Word of the day: Bescumber
“To demonstrate what he thought of the oogling visitors to his cage, the orangutan bescumbered them, hooting with derision as they screamed and ran away.”
The Week in Review – Law and Atheism
Things have been sort of insane in my life over the last few weeks, so I’m horribly late posting legal updates – for which I apologize. I was the target of a home-invasion robbery the night of December 6 – you can read about it on my blog – and the details of putting my home back together right before Christmas have been more than a little challenging and time-consuming. I still don’t have a cell phone, for instance, and my normal Christmas shopping has consisted of just giving up and getting gift cards for everyone – not exactly my usual holiday modus operandi. Hopefully things will return to normal relatively soon.
In the meantime, here are a few updates of important legal maneuverings around the world. I’ve tried to hit the highlights of those that haven’t gotten a ton of press coverage over the last month. If there’s something specific you want to hear more about, just ask.
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An open letter signed by 260 Christian and Jewish religious leaders in Illinoissupports the proposed Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act, which would legalize same-sex marriage in the state. Illinois already has a law allowing civil unions or domestic partnerships. The bill could come up for a vote in early January, before the new members of the state legislature elected in November take office, but its sponsors say they don’t want a vote at all if they aren’t sure the bill will pass.
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In a rare “no” to the Catholic Church, the Philippines has approved birth control even for poor women. According to an LA Times article:
The measure, which President Benigno Aquino III has pledged to sign, would override the de facto ban on contraceptives in Manila’s public health clinics, make sex education mandatory in public schools, and require hospitals to provide postabortion care, even though abortions will remain illegal.
The Catholic Church and other religions that prohibit birth control are not just out of step with their own followers, but out of step with modern thought on basic human rights. Poor parents who cannot control the number of children they must feed have few choices of ways to improve their lots in life, and those of those children. The Philippines has the second-highest teen pregnancy rate in Southeast Asia, and maternal mortality rates in the Philippines have soared more than 33% just in the last seven years. Healthcare and education are not easy for poor Filipinos to get, which compounds the problem.
American politicians should pay attention to this, too.
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In a story with a weird twist, FFRF successfully got the illegal nativity scene removed from public property in Century, Florida, but local news station WKRG reports that the proponents of the nativity scene – but not the city officials – claim, “next year the nativity scene will be bigger and better with plans to use the whole building for the manger scene, complete with angels and live music.” I’m not sure if that means that the people who capitulated to FFRF this year are going to dig in and have themselves a little lawsuit next year, or what. Maybe some outside group is fired up to file something. It sounds like what they want ought to be banned in the interest of good taste, not just in the interest of separation of church and state.
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Want to know the real reason that socialist Muslim Kenyan Barack HUSSEIN Obama won the election? According to Catholic Online, the atheists are totally to blame. Seems we wanted a “secular agenda.” And not only do we want a secular agenda, but our numbers are growing so significantly (up to 20% of the whole American population! OMG!) that the voters among us (12% of all the voters nationwide! ZOMG!) can elect whomever we please. I guess this means we’re in charge now, and can run our Evil Satanist Empire™ exactly as we damn well please. What a relief to know that my job here is done! Finally, I can relax and watch Honey Boo-Booin peace.
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I doubt that I have to tell you that Westboro Baptist Church is a hate group if ever there was one. They’ve threatened to picket the funerals of those killed in the Newtown, Connecticut school shooting – because clearly, those 6 and 7 year old first graders were fag lovers who deserved to die for their sins. Someone started a couple of petitions to have the White House declare them a hate group. The Supreme Court has said that these hatemongers have a right to protest, even though to the rest of us it appears that the church members prey on bereaved people at their lowest emotional ebb and at the most stressful moments of their lives.
What will an executive order declaring Westboro Baptist Church to be a hate group accomplish? Not much. But their tax status might be jeopardized, which apparently is the point of the exercise.
The Anti-Defamation League (focused mostly on antisemitism and racism) and the Southern Poverty Law Center both maintain lists of violent and nonviolent hate groups, and Westboro Baptist Church is on both lists. The FBI monitors the groups, too, but its list of hate groups is not public. The FBI will only act if federal law is violated, which generally means violence must be involved. Unfortunately, Westboro Baptist Church is made up of a family of lawyers, so they know to be nonviolent and they make their money by suing cities whose police forces do not protect them from counter-protests.
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Arizona has some of the most restrictive laws in the nation on matters of birth control and abortion. The anti-abortion law that was to go into effect in August, and which is now awaiting a decision on its constitutionality by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals,basically declares women pregnant any time they are not actively menstruating. Enter the Secular Coalition of America and the Secular Coalition for Arizona. Because the religion-motivated policy shapers in Arizona are determined to set human rights, women’s rights, and reproductive choice back to the days before Roe v. Wade, the Secular Coalition of Arizona has become the first in the 50 states to hire its own full-time lobbyist for secular issues for the upcoming legislative session.
Serah Blain, executive director of the Secular Coalition of Arizona, says that the goal is “to stop [the] reign of terror” by the ultra-conservative Center for Arizona Policy, a group with an innocuous name but deadly and horrific ideas for controlling women’s health.
The Secular Coalition of Arizona is not just focused on women’s health. It plans to lobby hard for a death-with-dignity law that resembles Oregon’s, as well as for science-based sex education in public schools.
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Remember Alber Saber, the Egyptian man who was attacked by a mob and imprisoned for being an atheist and posting about it on Facebook? He has beenconvicted of blasphemy and sentenced to three years in prison. He’s out on bond pending his appeal, though, and insists, “I’m not a criminal, but I’m being judged and sentenced on my opinion.” His family is Coptic Christian in the predominantly Muslim country. Under the Mubarek regime, blasphemy was against the law, but was not an constitutional offense. Because Egypt’s new constitution declares blasphemy to be a crime, human rights groups expect more blasphemy charges to be brought against religious dissenters.
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The Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, also commonly known as Atheists in Foxholes, has succeeded in stopping a live nativity that was planned on a US military base in Bahrain. The military atheists’ concerns were twofold: first, that the nativity unconstitutionally promoted Christianity as the official religion of the military base; and second, that local Muslims would believe that the military was Christian rather than secular.
The live nativity was to have taken place in the base’s main courtyard, but was moved to a more private chapel area, where religious activities normally take place for military personnel. Naturally, the MAAF is accused of ruining Christmas for everyone, because if Christmas can’t take place in the front yard, it doesn’t happen.
We in the Bible Belt think that we are working behind enemy lines. Given the evangelical bent of much of the military, these guys are not just behind enemy lines, but in the thick of hostile fire. Bravo for their perseverance!
(This post originally appeared on WWJTD.)
Dwindling Helium Supply Can Increase American IQ
Earth is Running Out of Helium.
Children across America may be in despair soon. Kids born today will never know the pleasures of helium. By the time they reach their 4th birthdays, those children will be wondering what it was that kept those old-timey balloons aloft in the pictures they see of the days of yore. They will never hear the voice of one of their peers altered for a few moments by a breath of helium, and they will never themselves know the joy of talking that way until their mothers, in exasperation, say, “Stop inhaling from balloons before your voice freezes that way! It happened to a kid in Australia, so it could happen to you!”
This situation is so serious that both chambers of Congress have held hearings on the issue. There is actual bipartisan concern about our dwindling helium supply. Senate bill 2374, the Helium Stewardship Act of 2012, has garnered considerable support. Opening the House hearing on July 20, 2012, Rep. Rush Holt (D. – NJ), the Ranking Member on the House Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee, said, “We may be heading for a crisis … if we don’t face up to this issue.”
He’s right. Without helium, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade will be just a bunch of trucks pretending to be floats and marching bands. There will be nothing spectacular to see. Television coverage will cease and people will hit the malls for Black Thursday, which, without the parade, will become the norm.
Helium is so scarce that helium balloons are truly a scourge to necessary medical procedures like MRIs, which require the element to operate. Cornell University Professor and Nobel physics prize winner, Robert Richardson, says that party balloons should sell for over $100 each to reflect a more accurate value of this dwindling resource.
As silly as it may seem, terrestrial helium depletion is no joke.
Helium is essential for creating neutron beams. Weather balloons use it to reach the stratosphere. It is used to cool nuclear reactors and to purge rocket fuel in space-bound vehicles. Without it, superconducting magnets won’t work, so devices as common as the local hospital’s MRI to the Large Hadron Collider would be inoperable. Without helium, there will be no semi-conductors or microchips. And it’s absolutely indispensable for cryogenics. For the love of all that is immortal, we must save our helium!Helium is mined, just like other natural gas, from pockets in the earth’s crust where it is trapped. Its sale is managed by the Bureau of Land Management, which sells it to private refineries for considerably less than its rarity and rapid depletion would indicate is a fair price.
The American Helium Hoard
There is a place that stockpiles helium. Where else do you think the canisters of the stuff come from? Of course, they come from the world’s largest Helium Reserve, outside of Amarillo, Texas, where over 30% of the world’s helium is extracted from natural gas wells. However, as wild and free as the helium is allowed to roam on the reserve, supplies there are expected to be depleted by 2016. By 2042, the earth’s supply of helium may go the way of the dodo. Helium is an endangered species … er … element.
We all know and love helium as the gas that inflates balloons. But scientists and engineers use helium as a coolant and in other complicated ways we mere mortals wouldn’t understand. It seems though, that those party balloons have been wasting this precious resource.
“Helium is non-renewable and irreplaceable. Its properties are unique and unlike hydrocarbon fuels (natural gas or oil), there are no biosynthetic ways to make an alternative to helium. All should make better efforts to recycle it,” says Lee Sobotka, Ph.D., professor of chemistry and physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. He should know. He’s a scientist.
We can’t make helium? What kind of scientific incompetence is this?
Even though it is the second-most common element in the universe, helium is too light to be retained under the dome of the earth’s atmosphere. Terrestrial helium only occurs naturally when super heavy elements like uranium decay. We all know how slow that process is. We know, for example, that Chernobyl is going to be uninhabitable forever because of the decaying uranium allowed to roam in the wild there. Sure, Chernobyl is putting out a few helium atoms here and there, but that’s over in Russia or somewhere. It’s not here in America, where our reserves are running a bit thin.
What to do?
According to a paper published in the journal Nature, The most expedient way is to remove it from the brains of airheads, where helium collects in the crevices between layers of gray matter. We would provide a link to the exact article, but Nature is behind a horrendously expensive paywall, so we’ll summarize the article for you here.
You might remember from science class, when you had to memorize parts of the Periodic Table of Elements, that helium was the second element. It was the one that had only two protons and two electrons circling its nucleus. It’s the lightest element, and scientists have now revealed that, in a revolutionary approach to extracting terrestrial helium, they will begin farming airheads in order to figure out how to retrieve the helium that collects in their brains.
It’s the only way.
Helium Farms: The Permanent Wave of the Future?
Dr. Rutherford Becquerel, a nuclear chemist with the Curie College of Physical Science at Fermi University in Cern, Switzerland, will take a sabbatical to head up the Texas farming operation, which is expected to lure airheads from all over America and possibly even the world.
At a press conference last week, he explained that helium is what makes airheads so ditzy. Extracting the helium from the brains of these airheads will help replace some of the natural helium lost because of wasteful scientists who have performed their experiments so carelessly, and because of wasteful engineers who have used it so recklessly and relentlessly. Not to mention all those balloons at football games and birthday parties.
“When we use what has been made over the approximate 4.5 billion of years the Earth has been around, we will run out,” Sobotka said, joining Becquerel at the podium last week. “We cannot get too significant quantities of helium from the sun — which can be viewed as a helium factory 93 million miles away — nor will we ever produce helium in anywhere near the quantities we need from Earth-bound factories. Helium could eventually be produced directly in nuclear fusion reactors and is produced indirectly in nuclear fission reactors, but the quantities produced by such sources are dwarfed by our needs.”
“It is not a complicated procedure to remove the helium,” Becquerel assured the gathered journalists. “We either pierce the eardrum, or go through the nostril with a long syringe, and suck the helium out of the brains of the airheads.”
There was a protest by several hundred parents, whose children are blonde and who suspect that their children will be future airheads.
“There is no need to be alarmed or concerned at all,” Becquerel assured the protesters. Pediatric neurophysicist Marie-Pierre Soddy, recently appointed medical director of the project, agreed. “Helium extraction actually allows the brain to grow, to move into areas formerly inhabited by the helium. It actually cures the condition of most airheads,” she said. Her groundbreaking paper on the subject has been published in PNAS, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and featured in the journal Neurology. Paywalls are firmly in place for both, so once again, readers will just have to have faith in the trustworthiness of this report.
It has been scientifically proven that natural blondes are no more prone to ditzy brains than the rest of the population. The hair-bleaching process, on the other hand, may create an inter-cranial helium buildup of unacceptable proportions. Soddy’s team continues to study this method as a possible way to create more helium to power their helium-powered experiments. The extraction of the helium gas from the brains of these helium-afflicted people will actually make them smarter and more sensible. A fortuitous situation, indeed!
It would cost too much to try to get helium out of the air, and recycling the helium set free by all those balloons is out of the question since they fly too high much too fast to be able to catch them with any degree of reliability. The helium quickly rises to the upper reaches of the stratosphere, punches through the mesosphere, rockets through the thermosphere, and wafts on out into exospheric space from there. It’s too light to hang around with the other elements, and it doesn’t bond to them so nothing holds it in place. (Hydrogen, on the other hand, bonds easily to earth-bound elements.)
Helium from the Exosphere?
The sun emits incredible amounts of helium every day. When consulted about Becquerel’s plan for helium husbandry, Dr. Ian Crawford, of Birkbeck College at the University of London, carefully had no committal comment as to its efficacy. However, he graciously offered what could be the next step to acquiring helium:
“There are about 22 grams of helium in every cubic metre of lunar soil. Once American IQs have been raised beyond the point of cost-effective helium reclamation, the moon is our next treasure trove for helium.”
In addition to the farm, Becquerel and Soddy will operate in the Texas panhandle, helium farms will be started in Colorado, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Exploratory missions to Australia and England are in the works. Because of Chernobyl, Russia has the world’s largest reserves of raw, wild, free-range helium, but exploratory missions have had to deal with radiation issues, and have not yet established a way to isolate the helium without taking off their lead-lined suits.
Sobotka believes that Russia will be the world’s major source of helium in 30 years if any remains on the planet. despite being the second most abundant element in the universe, we humans had squandered our supply in a macabre foreshadowing of what will also become of other non-renewable resources.
Soddy and Becquerel, whom their peers are sure to have sewn up the Nobel Prize in medicine, physics, and chemistry, also believe that with the mining of helium from American airheads, our national IQ will increase exponentially and we might even stop voting Republican.
“Miracles happen,” Dr. Soddy said softly, hopefully.
Annual Christmas Post for 2012
~~This is a re-post of my annual Christmas blog, for all you perverts who asked for it. ~~
~~My sister will never forgive me.~~
The year Jack was 15, he and I went to my sister’s for Christmas dinner. When we got there, Susan put a pork tenderloin in the oven and we gathered around the tree to open gifts. Susan’s two boys, ages 15 and 13, were there, as was my mother. We spent a lovely hour ooohing and ahhhhing over what everyone got and gave. It was a very nice time.
We were almost through opening gifts when Su left to check the pork tenderloin we were having for Christmas dinner. She was in the kitchen for a few minutes. The rest of us waited to open any more gifts until she returned.
We were chatting and laughing and not paying any attention to her when Su tip-toed back into the living room and tapped me on the shoulder. “Come here,” she whispered.
I had been sitting on the floor. I got to my feet and followed her into the kitchen.
“Have you ever cooked a pork tenderloin?” she asked.
“Sure,” I told her. “Lots of times.”
“Good. I have something I need to ask you, then,” she said, and opened the oven door. She reached in and pulled out the roasting pan holding the meat. I thought she would has me about how to tell if the meat was cooked through, or how best to carve it or something. I am always willing to dispense sisterly advice. But that wasn’t what Su wanted.
“Is it supposed to look like this?” she asked.
I gaped.
I blinked.
Su put the pan down on the counter and grinned at me real big. “Shhhh,” she said.
We walked back into the living room, and she beckoned to Mom.
I couldn’t help it. I could barely hold in my laughter, and it was obvious. I do not have a poker face at all. When my mother followed Susan into the kitchen, I did my best to keep three large teenage boys at bay, thinking they were too young and … ahem … tender … to witness what had been prepared for Christmas dinner.
I was unsuccessful. The boys barreled into the kitchen just as their grandmother was in the act of looking at the slab of meat that faced her. Their Gran glanced up with a quizzical look. For a second I thought she didn’t get it.
Then she burst out laughing.
The boys crowded around. “What is it? What’s so funny?” they demanded. Their mothers and grandmother were laughing too hard to tell them.
Su headed down the hall to the bathroom before she wet her pants. When she came back, she suggested that a creamy Bearnaise sauce would be a lovely accompaniment.
That set us off again. Sis headed back to the bathroom.
We females of the family enjoyed every bite. “Mmmmmm.” “Yummy.” “This is delightful,” we said.
The boys, for some reason, opted for a meatless Christmas dinner.
And now, for the crucial question:
If a pork tenderloin is circumcised, does that make it kosher?
Robbery with Ray, Pookie, Luke, and Champ
You’d have thought they were the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the way they crashed through my front door about 10:15 pm on December 6.
I had already gone to bed. I had my laptop open to make sure I hadn’t missed anything on Reddit, and was brushing one of my geriatric cats, George, when I heard the pounding on the door. The doorbell rang almost simultaneously. Obviously, something was wrong, so I got out of bed to grab my robe. Did one of my neighbors have an emergency? There’s a young family that lives on one side of me with a toddler. My friend Jean, another single woman, lives across the street. On the other side of me are a quiet couple about my age. What could be wrong?
I hadn’t yet crossed the room when I realized that there were people in my house. Multiple people. The only time multiple people come into my house at that time of night without me letting them in is when my son and nephews are home from college, and they were all … away at college. But sometimes my son and his friends dropped by after his roommate performed with the Improv troupe in North Little Rock. I called out, “Jack?” There was no answer. I walked out into the dark hallway. Whoever had come in had not turned on lights. Whoever had come in was on the stairs, almost to the lower floor where my bedroom was. Whoever had come in had a gun, and in the light from my bedroom I could see that it was pointed at me.
I dashed back into the bedroom. My phone was across the room, on the bedside table next to the bed I had just left. Before I could get to it, the intruders were standing in my bedroom pointing a sawed-off shotgun at my face.
A few days later I would learn that the gunman’s name was Robert Morgan Perry. His buddies had referred to him as “Ray” throughout their visit. He called them “Pookie” and “Luke.”
Yes, they were stupid enough to call each other by name. Clearly, these gangstas did not spend their spare time watching CSI. As the twenty minutes or so that they spent in my house dragged by, it became clear to me that they had never paid much attention to true crime shows like Forensic Files or The First 48, either.
After pocketing my iPhone, the man grabbed my laptop computer from where it sat on my bed. He was not wearing gloves. Then he started yanking cords out of the electronics beside my bed. My clock radio, my iPod dock. He looked around and saw a quilt. He dumped the items onto the quilt, which apparently would serve as a way for him to carry those things out, then looked around my bedroom for more stuff to take. The whole time he carelessly waved his gun toward me.
It was a big gun, about a foot long, and it looked like it meant business. I wasn’t sure whether the guy himself was all that strong, but given the artillery he had, I decided not to find out.
He grabbed the jewelry I had left on top of my dresser. Three of my favorites. A pair of antique Victorian chandelier ruby earrings, an antique gold ring I wore all the time, and my Goddess. My heart cried out when he took my Goddess. The he started yanking drawers out of the dresser and dumping their contents. He dropped one of the smaller drawers and kicked it. It shattered. He kicked the pieces out of the way and jerked open the next drawer. He sifted through my underwear, holding up items he found interesting. My stomach churned with disgust.
“Is there anybody else in this house?” he yelled at me. “If there’s anybody else in this house I’m going to blow his ass away!” Ray repeated this threat several times throughout his visit. No, no one else was home. I was glad Jack was at college. I was glad the dogs were at Skip’s. Had Missy or Frogger attacked armed intruders, they might both be dead.
I knew I had to look at him to be able to remember a good description. I stared at his face whenever he turned toward me. I estimated him to be about 5’6, with a slim build – maybe about 150 pounds – and medium skin. I had to remember. I hated looking at his face, especially as he fingered my lingerie.
“Where’s the rest of your jewelry?” he demanded. I said nothing. He waved the gun in my direction. “I know you got more jewelry,” he said.
“That’s it. You’ve got it. That’s what I wear every day,” I answered. That much was two-thirds true. I wear the ring every day. I wear the Goddess most days. The earrings, though, I tend to wear just during the holidays, because they remind me of Christmas ornaments.
He looked around the room. I could hear his future co-defendants moving around upstairs. My bedroom is one level down from the front entrance to my house. He waved the gun again. “Where’s your damn jewelry?” he demanded.
Now, here’s where I confess that I am a jewelry whore. I don’t wear makeup very often, and I usually just pull my otherwise unkempt hair into a ponytail, but otherwise, I’m very much a dragon. I love sparkly things. I love gold. I love shiny stones. I love silver. I like big jewelry. I am quite content when I am surrounded by pretty baubles. My hoard of shiny, sparkly things makes me happy. I’ve collected antique jewelry for years. And I was damned if I was going to tell him where it was.
But he kept yelling at me and waving that gun in my face. Finally, I told him I had a safe in my closet. It was sitting on the floor. He grinned as he carried it out, smug in his conquest. He called for Pookie to keep an eye on me while he carried the safe out. One of the other two men obliged, but unlike Ray, his face was covered. He was wearing my son’s Guy Fawkes mask.
He was about the same size as Ray, though, with hair either braided or in tight dreadlocks, pulled back into a short ponytail. I might not be able to see his face, but I could tell what his build was.
At some point during all this, I heard a terrific crash from upstairs. I couldn’t tell where it came from, just that it was really, really loud. Something big had fallen.
Those fuckers were breaking my stuff.
Evidently, since they hadn’t worked to earn the money to pay for it, they couldn’t care less whether they damaged it. I had visions of antique French furniture being smashed into kindling. I worried that my grandmother’s Italian crystal chandelier had been ripped from the dining room ceiling. I expected them to take all the electronics they could carry. I just hoped they’d leave the antiques and art alone. With any luck, they didn’t know what those things were worth, and couldn’t tell about the value of my other shiny baubles, set about my home and in cases and on shelves. I hoped all they wanted were things they could sell quickly and easily, but because that horrible man grinned as he pocketed three pieces of unique and easily identifiable jewelry, I was worried.
Ray soon returned to the bedroom, and a third guy also came downstairs where we were. I saw three men during that incident, but I thought perhaps I heard someone else still upstairs when the three I saw were downstairs. They systematically yanked the TV and other electronics out of the wall sockets and carried them out. I have a sewing room next to my bedroom, and they took the TV from there, too.
Then one of the thugs noticed my collection of antique sterling silver and mother of pearl sewing tools. More shiny baubles. He emptied the display case and my heart sank. Most of those belonged to two of my great-grandmothers, and they are irreplaceable. The price they will bring at a pawn shop pales in comparison to what they are worth, and what they mean to me.
Two of them returned upstairs, leaving only Ray downstairs. He rummaged through my closets, digging through bags and boxes. Unwrapped Christmas gifts sat in one closet. After dumping the box they were in, Ray apparently saw nothing worth stealing so moved on.
Then he yelled to ask if Pookie had his gun. Startled, I saw that Ray was no longer holding the gun. A wild hope of escape crossed my mind, but with Ray between me and the back door, and at least two more men upstairs, I was frozen with indecision. Could I make it across the street to Jean’s? Not if I had to run past them. Could I get out the back door? Probably not before Ray caught up with me. Would he just let me run? Probably not. If I ran, where could I go? To get to Jean’s I’d have to cross the street in front of my house, where Ray’s buddies were probably loading things into their vehicle. And one of them – I didn’t know which – probably had that gun. I felt like a deer in headlights. I didn’t run.
He moved to the laundry room across from my bedroom, demanding that I come with him. He had found a clear plastic bag someplace, and began stuffing smaller things into it. “What the hell? That’s my travel iron!” I couldn’t help myself. These idiots were risking a prison sentence of 20-40 years or life for a miniature iron that probably cost less than $20 and was at least 15 years old? Seriously? Ray just looked at me and grinned. Maybe he was in this for the excitement, not the money.
Some of the things they took and some of the things they left were puzzling. The drawer holding my sterling silver flatware was open, but nothing was missing. They took the Rock Band video game components – then abandoned them just outside the basement door – but didn’t even knock Jack’s 50th Anniversary Fender Stratocaster off its stand.
Ray ordered me up the stairs. I hoped they wouldn’t kidnap me. The hope of being able to run past them, out the front door and across the street to Jean’s, beat wildly in my chest. On the way upstairs, I noticed blood dripped on the wall and on the landing. Satisfaction mingled with my faint hope. One of them was bleeding, and that meant better forensic evidence than smudged fingerprints and half-remembered descriptions from a terrified victim. I looked away from the blood. I hoped the thugs wouldn’t notice it. They stopped me at the top of the stairs. I couldn’t see out the front door, and I couldn’t see whether there were other people.
I wondered if I dared to try to push past them to get across the street to Jean’s house before they found the gun, but someone yelled that he had it. I wondered if these thugs really had the courage, or were psychopathic enough, to really use it. I decided that trial and error was not a good way to find out.
Finally one of them said he had the gun. I couldn’t tell which. All those potential escape scenarios committed seppuku in my brain.
When they decided they had been at my house long enough, the one in the Guy Fawkes mask led me down to the basement and told me to wait 60 seconds after they left to leave the room. Then he said, “I’m sorry, ma’am, but we’re just trying to feed our families.”
I wondered who they thought would feed their families while they were in prison. Bringing that gun along had added at least ten years to their sentences, and none of them was wearing gloves. I had seen Ray’s face and studied it well. I had desperately noted every detail I could about the other two, from their hairstyles to their body types.
He left the room, and a few moments later I heard the squeal of tires. I bolted upstairs. They hadn’t found my kitchen phone. I shook as I dialed 911. I blurted out what had happened, and then I started to really panic. What if they came back? Should I stay, or leave? I begged the 911 operator to call my sister. She tried, but my sister was out of town. I didn’t want to bother my brother, Jay, who I knew had been up for nearly 48 hours already because of a huge project at work. I asked her to call my son’s father. He didn’t answer his phone. I started to cry. She called him again. Still no answer. But by this time the police arrived.
I was telling the police what had happened when my phone rang. It was my ex. I begged him to come over.
I love Skip – he’s still one of my very best friends, even though we’ve been divorced nearly eight years. I am really sorry for ruining his evening – he said he had left a very promising date to come see about me. I don’t know who the woman was, but I sure hope she accepts that his decision was a sign of his strength of character, and not a competition where she came in second. (She’s welcome to him. Take my ex-husband. Please. All I ask is that she allow him to remain my friend when it comes to Jack. And in the occasional emergency.)
A few minutes later the doorbell rang again. My sister had called Jay, who immediately had come wide awake despite his exhaustion and broken land speed records over the ten miles to my house. I love that man, too. He thought to turn on the “Track my Phone” feature and found that the thugs and my phone were at the hospital less than half a mile away. He put my phone in lost mode.
Jack came home that night, too. Jay had texted him and told him not to break speed records getting here, but I don’t think Jack paid much attention. He walked into the house and hugged me tighter than he has since he was a very little guy. Even if he’s grown, I guess he still loves his mom.
Jack helped me clean up the wreckage in my bedroom after the police, Skip, and Jay left. Neither one of us expected to sleep. About 5 a.m., I picked up one of the quilts and was surprised that it was heavy. I put it back down and unfolded it. Hidden within were my laptop, my bedside clock radio, my iPod, and my iPod dock. Ray had apparently forgotten them in the excitement of carrying out a heavy safe full of jewelry, I guess. Jack and I laughed.
Pookie left a lot of blood all over my house. He cut himself either taking my big TV off the wall over my living room fireplace or ripping cords out of the desktop computer he didn’t take the time to unhook. His thug buddies apparently took Pookie from my house straight to the ER to get him stitched up. They turned my phone on and off several times over the next several days – at Pookie’s house, at the barber college where Luke apparently works, and a few other places. The detectives were able to round up Pookie and Luke pretty quickly, and they confessed and implicated a fourth man, a guy named Wilbert Champ. I never saw Champ. Maybe he was the one I heard walking around upstairs while Pookie, Luke, and Ray were all downstairs. Ray told me there were five of them altogether.
A friend of mine runs the Forbidden Hillcrest site. I’ve followed his blog for several years since it’s all about my neighborhood. It’s fun to read – it has the history of Hillcrest, fictional neighborhood drama, and real neighborhood drama. On the Facebook page for Forbidden Hillcrest, there are lots of crime reports and commentary from my neighbors. When Pookie, Luke and Champ were arrested, the arrest reports were posted to the Forbidden Hillcrest page. Within minutes, my intrepid neighbors had found the Facebook pages for Pookie and Luke.
The “gangsta” talk on those two pages is almost unintelligible. It appears from Pookie’s post the day after the robbery that they did this as part of his birthday celebration. He said, “thanx to erbodi who wished me a happy bday~A0~” What a way to celebrate – scare the shit out of some woman you’ve never seen before, forcibly deprive her of her things, wreck her house, and get arrested. Whooo-eeee, we’re having some fun, now.
Most disheartening, though was a photo posted on Luke’s page of himself and a small child. “Me and my lil g” is what he calls it. The child’s lower face is covered with a bandana, and both of them are throwing gang signs.
He’s proud of teaching a child to live a life of crime. After 20 years of practicing juvenile law, this disgusts me so completely there are barely words to describe how I feel. Talk about a kid having a lot to overcome – if crime is glorified to this child, then he’s going to end up in prison right along with Luke.
Luke appears to have at least some remorse for what he did. When he bonded out of jail after the arrest, he posted “Js wanna say srry 2 all da people I let down I’m finna get my life together from now on” on his Facebook status. He’s at least sorry for getting caught, which is a start. He’d have more credibility with me if he returned my jewelry and antique sewing tools, though. Who knows – he might get a lighter sentence than his co-defendants for his efforts. And he might actually straighten his life out. He’ll take a step toward transforming himself from a shitty human being to a human being who did something shitty once.
Ray is still at large, but there’s a warrant out for his arrest. When I received word of that and learned what his name was, I looked him up on the Pulaski County Clerk’s website. Piecing it together from docket entries on the website, it looks like he drew a battery charge in May 2006. Apparently, he didn’t show up for court, so in 2008 a warrant was finally issued for his arrest again. Eventually, he got probation for the battery charge.
Then in April 2008, he was charged with the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl. He entered a negotiated plea – a plea bargain – to the lesser offense of sexual assault, and was sentenced to ten years, with 5 suspended, and sent to ADC in November 2008. He apparently got out on parole and did something else to get the suspended sentence imposed. The revocation petition mentions that he was in possession of firearms, which felons are not to have. There was a revocation hearing in October 2011 and he went to ADC again. Then in March 2012, he was sentenced to another 5 years on the sexual assault charge – essentially the suspended 5 years of the original sentence was imposed. I don’t know why he was already out in time to rob me at gunpoint by December 6. I have a feeling, though, that he’s going to spend a little longer in prison this time.
I don’t have any of my things back, and given the crash I heard from upstairs, I doubt the one television the police recovered will still work. It was covered in Pookie’s blood when they found it, anyway, so I’m not really sure I even want it back. They also recovered Jack’s Guy Fawkes mask. When I showed him the arrest report that said the mask had been found, Jack grimaced and said they could keep it.
Two nights later, about the same time, there was another armed home invasion robbery in my neighborhood. I wonder if the same thugs were responsible.
My friends keep asking me how I’m doing.
I do fine until it’s time to go to bed. Then I replay that twenty minutes in my mind, second-guessing myself, wondering what I could have done differently. Then I get up and take a Xanax, and after another twenty minutes of replaying the robbery, I finally fall asleep.
I could have locked up my jewelry before I went to bed. They wouldn’t have gotten my Goddess, then. I’m lucky that all they got were those three pieces of jewelry.
Oh, the safe I mentioned? The one I told Ray to get out of the closet? Yeah, it didn’t have jewelry in it. There was nothing of significant value in it at all. I hadn’t even opened it in ages. My best friend was under strict instructions to get that safe out of my house stat if anything ever happened to me because my mom and my son should never see its contents.
I almost wish I could have been a fly on the wall when Ray and Pookie and Luke drilled into it expecting to find my dragon’s hoard of jewels and learned that most of what was in it no doubt needed new batteries.
Activism: How to Address Those Nativity Scenes
Reader Question:
I live in a small village in Ohio just outside of Cincinnati and there is the usual awful nativity scene on what I think is public land (a small park beside main street). As far as I can tell, nobody has ever challenged the Christian monopoly in a place like this, but I’d like to know what you think the best options / available courses of action are.
I’m from England originally, so I’m not always sure what the best course of action is in this country, and people aren’t always exactly willing to help, so any assistance would be appreciated. I’d like to know if what they are doing is legal and what my options are to challenge the hegemony.
Thanks,
Andy
Answer:
There are a couple of different ways to go on this.
First, there’s the “Public Property Should Never be Used for Religious Displays Because That Promotes Religion” approach, in which we ask the public entity to remove its religious displays of suffer a lawsuit, and that works and makes a lot of people angry at us. We sue, the court says that by only displaying religious symbols from one religion the government entity is establishing religion, our attorney gets paid by the government entity, and the mission is accomplished.
Then, there’s the “Include My Display in the Public Forum” approach, which means that public property gets littered with a confusing mélange of tacky seasonal displays from many different religions, and hopefully from secular groups as well. Eventually the number of displays becomes burdensome, so they all get nixed. Or, there’s some other controversy, like we saw recently in Santa Monica, California, and the displays get nixed or moved to private property. (There’s no problem at all with moving them to private property. That’s where religious displays belong.)
So first, let’s define the parameters of what we want to accomplish. What are the goals?
- The goal of separation of church and state, of non-establishment, of the First Amendment, is to prevent religious favoritism, but without denying anyone the right to practice their preferred flavor of religion.
- The goal of good taste is to rid public forums of seriously tacky seasonal displays.
And sometimes we have to jump on the tackiness train – sinking to the level of the worthy opposition – to get our point across and to let good taste prevail.
But how to get to this point?
The local public square, city hall, city park, courthouse lawn, or whatever has its nativity scene. That’s typically the only thing that is displayed, because churches are more organized and wealthier than anyone else and can afford those life-size graven images of their baby god and his family.
Once the governing entity – city, county, or state – allows one private person to exercise his First Amendments rights in a public area, that area becomes a public forum for anyone to speak. That includes us. It riles the hardcore Christians to allow someone without religion to display something secular next theirs. Oh, they don’t mind the menorahs, usually, because Hanukkah is close to Christmas. But add atheists to the mix and they get testy.
Atheists need to ask to be added to the mix more often. Seriously. The Christians stole this holiday from earlier traditions and even from traditions that competed with them over a thousand years later. They do not “own” Christmas, no matter what this big winter holiday season is called. And if they get to erect gaudy, tacky displays, so do we.
It can be fun, like Santa and reindeer or a maze of giant illuminated candy canes. Personally, I’m fond of the educational displays, which explain the solstice and axial tilt as the reason for the season. How about a display telling about the non-Christian roots of things like garlands, mistletoe, decorated trees, wassailing, and Yule?
We atheists don’t necessarily have to go it alone, either. Even in your small community, you may have local families who aren’t Christian and who celebrate during the Christmas season for other reasons. One way I think to make a great point is to get a group of different kinds of non-Christians together to come up with something appropriately seasonal.
- Iranians in your community probably observe Yalda, which is what the original Persian celebration of Mithra’s birth has become. The multi-day celebration is celebrated with feasting and fires.
- Is there a Buddhist center nearby? They might never have thought of participating, but they have something to offer, too. Bodhi Day, the day the Buddha achieved enlightenment, is December 8. It is observed in China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam.
- Do you know any Wiccans? Those are some creative folks, and their traditions are well-represented in the Christian season.
- How big is your local Asian community? Dong Zhi is the Chinese festival celebrating the winter solstice. Add Chinese lanterns to winter holiday displays!
- Find out who organizes Kwanzaa celebrations in your community, and get them involved, too. It can be something as simple as a sign.
- Modern Hindus have a five-day celebration from December 21-25 called Pancha Ganapati, during which shrines to Lord Ganesha, the god that takes elephant form, are erected.
- Obviously, Hanukkah is celebrated this time of the year, too. Ask Jewish neighbors to erect a menorah and break out the dreidels.
Pretty soon that lawn at City Hall will be so crowded with alternate seasonal displays that the people visiting it will end up getting educated in spite of themselves. They will realize that there are, indeed, many reasons for the holiday season. When they do, their minds are opened to differing viewpoints. And since we won’t have taken away their graven images, so they won’t be quite as mad at us.
Now, in all honesty, you might have to sue to enforce your rights in this regard. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a whole group of plaintiffs representing multiple traditions? Talk about giving power to alternate voices!
You’ll win that lawsuit, too. And when you win, you’ve won forever. Plus, your lawyer will get paid by the government that denied you your constitutional rights.
Yes, Virginia, you DO have a right to erect secular seasonal displays next to the Christians’ graven images.
(This post originally appeared on WWJTD.)
Activism Alert: Be Counted!
This may not seem like much, but it really does matter.
Atheist Alliance International has a new project: a census of the world’s atheists.
The purpose of the project is to collect demographic information on the world’s non-religious people. The data collected will definitely help the secularist movement. We will have numbers – even if they are self-reported – to back up our demands on social, political, and legal issues. When we are able to demonstrate the strength of our numbers, we acquire clout.
From the FAQ:
Aggregated to the country level, the information collected by Atheist Census is freely available through the Atheist Census website so that atheists can demonstrate their presence in their own countries. AAI would be pleased to discuss other uses of the information with like-minded groups or individuals.
Even though the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Pubic Life recently tabulated its own numbers, this census will also collect useful information. To be counted, you will have to submit your email address and click on the validation link emailed to you. If you don’t click on it within 24 hours, you won’t be counted – although you can always try again.
AAI attempted a census last spring, but technical difficulties required the project to be put on hold. As luck would have it, before the new website had been active even a full day, it was the target of a denial of service (DoS) attack.
Does someone out there not want non-theists to be counted? Let’s confound them and get counted anyway. We’ll make ourselves count!
(This post originally appeared on WWJTD.)
Supreme Court to Decide Same-Sex Marriage Issues
HUGE news from the trenches of human rights warfare:
This afternoon Bloomberg reported that, for the first time, the United States Supreme Court will address issues pertaining to same-sex marriage.
SCOTUS will take issues related to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California’s same-sex marriage, which has seemed like a yo-yo the way it has been illegal, legal, illegal, quasi-legal, etc.
Courts that have ordered same-sex marriage in their states have done so pursuant to the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution. State constitutional amendments that conflict with the US Constitution are unenforceable, so if the Supremes decide that the Equal Protection Clause applies, all those states with marriage bans based on gender will be forced to comply.
When this happened with racial integration of public schools, the National Guard had to be called out. Let’s hope that the American people are more willing to embrace change nearly sixty years after the Central High crisis.
(This post originally appeared on WWJTD.)
The Week in Review – Law and Atheism
The Christian Family Coalition persuaded the Miami-Dade County Commissioners to institute a prayer to start off each meeting. Commissioner Dennis Moss was understandably upset at the passage of the ordinance, and objected vociferously, which displeased the CFC. It seems that they expect their elected officials never to defend the wall of separation of church and state. One of the prongs of the CFC’s mission is to “protest anti-Christian bias and defend the legal rights of Christians.” I kid you not. Apparently they believe Christians are oppressed. From where I sit, just the opposite seems to be the case. The ACLU is monitoring the situation, and may file suit if the council’s prayers slide into sectarian territory.
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In a no-brainer of a lawsuit, FFRF sued a school district in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, in September over a Ten Commandments monolith in the school yard. In their answer to the suit filed just this week, the school district’s lawyers said that the monument had to be placed there during the otherwise completely lawless 1950’s, when school children had no code of conduct from any other source. (Yes, that’s what the report says. Well, pretty much. Click the link if you don’t believe me.) The school district’s attorneys, desperate for an argument – any argument! – said that the outdoor monument was not really a problem because it has an eagle (the school’s mascot) the Eye of Ra on it, so it’s all nonreligious and stuff. Plus, objecting students can simply avert their eyes.
Let’s ask Jessica Ahlquist about how the law sees such a solution, shall we? I’ll bet she can answer us without blinking.
The school district’s lawyers also said, “Considering the ‘history and ubiquity’ of this Eagles’ Ten Commandments monument, and assessing how a reasonable person would view it, it is clear that the monument does not convey a message of endorsement of religion.” Evidently they don’t know about the logical fallacy of an appeal to tradition.
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The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, a project of the Pew Center for Research, reported on the religious affiliations of the 113th congress a couple of weeks ago. We know that we have our first Hindu (Hawaii Democrat Tulsi Gabbard) in either house and our first Buddhist Senator (Hawaii Democrat Mazie K. Hirono, whose house seat Gabbard won). For the first time a religiously unaffiliated person, Arizona Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, has been elected to a new seat in Congress. She has so far resisted saying whether or not she is actually atheist, but she’s openly bisexual. California’s Pete Stark had been in office for well over a decade when he came out as atheist in 2007. He is the only known atheist ever to serve in Congress, although Dave Silverman of American Atheists claims that there are at least 20 closeted non-theists currently in office.
When the 113th Congress takes office in January, 393 members of the House of Representatives will be Christian (246 Protestant, 134 Catholic, 8 Mormon, 5 Christian Orthodox), 22 Jewish, 2 Buddhist, 2 Muslim, 1 Hindu, 1 Unitarian, and 1 unaffiliated. Eight members of the House did not specify their religious persuasions.
Eighty-seven Senators are Christian (53 Protestant, 27 Catholic, 7 Mormon), 10 are Jewish, 1 is Buddhist, and two did not specify a religious preference.
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We expect to see blasphemy in the headlines from theocratic Muslim countries, but it is more startling to hear that countries that make up the European Union still have blasphemy laws on the books. Despite its intensely Catholic history and its role in the Protestant Reformation, Europe seems to be in the process of abandoning its religious roots, relegating religion to a curiosity that existed in its history, but which rarely plays a part now. Today’s Europe is increasingly secular, amused by unscientific fundamentalism, and irreverent.
There are eight notable exceptions: Denmark, Germany, Greece Ireland, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, and Poland. A couple of weeks ago, I told you about the iconoclastic Greek play that resulted in blasphemy charges for its actors, director, and producers. Ireland has a blasphemy law on the books, and its abortion prohibitions are so strict that even when the mother’s life, and thereby the fetus’, are at risk, still no abortion can be performed. That nightmare scenario played out to devastating and preventable results not long ago.
Last week the Dutch parliament moved to scrap its blasphemy law, too. The Dutch law, passed in the 1930’s, has not been used in more than 50 years. Feel free to marvel at the social change that took place within a single lifetime. A majority of the political parties in the Netherlands agree that such a law is no longer relevant to modern Dutch life, where the freedom of speech and tolerance are treasured.
I am also pleased to report that here is hope for Ireland. This week,Ireland opened a constitutional convention that may result in eight significant changes in its laws, especially with respect to human rights. Among those possible changes are the elimination of the blasphemy law passed as recently as 2009 and approval of same-sex marriage. Last year Taoiseach Enda Kenny proved himself not to be in religion’s back pocket when he blasted the Catholic Church in his address to Parliament regarding the Cloyne Report. The report marked a devastating blow to the Vatican because it revealed the involvement of the Vatican – not just local church officials – in covering up child sexual abuse by priests in one Irish diocese. In the opening speeches Saturday, Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore advocated significant changes from the 1937 constitution, saying it “reflected the aspirations for our country as they were in the 1930s, which was a time when one church had a special place when women were second class citizens and homosexuality was a criminal offence.”
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The United Nations gets two upvotes this week. First, it has condemned female genital mutilation, a religious and cultural practice confined mostly to Africa and the Middle East, but which, because of widespread immigration, has become an issue worldwide. The World Health Organization has said that female circumcision has no health benefits, and indeed, that the procedure actually “interferes with the natural functions” of the female body.
Recently a woman from Gambia sought political asylum in the U.K. because of the genital mutilation she had suffered, and the fear that her three-year-old daughter would be subjected to is they returned there. The United States and Canada have both granted asylum based on realistic fears of genital mutilation – in fact, our kind neighbors to the north were the first country to recognize that females as a minority social group faced persecution in the form of genital mutilation if they were forced to return to certain countries, and to grant them asylum because of it.
Male circumcision has fallen into worldwide disfavor in recent years, and made the news last week when Grace Adeleye, a nurse-midwife, went on trial for the death of a four week old baby who bled to death after she circumcised him. The circumcision was done without anesthetic in the home of the baby’s Nigerian-immigrant parents. Adeleye used forceps, olive oil, and a pair of scissors to do the job.
In 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics changed from a neutral stance on circumcision to one in which it stated that there was “insufficient information available to recommend” circumcision, although it did say that the health benefits of circumcision outweigh the risks. Because of the potential health benefits, the World Health Organization says that male circumcision is partial protection against AIDS. According to the CDC, “Male circumcision reduces the risk that a man will acquire HIV from an infected female partner, and also lowers the risk of other STDs , penile cancer, and infant urinary tract infection. In female partners, it reduces the risk of cervical cancer, genital ulceration, bacterial vaginosis, trichomoniasis, and HPV. Although male circumcision has risks including pain, bleeding, and infection, more serious complications are rare.” Some human rights organizations claim that the male circumcision studies relied upon by the UN, WHO, and CDC are flawed.
This week’s second upvote for the United Nations results from its recognition of Palestine as a state. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has held the status of a non-member observer entity” since 1974, but this change in status implies that the U.N. recognizes Palestine as a state, putting it on equal footing with the Vatican within the U.N.’s hierarchical framework of nation-states. Palestine is understandably jubilant about its recognition. However, theU.S. and Israel refused to go along with the designation, for which they both earn downvotes from me. Like I really count.
Apartheid is apartheid, denying people basic human rights based on their religion violates those rights, reservations for indigenous people are a form of oppression, and killing children is wrong, no matter whether you are God’s Chosen People or God’s Country. Sorry.
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The proposed Chester County Pastafarian tree
Last week I reported in the Chester County, PA dust-up over the Evangelical Pastafarians demanding space for their holiday exhibit. Chester County responded by passing a resolution saying that only displays owned by the county would be displayed, and that only “traditional” Judeo-Christian displays would be acquired by the county. The county refused to acquire the Tree of Knowledge put together by the local Freethought Society, which had been displayed since 2007 with the other holiday displays, and refused the Pastafarian’s holiday display. Sounds like establishment of religion to me. And forgive me for mentioning it, but as I recall there is a Judeo-Christian tradition of a Tree of Knowledge. Maybe the Chester County Commissioners think that those who would pursue knowledge are Satan’s minions.
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The United Kingdom now requires its free schools to teach evolution by natural selection, or risk losing government funding. Free schools can be run by religious organizations and other creationists, and are not the same as regular public schools in the U.K.; they do not have to follow the government-mandated curriculum. In a massive victory for the children’s education, this new rule means that children attending these schools have to be taught real science, not creation science. We in the United States, who have dealt with individual teachers, administrators and even entire public school boards who don’t mind giving evolution short shrift, wish the U.K. well in enforcing the law. We hope the U.K. is successful and that we can pick up some good pointers.
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Alternative medicine is often called “alternative” because it’s not real medicine and it doesn’t really work. In the world on homophobic excesses, the good news is that a new lawsuit isn’t against homophobic Christians this time. It’s against JONAH, the Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a watchdog for hate groups including anti-gay groups, has filed suit on behalf of four plaintiffs who were teenagers when JONAH attempted to “cure” them of their homosexuality by conversion therapy. Two other plaintiffs are the Orthodox Jewish parents of the patients. JONAH’s “therapy” consisted of having the young men beat effigies of their mothers (who “made them gay”), inappropriate physical contact and genital displays, and subjecting the patients to name-calling.
The American Psychiatric Association does not consider homosexuality to be a mental disorder. It cannot be “cured” by any therapy, and certainly not by abuse. Conversion therapy is typically used by religious groups or practitioners to eliminate sexual desires in gay people. You may remember that during the run up to the presidential primaries, it was reported that Michele Bachmann’s husband Marcus used conversion therapy on gay patients in his practice, and encouraged them to “pray away the gay.”
The basis of the JONAH suit is fraud and deceptive practices.
(This post originally appeared on WWJTD.)
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