300

Woah...while watching Heroes on TV last night (on Tivo), I saw the trailer for this movie. My jaw dropped to my chest and I got an immediate adrenalin rush...Spartans! Persians! Spartans AND Persians fighting! Big war-elephants! Ugly guys that look like they came out of the game, Doom! Oh My God, this looks cool.

Live Concert Recordings on NPR

I’ve mentioned the variety of music available on NPR’s www.npr.org/programs/asc/ before, but wanted to do another plug for the live concerts recordings they have available. Most of the shows were recorded at D.C.’s “9:30” club. Some of the artists include The Decemberists, Neko Case, Arctic Monkeys, The New Pornographers, Death Cab for Cutie, David Gray, and my current favorite, Gomez.

Take a break from the radio, "See the World" and enjoy a concert.

Nontheists in America

Having finally found a "home" in secular humanism for my personal world view, last year I purchased an annual subscription to the monthly publication of the American Humanist Association. After a couple of issues though, I concluded the organization was rabidly anti-religion and hell-bent on making me that way, too. I was hoping for something they didn't provide -- maybe just a bit more company in my comfortable little philosophical sandbox.

The Christian Science Monitor is reporting that, "Atheists challenge the religious right". Once you get past the challenging headline (atheist is such a dirty word in America!), it's pretty interesting reading. "Seven organizations of nontheists - including atheists, freethinkers, humanists, and agnostics - began the Secular Coalition for America (SCA), a lobby seeking to increase the visibility and respectability of nontheistic viewpoints in the United States." I like their central position: We affirm the secular form of government as a necessary condition for the interdependent rights of religious freedom and religious dissent.

As for company....
A 2006 survey by The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life asked, "What is your religious preference?" and 11% responded, "No religion, not a believer, atheist, agnostic." While 56% responded as Protestant and 23% as Roman Catholics, other categories (Jewish, Mormon, Orthodox Greek or Russian, Islam/Muslim, and other religions) totaled 8%. That means that in the United States there are more atheists and agnostics than there are Jews, Presbyterians, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and Roman and Greek Orthodox combined. I need a bigger sandbox.

Occasionally I have to remind myself, and others when they ask, of just what a secular humanist is. Wikipedia has a good summary of the tenets:

Secular humanism describes a world view with the following elements and principles:
Need to test beliefs - A conviction that dogmas, ideologies and traditions, whether religious, political or social, must be weighed and tested by each individual and not simply accepted on faith.
Reason, evidence, scientific method - Commitment to the use of critical reason, factual evidence, and scientific methods of inquiry, rather than faith and mysticism, in seeking solutions to human problems and answers to important human questions.
Fulfillment, growth, creativity - A primary concern with fulfillment, growth, and creativity for both the individual and humankind in general.
Search for truth - A constant search for objective truth, with the understanding that new knowledge and experience constantly alter our imperfect perception of it.
This life - A concern for this life and a commitment to making it meaningful through better understanding of ourselves, our history, our intellectual and artistic achievements, and the outlooks of those who differ from us.
Ethics - A search for viable individual, social and political principles of ethical conduct, judging them on their ability to enhance human well-being and individual responsibility.
Building a better world - A conviction that with reason, an open exchange of ideas, good will, and tolerance, progress can be made in building a better world for ourselves and our children.

So what do you think would happen if the majority of the U.S. population suddently became secular humanists? I think we'd create a better world. I think it's quite possibly the only path that can save our world.

Further "Dangerous Readings"

And finally...a blog that made me think of Andy again: "No matter how cynical you become, it's impossible to keep up"

Auld Lang Syne

According to Richard Lederer, hardly anyone knows that Robert Burns is the reason we all sing (or hum) Auld Lang Syne as we enter a new year. I suspect that few today would even recognize the name. I'm sure Andy is smirking at us all.

When Robert Burns died in 1796, he was but 37 years of age. He was born on January 25, 1759, in a clay cottage of two rooms at Alloway, near the southwestern coast of Scotland. His father was an unsuccessful farmer, and young Robert was assigned heavy work in the fields when he was only 11. The strain resulted in a progressive heart disease that was to prove fatal at the age of 37.

In 1786, Burns's life reached its low point. In despair over his poverty and the rejection by the woman he had hoped to marry, Burns resolved to emigrate from Scotland to Jamaica. He gathered together some of his poems, hoping to sell them for a sum sufficient to pay the expenses of his journey. The result was a small volume of poetry titled Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect.

Burns bought his ticket to Jamaica from the 20 pounds he earned from the sale of his little book. The night before he was to sail he wrote "Farewell to Scotland," which he intended to be his last song composed on Scottish soil. But in the morning he changed his mind, led partly by some dim foreshadowing of the result of his literary adventure.

In the late 18th century, with its emphasis on elegance, style and refined manners, the rustic, simple lyrics of Burns seemed incongruous. But Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect took Scotland by storm and was universally praised by critics. Burns was dubbed The Peasant Poet and The Plowman Poet, and became instantly lionized as a natural singer and rustic philosopher.
Ultimately Burns's work established him as the Scottish national poet and the primary bridge between the rational satire of the 18th century and the exuberant romanticism of the 19th.

More than two centuries after his death, Robert Burns sings to us in another special way, for one of his lyrics is the first that many of us hear each year. On New Year's Eve, when the clock strikes midnight, the song that many bands around the world often play consists of verses written by Bobby Burns.

According to Wikipedia: Burns forwarded a copy of the Auld Lang Syne to the Scots Musical Museum with the remark, “The following song, an old song, of the olden times, and which has never been in print, nor even in manuscript until I took it down from an old man's singing, is enough to recommend any air.” One should probably take Burns' statement with a pinch of salt -- it is a fair supposition to attribute the poem as a whole to Burns himself.

Auld Lang Syne

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne ?

CHORUS
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

And surely ye’ll be your pint-stowp !
And surely I’ll be mine !
And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We twa hae run about the braes,
and pou’d the gowans fine ;
But we’ve wander’d mony a weary fit,
sin’ auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We twa hae paidl’d in the burn,
frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
sin’ auld lang syne.

CHORUS

And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere !
And gies a hand o’ thine !
And we’ll tak a right gude-willie-waught,
for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

The 10 Most Dangerous Toys of All Time (or, How To Tell If Your Parents Really Love You)

When I was about 10 years old, I remember one absolutely fantastic Christmas. I got at least five toys that I made me a happy little tyke...albeit, a dangerous happy little tyke.

I got the gold and silver knights and their extensive array of jousting weaponry. I got a huge freaking battleship that came with missile batteries that could launch projectiles all the way across the living room! I got the Creepy Crawlers set, where I could make my own nasties by using hot molds. I had a blast, and I didn't lose any fingers, toes, or eyes. We're not counting that time I played chicken with David's knife, are we? I mean, that scar is almost gone now.

So, here's "The 10 Most Dangerous Toys of All Time". How many of these did you own? I had a couple, and even Sarah and Holly had a collection of Sky Dancers (I'm sure we still have them somewhere in the basement bins). I 'm pretty sure I had one of those nifty "crotch rockets" too, but I had more fun with my smaller version of the Johnny Reb cannon...man 'o man was that cool. I still can't believe I never got one of those Atomic Energy Labs though...I mean, what self-respecting boy in the '60s wouldn't have killed to get his own supply of isotope U-238?

P.S. A couple years later I finally talked Mom into letting me have a Winchester BB gun, but only after 3 years of promising that I wouldn't shoot my eye out. When I got one, I promptly aimed it at my friend and almost put his eye out instead.

Bunnies and Bells (All I Want for Christmas)

Warning: highly addictive!

Shopping is winding down, and hopefully the last couple of things on back-order from the internet shopping spree will arrive this week. The kids have next week off from school, and Donna and I are taking a couple of days off, too.

Merry Christmas!

What? Me Worry?

Lewis Black has a way of cutting through the murky fog of apathy and forgetfullness. I watched him on HBO the other night and my stomach is still sore from laugh-cramps. He lamented that it's criminal that the United States hasn't figured out that every citizen, every home, should be using solar power. Who among us hasn't wished our government would make more progress in pushing the research envelope further on alternative energy sources? Wouldn't it be nice if our country didn't need to buy oil from the middle east from the same intolerant assholes that want to wipe us off the face of the earth?

So, here's my HOLY SHIT! moment of the day. Iran has announced they're willing to transfer it's nuclear technology to neighboring Islamic nations. They're going to use it to promote peaceful alternative sources of energy. Um...sure, of course they are.

Merry Christmas

Thanks Nyles!

In other news, I'm sending a note to Santa to give Daniel "Shyster" Synder nothing but coal this year. Shyster's company is buying up WGMS, Washington's last classical radio station and probably the most popular classical radio station in the country. Granted, classical is not wildly popular, and the length of the songs tends to discourge advertisers from buying many blocks...but geesh! Shyster's going to move his crap-tastic Redskins' talk-show to the WGMS frequency. To quote one other pissed-off WGMS fan, 'what a maroon!"

Zombies!

American Politics 101

For years I’ve had raging (no exaggeration) arguments with both sides of my family--my own and Donna’s—about politics. Donna and I have long maintained that we disdain political tags and claim to be independent voters who vote for the person, their records, their beliefs, and their promises -- not the party to which they belong. Our families do not believe us. They know we tend to be liberal in our views (well, compared to them we’re flaming) and therefore they’re convinced that we must be “democrats” (say that with a slight sneer to your lip, please, in order to produce the proper impact).

In past elections, I’ve usually ended up on the losing sides…one of those folks who would feel morally superior enough to put a bumper sticker on their car that reads, “Don’t blame me!” I didn’t do that, of course, but I came damned close as the long, sad Bush years have drug on and on an on. I dislike Bush. I so, so very much dislike Bush. I’ve disliked him from the moment I first saw his commercials long ago as he was running for his first term. Bush has our country in more ways than I would have thought possible…he’s the cowboy on a rancid cactus-juice binge who rode into town with six-shooters flaming, robbed the bank and took your life savings, let his gang invade your homes and take your gold and steal your rainy-day money from the cookie jar, and let his horse crap on your doorstep as a parting gift to remember him by. But that’s whining. I don’t like Bush.

Along comes the mid-term elections in 2006. I looked on our county website to see what our ballots were going to look like, what candidates were running for what office, what state-wide constitutional issues were going to be asked, and what county bond issues were going to be asked. I read what the papers said about the candidates, what some neighbors said on our local community forums, what national bloggers said about our Senatorial race, and even read some of their campaign mailings we got everyday. In the end, I found myself voting for two Democrats and one Republican in the races open to me. We had Green candidates on the ballots, but I didn’t bother looking at their credentials…aren’t they all crack-pots?

I got to wondering today about how my extended family members voted, and imagine that most of them voted strictly within party lines. To many, the party defines the candidate. So, I thought, what exactly is an Independent? Can I find a national organization that claims moral authority over Independents?

I didn’t find that organization. But sometimes the journey is hella fun. Take a look at this list of American political parties.

At one time I thought the Reform Party (Perot’s) looked very promising, but then Jesse Ventura split off (I still love Ventura!) and Pat Buchanan and his jack-booted Gestapo took over.

I love the party platform espoused by the Veterans Party of America: "If you want religious issues, go to your congregation and discuss it there ... Morals and morality come from your family not the govt. so if you want to tell other people how to live their lives, how to think, how to dress or what they can and cannot do to their bodies, then become a prison warden, or a political party in some middle eastern country and rule there".

How can you not grin at the Pansexual Peace Party? Founded on Wiccan roots, their platform is: "Sex is Good! Sex is Great! Yea, Sex!"

I don’t fit anywhere. Maybe I’d be disappointed if I did.

The Illegal Immigrants' Petition

"International human rights law requires the United States to apply its workplace protections equally and without discrimination based on immigration status," said Chandra Bhatnagar, an ACLU Human Rights Program staff attorney.

The Yahoo news summary linked above notes that a "petition" has been filed with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on behalf of 12 million illegal immigrant workers. This petition seeks better U.S. Government protections for illegal-immigrant workers who are vulnerable to exploitation.

One illegal worker injured his spine in a fall while at work, and the employer's insurance won't pay his compensatory time off while he recuperates (they paid his medical bills). One illegal worker filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against her employer, and settled for less than she expected because they discovered she's an illegal immigrant.

WTF? This is just plain wrong-headed. Or have I turned into a conservative all of a sudden? Let's see...they're illegally in our country. Illegally. Hmm, that word "illegal" just doesn't seem to mean anything anymore.

The ACLU website says this:

It is true that the Constitution does not give foreigners the right to enter the U.S. But once here, it protects them from discrimination based on race and national origin and from arbitrary treatment by the government. Immigrants work and pay taxes; legal immigrants are subject to the military draft. Many immigrants have lived in this country for decades, married U.S. citizens, and raised their U.S.-citizen children. Laws that punish them violate their fundamental right to fair and equal treatment.

I just can't get my brain around this. They arrive under cover of night illegally, without our country's permission, get jobs where employer's probably know they're not citizens or even legal immigrants, enjoy most of the social, cultural, educational, and legal benefits our taxes pay for, then file petitions when their "legal" rights are not recognized. Lessee...they're not citizens!

ahh crap...i'm too tense

When to Pray At Work

Mom sent me this, and I've been thinking that entirely too many of these 'stickies' apply to me...they are WAY too familiar.

Grumpy Old Bookman

Grumpy Old Bookman

Generations

The picture above is from our Christmas 2005 trip to TN. See the cute little kid in Grandpa O'Leary's lap? That's Tenley Yates, Patrick and Daniel's daughter. Tenley is a dynamo!

Christopher and Nyles discovered a few months ago -- quite unexpectedly -- that they are having a baby (follow the "Hughes Family" link to the right). Today she left a message on my work phone today that according to a sonogram they've determined it's to be a boy. His name will be Grant Hamilton Hughes. Poor little boy is going to be soooo outnumbered by all the girls :) Congratulations you two!

Meet Grant:

Willie's Wild Weed and Mushroom Tour

Willie Nelson's public statement regarding being caught with a bag of Marijuana earlier this week:

"It's a good thing I had a bag of Marijuana instead of a bag of spinach. I'd be dead by now."

Just 'Cause It's Cool

St. James' Infirmary

Yea, I'm addicted to the guy. I'd read that Saint James Infirmary was a staple in his shows, so I was a little disappointed not to hear him perform it when Doc Wu and I saw him recently. Damn, the guy can play a mean sax.

http://tinyurl.com/lyvhh

Pay No Attention to That Useless Crap Floating Around Out There

HOUSTON - Shuttle astronauts spotted three more pieces of debris floating in space outside Atlantis early Wednesday, but officials said it didn't seem their appearance would prevent a landing attempt Thursday.
The objects were sighted during stepped-up inspections a day after the discovery of two other mysterious objects forced a postponement of the planned Wednesday landing.
NASA downplayed the discovery of Wednesday's objects, saying the important question was whether an in-depth inspection of the shuttle showed no damage to Atlantis' heat shield. An initial examination had turned up nothing of concern, NASA officials said.
"It's not uncommon to see little bits of pieces of things floating by," said flight director Paul Dye."

Holy hell, Major Tom! We put everything back together...well, except for that useless crap floating around outside of the window, and we're not really sure what the hell that stuff did anyway. Thumbs up!

The Pope as Rabble Rouser

Vatican tries to calm Pope row

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei joined a chorus of Muslim criticism of the head of the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics, calling the Pope's remarks "the latest chain of the crusade against Islam started by America's (George W.) Bush."

The Pontiff said on Sunday he was deeply sorry Muslims had
been offended by his use of a medieval quotation on Islam and holy war. But he stopped short of retracting a speech seen as portraying Islam as a religion tainted by violence.

While some Muslims were mollified by his explanation for the speech made in Germany last Tuesday, others remained
furious. "We tell the worshipper of the cross (the Pope) that you and the West will be defeated, as is the case in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya," said a Web statement by the Mujahideen Shura Council, an umbrella group led by Iraq's
branch of al Qaeda. "We shall break the cross and spill the wine ... God will (help) Muslims to conquer Rome ... (May) God enable us to slit their throats, and make their money and descendants the bounty of the mujahideen," said the statement, posted on Sunday on an Internet site often used by al Qaeda
and other militant groups.

In Iraq's southern city of Basra, up to 150 demonstrators chanted slogans and burned a white effigy of the Pope. "No to aggression!," "We gagged the Pope!," they chanted in front of the governor's office in the Shi'ite city.

The Pope referred to criticism of the Prophet Mohammad by 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus, who said everything the Prophet brought was evil "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

Isn't it interesting that the Pope did NOT say "I take it back" when he recounted long-ago observations that Islam is spread through the sharp edge of a sword. And isn't it interesting that Muslim protestors burning effigies of the Pope are shouting, "No to aggression!" Indeed.

I increasingly get that uneasy feeling that this is going to end up in a bloody contest of who has the bigger sword on a global scale, and fence-sitting isn't going to be an option.

I read a review of THE HOLY VOTE: The Politics of Faith in America, By Ray Suarez in the Washington Post this weekend. The author, claims the reviewer, "identifies himself as a deeply religious person [who] is offended by the Christian right's efforts to identify their country with their faith, and he has no problem saying so. The result is a powerful reaffirmation of America's greatest contribution to human liberty: the separation of church and state." In my mind, most countries in the Middle East illustrate what happens when faith and law become one and the same.

NPR's All Songs Considered

In the mornings, as our vanpool is crawling up I-95 towards Washington, I frequently get frustrated with commercial radio choices -- how many times can a person be expected to listen to the same classic rock songs or the same 25 soft-jazz tunes? So, I'll tune to National Public Radio and snicker as the 13 other folks in my van are gradually lulled to sleep. In addition to the lack of screaming DJs and car commercials, they offer interesting stories and fair (in my opinion) news. Sometimes in the morning we'll also hear a short biography of a musical band with some musical clips.

Since I'm a music fiend, and still (6 years later) piss and moan about CNET buying out MP3.com and ruining my free downloads across all genres, I love to find new places I can "snatch" music. I've discovered how to use audio capture software (Audacity) to record any website's audio stream into my computer and then save it as an mp3 file for my I-Pod or work computer.

Which brings me around to NPR's All Songs Considered. How many of you can say you've heard 70-year old Jerry Lee Lewis pair up with Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page? They cover a lot of ground, all genres (country to modern experimental -- which by the way I really do NOT get usually), and cross generations. Lots of good stuff to listen to...check out the "Archives" and listen to the Allman Brothers playing, "Old Friend".