racism
I’ve been an Apple customer for a long time. There are more Apple products in my house than there are bathrooms. It’s pretty sad.
This story is a publicity nightmare and I’m pissed they didn’t have the intelligence to publicly state “you know what – we messed up.”
While Apple has a policy against exporting their products to Iran (because what Iran needs to bring down the US is clearly lots and lots of iPads), that doesn’t mean that anyone who speaks Farsi should be denied service.
A vital piece of the dreaded Iranian “iPad enrichment” program
Hell, I think it is a pretty major invasion of privacy just to ask what language was being spoken. If I was speaking a foreign language in an Apple store and an employee asked me what language it was, I’d tell them it was none of their business. Especially now.
Come on Apple! Wake up and admit your policy is screwed and tell people you won’t be denying service to anyone based on what language they speak. To achieve your goal of world domination by 2018, it is a necessary step.
You can’t dominate the world if you don’t dominate Iran. I think Napoleon said that.
“Brave” and “Strong” – a Catch-22
In reading some criticism about Brave, I’ve seen a fair amount of frustration directed at the fact that to be “strong,” a female protagonist must excel at things that a man would do well. The question then becomes: What does it take to come up with a strong woman in the first place?
I’m going into spoiler territory now so read no further if you would prefer to avoid hearing about the film!
Shit that Pissed me off This Week – 6/22
Michigan House Passes a Bill that Says it is OK for Counselors to Discriminate Against Gay People
Here’s the facts: A graduate student in counseling was dismissed from her graduate program when she refused to help a suicidal gay student because (you guessed it) she’s a Christian. She sued (of course) and lost (of course).
Well the Michigan House can’t help her but they can definitely help the next homophobic therapist tell a suicidal patient to find someone else by passing an “antidiscrimination” law that will allow people to discriminate!
Why didn’t they say “hey, if your religious beliefs prevent you from counseling certain people, maybe you shouldn’t become a therapist?”
Suck it up and tell the gay kid he has something to live for. Because he does. According to you, all he has to look forward to when he dies is hell so do the compassionate thing and help him enjoy the 100 years he’s going to be living outside of the lake of fire.
It’s what Jesus would do.
Shit that Pissed me off This Week – 6/15
Megachurch Pastor Beats up his Daughter and his Flock Praises him for it
Let me begin by saying that I don’t know if his daugter’s allegations are true. But let’s just assume for a moment that he did, in fact, “put his hands around her throat and…then slammed her to the ground, punched her and beat her with his shoe. ”
How many parents think that is appropriate behavior towards one’s child? Teenagers can be a pain in the ass, I get it.
But choking, throwing to the ground and beating with a shoe?
Here’s what one of his supporters who seems to accept his daughters’ allegations had to say:
101 likes for kids getting their ass beat!!!!! God bless America!
Holy shit people! He was beating the shit out of her before she called the cops! That isn’t discipline. That is abuse.
Shit that Pissed me off this Week – 6/8
Doctor Allegedly Refused Treatment to an HIV Positive Patient
The accusation is that a doctor refused to get an HIV patient his medications because the patient was gay and (I’m paraphrasing) “he deserved it.”
In a culture where preachers are teaching their children to sing songs about how homos are going to hell, this shouldn’t come as any sort of surprise. People are being told that it is OK to treat homosexuals differently on one topic (marriage) and, therefore, they reach the conclusion that they can treat those people differently in all situations.
The people who think that way are horrible people. They would probably still be horrible people if they hadn’t been trained to behave this way toward homosexuals. I think that perhaps we need to re-direct that acrimony towards something more productive. Like hating Wal-Mart. Or Ke$ha.
Alphabetical Movie – The Impossible Years
The Impossible Years is a film dripping with faux 60’s feminism. It thinks it is about empowerment and rebellion. It is really just a film in which we are taught that female empowerment is all about teenaged girls turing into respectable young women as soon as they find the right man.
Theoretially a comedy, the movie stars David Niven as a psychologist who is supposedly an expert on teenagers but can’t manage to keep his own daugther in line. This has a lot more to do with his inability to follow his own advice than with any shortcoming on the part of his daughter.
Shit that Pissed me Off this Week – 5/18
I’m on vacation this week and next week so the column is shorter than usual. That, I imagine, is probably a good thing.
Most Psychotic Anti-Gay Person Ever
This lady’s crazy rant has been circulating the internet quite a lot in the last week.
This doesn’t piss me off. It makes me laugh but if I’m being honest with myself, it also makes me sad. This woman isn’t just anti-gay, she is completely around the bend crazy. She needs some sort of medication in the worst way. Just listen to the crazy shit she is saying. Normal people don’t talk like this. When you can make Michele Bachmann look sane, you have a very serious problem.
Update: Yep – she’s mentally ill. Her family says she is on medication (up the dosage) and that makes the attention on her all the more sad. The whole thing points up the kind of hatred that is focused on gay people. She’s mentally ill and you can’t control that but would her vitriol be focused on gays if there weren’t so many sane people doing it already.
Shit that Pissed me Off This Week – 5/11
The Heartland Institute Goes for Broke on a New Series of Billboards
The Heartland Institute is a Climate Change Denial think tank and they just put up a series of billboards to support their point of view. Let’s see if you can tell why the campaign pisses me off:
OMG!!! He’s crazy! I don’t want to be crazy too!!!
They also have billboards planned featuring Charles Manson and Osama Bin Laden.
You know, because only crazy people believe that Climate Change is real and caused by human behavior. It is a spurious and insulting argument that has nothing to do with facts or science.
You think 97% of the world’s climate scientists are wrong? Prove it!!! Don’t waste time saying that they must be wrong because some crackpot out there believes them. It’s like saying that I shouldn’t be against the death penalty because most prisoners on death row are also against the death penalty.
Update: after extensive public outcry, they have decided to take down the billboards. They haven’t apologized for them, of course, but they took ’em down…
Shit that Pissed me off This Week – 4/27
This isn’t the first time WI State Senator has put his foot in it. Now has claimed women actually want to be single mothers and that women are “trained” to tell doctors their pregnancies are unplanned so they can get an abortion.
Where did this come from? There must be a woman in his past who really shafted him and now he is taking it out on her entire sex.
I might be reading too much into the situation. It’s possible he’s just an asshole.
Grail Diary 