The thing is

By Capt. Fogg 

It's not any one thing. It's never one thing. All the things that have led up to my crisis of caring are old things; have been around a long time and I've been aware of all of them all along. Whether things have become so crazy that some trigger point was passed or whether being chronically weak because of a strict diet or a passing virus or whether somehow, the realization that all suffering comes from believing, from having faith that things can ever be all right in the long run, finally seeped through from that repository of things I always say to whatever core of self awareness exists deep down somewhere. 

The thing is -- I just don't care. Neither more or less than the last time I said it, but I don't care. Someone apparently got away with murder? What's it to me? My country is making strides toward being neo-feudal, toward a police state, a corporate oligarchy with no collective concern for anything but maximum profit and maximum exploitation by those who can make the most of it? So what? The great accomplishments of science? That's over, unless it's the science of sales and manipulation and the technology that exists only to make people buy it. I don't give a damn. I don't even give a damn that I don't give a damn and I've forgotten why I ever believed in the progress of man and the slow climb up from the insanity of animals toward enlightenment and civilization -- or even decency. 

But it's always something. 

I got a phone call the other day. It was a recorded voice asking to contribute to the fight against the persecution of Christian parents' rights to raise their families as they saw fit. I have no idea what they meant but I can have some confidence in the assumption that it has to do with interfering with some other group's right to do the same. I pushed the "never call me again" button. I don't care, it's someone else's fight after all, and if they do win, it will take so long they might as well just wait for the next asteroid or gamma ray burst or solar catastrophe. 

I got a flier in the mail, too. Cover photos of grey haired people smiling like they were drugged under a headline of "happy Seniors." Now I hate like hell to be called a "senior," and it damned well is a gratuitous pejorative. I'm still a man and no less entitled to be one than when I was an idiot teenager, fulfilling my duty of buying things to be hip. But no, these happy folks were just in ecstasy because Representative Tom Rooney and his friends Mr. Ryan and Governor "Medicare Fraud" Scott were going to keep Medicare and Social security from being taken over by "unelected bureaucrats" and presumably given over to those entitled by party affiliation to a big Goddamn profit from it. You know, the Republican peerage, the elect. Happy, happy days, but I'm not going to be able to do a damn thing so why worry? 

I bought one of these little flat screen portable HDTV's recently. Figured it would be a good thing for hurricane season, but trying it out today, I was was disappointed to find nothing on the air but Jesus and informercials, but I shouldn't be, of course. That's all there really is in this episode of the Truman Show and all there will be allowed to be because all this amazing technology has no other purpose than to sell to those at the bottom of the pond. The people already borrowing at 400% from Wells Fargo payday loan stores to meet the mortgage payment to Wells Fargo Bank and the credit cards they maxed out at Wal-Mart and who just found out they have to die because they have no insurance and can't even get welfare because they can't pass a drug test because they had to take something for the pain and they can't afford a prescription or prescription drugs. Yes, it's gonna be all right after we 'save' Medicare. 

Some "Practicing physician" as he continually reminded me had the ultimate cure and preventative for heart disease which "we now know" is only caused by "Toxins" that need to be chelated out of our blood stream with his snake oil pills. "I don't wancha getting a bypass. I don't wancha getting a stent." He just wants to sell pills that will stop the "epidemic of sickness overwhelming all of us." It would take more than a pill to stop the irony, but nothing will stop the two born every minute. 

Another channel appeared to be a cooking channel, showing children how to cover apple slices with sugar sprinkles because, as the nice Church lady tells us, "God wants children to eat healthy food" unless of course the fruit contains knowledge of morality. Perhaps that's why so many children are hungry - not enough red and green sprinkles -- or maybe, like me, God doesn't give a shit -- at least not as long as he sells enough air time. And he does sell it. Four stations available on the indoor antenna and three of them have Jesus, or at least so they say. They don't show him, but perhaps he's tied up in the back room while those polyester puffballs strut and parade and chant and solicit money. JEE- Suss! wants you to be rich so buy my prayer towel and my blessing -- call now. 

So why feel sorry for myself. I don't need to if I don't care. I don't feel sorry for America either, they're fed all the crap they can chew on and they will die, or at least make sure you do, rather than make anything better. If I feel sorry for anyone it's people like poor old Jesus who not only thought they could, but tried -- only to be defeated, have their history stolen and used to sell product, to support tyranny and exploitation and persecution, the fleecing of the poor, the fearful, the desperate and to stifle knowledge, damn decency and prostitute hope. 

But who cares? 

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

No circumcision for you!

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Generally, and admiringly, I find San Francisco to be one of the most progressive places in America (not that that's really saying much, but still).

Take same-sex marriage, for example: Harvey Milk's city is well out in front of most of the rest of the country, which lingers still in vicious bigotry.

But sometimes it can go too far, and not even in a progressive way. Sometimes it's just nuts:

A group opposed to male circumcision said on Tuesday they have collected more than enough signatures to qualify a proposal to ban the practice in San Francisco as a ballot measure for November elections.

But legal experts said that even if it were approved by a majority of the city's voters, such a measure would almost certainly face a legal challenge as an unconstitutional infringement on freedom of religion.

Circumcision is a ritual obligation for infant Jewish boys, and is also a common rite among Muslims, who account for the largest share of circumcised men worldwide.

The leading proponent of a ban, Lloyd Schofield, 59, acknowledged circumcision is widely socially accepted but he said it should still be outlawed.

"It's excruciatingly painful and permanently damaging surgery that's forced on men when they're at their weakest and most vulnerable," he told Reuters.

Oh please. A ban may or may not be unconstitutional -- I suspect the current Supreme Court would rule it as such -- but it would certainly be stupid. Male circumcision isn't female circumcision, after all, and it's hardly -- sorry, Kramer -- the "damaging surgery" its opponents make it out to be.

The spread of disease may not be much of an issue anymore, given our penchant for hyper-hygiene, and so, if it isn't religion, it may just be parental preference. But what's wrong with that? This hardly rises to the level of a choice that needs to be taken away from parents.

Thankfully, not all of San Francisco is this crazy. A vote would likely fail.

Boy, talk about a rock and a hard place

By Carl

Reason Magazine tries to argue that America will be either an Islamofascist or Christofascist nation soon.

Just not sure which, but don't worry! One of them will prevail!

There's a phrase here... what is it?... oh right! Epic Fail, Reason.

God is dying: Reflections on science, religion, and the human spirit

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Over at Cosmic Variance, a blog at Discover, Sean Carroll has a really interesting post up on whether the universe needs God. I recommend reading it in its entirety, but here's a taste:

Over the past five hundred years, the progress of science has worked to strip away God's roles in the world. He isn't needed to keep things moving, or to develop the complexity of living creatures, or to account for the existence of the universe. Perhaps the greatest triumph of the scientific revolution has been in the realm of methodology. Control groups, double-blind experiments, an insistence on precise and testable predictions – a suite of techniques constructed to guard against the very human tendency to see things that aren't there. There is no control group for the universe, but in our attempts to explain it we should aim for a similar level of rigor. If and when cosmologists develop a successful scientific understanding of the origin of the universe, we will be left with a picture in which there is no place for God to act – if he does (e.g., through subtle influences on quantum-mechanical transitions or the progress of evolution), it is only in ways that are unnecessary and imperceptible. We can't be sure that a fully naturalist understanding of cosmology is forthcoming, but at the same time there is no reason to doubt it. Two thousand years ago, it was perfectly reasonable to invoke God as an explanation for natural phenomena; now, we can do much better.

None of this amounts to a "proof" that God doesn't exist, of course. Such a proof is not forthcoming; science isn’t in the business of proving things. Rather, science judges the merits of competing models in terms of their simplicity, clarity, comprehensiveness, and fit to the data. Unsuccessful theories are never disproven, as we can always concoct elaborate schemes to save the phenomena; they just fade away as better theories gain acceptance. Attempting to explain the natural world by appealing to God is, by scientific standards, not a very successful theory. The fact that we humans have been able to understand so much about how the natural world works, in our incredibly limited region of space over a remarkably short period of time, is a triumph of the human spirit, one in which we can all be justifiably proud.

This isn't necessarily new to those of us who look to science instead of some mythological faith to answer our questions, including our existential ones, and to provide a comprehensive picture of our world, but it's well put and bears repeating at a time when science is under fire from the right and when religiously-rooted ignorance continues to threaten progress towards greater enlightenment.

I've always described myself as an agnostic as opposed to an atheist but that's only because I recognize that we don't have all the answers. (Okay, I also describe myself as a nihilist, but that's more philosophical, and I do tend to recoil from all-out Nietzscheanism. It's hard to be a nihilist and also a progressive liberal who tries to advance the cause of freedom and human dignity.) And I think such doubt with respect to absolutism, with respect to any claim to absolute certainty, to the Truth, is healthy. (Nothing has all the answers, and if you think you have them, or believe in something that has them, you're wrong. About that I am absolutely certain.) Indeed, I think such doubt is also what drives my appreciation for science, which, by the way, does not claim to have all the answers and which, contrary to, say, Christianity, is about recognizing that there's a lot we just know and that only through further investigation can we ever know more.

Anyway, I don't necessarily hold organized religion in quite the degree of contempt that Christopher Hitchens does, though it's close, but I can say I wasn't unhappy to read about a new study suggesting that religion may actually die out in the nine countries under investigation, including Canada. This makes sense, given the broad secularization that western countries have been undergoing for a long time. No, religion won't die out entirely, not unless all of our deepest existential questions are somehow answered for good, but we could certainly do with a lot less of it in the world.