It’s the flagpole at one of those churches that look nothing like churches, just down the road from Love In Action in Memphis. The church it’s in front of has no steeple, nothing at all in it’s style or structure to suggest that it’s even a church at all. It looks from the road, like your basic office building. Seems the god of the white upper class, at least in the bible belt these days, likes its sanctuaries to look like either office buildings, or shopping malls. A look perhaps befitting fundamentalism’s new emphasis on worldly things.
I can’t say much about the rest of the bible belt because I haven’t wandered there much, but Memphis seems to have more megachurches that look like shopping malls per capita then the rest of America has shopping malls. There’s Germantown Baptist, which I visited the last time I was down there. Nestled in the midst of a very well-to-do suburb of Memphis, it has it’s own tennis courts, day care, and big screen TV’s inside the sanctuary, so the folks in the back rows can see what’s happening on the stage. Then there is the place the locals call Six Flags Over Jesus…Bellevue Baptist Church. I’ve not been there yet, but the locals say it not only has the big screen TVs mounted on either side of the stage like Germantown, but TV cameras mounted on cranes that can pan around and capture all the action for the TV audience. It’s got a bookstore, A GRACE Family Life Center, a JOY Christian Recreation Complex, a Love building, a Praise building, a really nice website where you can find a link to their Live Sermon Webcast, and a User Agreement with this wee notice:
Hypertext Link: You may provide a hypertext link to this web site on another web site only upon the receipt of written consent from Bellevue. To receive such consent, fill out a request form. Upon receipt of written consent, you may provide a link in the following manner: (a) the link points to the URL http://www.bellevue.org and not to the pages within the site; (b) the appearance, position or other aspects of the link do not create a false impression that Bellevue is associated with, or endorses, another web site, church or product; (c) the link does not dilute or damage Bellevue’s trademarks, service marks or goodwill; (d) the link does not display Bellevue’s web site with frames. Bellevue may revoke its consent to the link at any time in its sole discretion.
We all have to protect our brand I guess.
Okay…so much so obvious. You’ve all heard me going on about megachurches before. But last night I was surfing my bookmarks and via The Flypaper Theory I discovered World Overcomers Outreach Ministries Church, and I think they’ve done them all better. World Overcomers Outreach Ministries has a grand Walk Of Nations entranceway, a bookstore, a gym, an Olympic sized swimming pool, a bowling alley, a video arcade, and a pool hall. I’m a bit surprised they don’t have a bar somewhere in there too. The next step, is for someone to put a floating megachruch on the river somewhere, with a casino inside. But to make sure they leave their competition in the dust, World Overcomers Outreach Ministries Church are even building their own Statue Of Liberty.
Well…kind of…
Our Lady Of Manifest Destiny, as PeskyFly puts it. I had to stare at it for about five minutes before I could convince my brain of what my eyes were seeing. The torch is gone, replaced by a cross. The tablet that once read July 4th, 1776, has been replaced by the ten commandments. And yes, they will unveil the thing tomorrow, on the fourth of July, 2006. According to this article in the Memphis Commerical Appeal, the seven spikes on her crown that represent the seven seas of the world has been changed to signify the seven redemptive names of Christ. The crown itself has been inscribed with the name "Jehovah". An old colossus, to replace the new one given this nation as a token of esteem once upon a time…
The New Colossus
by Emma Lazarus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. "Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
The lamp of course, had to go, because the golden door has to go. Yearning to breath free are you? Don’t you know that freedom is only possible if you believe what we tell you to believe, live how we tell you to live, and worship how we tell you to worship? Democracy is a lie straight from Satan, because only the devil would think up a system of government that gives heathens the same rights as the righteous. Think about it. True freedom means doing what we tell you to do and thinking what we tell you to think because we’re righteous and if you’re not one of us then obviously you aren’t. Give your conscience to us and you’ll be free. We’ve got a really swell video arcade and pool hall you can while away the hours between sermons in. And the TV reception inside the church is great. Have you visited our gift shop yet?
Click on the image to go directly to the new episode, or go to the main page of A Coming Out Story…Here.
This one was intended mainly to introduce my circle of friends and add a little to the setting. I never intended for it to take so damn long to produce…I just kept hemming and hawing about how I wanted to do this one, which is a very repetative sequence of panels, and so I did other things and let it slide for far, far too long. If I want to finish this thing before I’m 100 I need to be a tad quicker at getting these out.
This one is about a certain blind spot I had in my teen years, that drove some of my friends nuts. They kept waiting for me to grow up and "get it" and I kept wondering why they often looked at me like I was from another planet. Little did any of us really understand that I was growing up right on schedule, just on a slightly different course from theirs. Paradoxically, had I a better understanding of my own homosexuality, I might have had a better understanding of their heterosexuality, and how hormones were jerking them around too, in their way. And when a guy with a ‘C’ average at best said he was going to go help one of the foxiest honor roll girls in the school with her homework, I might have been able to read between the lines a tad better then I usually did.
Yet Another MySpace Survey…35 Questions You Might Not Want To Answer…
35 Things You’d Never Want to Answer
1. Have you ever been questioned by the cops?
Yes. As a witness a bunch of times. Once as an arrestee. I was arrested, with a friend, for discharging a firearm inside the urban limits. But we weren’t actually inside the urban limits and the charges were dropped. And we got our rifles back too.
2. Do you close your eyes on roller coasters?
I don’t ride roller coasters. My life is a roller coaster. If I ever rode a roller coaster, I would not close my eyes. Life has taught me not to do that.
3. When’s the last time you’ve been sledding?
Nine…I think. On the hill behind our apartment complex.
4. Would you rather sleep with someone else, or alone?
Rather not alone. Have most of my life though.
5. Do you believe in ghosts?
No. But then I’ve never seen one. I’ve looked in a bunch of places and waited around but never seen any. What is a ghost anyway? If you’re still aware, but in another state of being, are you really dead? Life after death is a wierd self contradicting concept. Either you are dead or you’re not.
6. Do you think O.J. killed his wife?
Sure looks like it to me.
7. Jennifer Aniston or Angelina Jolie?
Johnny Depp or Orlando Bloom?
8. Can you honestly say you know ANYTHING about politics?
Well…yes actually. Growing up in the Washington D.C. area makes you at least a little aware of it.
9. How do you feel about your last ex?
Sad. Very sad.
10. Do you like to cuddle?
Yes. And…neck. And stroll down a beach holding hands. And making my boyfriend smile. And thinking about him while drawing his name in my sketchbook. And all that icky romantic stuff. Yes.
11. If you’re driving in the middle of the night, and no one is in sight, would you speed?
Never in a residential area, and not if I can’t brake in the distance my headlights reach. At night, a lot of things might not be in sight, that are in the path of your front bumper all the same, or are about to be.
12. Do you have a secret that no one knows but you?
Yeah. And they still don’t.
13. Boston Red Sox or New York Yankees
Yankees. Just because they piss everyone off and I would rather watch pill commercials then sports. Go Yankees.
14. How often do you remember your dreams?
I remember them all just after I wake up. But if I don’t focus my thoughts on any of them I will forget them completely after about an hour or so. I keep a dream notepad next to my bed. Dreams are the best part of sleeping. Even nightmares are interesting sometimes. When they’re over.
15. Can you name 5 songs by The Beatles?
I Want To Hold Your Hand
She Loves You
Please, Please Me
Paperback Writer
You Know My Name, Look Up The Number
16. What’s the one thing on your mind?
Being single.
17. Do you believe in love at first sight?
Uhm…no. I believe in Oh My God Look At Him He’s So Fucking Beautiful at first sight though.
18. What talent do you wish you had?
I wish I could play an instrument. But no…I just can’t keep a beat to save my life.
19. What do you wear to bed?
My day, usually. Probably why I have such a problem with insomnia.
20. Have you ever been caught stealing?
I. Don’t. Steal.
21. Rock or Rap?
Rock.
22. If you could be seen with one famous person, who would it be?
Being seen with is nothing. I would like to talk for a while with Walter Cronkite, Neal Armstrong, Arthur C. Clarke…uhm…dang…so many of my childhood heros are dead now…
23. Do you know anyone in jail?
Not…currently.
24. Have you ever sung in front of the mirror?
Yes. Still didn’t sound any better.
25. What food do you find disgusting?
Guacamole. Sushi. Cottage Cheese. Oysters. Prunes. Tofu. Skim Milk. Beer.
26. Did you ever play, "I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours?"
Sure. Then group showers in gym class kinda made it pointless.
27. Who is your biggest fan?
I have friends, not fans.
28. Have you ever stood up for someone you hardly knew?
Yes. Done it all my life. I get outraged, I get angry, and I remember all the people in my life who stood up for me.
29. If you could live anywhere, where would you live?
Oceano, California for half the year. Manhattan the other half.
30. If you could be any animal what would you be?
See…I take questions like this too literally. I don’t want to give up my human brain. Even to fly. But it would probably be some sort of bird. An owl most likely.
31. Your best quality?
All my qualities play off each other so I don’t think there is a "best".
The part of me I would least want to give up is my curiosity.
32. Best feature?
Don’t know. Nobody’s ever told me stuff like that.
33. When was the last time you smoked pot?
I…forget. No…seriously. Really.
34. Have you ever spent the night with a person of the opposite sex?
Is this a question about sex? Why the evasiveness? How about "Have you ever been in the sack with a person of the opposite sex and you both had sex that was so hot you steamed the windows and peeled the paint off the walls and deep cleaned that old throw rug at the foot of the bed you were going to throw out one of these days and when neither one of you could so much as move a muscle anymore you went to sleep and then it was the next morning"? But no…we have to be coy about it don’t we? Look…this isn’t vacation bible school, it’s MySpace. Your parents are aghast, James Dobson is having fits, your local TV Action News team is running an investigative report and congress is holding hearings and if we don’t give them at least a five bleeding ulcers over what we’re all up to in here Every Fucking Day Of The Week then we’re just not doing our jobs in here. So if you’ve got a question for me about sex, then just friggin’ ask it…okay?
Well…anyway…the answer is ‘no’.
35. Do you miss high school?
I miss the scene me and my friends had back then. I miss it very much. I miss some of my teachers. A few of them were very good to me. They not only taught me, they stoked the hunger to learn in me. I miss them very much. But life goes on…
The Archbishop of Canterbury has outlined proposals that are expected to lead to the exclusion of The Episcopal Church of the United States from the Anglican Church as a consequence of consecrating a gay bishop.
The US branch of Anglicanism faces losing its status of full membership of the Anglican Church in the wake of its consecration of the openly gay Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire, an act which has propelled the worldwide church to the brink of schism.
The final straw came when The Episcopal Church failed to "repent" of its action at its General Convention in Columbus, Ohio earlier this month, and failed to vote through a moratorium on any more gay consecrations.
Dr Williams is proposing a two-track Anglican Communion, with orthodox churches being accorded full, "constituent" membership and the rebel, pro-gay liberals being consigned to "associate" membership.
All provinces will be offered the chance to sign up to a "covenant" which will set out the traditional, biblical standards on which all full members of the Anglican church can agree.
But it is highly unlikely that churches such as The Episcopal Church in the US, the Anglican churches in Canada and New Zealand and even the Scottish Episcopal Church would be able to commit themselves fully to such a document.
These churches and any others that refused to sign up could opt to cut ties to Canterbury altogether, or could choose to remain in associate status.
This is not simply a victory for bigotry…it’s a milepost along a highway of blood. Homosexuals will die, never doubt this, as a result of the religious passions Williams is now pouring gasoline on. After the holocaust you’d think they’d know better, but it seems that lesson was only Lets lay off the Jews for a while and bash the homosexuals instead. Once upon a time the Catholic church, and then the Protestants, insisted that Jews were Christ killers who deserved what they got. You can argue that lead directly to the Ovens, but in fact the killing had been going on for centuries. By the reckoning of normal population growth statistics, and starting from the count of the number of Jews in the holy lands at the time of Jesus (the Roman occupiers kept meticulous records in the manner of all totalitarian states…), I’m told there should be about 240 million Jews walking this earth, right now, right this moment. In fact there are about 18 million. Hitler didn’t do all that…
We shall see how defenders of the Church take pains to distinguish between "anti-Judaism" and "antisemitism"; between Christian Jew-hatred as a "necessary but insufficient" cause of the Holocaust; between the "sins of the children" and the sinlessness of the Church as such. These distinctions become meaningless before the core truth of this history: Because the hatred of Jews had been made holy, it became lethal. -James Carroll, "Constantine’s Sword"
The holocaust made antisemitism something you’re not supposed to preach from the pulpit…at least not while outsiders are looking. But on the other hand Leviticus gives a free pass to people who kill homosexuals in the name of God, and judging from the reaction in some quarters already to Williams’ decision to expel everyone who doesn’t think homosexuals are unclean, the mob is ready for a little Leviticus action…
And get it they will. I strongly doubt it is any coincidence, that the rise in gay bashings and killings worldwide has come at a time when Catholic and Protestant church leaders, in America and in the third world, are busy calling homosexuals a threat to everything from children and marriage and family to the existence of civilization itself. Rowan Williams has not only signed onto this pogrom, whatever his future protestations that he means gay people no harm, by throwing his church into schism because some churches weren’t treating gays as the unclean god condemned sinners they are, he’s now poured gasoline onto it. The Gays Split The Church, isn’t quite as good as The Jews Killed Christ, but it will do nicely.
No Dr. Williams…our blood is not upon us. It is upon you.
I’ve a new cartoon up…finally. I’m so sorry for the cartoon page downtime, but I have to admit it’s been gratifying to get so scolded for it. I’m just amazed that my political cartoons have so many fans, particularly since I don’t advertise, and the couple small community papers that had been carrying it dropped out at the beginning of the year without explanation.
Yes…this one’s old news. It had been on the drawing board for weeks now. I have another few like that in various stages of readiness, so the next week will be catching up. Then hopefully we’ll be back to normal.
Oh…and there Will be a new episode of A Coming Out Story up late Saturday.
Well I Guess I Don’t Have To Worry About Drought This Summer…
Just so family and friends know…Casa del Garrett is holding up just fine under the onslaught of rain here in central Maryland. My street dead ends in a grassy field, beyond which is a sharp drop down about sixty feet or so to an area of warehouses, and from there down about thirty feet or so more to the Jones Falls river (which is more of a very large creek most days). I am well above the hundred-year flood plain around Jones Falls. In addition my neighborhood is on a slight, but pronounced grade, such that if I walk three blocks east or two blocks north, I am standing at the same height as my roof. Rain water, even from the last hurricane runs off pretty quickly around here, and people keep the storm gutters clear.
Last night, during a torrent of rain, I stood under the aluminum roof over my back deck and watched the water cascading down the alley. The flat roofs of our rowhouses all tilt toward the back yards, and most all of us have gutter extensions that drain the runoff into the alley. It was a mad river back there for a while, but because of the grade the water was rushing down the alley as fast as it was coming down out of the sky. There was no danger of it overflowing into our yards or our basements. At the end of the alley is a big storm gutter, but also the drop down to the Jones Falls, which would have to rise about a hundred feet to put my neighborhood at risk of flooding out.
I’d had it in mind to get the roof inspected this summer, as it’s about two-thirds into it’s ten year life expectancy. But so far there are no leaks. My little brick rowhouse is staying water tight, even under the basement door. The bad news is that they’re calling for rain through the rest of the week for Washington and Baltimore, so a lot of places around here are going to flood. I haven’t seen any downed trees yet, but I’m sure I will before the week’s over. So far the power has flickered from time to time, but hasn’t gone out yet. I’ve seen the power company trucks rolling around though, so I reckon downed trees have been giving them trouble elsewhere.
At the moment we’re under another torrent again. They come and go. Sometimes there is no rain at all. It’s very much like what you get from rain bands from a tropical storm…nothing, then light drizzle, then rain, then a torrent of rain, then back to a drizzle or nothing for a while…only from what I see on the Weather Channel it’s just a stalled front pumping rain up the coast.
So I’m fine for now, and I am not at any great risk of flooding. It’s going to leave its mark elsewhere in the state though.
Yes…the Advanced Camera for Surveys went into safe mode last Monday, after an anomaly was detected in the the CCD Electronics Box. Basically so I’m told, the voltages went above their high limits. So the camera went into safe mode.
We have a redundant power supply circuit we can switch to, and I understand preparations are being made to activate it. But they want to fully understand what happened to cause the safe mode first. They’re going to do this slowly and methodically, look at all the data, run a few tests, look at the data some more, one step at a time until they are satisfied they understand what happened. I’m told there is no cause for alarm, and we’ll probably get back to doing science with it by the end of the month.
Just So You Know I’ve Been Doing Some Work Around Here…
I’m starting to get scolded now for not keeping my cartoon page up to date, and I won’t have this week’s political cartoon(s) ready until late Monday. So just so you know that I’ve actually been somewhat busy in my art room these past few days, here’s a peek at the next installment of A Coming Out Story…
Click on the image for the full size version, if you like. I have four more sets of panels like this one to finish, but I’m close. I expect to have the next installment up this Saturday. I think I’m getting my steam back. The story gets a little fun-er now. I have two political cartoons on the drawing boards that I’m almost done with too. I should have them up late tomorrow. I also have another Mark and Josh cartoon…two in a series actually…in the works.
Old friends of mine can hopefully see now why I’m being coy about names and faces. I am as much a product of the 60s/70s as any other boomer child and I decided when I set out to do this story that I wouldn’t censor the pot smoking (among other things) that went on back then. So the names, and a few faces, have been changed to protect the not quite so innocent. And if my old friends want further inoculation, they can simply point to my introduction to the series, in which I plainly state that the story I am telling is one-third things that really happened to me, one-third artistic license, and one-third pure fantasy.
I think I’m getting my steam back here. I should be a bit more productive in the coming weeks. Hopefully I can get back into some kind of rythm on my Coming Out Story. I have something like fifity episodes scripted already (and there are more I need to work out) and I don’t want to be doing this thing for the rest of my life, so I need to figure out ways I can get these things made faster. Part of my slowness in getting this installment out has been in experimenting with new ways of working, both on the drafting table and in Photoshop. I’d like to get myself to a place where I can turn out a new episode every two weeks. Otherwise I’ll be decades finishing this thing.
A heretic is a man who sees with his own eyes.
-Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college – that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared back at me, incredulous, and said, "You mean they forget?" -Howard Ikemoto
The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water. -John W. Gardner
No stream rises higher than its source. -Frank Lloyd Wright
I’m sure many people will ask, ‘how could anyone do such a horrible thing?’ My only answer is, it isn’t easy,and was done only after much thought. -John List, in a letter explaining why he killed his wife and children
That we can do such as this, and still remain moral men, is what makes us great. -Heinrich Himmler, to his troops after a mass execution of Jews in Poland
When heterosexuals come to terms with their sexuality, they call it adolescence. When gay people do the same, they call it "coming out." -The Columbus Dispatch, "Coming out"
Most of us survive our first loves. But imagine what it must be like when your first love is not only a test of your commitment to your partner, but also of your parents’ to you? -Desiree Cooper "Mother’s love is not a worry for gay teen", The Detroit Free Press
America is Satanic. America is so Satanic that even hamburgers should be considered evil, because they come from America. -Sun Myung Moon
For best results: wash in cold water separately,
hang dry and iron with warm iron. For not so good
results: drag behind car through puddles, blow-dry
on roofrack. -Laundry instructions on a shirt made by HEET (Korea)
It’s not like I never want to bite people…I just know it’s wrong. -Satchel Pooch (Mrs. Pastor)
I smoke because it keeps me from killing people. -Sarah Deere (Eschaton blog reader)
Penetrating so many secrets, we cease to believe in the unknowable. But there it sits nevertheless, calmly licking its chops. -H.L. Mencken, Minority Report
What I am going to tell you about is what we teach our physics students in the third or fourth year of graduate school… It is my task to convince you not to turn away because you don’t understand it. You see my physics students don’t understand it… That is because I don’t understand it. Nobody does. -Richard Feynman
Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached. -Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Herrera v. Collins
A lifetime isn’t long enough for the beauty of this world and the responsibilities of your life. Scatter your flowers over the graves, and walk away. Be good natured and untidy in your exuberance. In the glare of your mind, be modest, and beholden to what is tactile and thrilling. -Mary Oliver
Some people are settling, some people are settling down and some people refuse to settle for anything less than butterflies. -Carrie – Sex And The City
Logo (the gay cable channel that seldom has anything on it I want to watch) has its viewers’ picks for the top 50 LGBT films, and Pam’s House Blend is running a top 3 thread in response. Every time one of these Pick Your Favorite GLBT Films things comes up it only serves to remind me how little same sex Romance there is out there. But I think I can actually pick a top three…
Stipulating that I have not seen Brokeback Mountain…which seems to be on everyones favorites list nowadays (and it seems, rightfully so…) These three have all the right ingredients, the stuff of every heterosexual romance you’ve ever seen or read, but finally gay couples get a chance to play too.
Latter Days – Excruciatingly hard to watch in spots (like the excommunication scenes), but this is the kind of true hearted same sex romance I have long waited to see on film. L.A. party boy discovers a group of young Mormon missionaries has moved into the apartment across from his, and takes a bet that he can seduce one of them. Of course they fall in love. It could easily have belly flopped into the trite pool, but like all good romances, the lovers drive each other to reach beyond themselves. The Mormon boy challenges the party boy’s superficiality and the party boy coaxes the Mormon boy out of his suffocating shell.
You I Love – A sexy sweet rollercoaster of a love story. Young successful, trendy Moscow urbanite with young successful and trendy girlfriend falls head over heels in love with young Russian male from deep in the Asian side of the country. I almost threw a chair through the TV set when I thought the film was going to end with the lover’s being separated…but they didn’t do that to me. Some have suggested that the film cops out by having the lovers taking refuge in a bisexual triangle at the end (with the urbanite’s girlfriend). Given the vehement social prejudices on display in the film (and in real life in Moscow lately), I can forgive the filmmakers for this. You do not doubt for a moment the love the two guys have for each other throughout this film and it is very touching.
Lan Yu – Successful single businessman, preoccupied with business and cynical about love, has a tryst with a younger man that turns into a longtime on again – off again affair. Businessman showers younger man with gifts, including an expensive house to live in, but keeps him at arm’s length because he doesn’t believe in love. Then businessman is then caught up in the shady dealings of his company, arrested and put on trial. Younger man sells all the gifts the businessman bought for him to pay bribes to corrupt local officials and get his lover out of jail. Businessman learns that love is really more important then business after all. If they’d only ended it there this film would be my all time favorite. But then they had to go and gratuitously kill the younger lover off at the very end of the film in a random construction accident, leaving the businessman alone and grieving. I suppose this was supposed to drive home the lesson about not wasting your chances for love, but they didn’t have to do that to make the point.
Now for three guilty pleasures…
Gravitation and Earthian – Neither of these anime were nearly as good as the manga they were based on, but…damn! Beautiful long haired (and I mean Long Haired) guys. Oh yes…
Harry and Son – Robbie Benson in a pair of cut-offs. And the story is pretty good too…
Happy Together – My anti-romance, for when I’m in a cynical mood. Lovers who cannot stand each other, yet cannot keep their hands off each other, end up stranded in Buenos Aires, doing menial work to make ends meet while taking the occasional roll in the sack that they just can’t seem to avoid. Something about the idea that Buenos Aries is the place where all failed romances end up appeals to me.
From our Department Of Unsurprising Things… Via The Register…did you know that the Tribulation Forces are monitoring your keystrokes…?
Watchers of right-wing Christian groups in the States say a new apocalyptic videogame released by cultish Revelations-based fiction series Left Behind is riddled with spyware.
Developers have incorporated software from an Israeli firm called Double Fusion. It incorporates video advertising and product placement into the game, and reportedly records players’ behaviour, location, and other data to be uploaded to Left Behind’s Bible-powered marketing machine.
Nice. But the righteous have nothing to fear. If this sort of thing bothers you, you’re probably an agent of Satan anyway. Or a UN Peacekeeper.
In an interview on the series’ website Greg Bauman of Left Behind Games explains: "Left Behind: Eternal Forces will help readers get a sense of the conflict and chaos of the time period portrayed in Left Behind and live out how they would defend themselves and their faith from the Antichrist and his Global Peace Keeping Forces." The United Nations, already organ of satanic machinations for many on the Christian far-right, features strongly in the game. Goat-footed demons reportedly emerge from UN peacekeeping humvees.
Which reminds me of something I was watching unfold in tired resignation the other day…(via Steve Gilliard)
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Americans mistakenly worried the United Nations is plotting to take away their guns on July 4 — U.S. Independence Day — are flooding the world body with angry letters and postcards, the chairman of a U.N. conference on the illegal small arms trade said on Wednesday.
"I myself have received over 100,000 letters from the U.S. public, criticizing me personally, saying, ‘You are having this conference on the 4th of July, you are not going to get our guns on that day,"’ said Prasad Kariyawasam, Sri Lanka’s U.N. ambassador.
"That is a total misconception as far as we are concerned," Kariyawasam told reporters ahead of the two-week meeting opening on Monday.
For one, July 4 is a holiday at U.N. headquarters and the world body’s staff will be watching a fireworks display from the U.N. lawn rather than attending any meetings, he said.
For another, the U.N. conference will look only at illegal arms and "does not in any way address legal possession," a matter left to national governments to regulate rather than the United Nations, he added.
The campaign is largely the work of the U.S. National Rifle Association, whose executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, warns on an NRA Web site (http://www.stopungunban.org/) of a July 4 plot "to finalize a U.N. treaty that would strip all citizens of all nations of their right to self-protection."
Notice how the rank and file just ate it up. Lookout! Lookout! The UN is coming to take your guns away on the forth of July…! And you wonder why some people reflexively associate guns with mentally unstable lunatics. This is exactly why I am not a member of the NRA. That, and their knee jerk support for any gutter crawling bigot running for office who happens to have the right position on gun ownership. And you know what…I’ll bet at least two-thirds of the membership of Pink Pistols bought into this crap too.
While Probing The Fabric Of The Universe, Wear Your Safety Goggles
Something else from Cosmic Variance that caught my eye… Physicists are eagerly awaiting the first collisions from the new Large Hadron Collider…
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a particle accelerator which will probe deeper into matter than ever before. Due to switch on in 2007, it will ultimately collide beams of protons at an energy of 14 TeV . Beams of lead nuclei will be also accelerated, smashing together with a collision energy of 1150 TeV.
Now for the reality check, as presented last week by the LHC project manager Lyn Evans (insert drumroll here): The machine will be closed in August 2007 and first collisions will occur in November 2007 at center of mass energy 1.8 TeV. The same energy as the previous run (known as Run I) at the Tevatron! It seems that this decision is very prudent. In 2007, only a couple sectors of the LHC will be fully commissioned to handle 7 TeV proton beams. The remaining sectors will not be commissioned until early 2008.
Let’s think about this for a moment. Commissioning (starting) new colliders is frought with numerous unintentional aborts of the beam. And when a beam is aborted, it has to go somewhere (it’s called dumping the beam). Hopefully it aborts as planned, otherwise….much energy is dumped somewhere it should not be! At full throttle (7 TeV beams), the energy stored in the LHC beam is 700 MegaJoules, or 10 TeraWatts. How big is that? Well, 10 TeraWatts is about half of the world’s total energy output. No wonder the accelerator folks are a bit jittery! They don’t want to dump 10 TeraWatts of beam just anywhere…
Here’s a picture (courtesy of Tom LeCompte) to illustrate this point. The kinetic energy of battleship guns is 300 Megajoules, or just less than half that of the full LHC beam. Now we understand why the machine folks want to be a bit cautious…
…Tao Han brought up a push-your-buttons topic during his presentation: he proposed that the LHC data should be made available to the community as maximal openess would only benefit the physics. He admitted that while us non-LHC experimenters could not comprehend the raw data, he proposed that LHC- experimenters store their data in ASCII and make it available to the public. First a gasp and then audible silence swept the audience as this has been a controversial topic for years.
Han’s public data proposal completely dominated the lively and sometimes heated discussion afterwards. Joe Lykken called Maria Spiropulu up to the podium to defend the bastion of the secret data experimental world, noting that the astrophysics community does make its data public (although I could not find a site while looking tonight – anybody know a URL?). Maria stood silent for a minute, then turned directly towards Tao and said a single word: “ASCII?” It brought the house down. Then she started on the usual diatribe on how their data would be useless as us theorists don’t understand the detectors, their data format, blah blah blah. Frankly, I think she (and experimenters in general) misunderstand the point and underestimate us. Tao Han did not ask for raw data – nobody without the proper background or code can comprehend that – he asked for the 4-vectors (the energy and momentum read-outs) in ASCII. In other words, he asked for the data after it had been processed and sifted, and churned into a useable format. It is the form of data that us particle theorists deal with in our Monte Carlo codes and is what the experimenter works with in the end. It is a reasonable request, but not likely to happen.
So, just who “owns” this data anyway? The experimenters feel that they worked hard and suffered to build the detector (and they have indeed), so the data and any discoveries are theirs. But, who came up with the theories that are being tested? Who did the calculations to see what type of machine should be built? Who convinced the politicians to build the machine? And last, but by no means least, who footed the bill to pay for the machine? So who really owns this data and why is it kept under lock and key?
Even better then the data being made public would be making public the process of arguing and debating what the data means. When scientists hide their work behind closed doors, they shouldn’t be surprised when the general public becomes suspicious that they don’t really know anything, and begin to embrace superstitious claptrap like Intelligent Design. Why does it matter if they do? Well…
MJ: How did we get to this point, where science is so blatantly abused for political purposes?
CM: Well, I think it’s part of the history of the modern conservative movement, and you see it coming to fruition recently with that movement’s total control of the Republican Party and of the government. Here you have a movement anchored in, among other things, a distrust of big government. And of course a lot of science is funded by government, and a lot of science takes place in government agencies. This is also a movement that has plausibly been accused of having anti-intellectual tendencies, that thinks big universities and the academic elites are biased against ordinary folks.
But most importantly you have raw politics, or catering to your constituents. With the conservatives, you have industry, which is coming up against science all the time, and religious conservatives, who come out against science any time [it conflicts with] their moral view of the world.
So, you combine all of those things—not liking government, distrusting universities, catering to your base—and then you get control of the government and I think what you get is exactly what you’d predict.
MJ: How far back do you have to go to see this coming together?
CM: There are good indications that these tensions were mounting [in the 1950s] for instance, when William F. Buckley attacked Yale, or when Barry Goldwater ran for President in 1964 and was attacked by the nation’s scientists for his anti-intellectual tendencies. Of course, they were fighting over different issues then, particularly arms control, but I think that the tension was clearly present.
But I think it really becomes a political phenomenon with Reagan. He was the [conservative] movement’s president and so of course he did a lot of this pro-industry and pro-religious stuff. He spoke favorably of creationism as well. So I think that’s when it really hit the political mainstream.
What blogging is doing for the political dialog, it can do for science. Science can speak for itself directly to the world. It doesn’t have to have it’s voice filtered through the corporate republican friendly news media. It should. It must. What Jacob Bronowski wrote back in 1956 is so terribly true today:
The world today is made, it is powered by science; and for any man to abdicate an interest in science is to walk with open eyes toward slavery.
I have now in my browser’s bookmarks list about a half dozen or so good science blogs that I visit often. I’m going to create a separate blogroll list for them, and add to it as I happen across new ones.
These warnings beg a very serious question: can people, children in this case, become homosexuals by exposure to certain ideas and behavior? In other words, can a person who would not otherwise become homosexual, start the behavior, come to prefer it and continue it?
Can a society create more homosexuals? The answer quite clearly is yes. That is how current homosexuals, in fact, came to be. There is no evidence–none– for a genetic origin for homosexuality. That may come as a surprise to many people, but it’s true. It’s even more astonishing when one realizes how many influential groups and people now accept homosexuality as inborn for some, but when you look behind the rhetoric, you find that there is nothing but wishful thinking. For an excellent paper debunking this myth, see Culture and Family Institute’s article at http://www.cwfa.org/images/content/bornorbred.pdf .
In view of this, the promotion of this behavior to our children has incredibly destructive potential, yet this unprecedented trend is occurring with few objections by parents.
People, especially the young, can be seduced into homosexual behavior and have their identity molded around the homosexual lifestyle, through a combination of persuasion and circumstances which may include the following:
• Being convinced homosexuality is acceptable;
• Reading or viewing explicit homosexual pornography;
• A close relationship with a peer who is practicing homosexuality;
• Admiring an older teacher or mentor who is homosexual;
• Attending homosexual social venues (a “gay” club, bar, church youth group);
• Being homosexually molested;
• Having parents who espouse liberal values;
• No strong ties to a conservative church, and hostility toward traditional views.
And in that spirit, I would like to offer my own tips on how to make people homosexual. I should know, right, because I am one. Trust me, this stuff really works. The Gay Mafia could have me silenced for telling you people this stuff…
Vote democratic.
Stand too close to a homosexual on the bus or in the subway. Five minutes might be enough.
Breath in a homosexual’s second hand smoke.
Enter a restaurant where a homosexual is eating.
Call your senator or congressman and ask them to support extending the Voting Rights Act.
If you are a woman, applying for a job outside the home will make you a lesbian.
If you are a man, disrespecting your boss will make you gay.
If you are a woman, enjoying sex will make you a lesbian.
If you are a man, caring that your wife enjoys having sex with you will turn you gay.
Enjoying sex with her will also make you gay.
Yielding the right of way to oncoming traffic makes men gay. Real men don’t yield, they penetrate.
Oppose repealing the Estate Tax
Oppose the war in Iraq.
Question George Bush’s leadership. This one will turn you gay in a heartbeat.
If none of these work, use the following brute force methods. These are guaranteed to work.
Learn something new every day.
Read a book.
Question authority.
Think.
This wicked world is chock full of ways to turn people gay. In point of fact, everything can make you gay. Except when it doesn’t. You have been warned.
I’ve told this story before, but those of you who’ve heard it will just have to bear up. In the 1992 election when I was making volunteer calls for Clinton, Mary Matalin made a major gaffe she had to apologize for quite publicly. (Doesn’t matter what it was.) I was riding down in the elevator with a high level political consultant (who didn’t know me from Adam, of course) and I smugly mentioned that Matalin had really stepped in it. He looked at me like I was a moron and said, "she got it out there, didn’t she?"
Here’s another little pointer on wingnut gossip mongering and dirty politics. As you sling the shit with the biggest megaphone you can find, be sure to primly assert that you don’t believe a word of it and chastize those who are doing it on the victim’s behalf. It makes you look like a good guy even though your purpose is to spread the gossip far and wide.
In this case it doesn’t matter much because the "gossip" is irrelevant to normal people and would make no difference if it were true. This gossip is aimed solely at the wingnut doughboy losers who couldn’t manage to get laid at the Bunny Ranch with 5k in their pockets. Still, it’s nice of one of the leading voices in the blogosphere to spread it around, (while being above it all, of course.) It’s good practice for serious swift-boating.
Digby is referring to a post Instapundit (who is not a moderate libertarian-republican, but only plays one for effect) made concerning Markos, of Daily KOS who, running one of the biggest of the liberal-progressive blogs, now finds himself the target of the republican propaganda machine. One simply cannot challenge the establishment party line and expect to get away with it. Reynolds happliy plays his role, goosing a rumor that Markos is…wait for it…gay.
And as an aside, I see some blog-commenters are speculating that Kos is gay. Why that should matter, I don’t know, but I remember — back when the blogosphere was younger and people were nicer — commiserating with Kos over his wife’s miscarriage (my wife and I had several) and assuring him that it didn’t preclude successful pregnancies later on, which I believe his wife has since had. So try to keep things at something better than a seventh-grade level.
If it doesn’t matter, Glenn, why mention it? From the looks of it, the genial professor did so only to further cement his rep as a "gentleman" — the "civility" thing, you know? Why he had to use rumors about Kos’ sexuality and a rehashing of a miscarriage to do so is beyond this page’s comprehension.
Because he’s a gutter crawling Bush republican thug is why. What else about him did you need to know? Why else would speculation about his sexual orientation matter? Digby’s right…this is about pumping up the bigot base, and practice for some serious swift boating later on as election day draws near.
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