Matt and Sarah and Jimmy and...Ben?

By now a lot of you may have already seen this (or at least heard about it). I just saw these videos for the first time last night and they are the funniest things I've seen in a long time. Jimmy Kimmel (late night talk show host and former co-host of "The Man Show") is dating Sarah Silverman (actress, or is that actor nowadays?). I don't stay up long enough to watch Kimmel but apparently he does a thing every night at the end of the show where as a joke he says he's out of time and he has to "bump" guest Matt Damon. Back in January Silverman surprised Kimmel on his show with this music video.

As the old Klingon proverb says, revenge is a dish best served cold. Kimmel waited and plotted. And recruited help. Lots of it. Then, on his show after the Oscars the other night, he struck. He unveiled a video of his own.

I love it when someone has the ability to laugh at themselves. I especially love to see big stars show that they don't take themselves too seriously. The turnout on Kimmel's video was priceless. Josh Groban? I never would've imagined. Oh the practical jokes you can play when you have a great sense of humor...and a big budget and great production resources. A lot of people should be thankful I'm not wealthy and/or famous.

Even if you've already seen these they're worth seeing again. Enjoy. Oh, you may want to turn the sound down at work.

AHHHHHHHHHH!

No Child Gets Ahead strikes again.


Survey Finds Teenagers Ignorant on Basic History and Literature Questions


I know, I know. I'm...



But honestly, this was in today's New York Times and reports the results of a new study that were released yesterday. 1,200 seventeen year olds were surveyed in January and asked 33 multiple choice questions. The conclusion that was drawn as a result of the study was "that a significant proportion of teenagers live in “stunning ignorance” of history and literature". Really? Hmmmm. I wonder why?

Okay class, here is our curriculum for the year:

Math, Science, Standardized Test Taking.
Math, Science, Standardized Test Taking.
Math, Science, Standardized Test Taking...
Please write it on the board 100 times.

Can you for a moment imagine how mind-numbingly dull and boring this crop of students will be when they are adults? How one dimensional they will be? Math and science (at least how they are commonly taught) are about rules. The laws of physics, constants, equations, learning to repeat the steps that others have already taken. Mindlessly marching along trails already traveled. Without history and literature and the arts, without the creativity and passion and longing of an open, expanded mind does anyone seriously believe that the people who blazed those well traveled trails would have ever taken the first steps? Would have ever dared to break the rules and veer from the well traveled roads of their day? If we are going to stand on the shoulders of giants shouldn't we at least know who the giants were? Leonardo DiVinci was a genius. A scientist and a student of just about everything he laid eyes on. And oh yeah, he did a little painting on the side didn't he?

To be fair to the kids that were surveyed, I didn't know the one about Ralph Ellison's novel "Invisible Man" (though I could tell you who wrote "The Invisible Man" and I bet they couldn't). Also the fact that the majority weren't familiar enough with bible stories to know about Job was in some weird way, encouraging. Still, the overall results were dismal and very discouraging.

The article concludes by saying "the Bush administration and some business and civil rights groups warn against weakening the law (No Child Left Behind), saying students need reading and math skills to succeed in other subjects." The only problem with that plan is that students will never succeed in other subjects if those subjects are NEVER TAUGHT because school administrators live in fear of losing funding because of "poor performance" on standardized test and not meeting requirements of No Child Left Behind!

Students may "need reading and math skills to succeed in other subjects" but I believe they desperately need those "other subjects" to give reason to reading, math and science and to not just succeed but excel, in life.

Okay, horse thoroughly beaten*.


*No actual horses were beaten during the writing of this blog.

Snogged by a Saucy Strumpet

I've been snogged from across the pond by darling Kitty. She received this Mwah! award

from SuzyB and decided to pass it along to all the (ahem) "gentlemen" listed in the sidebar of her blog. I'm honored just to be listed in the sidebar of her blog and this is icing on the cake. She expressed concern that bestowing a Mwah! to all the men on her list would make her appear to be a "saucy strumpet". I told her not to worry and assured her that saucy was indeed my favorite kind of strumpet.

Thank you Kitty!

Fair and Balanced Reporting

I want everyone to know that I am fair and balanced (well, one out of two aint bad). The other day I posted about Saudi Arabia putting a woman on trial for witchcraft and sentencing her to death. Just so I don't give the unfair impression that Saudi Arabia is a sexist, male dominated society (be careful where you step, don't slip in the thick coating of SARCASM) I thought I'd post about this related article that turned up today:

Saudi Arabia arrests 57 men for flirting at mall

I mean, it was only one woman that was accused of witchcraft. They arrested 57 men for flirting. Never mind the fact that even if they're found guilty they'll probably get a slap on the wrist and the women they were flirting with will be stretched on a rack, tortured, hanged, beheaded and burned because they were the evil objects of temptation that caused the men to flirt in the first place. I mean, all that aside, surely this is progress.

Here is the list of charges being investigated:

• "flirting with women in front of a shopping mall"
• "dancing to pop music blaring from their cars"
• "wearing improper clothing (believed to be tee shirts with images and/or (gasp!) English on them)

The ANIMALS!!! Praise the lord that we don't have that kind of criminal behavior here. Now if only we can force the stores inside the malls to put veils and head scarves on the mannequins in the windows of Victoria's Secret and Frederick's of Hollywood I wouldn't have to fear impure thoughts in the heads of the young men attending Bible study group meetings in the mall food court.

Actually what I find most seriously disturbing and terrifying about this article are these two phrases:

"The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice"

and

"the fearsome religious police"

If those two particular combinations of words don't underscore in no uncertain terms the dangers of a state religion and a legal system based on a holy book, I don't know what the hell does.

We should be very, very thankful for the Constitution. And yet...we have a current Republican Presidential candidate who stated that the Constitution should be rewritten to reflect the Bible and the religious right won't back the other Republican candidate because he isn't conservative (the New English to Political Bullshit Translation Dictionary defines this usage as meaning "Right Wing Christian Religious Extremist Nut-job who wants to wage a holy war, make the Bible the law of the land, establish a Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, and unleash the fearsome religious police on the sinners of America") enough. The fact that these people can read an article like the one posted above and see only the differences - and not the vivid crystal-clear reflection of themselves - boggles my mind.

Wake up America. Apathy is going to kill us.

Welcome to 1692

Saudi Arabia to execute woman for 'witchcraft'

I saw this headline last Thursday and was going to comment on it but it was Valentine's Day and then the weekend was on us and I just didn't want to end the week with a story like this. I was frankly just too damn dumbfounded and depressed that something like this was still possible.

Now to be fair we had our own little brush with Witch trials here in America. A little brush that ended with 19 men and women dead from hanging, an 80 year old man pressed to death under heavy stones, and several others dead in prison waiting for their turn on the gallows. But all that was so long ago. After all it's been 316 years. This is 2008 there couldn't possibly be any similarities between what happen then and this "modern day" case. I mean, come on, the Salem Witch Trials took place in a horribly oppressive Puritan religious environment where the word of God ruled law. In the 1600's women had few rights, were subservient to men and were easy targets. The accusers had either personal "issues" with the accused, stood to gain from their conviction and execution (usually land), or both. See? Not at all similar. The Middle East is nothing like that. There has to be more to the story. I have no doubt that logic and reason were applied to this case. I'm sure they have in their possession hard evidence (well, not from the impotent guy). Evidence like an irrefutable modern scientific test. A test like throwing her into water to see if she floats, or checking to see if she weighs as much as a duck. One couldn't argue with that. You'd have to conclude that she was guilty.

The woman in the story was convicted based on a "coerced" confession (I looked that up in my legal bullshit dictionary and it said coerced confession was defined as torture, see for example "waterboarding"). Her conviction was also based on statements of "witnesses" (defined in this case as ass-backwards MEN who think that women are sub-human, worthless chattel) who claimed the woman had "bewitched" them. Why, one of these MEN(?) even became impotent after being "bewitched". Imagine that. I'm thinkin' he was having impure thoughts and wanting to act on them with this woman and she either told him where to go or agreed to help him out only to find that thinking about it was all he could do. To either hide embarrassment or avoid anyone finding out what they were up to or to cast the blame on her when someone did find out, poof, she suddenly became a witch.

It might seem like I'm making light of this. While I am being a tad sarcastic, I don't find this subject at all funny. I am angry, horrified, disgusted and more than a little bit frightened. It's bad enough to feel like we're drifting backwards but this kind of thing is a harsh reminder that there are people out there slamming it into reverse and mashing the friggin' pedal. I want out of the car.

Happy President's Day

Today is President's Day in the United States. Far too often I hear uninformed and deluded people spouting nonsence declaring that the U.S. is a Christian nation. Claiming all the founding fathers and presidents to have been devout Christians. I believe that people should spend more time reading history and less time trying to rewrite it. I thought I'd remember our presidents and honor the day by posting a couple of reminders and more than a couple of quotes that give an indication of where we came from. What we were and where we SHOULD be.



“…the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them…”

“…that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…”
-The Declaration of Independence

“…no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."
U.S. Constitution, Article VI, Section 3

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…”
U.S. Constitution, 1st Amendment

The passages quoted above are the ONLY mention of God or religion in the founding documents of the United States of America.


“…the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion…”

-Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11, officially ratified by the Senate, signed by President John Adams on 10 June, 1797.



George Washington

George Washington left behind a plethora of written letters and personal documents. While he mentions “Providence” many times, one is hard pressed to find the name of Jesus Christ or mention of the Christian religion. Bishop White knew Washington well for many years and wrote after Washington's death that he had never heard him express an opinion on any religious subject and added that although Washington was "serious and attentive" in church, he never saw him kneel in prayer. It is also documented that he refrained from receiving communion.

John Adams


"The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity."

"Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it."

"But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed."

"The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles."

Thomas Jefferson

"Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."

"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."

"Religions are all alike - founded upon fables and mythologies."

"Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, and imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites."

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes"

"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His father, in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."

"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own"

"But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State."

"The clergy...believe that any portion of power confided to me [as President] will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion."

James Madison

"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution."

"In no instance have . . . the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people."

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."

"...the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people, have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the State"

"Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together"

Abraham Lincoln

"The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma."

"My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures have become clearer and stronger with advancing years, and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them."

Ulysses S. Grant

"Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private schools, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and the state forever separated."

William Howard Taft

"I do not believe in the divinity of Christ and there are many other of the postulates of the orthodox creed to which I cannot subscribe."

I Was Awarded...

...and missed the ceremony. We went to my sister-in-law's house to celebrate her birthday and spent the night. We went sans computer. I got home Sunday afternoon only to find that my buddy Malicious Intent has awarded me her coveted "You Caught and Kept My Attention" award.


I'm speechless. Thank you MI and thank you everyone for stopping by to offer congratulations. Thanks to everyone who stops in and spends precious irretrievable minutes reading my ramblings. I appreciate it and I hope that in some way it adds something to your day.

THANKS!

UPDATE:

It seems there was quite a post awards party while I was gone. Malicious Intent was kind enough to forward a picture of Malach the Merciless in his party garb. Don't let that expression fool you. He takes his partying seriously. I heard he had a fantastic time. You go Mal!