Creating a Safe Space
So today is national coming out day and I’ve been thinking about what I can do as someone who is gay friendly. I don’t have to come out. I’m pretty vocal about my support for the GLBT community and marriage equality.
Stating, once again, that there is nothing wrong with being gay is important but I say it so often, I fear it lacks impact.
So I have an idea.
Alphabetical Movie – John Carter
When it comes to evaluating a movie in terms of how well it meshes with the source material, I’m not a great judge. I read all the time but almost everything I read is non fiction. I like reading about history, religion, nature and a host of other topics.
I also love reading fiction but here’s why I don’t: I can’t stop.
I don’t want to know what is going to happen in the middle of the story. I want to know how the story ends. In order to know that, I need to slog through the middle and I want to do that as quickly as possible.
Geeks Without God Does it Again
What do we do again? We have a brand new episode up on a Tuesday morning! Talk about consistency!
For this week’s episode, we talked with our friend Porter right after the riots in Libya and Egypt and we found ourself getting pretty focused on Islam for the first time. It kind of mystified all of us that anyone (of any religion) would kill someone in the name of god. Because we focus so much on Christianity in America, we don’t always recognize that other parts of the world are faced with different religions doing the same thing.
We also talked about deep fried bacon.
It was a very interesting conversation. Have a listen if you wanna!
Alphabetical Movie – The Jewel of the Nile
For some of the younger folks out there, it may come as a surprise to learn that there was a time when MTV played music videos all the time. I was a college student during this magical time in the mid 80’s and I wasted enjoyed many hours in front of the television watching some of the finest music videos ever produced studying.
My first year of college, I attended Coe College in Cedar Rapids Iowa. Things didn’t work out so well between Coe and I left after my freshman year. One of the best friends I’ve ever made was from that first year and for me, The Jewel of the Nile will always be about Teri, Coe College, and MTV.
New Vilification Tennis Podcast
We got a little bit behind on podcasting for Vilification Tennis during the festival season but this weekend I managed to get some folks together to record a new episode.
I managed to get Mark Lazarchic and Bob Alberti to start arguing politics. Unfortunately, I had to cut them off after about ten minutes but I think the podcast is worth listening to just for that. There’s also a lot of talk about a lesbian in Hong Kong because that’s the kind of podcast we do.
We also get really in-depth talking about the Renaissance Festival, including a lot of behind the scenes stuff. I think it turned out to be a good episode in spite of the worst home game rounds ever.
Shit That Pissed me off This Week – 10/5
I don’t care how you feel about it – voter fraud is a red herring in the Voter ID debate. There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud and further, no evidence that voter ID laws will prevent fraud.
Also, we’ll need to draw some blood.
What Voter ID laws will do is make it more difficult for college students to vote without getting a new drivers’ license in the state where they attend college. It will make it harder for seniors who no longer drive to vote. It will make it harder for a lot of people to vote and that pisses me off because voting is one of the most basic rights we all have in this country.
We shouldn’t make it harder to vote. We should make it fucking easy to vote. That way more people will vote.
All that aside, isn’t it a bit suspicious that the party who is most strongly pushing for voter fraud is responsible for voter fraud? I know it’s just one guy but that proves my argument. This sort of thing is not widespread.
What are they really trying to do with these amendments? Because it would seem what they aren’t trying to do is stop voter fraud.
Alphabetical Movie – Jaws
I didn’t watch Jaws until I was in my late twenties.
I remember seeing the trailer and deciding I wanted nothing to do with the film. The shot of the girl being pulled violently under water that scared the crap out of me. I was just eight years old, after all, and I lived in a state full of lakes. I didn’t really understand the difference between oceans and lakes.
Why now?
When I look at the amendment battle this year, I am angered not just by the cold-hearted attempt to use a public forum to legislate what is a private matter. I’m also angered by the cynicism it takes to put these amendments on the ballot now.
Yes, these amendments are on the ballot, in part, to get conservatives to the polling booth.
You’d think that the better play would be to put up candidates worth voting for but neither major party seems interested in doing that.
Doing something nice for my kid
Last week, I wrote about how my son was being bullied and how proud I was of his response.
A lot of people told me how he sounds like a great kid and they also told him this weekend. Before the weekend, I made a facebook post wherin I suggested that those who wished to should give him $5.00 to help replace a 3DS he lost last week. Several people asked if there was a way to do it online.
So for those folks, here is a way to donate to his DS fund through paypal. You can only donate $5.00. I don’t want anyone to donate more than that. If you can’t afford $5.00, that’s OK.
If we make more than what we need to buy him a DS, we will donate the remainder to Minnesotans United for All Families.
If you would rather make a $5.00 to Minnesotans United in his name, that would also be terrific.
Thanks for all the love and support he’s received. He doesn’t entirely undersand it but I know he appreciates it.
Here’s the donation button for those who would like to use it:
New Geeks Without God Episode is Live!
This week’s episode is just the three of us talking about atheism. We spent some time talking about the differences between “atheist” and “non-believer” before we moved on to talk about the Atheism Plus movement. We also found time to read through another set of listener questions. There’s a lot of big ideas and we didn’t really have time to get in-depth but it’s an interesting conversation about what is going on in the atheism movement right now.
Or at least a month ago when we recorded the episode. If you choose to listen, I hope you enjoy it.
Grail Diary 