Image: usatoday.com
This Entire Fucking Country is Mentally Ill!
So there was yet another school shooting. The eighteenth this year, I believe, and the year is only 45 days old.
Again we hear the nightmare stories of children hearing and watching and feeling their friends get murdered in the next classroom, in front of them, on top of them… Continue reading
Posted in Christianity, Gun Violence, National Rifle Association (NRA), Opinion, School Shootings, Second Amendment, US Politics
Tagged AR 15s, background checks, Campaign donations from the NRA, gun control, gun restrictions, Gun Violence, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Mass Shootings, NRA, School Shootings, Second Amendment, semi-automatic weapons, thoughts and prayers
This post doesn’t live here anymore. It has emigrated to my other blog:
The Big No-No: An Outsider on American Fascism, where it resides under the title:
This post doesn’t live here anymore. It has emigrated to my other blog:
The Big No-No: An Outsider on American Fascism, where it resides under the title:
“American Totalitarianism: Authoritarianism and Christian Dominionism”
This post doesn’t live here anymore. It has emigrated to my other blog:
The Big No-No: An Outsider on American Fascism, where it resides under the title:
“Recognizing Fascism: Introducing History Education in Post-Trump America”
Posted in Education, Emigration / Immigration, Government, History, Language, Media, Psychology, Religion, Slavery, Society, US Politics, Violence, World War Two
Tagged Charlottesville, Civil War, Confederate statues, critical thinking, education, Fascism, history, KKK, Nationalism, neo-nazis, Opinion, Patriotism, Trump, white supremacists, World War Two
This post doesn’t live here anymore. It has emigrated to my other blog:
The Big No-No: An Outsider on American Fascism, where it resides under the title:
Posted in Education, Government, High School, History, Migrate, Religion, Science, Slavery, Society, US Politics, World War Two
Tagged Charlottesville, critical thinking, culture, education, Fascism, geography, history, KKK, moral compass, Opinion, politics, re-education, religion, Trump, white supremacists
This post doesn’t live here anymore. It has emigrated to my other blog:
The Big No-No: An Outsider on American Fascism, where it resides under the title:
“Collective Stockholm Syndrome, Battered Wife Syndrome and Trump’s Base”
Image: cnn.com
This week White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer uttered what may be the most offensive garbage yet, claiming that Bashar al-Assad is worse than Hitler, because even Hitler didn’t use chemical weapons, at least not on his own people and not in their cities and villages. Continue reading
image: nairaland.com
On July 14, a man ran his truck into crowds of people enjoying the Bastille Day fireworks in Nice, France, killing eighty-some and wounding so many others.
Bastille Day celebrates the birth of the French Republic, with its motto, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Fraternity means, among other things, communal support, friendship, brotherhood. Continue reading
Posted in Austin, Government, Police, Religion, Society, Travel, US Politics, Violence
Tagged Bastille Day attack, Baton Rouge, human connections, opinie, Opinion, peace, police shootings, Police Violence, politics, religion, six degrees of separation, society, terrorism
Every year, on the first Saturday in December, John Aeilli–host of the KUTX program Eclecticos–and a few other public radio people lead the Christmas caroling on the steps of the Texas Capitol and my family and I always join in. Yes, I know, no separation between church and state, but I pick and choose which principles I stand for as much as the next person. So sue me. Continue reading
Posted in Austin, Music, Religion
Tagged caroling, Christmas, Christmas carols, humor, John Aeilli, KUTX, music, Opinion, religion, traditions, War on Christmas
Source: Good Grief And Happy Holidays!
Great post about the War on Christmas by a blogger I follow.
Tagged Christmas, Holidays, humor, Opinion, War on Christmas
This post doesn’t live here anymore. It has emigrated to my new blog:
The Big No-No: An Outsider on American Fascism, where it resides under the title:
“American Islamophobia: Sixteen States Plan to Refuse Syrian Refugees”
image: abc7chicago.com
Terrorists have shot and blown up 132 people (at last count) in Paris. ISIS has claimed responsibility and says this is just the beginning of the wave. Continue reading
image: huffingtonpost.com
I mention in my yellow sticky post on the homepage that I often seem disgusted and elated in quick succession. Well, I wasn’t kidding. Continue reading
image from offclouds.com
The writing prompt of the week asks what evil means to me.
Well, I don’t believe it’s a thing, something that exists on it’s own. As an atheist/humanist I obviously don’t believe that the devil makes people do things. That would be very convenient, but no, people do bad things because we’re human. We are responsible for our own values and rules and behavior. Continue reading
Posted in History, Psychology, Religion, Society, Violence, Writing Prompt Responses
Tagged atheism, Christian values, crime, humanism, information, morality, Racism, society, tolerance, universal values, writing prompts
image from cadyluckleedy.com
Well, I have been focused on the extremes of religion lately, so now it’s time for something more upbeat. (Even I can get sick of my negativity after a while.) Continue reading
Posted in homeless, Religion, Society
Tagged atheism, catholicism, homeless Jesus, moderate Christians, Opinion
image: popefrancisnyc.org
So, the pope. CNN was wall-to-wall pope from the moment he set foot in Cuba to the moment he left America. It was hard not to get carried along in the enthusiasm oozing from the (Catholic) reporters. He was wonderful! Amazing! Best pope ever! Rock star Francis! It was like the Beatles were coming to town! Etc. Continue reading
This post doesn’t live here anymore. It migrated to my other blog:
The Big No-No: An Outsider on American Fascism, where it resides under the title:
“Kim Davis, ISIS and the Syrian Refugees: Theocracy and Religious Freedom”
A good post about the question whether or not Jihadists are Muslims or not, whether Islam is per definition a peaceful religion or not.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2015/06/religion-of-peace-is-not-a-harmless-platitude/
Personally, I don’t feel the need to look to a bronze age anthology for moral guidance, but for those who do, here’s an excellent post. Rev. Paul Bern points out how Christians have always picked and chosen what to use, and that there is plenty in the Bible that supports marriage equality.
Sorting Out the Gay Marriage Controversy
by Rev. Paul J. Bern
RFK
This past week’s Supreme Court decision in favor of legalizing gay marriage has by no means settled this controversy. Growing up in the Catholic church and recalling my years in Catholic school, I learned the Bible’s stance on homosexuality is clear-cut. God condemns it, I was taught, and those who disagree will wind up in hell for eternity. You might say that my childhood church community’s approach to the taboo topic of homosexuality was riddled with self-serving double standards and condemnation. Although I offer no argument that the sins of the city-state of Sodom and Gomorrah cried to heaven for justice, I do question whether the sin that cried to heaven was simply homosexuality. A reading of the biblical text shows the sin of Sodom was not its permission of homosexuality but its inhospitality to Lot’s visitors, who…
View original post 1,250 more words
Posted in Government, Migrate, Religion, Science
Tagged gay marriage, religion, same-sex marriage, Supreme Court
This Ruthless World is one of my favorite blogs. And her newest post is hilarious. A Tea Party guy reinvents Jesus to fit his personal ideas of what a man should be. And the blogger responds so thoroughly that there is nothing left to add.
Except to ask:
What would Jesus do according to this guy? Well, on Sabbath evening he would probably be whooping hippies’ asses and raising hell!
Tagged bible revision, history, humor, jesus, opinie, Opinion, politics, Ray Wylie Hubbard, rwh, Tea Party, Up Against the Wall, what would jesus do, wwjd
I’ve been feeling kind of truculent lately, so let’s see if a list of five things I can’t stand will get it out of my system.
Let me begin with drivers behind me–when I’m up front at a stoplight, waiting to turn left at an unprotected left turn–honking for me to go ahead and make the turn already. Continue reading
Brigham Young
(image from biography.com)
Well, I’ll probably be banned from ever entering Utah for this, but here goes.
I just read The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff. It tells the somewhat parallel stories of two nineteenth wives: Ann Eliza Webb, wife of Brigham Young, the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints’ second leader in the 1870s, Continue reading
Posted in Books, History, Religion, Slavery, Society, University
Tagged Ann Eliza Webb, Ann Eliza Young, boeken, books, Brigham Young, Briham Young University, Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, David Ebershoff, godsdienst, Joseph Smith, LDS church, Mormonen, Mormons, opinie, Opinion, polygamy, religie, religion, The 19th Wife
I just decorated the Christmas tree with R today–my back was giving me shit for a week–and then I turned on the news. And started bawling. But I won’t say anything about the shooting. Everything has already been said. Over and over and over, for years. Continue reading
Posted in Religion
Tagged apocolypse, atheism, Christmas, geloof, human extinction, humor, immortality, kerstmis, onsterfelijkheid, Santa Claus
Okay, I’m shamelessly Facebooking on my blog with this, but concerning the whole contraceptives, rape and abortion controversy, this says it all!
Image: http://www.neatorama.com
Let me explain this for Dutch readers who may not have been following the whole debate about all this closely. Continue reading
Photo: paulcurtis.livejournal.com
Ah! Only seven days and one to go to Halloween, my ravenous readers, so I feel compelled to warn you. I move as though invisible through the streets and alleys and I observe the good citizens of my subdivision decorating their trees and lawns with whimsically carved calabashes and synthetic spiderwebs, comfortably convinced that ghouls are merely a myth, a myth upheld for no other reason that to have a costume party. Continue reading
Posted in Media, Religion, Society, Television, US Politics
Tagged America, American, education, extremism, Halloween, horror, KKK, media, Obama, Opinion, politics, Racism, talk radio, Tea Party, zombies. Amerikaans
Photo: asiansinthemedia.wordpress.com
I wrote a post about the anti-science attitude of many Republicans two days ago. This Daily Show video is going around Facebook, but it illustrates the ridiculousness of the anti-science folks so beautifully that I just have to share it here as well.
Posted in Religion, Science, US Politics
Tagged Aasif Mandvi, creationism, education America, Evolution, humor, Opinion, politics, Religion vs science, science funding, The Daily Show
Photo: csmonitor.com
I have always respected most religious beliefs. Sure, I put my foot in my mouth occasionally, but I have no problem with religion in itself. I can see how there’s a human need for spirituality of one kind or another, and that some of us have a bigger need for it than others. However, there’s supposed to be a separation between church and state in this country, and when that idea is so blatantly trampled, when religion interferes with science, education, politics and human rights to the degree it does here, then the respect is clearly not mutual, and I don’t feel as obligated to be religiously correct. Continue reading
Posted in Religion, Science, Society
Tagged America, creationism, education, gays, Global Warming, homoseksualiteit, homosexuals, House Science Committee, Netherlands, onderwijs, Opinion, religion, science, statistics, United States
Time to speak up!
Right before I came to America, a woman asked my then-fiance T how a Dutch person is different from Americans. The first thing that came to his mind to say was that I wasn’t religious. That left her speechless. She had never met an atheist.
When we were in the Rockies this past summer, we met several Dutch people and one of the first things they commented on was how religious so many Americans seem to be. Continue reading
In the late 60s Richard Proenneke built his own cabin in the Alaskan wilderness with only a few simple tools. He spent most of the rest of his life there. Sam Keith fleshed out Proenneke's diary of his first 16 months, when he was making his home by a lake. I love these kinds of books!
An old Oji-Cree healer and her nephew canoe down a river in Canada, away from the world of white people. They both have to come to terms with their past. The woman has lost most of her tribe and the young man is traumatized from his recent experience in the Belgian trenches of World War One. My second book by Boyden. Can't say enough about him.
An incredibly comprehensive history of everything related to slavery in the Southern United States, from the beginning of the colonies to the end of the Civil War. Over 700 pages and I took over 30 pages of notes. I will be sharing over many posts to come!
Hamid's debut novel. I love this author. A young man in Lahore, Pakistan, is the victim of love, drugs, obsession, the class system and his complete lack of self-awareness.
A golem, created in Poland and brought to life on a ship to America, and a jinni who was trapped in a flask a thousand years ago and released in New York -- the most unusual immigrants you'll ever meet.
The only part of her life a Korean woman can control is her body, so she withdraws into it. Harrowing.
Autobiography lightly disguised as a novel about the son of Southern migrants growing up on the streets of Harlem, New York City, in the 1940s and 50s. Written like you're hearing the whole story in a bar. Quite a feat.
The story of a man struggling to make a living in Morocco. No plot, no clearly defined characters, but fascinating in its authenticity.
Pakistani man tells an American about his experience as a college student and employee of an assessment firm in America years ago. Smart, nuanced and pretty darn honest considering the unreliable narrator.
Wow! The answer to the inane platitudes about how all parents love their children and how children should always respect their parents. The protagonist must come to terms with his deeply flawed immigrant parents in order to change himself.
Seven short stories about life during the Kim Il-sung regime, by a writer who still lives and works in North Korea, were smuggled out of the country and translated. Mind-boggling stuff.
A 15-year-old autistic narrator wants to know who killed a neighbor's dog, and ends up much further out of his comfort zone than he planned. Wonderful read!
In politics, education, religion, agriculture, business--it turns out that dumbing down has been here from the start.
Fifty years of Istanbul seen through the eyes of a street vendor who migrates to the city as a young boy. It's also a window into the complicated dance between men and women in Turkey.
Hey, don't laugh, at least I'm trying.
A Norwegian immigrant is cooped up with six other people on a tiny island off the coast of Maine all winter in 1873. A woman in the present researching the Norwegian immigrant is cooped up with three other people on a tiny sailboat. What could possibly go wrong?
A man stuck between two worlds in more ways than one. Fascinating!
Historical novel about early contacts between first nations and the French in Canada. Beautifully written story that doesn't pull any punches. I bought his other two novels right away.
Beautifully written. By my children's favorite English and Creative Writing teacher! It's got rave reviews and we're all very proud of her.
Suki Kim is a Korean-American journalist. She poses as an evangelical Christian posing as an English teacher at a school for the sons of North Korea's elite. Her experience and the information she manages to get via writing assignments are incredible. Definitely a lot more eye-opening that any CNN special.
This. Explains. Everything!!!
Why has Islam not undergone a reformation like Christianity? Why is it so easy for Islamic extremist groups like IS to recruit young muslims? What would it take for Islam in fundamentalist Islamic countries to enter modernity? Does the West have a role to play?
Amazing! A man wanders endlessly through a dreamscape, becoming other people, himself in the past, everything is fluid. Kafkaesque disconnect between people and their different needs.
A multi-layered novel about the history of Libya. A fast read, but one you can repeat and find something new each time.
Twelve Americans go missing in Burma/Myanmar during a tour. Touching and hilarious, but mostly hilarious.
The most unusual murder mystery I've ever read. Incredible writing. It haunted me for days.
The quote on the front mentions that these stories are exhilerating. I couldn't disagree more. They are almost unbearably painful to read, and yet I couldn't put them down. Very well done, apart from the third story, which is written in the second tense. Please let me know if you know of ONE story that works in second tense.
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Fascism, Nationalism and Authoritarianism in U.S. History
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Historian, Folklorist, Writer, Re-enactor, Museum Professional. Follow me on Twitter: @stuartorme
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Resident Alien -- Being Dutch in America 