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Earthman’s Journey – Part 2 (of 8)

[ Part 1 — 2 — 3 — 4 — 5 — 6 – 7 — 8 ]

 

Cowboyin’

The early end of the beef industry involves a lot of labor at identifying and altering young bovines from their original, mint-condition wholeness to something more in line with human designs, as they make their first transition from free beasties to hamburger-on-the-hoof. The work can be done in sheer industrial efficiency, with metal chutes and shock prods and unconcerned hourly workers, or it can be done by working cowboys, in tune with a romantic but very real vision of the American West.

On this day, with this herd of calves, I’m one of those cowboys. And though I don’t know it quite yet, I myself am undergoing a transition: I’m on the threshold of a new and grander phase of my life. My hand is on the doorknob and here and now is the moment in which I begin to turn it. Continue reading “Earthman’s Journey – Part 2 (of 8)”

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Earthman’s Journey – Part 1 (of 8)

[ Part 1 — 2 — 3 — 4 — 5 — 6 – 7 — 8 ]

 

Somewhere above all this, all the roiling newness of the growing atheist and progressive community, there’s an overview. I’ve tried very hard to see it.

It may be that there are plenty of people smarter than me, more educated, innately broader of understanding, who already know what it is we’re all working towards. But I have yet to read their books or hear their talks.

I look out and see … pieces. A chopped salad of efforts and understanding that forms no coherent whole.

I don’t feel TOO bad about that. I mean ‘feel bad’ in the sense that there are churchy luddites who oppose positive changes, and we have to be a lot better if we want to win this thing. Because they are chopped up even worse than we are. And though they’ve had power over us for thousands of years, it was the power of bullying and cowardice and lies, rather than some sort of coherent strategy or vision or real knowledge, and that power – in the face of real advances on our side – is waning. Continue reading “Earthman’s Journey – Part 1 (of 8)”

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Don’t know Cuttlefish? You don’t know jack.

Imagine there was once this vital, energetic MAGICAL artform. Something alive and delightful, something that would make you laugh, make you cry, make you think, give you rare insights, make you smarter and better, make you love each other more.

And imagine that you know it once existed, but you don’t think it does anymore because the only examples you’ve ever seen of it were on dusty shelves in the library — dead-boring collections that nobody ever picks up except dry old maids and bookish, anguished, pimply-faced teenagers, or possibly students forced to read them as an assignment little different from a prison sentence.

And then imagine that you found someone who still did it, and not only still did it but did it WELL, did it about REAL stuff, about topics in your life today. And you looked at it and LEARNED stuff, and laughed, and discovered there was still magic in it.

THAT is what it’s like to discover The Digital Cuttlefish.

I’m the “equal and opposite scientist”
And my thinking is outside the box
I’m the one who knows climate is cooling
And I’m willing to say so on Fox

You better trot right over there and check it out. Be ready to bookmark, because you’re gonna want to.

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Score One for Atheist Meetup

Capital Region Atheists & Agnostics scored a win for freethinkers with a story in today’s Times Union, the Albany, New York, daily newspaper.

Rick Martin, one of the founding members of the group — formed in 2007 and now possessing 300 or so members (including me, who manages to get to almost none of the meetings) — was interviewed by the TU’s religion reporter.

The interview questions were neutral, neither supporting nor attacking, and Martin was able to say his piece in a non-adversarial atmosphere. For instance: Continue reading “Score One for Atheist Meetup”

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Jesus is My Co-Voter

Why do you suppose we have the secret ballot?

The answer is something most of us understand instinctively. In the one vital moment when a citizen gets to express his/her own individual political opinion, no one – not mom and dad, not your wife or husband, not your boss, not the local sheriff, not stern-faced community or union leaders, not your well-meaning neighbor – gets to loom over your shoulder and help you vote “right.”

The principle is enshrined in election law all over the world. Here in the U.S., various measures prevent overt campaigning within a certain distance – as much as 300 feet in some places, the length of a football field – of the polling place. Not only can you not stand outside the door and hector people entering, in many places you can’t even wear your own quiet campaign buttons as you go in to vote.

It’s really an issue of freedom, isn’t it? On the theory that every woman and man has the right to wrestle with their own political conscience and vote their heartfelt private values, we protect from outside influence those final moments prior to voting.

Except when we don’t. Continue reading “Jesus is My Co-Voter”

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Bibles! Innn! Spaaaaace!

Got an extra 5 grand? You could start the bidding on

the first ever “lunar Bible” — a little square sheet of microfilm, just an inch and a half on a side, carried to the lunar surface by astronaut Edgar Mitchell on Apollo 14 in February 1971.

It doesn’t seem to have a lot of holy power, seeing as how it barely made it to the moon. Its Holy Author first allowed a mistake on Apollo 12, leaving it in the orbiter rather than causing it to go to the actual moon, then allowed the catastrophe on Apollo 13, only getting it right the third time, with Apollo 14.

But hey! Bible. Moon. Wowsers! Wotta prize!

I’d feel better about the auction if the money was going to an actual astronaut, or the space program.

The really bad part is that you can only read the Looney Bible if you have Jesus’ microscopic super-vision.

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Weird. There’s also this.

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Fearsome creatures

I take pictures, did you know? Sometimes it’s just scenery, sometimes events with people in them.

But sometimes it’s scary things. It’s fairly woodsy here in upstate New York, and though I know most people from outside the state picture wall-to-wall cities, parts of it are actually pretty wild. I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but the state has some pretty big predators.

Living as I do on the edge of the wilds, I get to see them sometimes. Usually they’re safely distant, but just a few evenings ago, one of them came up INTO MY YARD. Right outside my window, in fact, in broad daylight!

I was lucky to have my camera. Picture after the fold.

(Click the pic to go to the source, which is on Flickr.)

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[ Note: I just want to make sure newcomers are familiar with the way to get to the rest of these “folded” posts, here and elsewhere on the FreeThought Blogs site. Click on the “Read More” link on the lower right, just below this sentence. ]

Continue reading “Fearsome creatures”