Softcore Voyeurism

Before I begin, I have to clarify that I understand it takes all kinds of people to make a society and I further understand that I have the option to change the channel, turn the idiot box off, go to another site or not read the article.  I'm not questioning whether choice exists, I'm questioning the choices made.

That being established, I still wonder what the appeal of these entertainment news and celebrity gossip shows have to such a large sector of the (American) population.  Do people want so badly to be famous (or infamous)?  I find it hard to believe that so many people lead such pathetic lives with such trivial interests.

Don't get me wrong; I enjoy watching TV and movies as much as anyone.  I've learned to recognize and appreciate good acting, good writing, good direction, etc.  But am I the only one for whom the interest stops there?  Personally, I don't care whether Britney Spears goes to rehab or gets married once a month.  Tiger Woods' sex life is his own business.  Sports figures and entertainers (redundant) private lives should stay that way.  Leave them alone to lead their lives as they see fit off camera providing they aren't harming someone else in the process.

 And on the subject of doing harm, don't start screaming 1st Amendment but I believe it should be illegal to take or publish photos of not only celebrities but anyone if those photos have the potential to cause harm to the person, their family, their business or their associates if the person has a reasonable expectation of privacy, such as when they are in their home or behind enclosures such as privacy fences on private property.  It would be illegal to climb a tree and look in someone's window or over their privacy fence without a camera; why do these so called photographers and paparazzi get a pass?

As always, money drives this activity.  People find celebrities private lives interesting and are willing to pay to get a glimpse of them.  Therein lies the problem.  The general population has so much spare time, money and energy to devote to such trivial interests that an industry has developed around it.  Entertainment Tonight, Extra, TMZ, to name a few, have tremendous ratings.  Entire television networks exist for the purpose of exploiting this softcore voyeurism.  It reminds me of a quote by Henry Louis Mencken:  "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public."

One Difference Between a Hillbilly and a Redneck

A redneck might live in a house that has plumbing that doesn't work and have to use an outhouse.

A hillbilly's house might not have plumbing but his outhouse certainly will.

Religious Persecution in America

I am very thankful for a non-religious up-bringing. I was raised to be a moral, kind and compassionate member of a community. I remember at about what age it became apparent to me that being raised outside of a church wasn't a normal thing in the part of the country I was raised.

In second grade, the teacher actually took an oral survey of what church each student attended with his/her family. She started at the opposite side of the room from where I sat so I listened as each kid dutifully (and knowledgeably) spouted off their affiliation. By time she got to me, all but one or two other kids had a church on record with the school. I saw the reaction to the kids who said they didn't go and decided I would adopt the church near my house. The church was named Yount Memorial Baptist Church. However, at seven years old and seeing the relatively small print on the sign, somehow I thought it said "Youth"; so that's what I said when it was my turn, "The Youth Church". The teacher didn't ask any questions, she just snarled her lip and said, in a most condescending tone, "That figures." I had no idea what that meant at the time but I did find out very soon that she didn't like the fact that I went to the "Youth Church". I was moved to the front of the room, scrutinized and ridiculed at most every opportunity. This same teacher even came to my desk and picked me up by the hair at one point.

Now, prior to this, I had had a promising academic career. I was the only child in my kindergarten class who knew how to read on the first day of school. I could count as high as needed, knew all my letters, both upper and lower case and could write them as well. I was a star pupil. In first grade, I was actually moved up to fourth grade for a week because I was so far ahead of the other students. They moved me back for several reasons. First, big distraction to the fourth graders. Second, I was able to conceptualize at their level just fine but was unable to complete work at the necessary speed. I was just thrown in with no coaching, no briefing, no instruction as to what was happening. They just put me at the back of the fourth grade classroom and I was supposed to take it from there. It didn't work.

If only it had. The next year proved to be a crossroad in my life. I went from being confident eager to learn to being one of the "bad kids". I still haven't figured out how I managed to get poor grades when I was doing the work correctly. I have always been a good speller but that year I actually got D's in spelling. This can only be the result of grade tampering by the teacher. My parents missed the clues and I didn't know there were any. Like any kid that age, I blamed myself, both for the bad grades and for the bad treatment I received. This was 1973. My life was changed for the worse because of religious persecution in America in 1973.

Our Bill Of Rights Unaltered and Uninterpreted

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Amendment III
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb, nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Amendment VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Tax Churches On Their Income and Real Estate/Property

Churches should be taxed the same as any other business. I say "any OTHER" because to call a church anything other than a business would be wrong.

And no, the first amendment to the constitution does not prohibit taxing churches. I challenge anyone to show a valid legal argument against this.

The Age and Size of the Universe

I'm going to go on record here and say that within the next decade, astrophysicists will discover/figure out that the universe is much older and larger than it's currently thought to be. I say this because I have thought for some time (years) that the dark matter that seems to be unexplainable along with the dark energy that seems to be undetectable would both be explained by taking the red shift a step further in thought to account for the increase of perceived speed of expansion at the outer edges of the known universe. The light from those distances simply hasn't reached (or can't reach) us yet. Crude, I know. I will refine this post as needed. If you can enlighten me, please feel free but don't come half-steppin'.

Countries and Continents I've visited.

visited 7 states (3.11%)
Create your own visited map of The World

I lived on Okinawa for 16 months, South Korea for 4.5 years and while there, I did the USO thing and stepped into North Korea.  I had no desire to venture any further into a country headed by a delusional sociopath.  And with that...the jokes begin.

States I've Been To

visited 39 states (78%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

Saintly Ignorance

Women should not be enlightned or educated in any way.  They should, in fact, be segregated as they are the cause of hideous and involuntary erections in holy men. --St. Augustine

Have we really made any progress or are we simply paying lip service while secretly embracing our true beliefs?

Here's another gem from the religious philosopher who has a city named after him in Florida.
"As to the fable that there are Antipodes, that is to say, men on the opposite side of the earth where the sun rises when it sets to us, men who walk with their feet opposite ours, that is on no ground credible. Even if some unknown landmass is there, and not just ocean, there was only one pair of original ancestors, and it is inconceivable that such distant regions should have been peopled by Adam's descendants."

Novus Ordo Seclorum: Clearing up a Mistranslation

This Latin phrase, which is found on the American dollar is commonly thought to mean "New World Order". This is a mistranslation and it is commonly used by conspiracy theorists to support the idea that a "One World Government" is coming soon and will eradicate national borders and in the process, our various cultures. The literal translation is: new order of the ages. Now, one might argue that it means the same thing but one should at least argue using accurate information. I hear you laughing out there.

If you are inclined to remain on watch for such things, be on the lookout for the phrase "Novus Ordo Mundi". When you see THAT on the new international currency, you'll know the right wing extremists, survivalists and F. Tupper Saussy were right.

Why do they do that?

Why do so many people throw coins in mall fountains?  I've given this a lot of thought.  Well, maybe not a LOT but I do think about it every time I go to the mall, which, fortunately for me, is a lot less these days.  My wife finally figured out that the same hormones that enable me to fix cars and build decks also cause physiological symptoms at the mere thought of going to such a place, especially if the trip involves more than one pass by the ever present mall fountain.


Now, I don't have any particular objection to the fountains themselves.  In fact, the fountain may be the one piece of original architecture in the entire mall.  I haven't been keeping score but as far as I can remember, the fountains are different in just about every mall.  Kudos to construction managers, fountain designers and plumbing contractors everywhere.  What makes my eyes involuntarily roll back like the little glass bird after he's gotten his sip of water is the sight of all the coinage in these aquatic investment vehicles.  I believe you could put any water-tight container next to, or in the middle of, any pedestrian thoroughfare and people will throw money in it.

I know, I know.  Yer s'posta mek a weesh.  That's OK too...if you're four.  But I know anyone reading this has seen grown people of all ages chucking currency in these puddles.  Admit it, you've done it; haven't you?  Well cut it out.

You can say, "But the money goes to charity.  Don't you like charity?"  No, not particularly.  Charities never seem to solve anything.  They just seem to perpetuate their own existence.  But that's another post in and of itself.  Besides, look at the amount of money taken in by these establishments (namely malls) and some of them, I must admit, at least match the contributions but even that is pathetically small in comparison to what they are capable of.  Case in point: Target gives a lot of money away and they still seem to be able to compete.  I'm not advocating Target as a place to shop; I'm just trying to illustrate my point which is if you're going to give away money, make it a usable amount, not an insult.  Why not encourage people to give their money directly to these charities if they want to give.  Wishes are free and don't require a pool of water.

Even better, stay away from the mall, Target, Wal-Mart and any other faceless corporation.  Shop at locally owned businesses whenever possible.  Get to know the owners and managers.  Find out who's doing a good business.  If you own a business you can certainly appreciate what I'm saying.  Our communities would be a lot better off if people got to know one another and did business together.  Perhaps more of that would result in less need for charities to begin with.

I could follow these tangents ad infinitum but what I really wanted to do here was point out the absurdity of mindlessly throwing money in pools of water.  Think.

Some of My Favorite Quotes (and a couple of my own)

You may have noticed I like to quote other authors and thinkers. This isn't because I don't have any of my own ideas. It's because I want to show appreciation for such brilliance, to say, "I wish I'd thought o'that".

ANAIS NIN:

When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow.

ANNIE DILLARD:

An Inuit hunter asked the local missionary priest: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" "No," said the priest, "not if you did not know." "Then why," asked the Inuit earnestly, "did you tell me?"

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN:

Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN:

When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.

ALBERT EINSTEIN:

I do not believe in the immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern without any superhuman authority behind it.

True religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness.

Science can only determine what is, but not what shall be, and beyond its realm, value judgments remain indispensable. Religion, on the other hand, is concerned only with evaluating human thought and actions; it is not qualified to speak of real facts and the relationships between them.

ALDOUS HUXLEY:

At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols.

BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE:

Among politicians the esteem of religion is profitable; the principles of it are troublesome.

BERTRAND RUSSELL:

In conclusion, there is a marvelous anecdote from the occasion of Russell's ninetieth birthday that best serves to summarize his attitude toward God and religion. A London lady sat next to him at this party, and over the soup she suggested to him that he was not only the world's most famous atheist but, by this time, very probably the world's oldest atheist. "What will you do, Bertie, if it turns out you're wrong?" she asked. "I mean, what if -- uh -- when the time comes, you should meet Him? What will you say?" Russell was delighted with the question. His bright, birdlike eyes grew even brighter as he contemplated this possible future dialogue, and then he pointed a finger upward and cried, "Why, I should say, 'God, you gave us insufficient evidence.'"

Al Seckel, in Preface to Bertrand Russell on God and Religion

BILL GATES:

Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.

BLAISE PASCAL:

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.

CARL SANDBURG:

Sandburg's retelling of Lincoln's attendance at an evangelist rally led by Peter Cartwright in 1846, in response to accusations by Cartwright's followers that he was an "infidel" - Cartwright was his opponent in his race for Congress:

In due time Cartwright said, "All who desire to lead a new life, to give their hearts to God, and go to heaven, will stand," and a sprinkling of men, women, and children stood up. Then the preacher exhorted, "All who do not wish to go to hell will stand." All stood up — except Lincoln. Then said Cartwright in his gravest voice, "I observe that many responded to the first invitation to give their hearts to God and go to heaven. And I further observe that all of you save one indicated that you did not desire to go to hell. The sole exception is Mr. Lincoln, who did not respond to either invitation. May I inquire of you, Mr. Lincoln, where are you going?"

And Lincoln slowly rose and slowly spoke. "I came here as a respectful listener. I did not know that I was to be singled out by Brother Cartwright. I believe in treating religious matters with due solemnity. I admit that the questions propounded by Brother Cartwright are of great importance. I did not feel called upon to answer as the rest did. Brother Cartwright asks me directly where I am going. I desire to reply with equal directness: I am going to Congress."

He went.
CLARENCE DARROW:

I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure -- that is all that agnosticism means.

Scopes trial, Dayton, Tennessee, July 13, 1925

DON HIRSCHBERG:

Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color.

FORREST CHURCH:

Religion is the human response to being alive and having to die.

FRANCIS WRIGHT:

Our religious belief usurps the place of our sensations, our imaginations of our judgment. We no longer look to actions, trace their consequences, and then deduce the rule; we first make the rule, and then, right or wrong, force the action to square with it

FREDERICK DOUGLASS:

The church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors.... For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! Welcome atheism! Welcome anything! in preference to the gospel, as preached by these Divines! They convert the very name of religion into an engine of tyranny and barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels, in this age, than all the infidel writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke put together have done.

G GAIA:

The common dogma [of fundamentalists] is fear of modern knowledge, inability to cope with the fast change in a scientific-technological society, and the real breakdown in apparent moral order in recent years.... That is why hate is the major fuel, fear is the cement of the movement, and superstitious ignorance is the best defense against the dangerous new knowledge. ... When you bring up arguments that cast serious doubts on their cherished beliefs you are not simply making a rhetorical point, you are threatening their whole Universe and their immortality. That provokes anger and quite frequently violence. ... Unfortunately you cannot reason with them and you even risk violence in confronting them. Their numbers will decline only when society stabilizes, and adapts to modernity.

GALILEO GALILEI:

I do not feel obligated to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reasons, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW:

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.

H. L. MENCKEN:

We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.

Puritanism: the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

The scientist who yields anything to theology, however slight, is yielding to ignorance and false pretenses, and as certainly as if he granted that a horse-hair put into a bottle of water will turn into a snake.

IMMANUEL KANT:

Religion is the recognition of all our duties as divine commands.

JAMES FEIBLEMAN:

A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes.

JOHN WARWICK MONTGOMERY:

The difficulty with pragmatic arguments for a religion is that truths do not always "work", and beliefs that "work" are by no means always true.

JONATHAN SWIFT:

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love.

LEO TOLSTOY:

Only greatly insolent people establish a religious law which is to be taken for granted by others, which should be accepted by everyone on faith, without any discussion or doubts. Why must people do this?

LIZETTE W. REESE:

The old faiths light their candles all about, but burly truth comes by and blows them out.

MARK TWAIN:

Man is the religious animal. He is the only religious animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion -- several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat, if his theology isn't straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven.

All schools, all colleges, have two great functions: to confer, and to conceal, valuable knowledge. The theological knowledge which they conceal cannot justly be regarded as less valuable than that which they reveal. That is, when a man is buying a basket of strawberries it can profit him to know that the bottom half of it is rotten.

There are many scapegoats for our sins, but the most popular one is Providence.

In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing. --Autobiography, 1959

All generalizations are false, including this one.

NOAM CHOMSKY:

Three quarters of the American population literally believe in religious miracles. The numbers who believe in the devil, in resurrection, in God doing this and that -- it's astonishing. These numbers aren't duplicated anywhere else in the industrial world. You'd have to maybe go to mosques in Iran or do a poll among old ladies in Sicily to get numbers like this. Yet this is the American population.

HILLBILLY PHILOSOPHER:
The truth is easily perceived when not hidden by the blinders of beliefs.

All human perception exists within the framework of fear and love.

People are like plants; if they aren't growing, they're dying.

PAUL RICOEUR:

To put it in a few words, the true malice of man appears only in the state and in the church, as institutions of gathering together, of recapitulation, of totalization.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON:

Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in your reading have been like the blast of triumph out of Shakespeare, Seneca, Moses, John and Paul.

The god of the cannibals will be a cannibal, of the crusaders a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant.

The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next.

The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

RICHARD FRANCIS BURTON:

The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.

ROBERT G. INGERSOLL:

Few nations have been so poor as to have but one god. Gods were made so easily, and the raw material cost so little, that generally the god market was fairly glutted and heaven crammed with these phantoms.

ROBERT HEINLEIN:

One man's religion is another man's belly laugh.

SENECA THE YOUNGER:

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. 

SIGMUND FREUD:

Religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis.

SIR JULIAN HUXLEY:

Today the god hypothesis has ceased to be scientifically tenable ... and its abandonment often brings a deep sense of relief. Many people assert that this abandonment of the god hypothesis means the abandonment of all religion and all moral sanctions. This is simply not true. But it does mean, once our relief at jettisoning an outdated piece of ideological furniture is over, that we must construct some thing to take its place. --The New Divinity

SUSAN B. ANTHONY:

I always distrust people who know so much about what God wants them to do to their fellows.

T. S. ELIOT:

Any religion...is for ever in danger of petrifaction into mere ritual and habit, though ritual and habit be essential to religion. --Selected Essays, 1927

TENZIN GYATSO, 14TH DALAI LAMA:

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

Whether you believe in God or not does not matter so much, whether you believe in Buddha or not does not matter so much. You must lead a good life.

We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.

A good motivation is what is needed: compassion without dogmatism, without complicated philosophy; just understanding that others are human brothers and sisters and respecting their human rights and dignities. That we humans can help each other is one of our unique human capacities.

THEODORE DREISER:

If I were personally to define religion I would say that it is a bandage that man has invented to protect a soul made bloody by circumstance.

THOMAS HOBBES:

Fear of things invisible is the natural seed of that which everyone in himself calleth religion. --Leviathan

THOMAS JEFFERSON:

The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the Supreme Being in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.

Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.

VOLTAIRE:

If God did not exist it would be necessary for us to invent Him. [I don't personally agree with this but I love the quote and I think it says something about us.]

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR:

Even the weakest disputant is made so conceited by what he calls religion, as to think himself wiser than the wisest who thinks differently from him.

WILLIAM HAZLITT:

Religion either makes men wise and virtuous, or it makes them set up false pretences to both.

WILLIAM ROBERTSON SMITH:

Religion did not exist for the saving of souls but for the preservation and welfare of society, and in all that was necessary to this end every man had to take his part, or break with the domestic and political community to which he belonged.

YOSSI KLEIN HALEVI:

But theological change happens through selective quoting. Every religious person does it: You quote those verses that resonate with your own religious insights and ignore or reinterpret those that undermine your certainties. Selective quoting isn't just legitimate, but essential: Religions evolve through shifts in selective quoting.