as you wake this golden morning
and slowly get out of bed
squinting at the light
that streams from your window
and stretch
and yawn
as you breathe in the ocean air
filling yourself
with the wonder
and the glory
and the beauty
of the world
reveling in the simple joy
of being alive
remember this
and hold it to your heart
that you may never forget
because i think of you
and i wonder how you are
and i wish you were with me
so that you could feel
what i feel
and know what i know
so that you
almost awakened
with sunshine filling your eyes
could see what i see
and experience some small portion
of my world

because it’s 30 fecking degrees
where i am
and the damn wind
is blowing so hard
there’s snow stuck to the windows
on all four sides of the house
and you’d seriously be most welcome
to shovel the snow out of our driveway
for the thirtieth time this year

…”goat”, of course, being a euphemism for “anything that pisses me off.”

regular readers of this blog (all 3.1 of you per month*, on average, i believe) will likely recall that i’m usually nicer over here. sorry for the bursting of certain bubbles and all that, but today i have a rant. i haven’t exactly read everything that’s available though the Blogswarm Against Theocracy, but i’ve read a lot of it. and a lot of it pisses me off. of course, a lot of other things piss me off, too, and the read can decide whether or not that’s the product of a mild form of Tourette’s syndrome, or having children, or this upcoming move, or what. regardless, i’m about to rant. Happy Easter.

WHAT REALLY GETS MY GOAT.

1. Atheists who position their arguments seemingly from the stance that Atheism is a religion. yeah, that’s right, i started with “us” first. why? because when we talk like we deserve the same recognition as organized religion, non-profit churches, and government-sanctioned endeavors to help those in need, we simply obviate how much we fail to understand about society and government. Atheism is not a religion. it’s bad enough that the fundamentalists keep trying to fit us in that box. let us not do so as well.
2. Christian fundamentalists who promote methods by which their special brand of intolerance can be inflicted on the general public. and by that i mean everything from anti-abortion legislation to protesting funerals of Iraq war veterans.
3. School systems which require, as a portion of the graded curriculum, the attendance of middle-school (junior high) children in abstinence-only education. this is, in fact, one of the most subtly nefarious blurring of that already-compromised line between Church and State.
4. Agnostics who spend 3/4 of whatever it is that they say or write in the communication of obtuse caveats in the vain hope that whatever eventually becomes the point of their message will not offend anyone. seriously, we understand that the point of agnosticism is largely to leave all options open so that with your last dying breath you can suddenly become Christian or Jewish or Muslim or whatever and thus be “saved”, no matter what. we don’t need to be told that you find every religious teaching to be beneficial and worthwhile and respectable and “neat” every time you open your mouth. jump into whatever pool it is you chose with both feet and get yourself wet. because right now all you’re doing is wandering aimlessly with a lukewarm drink in your hand and getting sunburned.
5. Intelligent Designers who fail to understand the inherent irony in that title, considering the fact that its ideals are largely spouted by some of the most willfully ignorant people in the world, for whom “intelligence” is but a dim, fading light at the end of a tunnel that they don’t even realize they’re standing in, and yet forcibly desire to inflict their petulant myopia on the world at large.
6. School systems and governments who cave in to the Intelligent Designers.
7. Fundamentalists who seek to destroy everything they cannot understand, including Art and people who “shockingly” have different perspectives and beliefs.
8. “News” people who have compromised any sense of common decency, let alone journalistic integrity, to “report” the “news” that they are fed from the Bush Administration and its Congressional sycophants.
9. The people of this community who now look at me askance and pretend as if i’m suddenly not trustworthy just because i’ve admitted, within their hearing, that i do not hold any particular belief in their god. there’s surprisingly fewer of them than i thought there would be, but seriously, your lips, my sphincter. enjoy.

what does all that have to do with the separation of Church and State? well, some of that is inherently obvious. the rest of it exists in our society as a by-product of the intolerance which naturally springs from a semi-religious governmental status quo. as i noted in this post (also here), the public’s view on politics is largely that politicians should show some form of allegiance to some form of religion. which, in light of the fact that what people want is the confidence that their leaders have a spiritual side, is quite ironic, because religion often has incredibly little to do with spirituality. but before i digress too much, let me point out that this is the same thing the public generally wants of itself as well. a person’s spiritual shortcomings, moral turpitude, lack of common decency—all can and will be overlooked provided they attend church regularly and at least pretend to drink the religious Kool-Aid.

which, of course, merely underscores the lack of common sense that exists on quite a large scale.

and it’s having to deal with that lack of common sense on a perpetual basis that really gets my goat.

* this number, by the way, is completely made up and full of shit, in case you were wondering. since it’s my blog, i steadfastly refuse to apologize for making up certain metrics relating to the blog itself, or to the numbers of individuals, in part or in whole, who give a flying shit about anything i write.

---

Technorati Tags:
1. blog against theocracy
2. anti-theocracy
3. religious hegemony
4. separation of church and state

Look, this is a real simple thing. The country was founded by mostly-Christian individuals who were possessed of the foresight, maturity, and wherewithal to understand that the edicts of the religions and religious denominations had no place with an operable role in government. In fact, they made incredible sacrifices to distance themselves from their European church-states. In fact, they made great sacrifices, including their livelihoods, the lives of their family members, and in many cases their own lives, to ensure the separation of Church and State. The Mike Huckabees in the world that want to interject specifically religious dogma into the the Constitution have it exactly wrong, and every time they spout those desires, they prove that their eclectic version of America is not what America was founded to be, or has ever been. It’s not the America that our soldiers have fought and died to preserve. And it’s not an America that would have any hope of participating in a future in which the human race survives.

The Blogswarm Against Theocracy starts today and ends this Sunday. I will be attempting to have unique posts on these four blogs:

1. the otherwhirled
2. perpetual dawnne
3. synthaetica
4. mock, paper, scissors (thanks, Tengrain!)

{this opening post has been cross-posted to my three blogs as a way of saying “yes, i’m here, and no, i’m not going to let the bizarre mortgage triangle we currently living under adversely affect my ability to post this weekend!}

Subscribe to the Blogswarm’s official feed here:

Technorati Tags:
1. blog against theocracy
2. anti-theocracy
3. religious hegemony
4. separation of church and state

i had three posts in the works for the March 19 Blogswarm, and as it happened, i neglected to have them saved in the Wordpress database. thanks to some beta software on this computer, when i hybernated the computer because three realtors were bringing prospective buyers through our house yesterday (one of whom didn’t call first like he’s supposed to, no less), the system didn’t wake up. the resulting hard reboot lost me a bout two hours of blog-work. go figure. i ALWAYS save drafts, or draft in a text editor. but not yesterday (or night before last, for that matter). i think this whole selling-the-house-and-preparing-to-move shin-dig has me pretty scattered. never a dull freakin’ moment, anyway.

i feel compelled, though, to follow up with some notes on the day, because as inferred yesterday, the current Iraq war hits a bit close to home for me as a Gulf War veteran. not that i think my personal considerations on it are any more important or dynamic than those who have served or are serving in the current war, but that i had given my word to support the blogswarm endeavor, and failed to adequately do so. the chagrin-meter leans heavily to the right.

so naturally, when the realtors were done traipsing through the house and not giving us an offer immediately, and when the children were finally tucked into bed, and after i’d finished up some client work, i at least managed to get out and do some reading. one of the things that quickly struck me was that {insert almost any other blogger’s online identity or blog name here} writes better than me, and i’m not just talking about the presumably-appropriate use of capital letters. i still had a lot of what i’d written in my head, and i could have theoretically replicated my previous efforts, but after an hour or so of reading, i realized how redundant that would have been. great minds think alike after all, although putting myself in their company is probably a bit dishonest. so instead, on the off-chance that you might have missed some of these fine posts, allow me to serve you by including a brief synposis and link to their thoughts, witticisms and insights.

some notes from my overnight readings

The premier liberal/progressive blogging event of the year is just EIGHT SHORT DAYS AWAY! If you’re interested in participating, catch the details over at BlueGal’s site or at the blogswarm’s blog. And if you haven’t already, make sure you bookmark the Blog Against Theocracy website so you can easily stay in tune with the swarm throughout the event (and after!)

The logo above is provided courtesy of Tengrain at Mock, Paper, Scissors. He also has a presized “sidebar” version for your convenience. Tengrain reminds us:

The theme, like always, is the Separation of Church and State — we are for it. But the variations on the theme are many, and we scored the widest range of responses. This is not a bashing of religion - peeps can believe what they choose, however they choose — but it is a reminder that the Government should keep out of religion, and Religion should keep out of the government. A great resource for ideas can be found at our good friends, First Freedom First. Many of you know FFF already. They are not sponsors of the Blog Against Theocracy swarm, but they should be beneficiaries.

I will go one step further to point out that the anti-theocratic movement is one point of agreement between atheists, agnostics, humanists, and persons of various religious beliefs, all of whom recognize and appreciate the need for government’s firm separation from specific religious doctrine and preferential treatment. Not only do I firmly support the premise that this blogswarm is not about bashing religion, but I hope to see a strong community grow out of this endeavor over the years: A global community of like-minded critical thinkers who can respectfully, but adamantly, argue against the practice of inserting any form of preferential treatment for any religious belief into our governments.

I will be participating in the blogswarm from the otherwhirled with my usual image-based snarkery (because it’s okay to be snarky about this, provided the snark isn’t meaningless or antagonistic), from perpetual dawnne (with some real-live bona-fide actual thoughts written down and stuff that I’m already working on because it takes me that long to write meaningful stuff), and I am also hoping to participate photographically from Synthaetica Digitography (because, seriously, why do anything but blog? blogging is all there is! blog!!! blog!!!) Some of my contributions will be cross-posted to Mock, Paper, Scissors, but I am also hoping to write at least one unique thing for the mighty SCISSORHEADS.

I hope that you all will make some time to participate and read the many insightful posts that the swarm will have. You’re welcome to use the button below to subscribe to the blogswarm’s feed!

(cross-posted to the otherwhirled and Synthaetica Digitography)

If there was any doubt in your mind about the power of the media, even when it is collectively ultimately but the lackey of the current Administration, think again. This whole New York Times-published McCain/Iseman issue should make it clear to anyone. And in a way, this might well have been the most well-crafted endeavor to get out from under the thumb of this Administration. If so, I may even have to start rethinking my cynicism in their regard.

These posts from earlier today were cute and all, but I was intentionally side-stepping the real issue at hand, which is not infidelity—an incredibly predictable trademark of persons in power in general—but which is about the accepting of favors in return for votes. If the story turns out to be true, nay, if the story turns out to be so much as incredibly likely, what happens?

Well, what happens is, McCain should step out of the race. Because most Americans are sick to death of Buy-Your-Vote-Here politicians. As well, the idea behind intellectual duplicity is that you’re not supposed to get caught at it until after you’re already in office, from which position of power you can disdainfully deny the very premise of the indictment, filibuster any dialogue on the matter by claiming Executive Privilege, and shred, shred, shred when you’re relatively confident that you have enough power to keep the Department of Justice from doing anything worthwhile about it. Even better, ensure that you own the Department of Justice. But I digress.

So, McCain should step out of the race, leaving the Huckabee as the sole-remaining candidate, or possibly Romney steps back in, pulls the boys out of the dog-carrier on the roof of his car, and sets back to work. At which point, every remaining moderate conservative either refuses to vote or votes for the Democratic candidate in November.

In other words, what the New York Times has effectively done here, should everything pan out, is ensure a Democratic President.

Brilliant.

Of course, the problem with it is that it’s all written up in this big huge news piece, that as it makes its way down the wire to the smaller newspapers with much less room to print it in, it’s going to get cut. And what’s it going to get cut to? In essence, the two posts I cite above.

Which actually strengthens the public perception of McCain from rural America.

“Whassat? McCain gotsa woody for some lady? Now that’s the kind o’ man Ah’m talkin’ ’bout!”

Not attractive, but luckily, the rural vote isn’t going to outweigh the inner-city vote, per capita. And that would be the first time that yours truly is pleased with the reality of that fact, for what it’s worth.

But luckily, McCain’s already given his Bill Clinton-esque denial:

“At no time have I ever done anything that would betray the public trust or make a decision which in any way would not be in the public interest or would favor anyone or organization.”

Right. As if his voting record, when he bothers to take the time to contribute positively towards it, doesn’t make that lie incredibly clear. Okay, somebody who can figure out how to use the Senate website for polling voting records will no doubt make that clear. But at the risk of being one of those people who repeats the pundits without fact-checking, it’s apparently already clear. Especially when even the conservative ones are going, “Oh, so THAT’s why he kept voting that way….”

At any rate, given the apparently-obvious flaccidity of that statement, we can hopefully consider McCain on his way out the door, provided the rest of the media manages not to ignore the bigger story (vote-selling) for the smaller one (sex).

And with any luck, we just witnessed the rebirth of the Fourth Branch of Government. At the very least, it’s a big step in the right direction.

{cross-posted on the otherwhirled}

but not on a jet-plane. and i DO know when we’ll be back again, even. it’ll be sometime after i leave. i promise!

but yes, we’re going to bail for a bit up to the in-laws place. in the meantime, visit the folks i just link-loved from here. gah. i need to update this blog’s blogroll. yeah, yeah. i have time for that. really. pfft.

oh yeah. it’s thanksgiving. supposedly we should give thanks for all the shit in our lives. so, at this time, i’d like to give thanks for all the shit in my life. and for all the non-shit. and maybe for all the people, but probably not for their shit. wow, i just used the word ’shit’ in one paragraph four times. i must be the shit.

okay, maybe six.

anyway, i’m rambling because i have this tooth that desperately needs to be extracted and i have to wait all the way until the freakin’ 29th. it’s fun, let me tell you. especially when i’m about to go stuff my face all weekend. mmmmmm……i just can’t wait to go love me some dentist. eight days. shoot me.

okay, well, the last proof site i was trying to get uploaded finally uploaded so i’ll see you later. have fun!