Posted on

Thoughts On My Upcoming 60th (!) Birthday

Okay, fuck it. I’ve decided to celebrate.

To explain why I actually had to decide that: I had a thing happen a few weeks back. Was at a dinner party and a close friend happened to mention the date of my birth right out in public. I was peeved at him for several minutes.

For years now, I haven’t liked people knowing my birthday.

I’ll tell you why. It’s a glitch left over from childhood, but apparently I’m still carrying it around. (I’ve just apologized to my good friend, who puts up with my countless idiotic quirks without complaint.) Continue reading “Thoughts On My Upcoming 60th (!) Birthday”

Posted on

First Person Revolutionary — Part 3

[ Read Part 1 and Part 2 ]

The fatal flaw of atheism? Actually, it’s a challenge atheism shares with religion. The difference between the two is that religion has found a solution.

So let’s talk about religion:

The weedy form of religion, superstition, arises automatically in each mind all on its own, simply by virtue of our need to create private theories – often wildly personified due to our ability to detect “person-ness” in everything from smiley faces to wind in the trees – about how the world around us works. But the fully-developed form of religion, that complex mess represented by, for instance, the Catholic Church … Continue reading “First Person Revolutionary — Part 3”

Posted on

First Person Revolutionary — Part 2

[ Read Part 1 first. ]

Atheism (more broadly, freethought) isn’t new, of course. Just in this country alone, it’s as old as Thomas Paine (although Paine was a deist, he was widely accused of being an atheist, and I’m confident he would’ve been one of us if he lived in a society in which it was possible to actually think about such things), and has had its bright sparks all along the way, right up to Carl Sagan, who published The Demon Haunted World only 15 years ago. Continue reading “First Person Revolutionary — Part 2”

Posted on

No, I’m Not At WKRP in Cincinnati

Baby, if you’ve ever wondered,
Wondered whatever became of me,
I’m living on the air in Cincinnati,
Cincinnati, WKRP.

Apologies if you’ve been expecting the second part of First Person Revolutionary, or wondering where I’ve been.

Haven’t been feeling my best lately. My doctor has informed me I need to have a sort-0f-minor, sort-of-major surgery. I have a consultation coming up with the prospective surgeon next week — at which meeting I’m assuming we’ll set a date for the cutting.

Argh. That gall bladder and I have been friends for close to 60 years.

Back soon, I expect.

 

Posted on

Dog Eats Fox Alive!

Sorry about the title. Almost makes me want to say “Made you look!”

But if my co-bloggers here can post pictures of cats and other cute animals, I can post pictures of cute animals.

This is Pepper (I may have had her pic up here before). She used to come up on my back deck and gaze out over the hillside where she and her brother Toot lived and played. (More pics of Pepper and other beasties HERE.)

I thought of her today when I saw this video. You may not know it, but red foxes just may be the most beautiful critters inside fur. I call ’em “jewelry that walks around on four legs.”

Which is why I loved this video: Continue reading “Dog Eats Fox Alive!”

Posted on

God Comes Knocking … Via Spam

Suppose you put a sign up on your house that said in big bold letters, “No Christian Evangelists, Please” — but a sales-pitchy Christian showed up at your door with a stack of Bibles and Chick Tracts.

How would you feel about that?

Annoyed, right? Okay, but since you’re a nice person, you’d send them away with no harsh words, offering instead a simple, “We’re not interested.”

You’d talk about it after with atheist friends, but that would be pretty much the end of it. You’d hope. Continue reading “God Comes Knocking … Via Spam”

Posted on

Visits from Dead People — Part 2

[ Continued from Visits from Dead People — Part 1 ]

Another thing I figured out: There’s room in your head for more than just you.

I even wrote a story – okay, part of a story – about it one time. I figured that if multiple personality is really a thing – meaning that if there are real people out there with multiple personality as a disease, and sort of by accident – why couldn’t there be people who did it on purpose, and used it as an asset? Monday through Friday, you could be Dr. Kensington Braithwaite III, but on weekends you could be Billy Bob Harley. Not just those people as you imagined them to be, as you acted them out, but the real people – the one guy who had little or no memory of the other one, and vice versa ditto.   Continue reading “Visits from Dead People — Part 2”