Thursday, January 07, 2010
Thanks be to fucking God (I never got that stupid tattoo)
I managed to escape my teens and twenties without a single tattoo. Mercifully, I do not have a dreamcatcher tramp stamp, or a dolphin leaping over my shoulder, or any random Chinese characters, or ANYTHING subcutaneously airbrushed on my body. This is a good thing, too. All the tattoos I ever wanted to get were extraordinarily lame, and I'm glad I was either too young, too lazy, or too broke to get them.
In high school, while deeply smitten with my girlfriend, I painted the case of my TI-85 graphing calculator with illustrations of the tattoos I was going to get to declare my extreme baby dyke radical feminist views and my obsession with aforementioned girlfriend. I don't remember all of them, but I do recall that I wanted to get an armband tattoo that was a sort of vine of roses entangled with irises because those were our favorite flowers at the time. I painted this all around the perimeter of my TI-85 cover. I also remember that I wanted to get a pink triangle on the bottom of my foot, to "remind me where I stand." That wouldn't have been too bad or noticeable, but lacking that certainly didn't cause me to forget that I like to lick snatch sometimes and I support the civil rights of others who choose to get in on some hot same-sex action.
Later, in my early twenties, LL Cool Jew, Wmania, and myself were going to get matching Georgia O'Keefe deer skulls as a testament to our deep and abiding friendship. I planned on getting this on my right shoulder, LL Cool Jew was going to get it on her chest, and Wmania wanted the classic small-of-back cum catcher. Additionally, we wanted to get "WAR" below this famous reproduction of a decomposed, decapitated cervid, in Eazy-E's Compton hat gangsta font (it is an acronym of our initials). For some reason, we thought such a look was classier than any tattoo we would have opted for in college, and would be a cherished and not remotely regrettable addition to our bodies. After all, who wouldn't disfigure themselves for the sake of friendship?
Sha. Suffice to say, I can only imagine how annoyed LL Cool Jew would have been at her wedding had antlers been sprouting out of the bodice of her Vera Wang wedding gown and despoiling her hot-ass tits at her nuptial celebration. Luckily, those tattoos were all about $250 more than we had budgeted for our exercise in making a permanent physical record of our friendship. Still more luckily, we are all still friends, despite lacking Georgia O'Keefe deer skull tattoos.
In spite of all the dumb ideas I had with regard to body art, there is one tattoo I wanted for a long period of time that I never got. I just never got around to it, but I always figured if I found myself in a position where tattooing made sense, I would ask for that. Over my many years of Catholic education, I developed a fetish for graven images, and my favorite of all time was the sacred heart of Jesus.
At one time, I thought this heart-shaped, briar-encircled Zippo lighter of Christ was an awesome image. It was at once cool, relatively unique, less associated with Latin gangs than the Our Lady of Guadalupe, and scratched my old-timey-Catholic-stuff itch. It was personal, appropriate, and up to my standards, and I wouldn't have to draw it.
It was also the tattoo equivalent of a fucking Ed Hardy shirt. I realized this today, when I went to my favorite internets gossip site and found THIS:
When you realize that Michael Lohan--a convicted felon, estranged deadbeat patriarch of one of the most trainwrecktastic clans currently grasping desperately for a glance of the public eye, and probably the most detestable non-celebrity famewhore on the entire internet-- has your former dream tattoo, and is further flaunting it to the most accursed of bottom-shelf, we-wish-we-were-x17 paparazzi, you can go ahead and thank your lucky stars you never went ahead with that sacred heard of Jesus tattoo. You can also swear on the risen motherfucking Christ whose sacred heart that supposedly is that you never made it a permanent part of your epidermis, as I very nearly did. Bullet DODGED.
Labels: Dear God, media whores, Razzification
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Read the Bible: Jesus was very pro-whore
Yesterday HotLawyer sent me a link to a local news story from the intellectual backwater and hallowed site of white supremacist history known as Whidbey Island. Of course, megachurch evangelical Christianity has seduced many of Whidbey's native yokels, and not much goes on there, so the hard-hitting journalists over at the Whidbey News-Times decided to write a story showcasing exactly what a bunch of lameasses these people are.
Never been kissed: Bride-to-be waits for her wedding day
When Todd Ritter is told to kiss the bride at the altar this July in front of 277 of their closest friends and family, people will understand if it’s a little clumsy.
It will be the couple’s very first kiss.
“I’m wondering, will I be a good kisser? Do I know what I’m doing? I’m nervous, but excited,” says Rachel Welch, 21, who is marrying 23-year-old Ritter in Oak Harbor.
The couple instated a “no-kissing” policy, to keep things from getting out of hand before marriage. Welch decided at age 14 to save kissing for someone special, and hoped that her first lip-lock would shortly follow “I do.”
Personally, I think this kind of bullshit is actually very anti-Christian. If you read the Gospels, you'll notice that Jesus is kissing all over everyone on the regular. He kisses babies, lepers, homeless dudes, and whores, and doesn't think twice about it. The skankiest prostitutes in all of Galilee were JC's roll dogs, and one would think that such a devout couple of youth ministers would have at least considered that before instituting such a rigid policy. Especially since, judging by their chattiness regarding their Eskimo kissing, chaperone policies, and foot massaging, they apparently have no problem being media whores. They even gave the Whidbey News-Times a frightening, look-we're-scary-super-Christians picture in which you can practically hear them condemning evolution and elaborating on how gay marriage and anyone who helps it become legal is going to burn in eternal damnation.
And since I have been kissed before–on numerous parts of my body and usually as a prelude to getting my sinful nonmarital fuck on–let me explain to Rachel and Todd exactly how lame their marriage is going to be thanks to their policy of extreme abstinence. Since neither of them have any idea what they are doing and are probably taking pointers from the Michael W. Smith "I Will Be Here for You" video, their first heavy makeout sesh is going to be nothing short of disgusting. Todd looks like one of those guys who thinks that hot tongue kissing involves licking and slobbering all over every part of your face except your mouth, so I hope Rachel enjoys a good spit shine. And as far as Rachel is concerned, if Todd thinks that once he's made an honest uptight prude out of her it's going to be all hot legit Christian sex, he's gravely mistaken. Bitches don't go from Eskimo kisses and love letters to blowjobs and anal overnight, and Rachel strikes me as the type who won't put out on her wedding night. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if both of them are so abysmally bad at sex that they wind up doing it as infrequently as possible. After all, who even needs a sex life when you have the rapture to look forward to?
This is why I always fuck on the first date. I'm not going to invest my time and emotion in someone without giving them a test drive and making sure they are competent at turning me out. As a result of this policy, if I ever do get married, please believe that my future spouse will be a tiger in the sack and will likewise benefit from my extensive experience in this area. I also take umbrage with Todd's assertion that Rachel's no-kissing purity vow is an indicator of her "awesome" self-respect, thus implying that sleeping around means I don't respect myself. I have an awesome amount of respect for myself (you can't fancy yourself the most awesome human being on earth EVER without having a healthy amount of self-esteem), and I can't think of any better way to demonstrate that than by giving myself the gift of plenty of varied hot ass. I think it's actually disrespectful to yourself and your partner not to be the best lay you can be, especially if you're about to take vows promising to never hit the sheets with anyone else ever again. It's a sacred duty to your future spouse to get out there and practice on as much strange as possible before you limit genital privileges to just one person. Then again, since neither Todd nor Rachel have any basis for comparison, maybe they won't even know what they are missing when they are rutting clumsily away at one another with the lights off and their shirts on. Ignorance is bliss for the abstinent purity ring set, I guess.
Labels: assholes, Dear God, HotLawyer, media whores, retard rage, sex, sluts
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Once again, Cheese Sauce proves that his followers are the dumbest
I was reading the news today, and as usual it was all fucking bad. The economy is crumbling thanks to years and years of getting unapologetically sodomized by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who despite their friendly, folksy names sound like a couple of serious motherfucking bastards. I was just going to click over to the BBC to read about the collapse of the credit markets in Europe to add a little international flavor to my general feeling of dread and impending doom when I noticed a catchy title in a sidebar ad:
Wait...Time magazine's business writers have decided to blame GOD for the imminent Greater Depression about to swallow the entire civilized world? I can understand why people still solvent enough to enjoy luxuries like print magazines read The Economist these days instead of Time, because that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. It's not like God took a break from being omnipotent to moonlight as an unscrupulous broker at Countrywide. Rolling my eyes, I went to the article expecting to continue audibly scoffing at my laptop.
Instead of continuing to think about the author's stupidity, however, I was instead filled with annoyance and anger not at the author, but at those goddamned irritating evangelical Christians! Apparently, this bullshit is all their fault thanks to something called the "Prosperity gospel" that a bunch of them subscribe to. This is the notion that if you open your wallet to Christ so that your megachurch can buy a new IMAX screen for in-service laser shows praising Cheese-Sauce Crasst, you'll be rewarded by getting approved for a mortgage that you can't afford and will assuredly default on should the economy take a downturn–kind of like the precipitous faceplant it's doing now!
Granted, this policy isn't explicitly stated by most evangelical ministers. However, an expert interviewed for the article explained that this is spelled out in facile Jesus-flavored suggestions that even the most slow-witted Pentecostal Joe Sixpack can understand:
Granted, this policy isn't explicitly stated by most evangelical ministers. However, an expert interviewed for the article explained that this is spelled out in facile Jesus-flavored suggestions that even the most slow-witted Pentecostal Joe Sixpack can understand:
"The pastor's not gonna say, 'Go down to Wachovia and get a loan,' but I have heard, 'Even if you have a poor credit rating, God can still bless you — if you put some faith out there [that is, make a big donation to the church], you'll get that house or that car or that apartment.'"
The Catholic church was practicing the medieval equivalent of this back in the day, except instead of the faithful donating their cash for corrupt ministers to buy Mercedes to snort meth and bang underage boys in, the faithful donated their farthings for corrupt clergymen to maintain lavish residences for their mistresses and instead of being promised home ownership, they were promised a guaranteed spot in heaven. Eventually, even the feudal peasants (the Joe Sixpacks of their time) of the Middle Ages caught on that this was a bullshit scam, and hence Protestants exist at all. I'm just relieved that this time around the Catholics have nothing to do with all hell breaking loose. Luckily, we learned our lesson about the dangers of selling indulgences six centuries ago. Too bad these holy rolling heretics aren't up on their history, because if they had been maybe they wouldn't have tried to better their own financial situations via this Prosperity gospel bullshit and caused the global credit markets to fucking fail.
I am obviously a Christian being that I count myself among the O.G. Jesus worshipers. Since the most holy and apostolic JP Dos was running things over at the Holy See, I was encouraged that we'd finally gotten past doing globally destructive bullshit like starting centuries-long holy wars and torturing Jews, intellectuals, and anyone else who did things slightly differently. Unfortunately, it seems these evangelicals have picked up where we Catholics left off in the global shitshow department. All these evangelicals love to talk about how awesome the apocalypse is going to be, and how great it's going to be when Jesus returns. I wouldn't get too excited if I were them, because frankly, if I were Jesus, I'd be getting so sick of my followers perpetrating worldwide catastrophic disaster in my name that if I had to get off my ass and leave heaven because of it, I'd just wipe the troublesome losers off the map like John McCain wants to do with our nation's bad mortgages. So quit doing anything in Jesus's name except praying, because I don't want to get Armageddoned along with economically fucked thanks to the investment strategies of the fundamentalist devout.
Labels: assholes, capitalism, Catholicism, crazies, Dear God, ranting, retard rage, scathing indictments
Friday, October 03, 2008
Science says that dissent over descent is dumb
I was just catching up on this week's scintillating issue of Science, and was surprised to see that the editors have obviously been keeping up on this week's debate on creationism versus evolution here on the RAZZY.org comment pages. While I'm hardly surprised that the obviously smart person who puts together the "Books et al" section of Science reads my website, I was a little shocked to see that they selected a book review to contribute to the debate.
The reviewer, Michael Ruse, doesn't think much of philosophy professor Steve Fuller's support of the intelligent design theory, either as an expert witness supporting its relevance in a Pennsylvania classroom or as a competent philosopher. This is probably not surprising, considering this review is published in America's most highly regarded science publication, which also happens to be called Science. However, Ruse nails exactly what those of us in the scientific community reject about intelligent design as a viable, reasonably sound theory on the origin of life. Specifically, after you strip away all the scientastic lingo intended to discredit Darwin's reasoning and give some sort of scientific credibility to Biblical accounts of the origin of the species, you're stuck with something that is based on faith and religious conviction rather than experimental evidence. Ruse scathingly notes:
Intelligent design theory is a form of Christianity made up to look like science. The judge correctly ruled that it has no place in science classrooms. Reading Dissent over Descent should not change anyone's verdict. As a historian and philosopher of science, I can only hope that the science community does not judge us all by Fuller's example.
Well said, Michael Ruse. Could you please get on my comment boards and start explaining this?
Oh, and is anyone besides me disappointed that last night during the VP debate Gwen Ifill didn't ask Sarah Palin if she really believes that Adam and Eve coexisted with the dinosaurs, and those dinosaurs weren't so much "dinosaurs" as mythic dragons? I wanted to see Joe Biden grimace smugly as she tried to tackle that question with Joe Six-Pack in mind. Missed opportunity, Gwen Ifill!
Labels: Dear God, nerd alert, scathing indictments, science
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
The Razzy.org monkey trial
When I wrote this past weekend's post about my planned Sarah Palin Halloween costume, I didn't expect to get that many comments, if any at all. Who really cares what my Halloween costume is beyond a couple "oh, ha ha, you're pretending that gross dog of yours is a baby with Downs syndrome" quips? Therefore, I was surprised when the comment section blew up with readers hotly debating the merits of evolution versus creationism. The back-and-forth is getting a little heated, so I figured it was high time I stepped into the fray. Besides, if you want to know about evolution from the top down, there's nobody better to ask than me. I'm one of the most highly evolved human beings the world has ever seen. This is true, and you'll find diagrams like the one below in most reputable biology textbooks. Look it up!
The comment that started all this was by the ever-wily "anonymous." Actually, it was a couple of anonymous comments, the first one suggesting that I shouldn't be so happy about voting for McCain because he's a dick and because he represents "extremists who want to ban books and teach creationism in public schools." This baited some anonymous creationist, who responded with the spark that ignited the powder keg:
Why is teaching creationism extremist? It takes more faith to believe in evolution than creation.
My buddy Morrissey'sHair vehemently disagreed with this, and proceeded to set it off with some of his patented comment page bitchery. Some other people got in on the action, and I have to say I can't blame them. The above comment makes no sense whatsoever to me, along with some of the quips this person has since posted, such as "I beleive [sic] there is more evidence for a Creator (not throwing religion around here) than there is for the evolution 'theory'" and "there is more proof for creation than evolution."
Before I get into why I think the theory of evolution is correct, however, I would like to note that I am also a creationist. I believe in God, and that this God created the heaven and the earth and the birds and the bees and all that trash. However, I don't believe that God did all this in 6 24-hour days and then took a day off exactly as described in the Book of Genesis. I am well aware that the Bible (or any other account of divine creation from other faiths) is not intended as a scientific text, and that the whole Adam and Eve business is a myth to explain a religious truth (God's omnipotence and creative power) rather than an accurate account of how the whole creation business went down. For this reason, I have never found my creationist beliefs as a Catholic to contradict my understanding of evolution as a fundamental principle of biology as a professional scientist. Belief in God is inherently a matter of faith, since God wouldn't be God if you could prove his existence or otherwise understand him by our imperfect human means. Therefore, if you believe in God, you can't prove anything about what he gets up to, and you'd be an ignorant moron to try and take some four millenia-old Hebrew mythology and try to spin it as credible evidence capable of proving or disproving any scientific theory. Creationism is an inherently unprovable belief, while the science that yielded the theory of evolution is a method for answering questions through experimentation and reason. Because reason and faith operate within different realms, I have never thought that creationism contradicted or disputed evolution, and I do not think they should even be discussed in the same conversation.
That said, the unfortunate proliferation of slow-witted, excessively religious idiots in this country have somehow convinced everyone that creationism, despite being entirely rooted in faith (which is by definition irrational), is a scientifically legitimate alternative theory to evolution. I don't care what faith your creation narrative of choice is based on; believing in a divine creator just because it suits your individual spiritual beliefs is a theory which cannot be proven or even tested experimentally, and thus has no business in a debate about biology in the first place. I think that the creationist movement has illustrated this by going out of their way to give "creationism" the trappings of science. I don't care if it's called "intelligent design;" if it's based on the notion that God is somehow involved, it's not scientific and has no business being described as such, much less taught in science classes. If you're going to teach "creationism" as legitimate science, then how do you even decide which creation story to go with? Who is to say there is any more proof backing the Judeo-Christian version of things than that earth was a chick named Gaia who banged a sky-dude named Uranus and begat the Titans? The fact is that the only "proof" behind any tale of divine creation is the conviction of the faithful who subscribe to that particular mythology and their selectively chosen claims about pseudoscientific instances of evolution being contradicted that only serve to illustrate their ignorance of biology.
I've noticed that the creationist crew likes to point out that evolution is a "theory," not a fact, and has busted out with a bunch of supposed "evidence" about how evolution contradicts nature. For example, evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics. For those of you who are rusty on your high school chemistry, let me remind you that this is also known as the law of entropy, or the notion that all ordered systems proceed toward disorder. The creationists argue that since Darwinism mandates beings evolving to a "higher" or "better" state of being, this can't be consistent with our understanding of entropy. However, this argument ignores the molecular basis for evolution, which is genetic mutation. As a commenter correctly pointed out, this is a random process, both in terms of how mutation is generated and the environmental conditions that lead to specific mutations being selected. Now that we have the technology available to sequence and apply bioinformatics to entire genomes, we can trace specific genetic changes between evolutionary relatives. For example, we can use sophisticated analytical techniques to mine sequence data and determine roughly when the human lineage diverged from the common ancestor we share with our closest primate relative, the chimpanzee. Suggesting that evolution has a "goal" to somehow result in a "higher" or "better" being demonstrates nothing save ignorance about the molecular basis of life. But just in case it isn't enough to point out that the old "second law of thermodynamics" attempt at disproving evolution is a bust, I should point out that a proper application of scientific fundamentals also negates creationism. The laws of conservation of mass and energy essentially demonstrate that something (whether matter or energy, and life certainly constitutes BOTH) cannot be created from nothing, which is inconveniently THE essential feature of any creationist hypothesis. I suppose it is convenient supporting a theory that allows the most fundamental principles of any branch of science to be violated due to the presence of an omnipotent God.
Another pseudoscientific argument I expected to come up in this debate is the issue of "microevolution," and sure enough, I was not disappointed. The concept of "microevolution" has been developed by the so-called "intelligent design" community to discount experimental data supporting evolution. Microevolution is the notion that changes occur at or below the species level (such as phenotypic differences in dog breeds or pathogenic bacteria evolving drug resistance due to antibiotic overuse), but not at a larger level (such as dinosaurs evolving into modern-day birds). The only difference is the time scale, as over millions versus thousands of years, organisms accumulate more and more mutations distinguishing them from their evolutionary progenitors. I suspect what the creationists like to call "macroevolution"–or distinction at higher taxonomic levels–will be proven eventually. The only difference between genetic variations distinguishing an eagle from a hawk compared to those distinguishing a velociraptor from any extant bird are the cumulation of many mutations over time. Unfortunately, we can't extract high-quality DNA from dinosaurs to prove they are the "macro"-evolutionary ancestors of birds with existing technology. As soon as we do have that technology, I expect that the fossil record will be linked by molecular means rather than the simple linking of common phenotypic traits. I find the evidence of "microevolution" extremely convincing that ALL evolution proceeds in this manner from personal experience.
I work on RNA viruses, which are probably the fastest-evolving almost-organisms known to science (viruses are "almost-organisms" since they are not technically alive, as they can't reproduce without a host cell). RNA viruses have an incredibly high mutation rate, because the enzymes that copy their genomes have an incredibly high error rate. These enzymes, known as RNA polymerases, make an error in replicating genomes 10 times more frequently than DNA polymerases. Also, unlike DNA polymerases, they don't have reliable proofreading capabilities. Also, RNA viruses can reproduce in 6-12 hours, meaning that between their rapid generation time and high mutation rate, they can "evolve" right in your lab incubator. If I want to make a rhinovirus that grows well in mouse cells, for example, I can just culture rhinovirus in mouse cells over and over again. Eventually I will select variants which are adapted to growth in mouse cells, and in fact, I have...that's the basis of my entire doctoral thesis. The intelligent design people can call this, as well as similar variant selection strategies for bacteria and other rapidly dividing microbes, "microevolution" to dismiss it as an actual example supporting Darwin's theory. However, this is no different than evolution of larger organisms over longer periods of time. We can never see humans evolve into different species because our generation time spans decades rather than hours, and we are complex multicellular organisms that need to accumulate more mutations to display an obvious phenotype, much less one significant enough to be considered a divergent species. However, it happens the same way for humans, dinosaurs, whales, and anything else with a genome made of nucleic acids that it does with RNA viruses. I don't see how any reasonable, intelligent person can say that maybe "evolution" in the form of genotypic mutations resulting in the selection of particular phenotypic variants more adapted to growth in their environmental conditions occurs only in the microbial world, but every other living thing on earth was created on days 4-6 of the Genesis narrative.
I doubt that I've convinced anyone on the merits of the "theory" of evolution who was already determined that creationism is more reasonable, more probable, or less extremist. In fact, as I've been working on this post, the debate has raged on and culminated in the creationist implying that all the evolutionists are going to Hell. While that's not explicitly stated, I certainly know a veiled burn-in-Hell threat when I see one:
Oh course there's really only one way to test this theory, and we ALL will test it one day, die. Of course if I'm wrong, what's my loss, I'm dead. If you're wrong well...You better be 100% sure you're right, you have much more to lose than I do.
One thing I am 100% sure about is that our death and ascension to the afterlife is a pretty shitty test of which theory is right. I have no idea whether or not anyone gets filled in on how God rolls with running the life game once they die. Furthermore, I have a hard time believing that using what I consider our God-given reason to accept a theory that has been extensively proven by a number of experiments and observations is something meriting eternal damnation. For one thing, as I said before, I am a creationist who ALSO fully subscribes to the theory of evolution. Evolution doesn't exclude divine creation; it just excludes the six day creation theory. In fact, the more I know about evolution, the more impressed I am at how brilliant God's creation actually is. If anything, I think evolution supports the existence of God more than excludes or denies it, so I hardly think it's something worthy of a neverending trip to perdition. Of course, in my case, this is probably a moot point since St. Peter's just going to take a gander at my file and send me straight to the "Down" escalator, but I doubt it's going to be because I think evolution is a valid and convincing explanation for the wonders of the living world. That's one thing I have a certain measure of faith in.
Labels: Dear God, nerd alert, Razzyphiles, retard rage, science
Friday, September 26, 2008
What would Ishtar do?
I am not the kind of girl who usually gets very emotionally attached to people I'm sleeping with. In fact, I usually treat many of the people–especially the fellas–I bang with something almost like contempt. I kick them out of my apartment and my life when I've finished using them for my own gratification, I resent them for liking me on occasions when they do, and I look for mistakes they make so that I can objectify and criticize them, and thus avoid any unpleasant emotional entanglements that might make me seem vulnerable, imperfect, or otherwise human. As LL Cool Jew explained to me the other day, "you're just allergic to the idea of being uncool, and you equate uncool with intimacy." I don't know if "uncool" is the right word, but she's definitely right about me fearing that in the course of sleeping with somebody, I might actually like them, develop some type of a–ahem–relationship with them, and let them get a look at my soft underbelly. Then usually the whole thing goes south somehow, and I'm living out my eponymous Rolling Stones song. My kisses still taste sweet and there ain't a woman that comes close to me, but Angie, ain't it time we said goodbye?
Okay, so maybe she looks like what would happen if someone combined essential elements of Goser the Gozerian, Marilyn Chambers, and an 80s aerobics instructor-by-day, stripper-by-night and airbrushed it on the side of a child molester van, but this is the kind of hooker-ass prostitute I can get behind with some sacrilegious worship when I need to get my bitch legs back. Any lady with such a seriously hot wardrobe, a battle lion, and a fighting force of knife-wielding courtesans with bad Ogilvie home perms can definitely perk me up when I'm feeling too emotional and sad about my love life. From now on, when life throws me a "boo hoo, things didn't go your way" kind of curve ball, fuck Jesus. I'm going to ask myself what Ishtar would do. WWID!
On occasions when I do wind up sleeping with someone I like, developing some sort of relationship with that person, and then fucking the whole thing up, like the Angie of the song I get a little sadness in my eyes. Okay, I get a lot of sadness in my eyes sometimes, because secretly I'm extremely sensitive and usually end up looking and feeling like a walking Morrissey song. In situations where someone clearly screws me over, I unleash Razzy in full force by going on a scotch-fueled bender in which I revenge-fuck half of New York as effigies of my offender and vow utter destruction (or at least drink-throwing and public humiliation) upon the hapless fool who squandered the rare blessing of seeing the soft, sweet, vulnerable side of me that I regard as a dirty secret. I validate every sucker who believes in astrology and embody the typical Scorpio, a fury of sex, war, passion, and vengeance. I make the person who hurt my feelings my sworn enemy, and vow to smote his ruin upon the mountainside. I will not rest until his ass is jobless, penniless, homeless, and hairless. Or, since those things are actually and unfortunately out of my power to effect, at least cause him some trouble in terms of getting laid in the future.
Then, there are the situations in which the other person is not the bad guy. These are the situations in which things fail due to circumstances beyond my or the other party's control, and I can't raise my battle standard and recoup my pride in righteous anger. These are the situations where failure just happens and it's unfortunate and shitty, but nobody is really to blame. These instances are more difficult for me to deal with, because without a target for relief in the form of directed rage, I instead feel the profound sadness of life just not being fair.
A lot of people turn to religion to make sense of such senseless scenarios, but I've found that Catholicism does little to console me. In fact, it makes me feel worse most of the time because I've landed squarely on the "whore" side of the Catholic virgin-whore dichotomy of femaleness, and am reaping the fruits of all the cautionary tales I was told about this as a little girl in school: emotionally damaged, rejected as "marriage material," unfit for motherhood, and reviled or pitied by the so-called "respectable" people of the world. Because both my inner rational thinker and my inner radical femi-nazi with "RIOT GRRL" written on her knuckles thinks this all an unfair bullshit construct designed to keep female sexuality and independence from interfering with the sexually frustrated patriarchy that makes the rules over in Rome, I don't think that dealing with relationship failures with Jesus is a very good solution for me. Jesus can handle business when it comes to the fate of my immortal soul, but he sucks ass at making me feel better about life's emotional disappointments. It's hard for me to put my emotions in the hands of a dude whose method of consoling skanks involves letting them wash his feet with their tears. That doesn't sound like it will be particularly helpful to me.
Thus, blasphemous though it may be, I have to turn to the pantheon of pagan deities for a little relief in the Angie-don't-you-weep department. Obviously this is something I'm going through now, and last night as I was mulling things over, I happened to be reading a book about sluts throughout history. I came across an account of the Babylonian goddess Ishtar (or Inanna, if you prefer Sumerian mythology). Ishtar was basically the skank ruler of the Babylonian pantheon, and she's my new hero. From what I can tell, she fucked her younger husband to death, went to the underworld to fetch him, got into the underworld by threatening to break in and unleash a zombie apocalypse upon the living, waltzed in stripping, got thrown into the Hell jail and tortured with some sort of apt slut punishment called "the sixty diseases," and was sprung when she put a halt to all sex on earth until her ass was freed. Then, when her resurrected husband was chilling back on earth and not missing her at all, she sent his sorry ass back to Hell! Another time, when some loser named Gilgamesh denied her, she set a bull on him, and that resulted in Gilgamesh and his asshole bros shaking the bull's leg at her in rage while she gathered her loyal army of prostitutes and mocked him with a big orgy. I mean, just look at this slag!
Labels: Dear God, for serious people, Razzification
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Daily Dude I Want to Hit: U.S. Army Spc. Jeremy Hall
DOB: 1985???
Occupation: patriotic atheist
Hometown: ???
Current residence: Fort Riley, Kansas
Why I Want to Hit that Hotness: According to an article on CNN.com, Jeremy Hall was raised Baptist, but then he took up with some atheists and decided that was more his speed, so he rejected Josh Christ as his Lord and Savior. Converting to atheism or any other spiritual belief is 100% cool with the Constitution, and one might think that the dudes in the army (where Jeremy Hall is employed) would be okay with Spc. Hall exercising his constitutional rights. However, this is the military still boasting George W. Bush as its commander-in-chief and that apparently means onward, Christian soldiers. He was passed up for promotions because his inability to pray with the troops meant he wouldn't make a good leader. He was so harassed by his fellow men in uniform that the Army had to assign him a full-time bodyguard for his own safety. Therefore, Jeremy decided to do what any freedom-loving, red-blooded American would do: he's suing the tits off the Army, the Department of Defense, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
I applaud Jeremy for taking a stand, because from personal experience, I know that nobody should have to put up with harassment or intimidation at work. I also can only imagine it must be especially difficult in Jeremy's line of work. Apparently on his last tour in Iraq, his Humvee was attacked and he was nearly killed, and the first thing his fellow soldier said to him was, "Do you believe in Jesus now?" On other occasions his life was threatened, which sounds to me like behavior JC would surely condone. I know that Jesus, who all but said, "Hey, dudes, crucify me if you're so fucking intent upon doing so," preached humility and turning the other cheek, and forgave his Jupiter-worshiping Roman executioners, was totally the type who would make an exception from his generally pacifist teachings to kick some God-rejecting faggot's ass. Those Army evangelicals are certainly the embodiment of Christian love and compassion.
I find that attitude especially obnoxious, as I am a Christian myself. In fact, I'm Catholic, and we've since learned our lesson about getting too much Jesus in our military affairs. About a thousand years ago, Pope Urban II got this hare-brained notion that we should reclaim the Holy Land in Jesus's name, and so began the Crusades. Those worked so well that not only did we not take back Jerusalem, we ensured that the entire world thought we were a bunch of marauding, rapacious assholes. Not content with learning our lesson about militarily-imposed zealotry from the damn Crusades, another brilliant series of (probably insanely corrupt, affair-having, wealth-hoarding) popes decided to throw a party called the Inquisition, except by "party" I mean "witch hunt terrorizing Jews, Protestants, scientists, and anyone else with a brain having different ideas from the Catholics." That worked out well; thanks to the Inquisition, my religious faith can now be associated with things like the Iron Maiden, the rack, and stake-burnings. In fact, my own church didn't realize until John Paul II's hot ass decided to apologize to the entire world for the Crusades and the Inquistion. And the conquest of the Americas. And persecuting Galileo. And the church's involvement in the slave trade. And the Vatican's complicity in the Holocaust (basically, Pope Pius XII sitting around jerking off while the Nazis deported the Jews of Rome under his nose). My faith has at least finally realized how violently forcing our religious beliefs down other people's throats is sinful and contrary to the message of Christ, though it took us over a millenium to man up and say sorry. I guess that means sometime around the year 3500 the evangelicals will catch on that running their own Crusades (otherwise known as the Iraq War) is wrong, and so is hating on their brothers in arms who have exercised the religious freedom we are supposedly fighting the war to defend.
I have to give props to Jeremy Hall for being a true patriot and demanding that the Army recognize his right to choose atheism as a spiritual belief. I also give props to his buddy Michael Weinstein, a retired Air Force officer and director for the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, who joined the suit with him and is using it as an excuse to make awesome statements to the press. After pointing out that he has received complaints about religious persecution from over 8,000 service members, Michael made a bunch of sharp statements criticizing the "Pentacostalgon" needing to get the message that our brave soldiers need have only one religion on the battlefield: patriotism. And whether the person in our military is a fundamentalist Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, or an atheist, they are making a sacrifice for our country and deserve better than threats from one another over religious freedom. I hope Jeremy Hall owns the Pentacostalgon's ass.
Labels: Catholicism, Daily Dude I Want to Hit, Dear God, defiance, hot dudes, legal drama, United States of Asskickery
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Jesus would upstage all of our bitch asses
There is this crackhead couple that lives in my building, and they both drive me insane. The dude--who perpetually has a gigantic, purulent, oozing sore on his lip that I'm convinced is a herpes lesion amalgamated with a festering pipe burn--is always trying to tell me how to handle my dogs, and the chick is always hitting on me. Both are missing many teeth, smell, lack basic hygiene skills, act sketchy, and are basically what you would expect to see if you looked up "crackhead" in the dictionary. They are always trying to talk to me, and while I know I should tell them "fuck off, crackies," I simultaneously realize that they are pathetic crack addicts and I should have a more Christian attitude towards them.
However, the more I think about it, the more the prospect of having a more Christian attitude pisses me off. Surely if I asked myself "what would Jesus do?" when faced with a babbling, dentally challenged woman bobbing up and down like a fighting cock on meth speaking nonsense about the legendary beauty of my blonde hair (a favorite topic of hers is adulation of my Helen of Troy-esque looks, which just goes to show you how fucking delusional she is), he would not tell her to fuck off. The Gospels are replete with tales of Jesus befriending lepers, whores, tax collectors, the possessed (AKA schizophrenic and otherwise mentally ill), the blind, the deaf, the dumb, the lame (and by that I mean crippled), and anyone else who was an outcast way back when in Caesar Augustus-ruled Israel. Supposedly I'm to be nice and accepting to the crackheads, and invite them back to my apartment for a grilled cheese and a beer.
However, "what would Jesus do?" is a pretty fucking unfair standard. Unlike me, Jesus had the ability to take care of the whole crack addiction problem with a snap of his damn divine fingers. He didn't have to worry about being robbed blind by the crackheads he invited home for a number of reasons. All he had to do was order that pesky lust for crack into a herd of pigs, send them trotting off a cliff, and problem solved (although I bet the pig farmer didn't much appreciate seeing his annual income run squealing into the Sea of Galilee). Since he could instantly cure almost any socially repugnant malady, it was no big deal for Jesus to clean their asses up and invite the freshly cured and probably extremely grateful crackheads to wherever.
Furthermore, Jesus didn't have to worry about being a gracious host once those recently Christianized crackheads came over, since he could also conveniently turn water into wine and bust loaves and fishes out of his ass whenever he felt like it. Even if the crackheads hadn't completely gotten rid of their old habits of stealing and freeloading, Jesus could basically replace anything they ran off with because he had son-of-God skills. In fact, I went to Catholic school for twelve years and I've done a lot of Bible-reading in my time, and I can't think of a single Gospel account in which Jesus buys ANYTHING. Every time he needed something, whether it was more hooch at a rowdy Canaan wedding, snacks for the faithful at the OG Billy Graham crusade, or a convenient storm to prove his awesomeness to his boys when they doubted him, Jesus could make it happen. I can't make that happen efficiently enough to allow crackheads into my house.
Actually, Jesus didn't have to worry about crackheads fucking up his house since he DIDN'T SEEM TO HAVE ONE. No matter what you saw in The Passion of the Caviezel (including the part where Jesus supposedly invented the modern table), the Gospels don't say a damn word about where the hell Jesus actually hung his sandals. From what Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John tell me, Jesus was a damn homeless wandering hippie. So he could bring home all the strays and degenerates he wanted, because it was SOMEONE ELSE'S HOUSE! What the hell is it to Jesus and his non-materialistic ass if the crackheads of 33 A.D.-era Galilee trash Lazarus and his sisters' house? It's not his crap they're going to jack or destroy. It's not his hard-earned fishing money that they're going to burn through like a pound of schwag at a Phish concert. And if anyone complains about that, Jesus will just be like, "Why don't you go ask the fucking Jewish elders what I do when people get uptight about money? Those Pharisees are still pissed that I cost them like ten trillion shekels over at the temple/public marketplace when I got my righteous outrage on! And by the way, how dope was that when I ran around overturning tables? You wish you were born from a virgin womb, bitches." In other words, Jesus is an ungrateful hippie who feels entitled to do everything just because he CHOSE to be poor. For that matter, he chose to be crucified just to make a point. That whole "why have you forsaken me?" nonsense on the cross was just for dramatic effect. TRUST! Attention whore.
Now I'm probably going to hell for all this shit-talking about Jesus, and I'd like to say for the record that Jesus is still my Lord and Savior and all that. Judging by the company he kept, he clearly loved the skanky types, and if he could cure leprosy, I bet he could cure a mean case of the herp too (and I'm not one of the 26% of New Yorkers who have herpes, but that doesn't mean I couldn't be someday). Plus, he died for my sins, and I've done a lot of sinning, so I appreciate his efforts to put me in one of the nice Bosch paintings as opposed to the ones where random demons are shitting out souls who hate on JC. However, suggesting that I ask myself what the fuck Jesus would do with the crackheads is irrelevant, because that fucking granola-ass hippie would probably work some divine magic that I simply cannot do. I'd love to have the whole city over and be like, "who wants chips and salsa?" and pass around plates of the same that never exhausted themselves. I'd love to run around singlehandedly curing infectious diseases with mud and some Messianic hocus-pocus. I'd love to respond to capital punishment by springing out of my tomb after three days and be like, "HA, suckers! I bet you wish you asked Pontius Pilate to crucify Barabbas! Kiss my resurrected ass!" However, I have to avoid getting killed because I can't just sleep it off and pop out of my shroud and ascend to heaven amidst a big show for my followers. Even if I could rise from the dead, I can't send the average Razzyphile's drunken stupor into a herd of pigs, so my followers would probably be too hung over to show up at my tomb before dawn after a couple days with herbs and spices or whatever.
In other words, quit asking me to apply what Jesus would do to my life, because I can't do 99% of it. Therefore, the next time one of those crackheads tells me I'm beautiful or they like my dogs, I'm going to do what Razzy would do. Specifically, I'm going to tell them, "Look, I hate you both! NEVER talk to me again!"
Labels: Dear God, drugs, NYC, Razzification
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Jesus would approve
My friend, Razzyphile, and fellow blogger Gayman e-mailed me the other day asking if I'd ever heard of the website bigchurch.com. I had not, because--and I know you will all be filled with disbelief at this revelation--I'm not trying to score honeys on the fundamentalist Christian dating circuit.
Hard as it may be to believe, I did not meet the mystery guy I like on bigchurch.com. It would be amazing if I had, since he's not even Christian. Furthermore, I suspect that bigchurch.com's members don't "share the same spiritual beliefs" as myself, unless it's opposite day and their spiritual beliefs include a deep devotion to alcohol consumption, hitting it with girls on the side, and daily masturbation. "Christian" sounds to me like "not Catholic" and especially "not a bad, sinful, depraved ex-Catholic schoolgirl bisexual slut machine a la yours truly." I'm not trying to meet a cheesy Richard Marx-meets-Jason Priestley type such as the Bible boy above, and even if I were, I'd probably go try to find him at an actual church rather than bigchurch.com.
Gayman did not, however, send me this link in the hopes that my prayers of finding a respectable man would be answered. Rather, he did a bit of research into bigchurch.org, and discovered that it's owned by an unlikely media empire:
I wonder how all those devout Christians on bigchurch.com would feel knowing that their dating website is owned by one of the world's most infamous porn empires. I'm pretty sure that even if the folks seeking pious future spouses on bigchurch.com don't approve of or consider Penthouse's content congruous with their spiritual beliefs, Jesus would be down. He was always partying with hookers, tax collectors, lepers, and the other sinful freaks of greater Galilee and Judea, so I imagine he'd be just fine with pornographers diversifying their brands to grab some market share in the world of online Christian dating. Okay, maybe it's not exactly what Jesus would do himself, but I bet he's cool with it.
I wonder how all those devout Christians on bigchurch.com would feel knowing that their dating website is owned by one of the world's most infamous porn empires. I'm pretty sure that even if the folks seeking pious future spouses on bigchurch.com don't approve of or consider Penthouse's content congruous with their spiritual beliefs, Jesus would be down. He was always partying with hookers, tax collectors, lepers, and the other sinful freaks of greater Galilee and Judea, so I imagine he'd be just fine with pornographers diversifying their brands to grab some market share in the world of online Christian dating. Okay, maybe it's not exactly what Jesus would do himself, but I bet he's cool with it.
And since my Aunt Jesus is in the market for a sanctimonious scripture-spouting boyfriend, maybe I should pass along the link to bigchurch.com to her. Then at her wedding reception, I'll give a totally inappropriate impromptu speech thanking Penthouse AND God for bringing them together. Man, that would be so awesome.
Labels: Aunt Jesus, capitalism, correspondence, Dear God, internet domination, porn, Razzyphiles
Monday, May 05, 2008
Daily Douchebag: Shaun Alexander
Name: Shaun Edward Alexander
DOB: August 30, 1977
Occupation: unemployed NFL running back
Hometown: Florence, Kentucky
Current residence: somewhere near Seattle, Washington...I'm thinking Renton-ish, since he goes to church in Sea-Tac
Douchebaggery: I could have written a douchebagging of Shaun Alexander at any point last year, as could probably anyone else who had him on a Fantasy roster. I was fortunate enough not to have selected him, but as a Seahawks fan, I spent the entire decision being keenly disgusted with the prominent way he still managed to figure into our offensive schemes despite the fact that I could probably outrun him. In fact, I think you could dangle a piece of homeless guy shit in the opposing team's end zone and strap a ball to Chingy!'s back, and he'd probably score more touchdowns than Alexander.
I was delighted when the Seahawks signed Julius Jones and T.J. Duckett this off-season. Granted, neither of them are exactly spring chickens, but either has got to be faster than Alexander and their signing meant the inevitable was on the way: Alexander was getting his ass unceremoniously sliced off our roster. I'm not the only Seahawks fan who feels this way. Last week I got an e-mail from Swirly, one of my internet Razzyphiles who was also feeling the hate:
please, oh please, you should really douchebag shaun alexander. after that you should commend the 'hawks for cutting his bible-thumping, ineffective rushing, pass-dropping, over-paid ass. i am so happy to see him leave, i mean GET CUT!!!! shaun alexander, former pro-bowler, getting cut FTW. iLuvIt!Yes, dude, like Young Jeezy, I luv it as well and extend my commendations to the Hawks for finally dropping the axe on Alexander's slow ass. Good fucking riddance. Too bad even though he's probably going to keep a spot on the Bengals' bench warm (something I'm sure my friend and Fantasy rival Unicorn Dick, a die-hard Bengals fan, is going to love almost as much as the decline and fall of Ocho Cinco), Alexander has vowed to remain in the Seattle area. This is because he's beholden to our local born-again Christian cult, the Christian Faith Center. This is one of those mega-churches that includes light shows and other flashy means of compelling the faithful to praise Jesus. Oh, and by "praise Jesus" I mean "open their wallets and get more publicity for their media whore pastor, the Reverend Casey Treat." When the whole Barack Obama-Rev. Wright debacle was occurring last week while I was home in the P-N-Dub, my mother said, "You know, I bet that Casey Treat is watching this thinking, 'Maybe we could do something like this, look at all the publicity that Rev. Wright is getting!'" She's onto something. I think it's only a matter of time before Casey Treat gets his claws into some local politician and pulls some similar stunt. Now that Alexander has generally fallen out of the good graces of the region's 12th men (and his PR stock has been going down since 2006), Casey Treat needs to find a new local celebrity to exploit STAT.
While I'm annoyed that Alexander and his Biblically-named brood (his kids are named Heaven, Trinity, and Eden...LAME) will remain in the P-N-Dub, at least I no longer have to be irritated by Holmgren inexplicably looking to him for a 3rd and 16 conversion (I mean, what the fuck?! He did this during that ill-fated playoff game against the Packers last January. I don't care if your running back is Speedy Fucking Gonzalez, how the fuck do you think that call is a good idea, ESPECIALLY when you have Slow-and-not-Steady Alexander carrying the ball and possibly fumbling it? Really...what the fuck?!?!?!). I'm ready to root for Julius Jones and ready to hear no more evil about Jesus Christ and how he's (not) helping the Seahawks' running game this fall. Much later, Shaun.
Labels: assholes, Daily Douchebag, Dear God, NFL football, Seahawks
Friday, May 02, 2008
Praying for expulsion from the 700 Club
I don't recall ever signing up for bulletins from the Christian Broadcasting Network, but nonetheless, I received this piece of choice correspondence in my Gmail inbox the other day:
If I did sign up to be considered among the CBN's "partners," I must have been really, really, REALLY drunk. Usually the 700 Club doesn't jive with my Roman popery very well (they don't like the idolatry of the Virgin and saints, our seven sacraments, our pervasive guilt, or our consequent alcoholism and/or sluttery), so I can't imagine I'd reach out to them asking for occasional solicitations. I don't even listen to my own church leader, the infinitely creepy Pope Benedixteen, so I can't imagine I would feel a need to hit up Pat Robertson. I wonder if my Aunt Jesus is behind this. Now that we're not speaking, it wouldn't surprise me if she resorted to signing me up for e-mail from the Reverend Pat Robertson as a roundabout way of reiterating that the ultimate destination of my immortal soul is HELL!
In spite of not being able to solve the mystery of how I wound up on this mailing list, I shrugged and figured I could always use an extra prayer or two. Why not let the fundamentalists' self-proclaimed hotline to Jesus work for me a little? So I clicked on the "Sexual Problems" link, since I figure that's where I can use the most help. Granted, my only "sexual problems" are desiring to have more sexual partners and not getting out of lab enough to find them, but I wouldn't complain if Jesus sent a few more hot lays my way. I mean, I have great tits, and I just got my hair highlighted, and I wear V-neck shirts with push-up bras, but a little extra divine assistance can't hurt in terms of racking up more conquests. Besides, I could do a good deed for society by chastising the more literal Bible crowd for hating on other people's sex lives and orientations. Jesus could help them out by alleviating their judgmental prudishness! So I sent this request, since it is, after all, "a privilege" to pray for me:
I would like you to pray for all the Christians in the world who can't accept that gays, lesbians, bisexuals (especially switch-hitting sluts like myself), and transgendered persons are part of God's great plan and creation, and that God loves them dearly. I pray that these homophobic bigots don't burn in hell, but rather receive Christ's infinite mercy.Also, in terms of sexual problems, the main one I have is not getting enough ("enough" would be classified as doubling up on the nightly). Please ask JC to send more honeys my way. He knows lots of prostitutes. It should be a piece of cake for him.
That ought to do it. Any day now, Fred Phelps will get out of the "God Hates Fags" business, gays will have equal civil rights as straights, and I'll be getting laid like a fucking porn star. Father-Son-Holy Spirit, Amen!
Labels: Aunt Jesus, Catholicism, correspondence, Dear God, sluts
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Where my Jews at?
To those Razzyphiles who are members of the tribe, I wish to extend my fondest, warmest, gushiest Passover wishes to you and your families. I meant to pass this along last Saturday, but being the ignorant, self-involved shikse that I am, I forgot. Besides, I was distracted by the Pope being here in NYC, and if you ask my Aunt Jesus anyway, we Catholics worship our Papal Lord atop his throne at the Holy See (along with all those idolatrous saints). So please forgive my tardiness in giving a shout-out to God's chosen people.
To make up for my lateness, I thought I would share Passover greetings sent to me by one of my Razzyphiles, L&L. The second "L" in L&L's name stands for "Lamont," her (fucking adorable) French bulldog. If Lamont lived in NYC rather than Canada, I suspect he and Chingy! would become fast friends on the basis of their mutual disgusting stankness, and the fact that Lamont pulls shit like this:
Well, L&L appropriated Lamont to celebrate Passover via some cute-ass Photoshopping, and I thought I would share in celebration. L'chaim, Jewish Razzyphiles!
Labels: Dear God, doggity style, Razzyphiles
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Daily Douchebag: Ben Stein
DOB: November 25, 1944
Occupation: lawyer, law professor, Nixon and Ford White House speechwriter, comedian, Darwin hater
Hometown: Washington, DC
Current residence: Malibu, California and Sandpoint, Idaho
Douchebaggery: I'd like to start by saying that I've always liked Ben Stein. He seems smart and I enjoy his dry sense of humor. Up until now, I've never had any issues with Ben Stein. However, I just saw an ad for his new documentary, EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed. Initially I thought this was going to be a film about Ben Stein making fun of academics being assholes. So I went to his blog. I was seriously annoyed at what I read:
I’m Ben Stein – many of you know me from the classic film, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” or from my Comedy Central show “Win Ben Stein’s Money”. Still others of you may know me as a speechwriter, for presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. You may even have read my books, attended one of my lectures at The American University, Washington DC, or seen me on the talk shows.
I’m glad you found this site, because I want to share with you my thoughts from time to time here about a subject that is very near and dear to me: freedom. EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed is a controversial, soon-to-be-released documentary that chronicles my confrontation with the widespread suppression and entrenched discrimination that is spreading in our institutions, laboratories and most importantly, in our classrooms, and that is doing irreparable harm to some of the world’s top scientists, educators, and thinkers.
America is not America without freedom. In every turning point in our history, freedom has been the key goal we are seeking: the Mayflower coming here, the Revolution, the Civil War, World War II, the Cold War. Tens of millions came here from foreign oppression and made a life here. Why? For freedom. Human beings are supposed to live in a state of freedom. Freedom is not conferred by the state: as our founders said, and as Martin Luther King repeated, freedom is God-given.
A huge part of this freedom is freedom of inquiry.
Freedom of inquiry is basic to human advancement. There would be no modern medicine, no antibiotics, no brain surgery, no Internet, no air conditioning, no modern travel, no highways, no knowledge of the human body without freedom of inquiry.
This includes the ability to inquire whether a higher power, a being greater than man, is involved with how the universe operates. This has always been basic to science. ALWAYS.
Some of the greatest scientists of all time, including Galileo, Newton, Einstein, operated under the hypothesis that their work was to understand the principles and phenomena as designed by a creator.
Operating under that hypothesis, they discovered the most important laws of motion, gravity, thermodynamics, relativity, and even economics.
Now, I am sorry to say, freedom of inquiry in science is being suppressed.
Under a new anti-religious dogmatism, scientists and educators are not allowed to even think thoughts that involve an intelligent creator. Do you realize that some of the leading lights of “anti-intelligent design” would not allow a scientist who merely believed in the possibility of an intelligent designer/creator to work for him… EVEN IF HE NEVER MENTIONED the possibility of intelligent design in the universe?EVEN FOR HIS VERY THOUGHTS… HE WOULD BE BANNED.
In today’s world, at least in America, an Einstein or a Newton or a Galileo would probably not be allowed to receive grants to study or to publish his research.Since when has Ben Stein appointed himself the honorary Kansas Board of Education anti-evolution spokeswhore? Granted, I thought the whole "Bueller...? Bueller...?" was genius, but his portrayal of a public school teacher didn't make me think that he was qualified to tell them what to teach.
They cannot even mention the possibility that–as Newton or Galileo believed–these laws were created by God or a higher being. They could get fired, lose tenure, have their grants cut off. This can happen. It has happened. EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed comes to theaters near you in February 2008. To learn more, check out my blog here often … and explore the rest of our site for new developments, or to volunteer to help spread the word.
Sincerely,
Ben Stein
I agree with Ben that freedom is the essential American tenet, and that freedom of inquiry is one of the most basic aspects to human advancement. I also agree that this is essential to science. However, when he gets into complaining about the "anti-religious dogmatism" aspect of his argument, I start to roll my eyes. While Ben Stein is surely knowledgeable in matters of law, political speechwriting, and conservative economics, I absolutely disagree that any kind of religion has any place in the realm of science or science education.
I am a scientist. In spite of what people might think about my sex life or my ridiculousness or my attention whorishness or my writing, my actual job is experimental science. I know my shit and I am good at it. I have been working in a lab since I was sixteen. That's almost FOURTEEN YEARS at the fucking bench. I think that, in spite of my unfortunate tendency to generate negative data since I've gotten into the mouse business, I am very proficient at this task. I respect my PI, and I know that he would not have welcomed me into his lab or tolerated my many non-scientific scandals if he didn't think I was a competent and talented scientist who would be a credit to his legacy. My competency is inexorably linked to my ability to design and execute experiments effectively.
I am also a religious person. I am Catholic, and though I wasn't confirmed and I'm tremendously lousy at living up to church rules (particularly those regarding sexuality), I believe in God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit and the Immaculate Conception and the Virgin Birth and all that dogmatic crap. I believe that God is the ultimate creator, and life would not be here without God.
That said, there is no way that God can be tested experimentally. Ben Stein might bitch that scientists might not be able to get grants addressing the role of the divine in creation, but has this fucker ever tried to get a RO1 grant? It's almost impossible to get a damn grant in this current economy and NIH budget even with the most direct, promising project. My PI is such an expert in his field that he wrote a damn textbook. He did his postdoc with a very famous Nobel laureate, he has the distinction of being the first in his field to achieve a major milestone when he cloned and sequenced a virus in the late seventies, and you ought to see his Wikipedia page. He is an endowed full professor at Columbia and nonetheless, he had trouble securing his last grant. Grants are hard to come by these days thanks to the Bush administration's emphasis (or lack thereof) on supporting scientific research. How on earth could a review committee (or "study section," in NIH parlance) justify a grant addressing the role of a higher power in creation? How do you design experiments to test something like that? If anyone has any ideas as to what controls you could include in such an experiment, I would love to hear them. Einstein, Newton, and Galileo may have been men of faith, but that doesn't mean they incorporated their religious beliefs into the methods they used to evaluate their theories experimentally. Just because Einstein, Newton, and Galileo believed in God doesn't mean they included that in all the ball-dropping or stargazing or number-crunching that characterized their greatest scientific achievements.
I went to Catholic school for twelve years. In high school, I was taught both the theory of evolution and scientific creationism (this was before "intelligent design" was employed to give the latter more intellectual credibility). We were taught that they aren't incompatible. Catholics don't interpret the Bible literally, so it's not like I'm bound by my faith to believe that the world was created in seven days exactly as the Old Testament says. I definitely do not think that the theory of evolution excludes the possibility of a divine creator. I can (and do) believe that evolution was God's means of creating life as we know it. However, I have no idea how I could go into lab and test this hypothesis. Science is a method for understanding the physical truth of our world. Science is not a substitute or a competitor for religious faith, and it's irresponsible to suggest that a religious element needs to be added to science education in public schools if only because it distracts from teaching kids about the scientific method as the divine falls outside the realm of testable hypotheses.
Ben Stein is smart when it comes to economics and political commentary and making fun of dumbasses. However, until he throws on a lab coat and executes a well-designed, properly-controlled experiment, he needs to quit bitching about "Big Science" conspiring like Big Tobacco to systematically eliminate God from the classroom. Science doesn't exclude the possibility of God, and operating under any kind of assumption about the influence of the divine isn't "intelligent" or faithful to the rational methods of inquiry that Galileo, Newton, and Einstein themselves employed. Stick to awarding titles like "America's Most Smartest Model," Ben.
Labels: Daily Douchebag, Dear God, movies, retard rage, science
Monday, April 07, 2008
Daily Dude I Want to Hit: Alfred Hrdlicka
DOB: February 27, 1928
Occupation: sacrilegious painter
Hometown: Vienna, Austria
Current residence: Vienna, Austria
Why I Want to Hit that Hotness: Alfred is a geriatric painter beloved by Austrians. I guess they love him as much as Mozart, tortes, waltzing, and sausage, which are the only Viennese experts I can think of offhand. Those and the cinnamon-flavored General Foods International Coffee, which I think is called Cafe Vienna, but I'm not sure that counts. Anyway, to celebrate the 80th birthday of their national artfaggoty hero, the Roman Catholic Cathedral Museum of Vienna threw an exhibition of Alfred's most famous works. What they didn't count on was the prudish freaking out that the Catholics would do concerning a painting called Leonardo's Abendmahl ("Leonardo's Last Supper") depicted JC and his boys in the midst of a big gay orgy.
The Austrian press has now apparently dubbed this painting (which was composed in 1984) to be the modern-day equivalent of the Danish cartoons mocking Muhammed. I guess they haven't been to an art show lately, because almost everything I ever see at these kind of parties is blasphemous work. I don't see what the big deal is painting Jesus irreverently, and I'm Catholic. It doesn't really bother me much to see Jesus depicted as a big homo or having a weiner or anything like that. When I was in college, that asshole Giuliani pitched a fit over some painting at a show in Brooklyn that depicted the Virgin Mary as surrounded by heaps of cow shit. I didn't get what was so awful about that, either. After all, bitch DID pop out our Lord and Savior in a fucking barn! If there's one thing I learned from years of Doing the Puyallup, it's that barns are often full of cow shit. The artist was probably just trying to be realistic. Even if not, making fun of Jesus and the whole Christ narrative has been a worldwide pasttime since 33 A.D. Get over it!
With respect to his literal artfaggotry, Hrdlicka just acknowledged that in Leonardo's original painting, there were no women depicted...hence an apostolic gay orgy ensued. I guess he didn't read The Da Vinci Code (which boosts Hrdlicka up several logs in the hotness department) concerning the identity of the red-headed twink next to Jesus in the original painting. Maybe Hrdlicka isn't familiar with the symbolism employed by members of the Illuminati or whatever.
In any event, I applaud Hrdlicka for coming up with a hotter take on the Last Supper than the usual somber affair that this is generally depicted as. I can say that the sacrament of holy communion would be a lot more interesting if it had been based on a more orgiastic account of Jesus breaking bread with his disciples. At least it would pique my interest a little more than it does now (currently my attitude when the priest says "Do this in memory of me" is one of relief, since consecration of the eucharist means that mass is almost over). Way to spice up Catholicism, Alfred Hrdlicka!
Labels: artfaggotry, Catholicism, Daily Dude I Want to Hit, Dear God
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Christ is risen like a honey first thing in the morning
Happy Jesus Resurrection Day, everyone! My Easter wasn't as great as last year's, in which I missed church because I was brutally, paralyzingly hung over from LL Cool Jew's epic wedding, then I ate a Easter dinner of pepperoni pizza, beer, and pussy. This Easter was a little more traditional. I went to Mass, ate some bacon and eggs, and then watched some basketball and drank beers with some grad school peeps, including my go-to Catholic pals SisterChristian and G-Cat. SisterChristian is much better at being Catholic than I am, since I'm a total CEO (Christmas-Easter only). She even went to the Easter Vigil the night before, something I avoid like the plague on account of it being longer than an extended edition Lord of the Rings movie, and way less exciting on account of its lacking epic battles, the horse-lords of the Riddermark, or Gimli son of Gloin. There's usually an hour and a half of random baptisms alone during the Easter Vigil, but SisterChristian isn't deterred in her quest to have a good church attendance record.
Luckily, she's not so devout that she gets annoyed when I make wisecracks about the liturgical proceedings. In fact, she giggles at them. She told me that when G-Cat and I started snickering about the hymn lyrics from "Victimae Paschali Laude" (specifically, "angelicos testes") she had to determinedly look away to avoid laughing uncontrollably through the renewal of baptismal vows. She's perfected the skill of averting her gaze at religious events, because she spent some of her childhood in the Philippines, where they actually crucify people to celebrate Holy Week. I think she's glad to be able to look away to avoid laughing about her church buddies' sacrilegious commentary rather than seeing the horrifying sight of some extremely pious volunteer getting nailed to a cross. When G-Cat started making jokes about how the priest sprinkled us with holy water with what appeared to be a bunch of arugula and I stage-whispered "IT BURNS!" upon getting splashed, she couldn't hold back any longer. Mass was a rollicking good time.
I need to make irreverent jokes during church to keep it fresh and fun. Every year it's pretty much the same story: Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb while it's still dark to spray JC's body with spices or something, the tomb's empty, and the VIP apostles stand around scratching their heads being amazed. I wish the Catholics would mix it up once in awhile with something besides John 20: 1-9. For example, this interpretation of Christ's resurrection:
Anyway, happy Easter! Alle-fucking-lulia! Christ is risen! WOOOO HOOOO!
Labels: Catholicism, Dear God, SisterChristian
Friday, March 21, 2008
Daily Douchebag: Jesus Christ
Name: Jesus of Nazareth
DOB: per the Jesuits at my high school, sometime in the spring of 4 B.C. I know it should be December 25th, 0 A.D., but apparently someone fucked up over in the world's Christian calendar department. And December 25 was the day of some existing Roman pagan festival, so it was just convenient to change that to Christmas.
Occupation: the Christ AKA Lamb of God, Son of God, Son of Man, Prince of Peace, Wonderful Counselor, Good Shepherd, King of Kings, Paschal Lamb, Suffering Servant, the Messiah for us Christians anyway, King of the Jews (per himself and some snarky Romans with gallows humor), carpenter, professional resurrectee
Hometown: Nazareth via a stable in Bethlehem, Israel
Current residence: heaven, apparently on his ass at the right hand of the Father
Douchebaggery: I have half a pepperoni pizza in the fridge that really badly wants to be my breakfast. I mean I went to get my morning Sugar-Free Red Bull and I could almost hear that delicious pizza calling me to eat it. Unfortunately, Jesus had to go and get his dumb ass crucified, thus making today Good Friday and making it so that I can't eat breakfast at all!
I realize that I'm a pretty lousy Catholic otherwise, what with all the harlotry and the birth control pill-taking and the abortion-having and the carpet-munching. In fact, the Pope just revised the Seven Deadly Sins to be more modern, which means I'm doubly screwed. In addition to regularly violating a whole shitload of the old ones (particularly pride, lust, wrath, sloth, and gluttony), I now violate most of the new ones as well (failure to recycle, human rights violations aka making my uterus as inhospitable to babies as possible and evicting any that take up residence there, genetic manipulation of mice, HeLa and 293T cells, and E. coli, and drug use--I mean, ALCOHOL use). Since according to the Vatican's standards I've already got a first class ticket to eternal damnation, I try to be pious where I can in hopes that my efforts will get me to a nicer part of hell. I'd way rather be in the orgy part of hell than the part where all those soul-eating Bosch demons live.
Since I've failed miserably at my Lenten vow (no cigarettes) and I've sucked at the no-meat-on-Fridays thing (a couple weeks ago I forgot and ate a huge plate of pork mofongo before I remembered that it was a Lenten Friday and thus forbade consumption of chicharron de cerdo), I figure that I can at least try to behave on Good Friday. According to the Catholic church, this means at minimum not eating meat, and ideally not eating at all. According to the Razzian Order of Catholics (membership: 1, namely me), this means not eating until 3 p.m., which is supposedly when JC gave his final shout out to God and croaked. After that, I figure there's no sense in starving for the next couple days waiting for him to rise from the dead in fulfillment of the scriptures, so bring on the fish tacos.
Of course I love my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as he was eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light From Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, one in being with the Father, etc. I actually do believe in the whole Christian narrative, and if I'm getting a Get-Out-of-Hell Free Card, it'll be because of Jesus dying for my myriad sins. Besides, I can't hate a deity capable of turning water into wine with such an obvious fondness for hanging out with and getting his toes massaged by wanton sluts, whores, and adulteresses. However, I don't understand why Jesus had to go through all this crucifixion hullabaloo. Wouldn't it have been easier to just spend his golden years effing the shit out of Mary Magdalene and the other hookers hanging around him and antagonizing the Jewish elders, feasting on his unlimited loaves-and-fishes buffet, die peacefully as Judea's most renowned carpenter-turned-traveling evangelist, and then rise again? That would make things a lot easier for everyone, especially Jesus, while still managing to fulfill all those prophecies about his Messianic resurrection. It's not like Jesus HAD to do anything involving getting nailed to a cross by Pontius Pilate's legionnaires after a rough sesh with the cat o' nine tails and a laborious parade through the streets of Jerusalem. He's Jesus! He's GOD! He can do whatever the fuck he wants. But NO, he's got to do things the hard way, and now so do all of those of us who get our Roman popery on. Three p.m. cannot come fast enough. I'm starving.
Anyway, happy Jesus Death Day, everyone! I hope you're better at piety than me, because I think I may have just earned damnation by douchebagging my Lord and Savior. Oh well. So goes my sinful life.
Labels: Catholicism, Daily Douchebag, Dear God, gluttony, Razzification
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