P.Z. Meyers Gets it Wrong

Let me start by saying that P.Z. Meyers is a really smart guy. I am a big fan and generally find myself an agreement with most of his opinions. But, even really smart people can get something totally wrong.  P.Z. does that here

But I have to wonder…are atheists literally making a deal with the devil by ignoring the whole “let’s put up a statue of children worshipping an imaginary demon” thing? I knew a few Satanists way back when, and I’d say exactly the same thing about them I would about Baptists: generally nice people, but hoo boy, they really believed in some incredible bullshit. That they are serving the cause of highlighting conservative misappropriation of some good principles shouldn’t mean we stop questioning them.

The Satanic Temple isn't a religious group. It isn't even a group of religious people. It is a group of Atheists working toward a secular society by forcing the fundies to face their own shit. They use these statues to push Xians into either backing down, or accepting religious iconography that will offend them. When other Atheists join forces with ST (a group of Atheists) they are not making any sort of deal with the devil . 

Rico Slade Will Fucking Kill You

I really think I need to read this book

Rico Slade will Fucking Kill You, by Bradley Sands.

My soul went in trade for cigarettes

The Satanic Temple has unveiled this bitchin' statue of Baphomet (I want one for my front yard, I really do). The best part is what attendees at the event had to go through. Talk about weeding out the kooks.

Story at Friendly Atheist

Think of the savings, man.

Rolling Stone gets it.

Even the other candidates’ appeals to taste and professionalism fall flat. You can’t argue Donald Trump shouldn’t be making policy just because he’s rich when you’ve pushed for and won the complete gutting of the campaign finance system so rich people can write “FOR ZERO DERIVATIVES REGULATION” in the memo of a massive check. This is the system working. How is Trump any less qualified to determine policy than Sheldon Adelson, who may have mob ties in China, who likes to quash marijuana referenda to keep people away from vices that aren’t gambling, and who dictates our position on Israel? How is Trump less qualified to talk about abortion than ten-gallon shithead Foster Friess? Why is his money dirtier than the Kochs, whose exploding pipelines kill people? Hell, if anything, his candidacy cuts out the middleman. My god, think of the savings…

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/trump-the-dark-heart-of-the-republican-party-20150724?page=3


The Donald really is quite a thing, but what even the bad boys and girls at Rolling Stone aren't saying is that Trump isn't part of the severe right flank of the Republican party. He isn't appealing to some Bircher outgrowth out there on the fringe (Rand Paul has the Birchers tied up). No no no. Trump is the very center of the Republican party. He his the respectable middle. That is the sad and terrifying truth of it. 

Third prize is you're fucking fired

Am I the only one who looks at the current Republican nomination fights and sees a play written by David Mamet if Mamet had no empathy at all for his characters? Jeb is the former golden boy who has seen his glory fade and just wants a taste of what he had. He's willing to kill (or rob the store, or whatever) for it. Walker is the upstart who just know that he was born to win and will never, never get his comeuppance. Rubio is the wild card hustler living out on the edge and ready to make his move. Carson gets shot in act two. Sorry guys, but that's how it goes. Fiorina is the life beaten beauty, looking for one last score on the backs of taxpayers. Perry is the dangerous man. He's the goddamned godfather goddammit!

And the Trump. Trump comes from Downtown. Trump comes from Mitch and Murry. This watch costs more than your car and put that fucking coffee down! Coffee is for closers. It takes brass balls to win a nomination.  And these fools are all standing around playing guess his real name.

This shit would be funny if they didn't want to run the world.

Billy the Kid or a Wounded Alligator

Billy the Kid killed 21 men
One for each year that he lived
I am 18 behind his record, and that
makes me sad

So I walked out into traffic today
I don't think that it was really suicide, not in the "I want to die right now" way
I think that maybe I thought that I would turn incorpreal and the cars would pass right through me, or that maybe at the last second I would suddenly be able to fly, or that (and I admit, this one seems unlikely) I would find that I had super strength and just bat the cars aside all Incredible Hulk style.

I was very disappointed when the cars stopped to let me pass.

Tenter Hooks

Or is it tender hooks? Tinder hooks? Tinter's Hooks? Who know. Someone's on them, though. We can be certain of that.

How did RWNJs come to believe the dumbest thing ever?

I assume what happened is that Jonah Goldberg accidentally read a few pages of a book one time. In it, he read some random historian in 1967 saying that Roosevelt’s New Deal had a large dose of Authoritarianism in it, and that the Fascist movements in Europe also were Authoritarian. He didn’t understand it  (reading comprehension is hard, ya know?) but he did recognize some of the words. He recognized ‘Hitler’ and ‘Roosevelt’. What passes for the Jonah brain went to work and determined that Hitler was a Nazi and Roosevelt was a Democrat and therefore Democrats are Nazis QED and such. Soon the pages of National Review were filled with claptrap and (which much thanks to Antonin “Fuck Your Mother, your Liberal Bastard” Scalia) jiggery-pokery about all liberals being secret Nazis.

The meme quickly spread through the right wing echo chamber until every meth addled and cheeto stained FOX “NEWS” viewer was screaming it at the top of their lungs over at Redstate and other Neo-Confederate websites.

Giving South Africa a Rim Job

National Review (founded by Neo-Confederate asshat William F. Buckly), the magazine that nearly deified Francisco Franco, the magazine that defended segregation, the magazine that gave slobbery rim jobs to Apartheid era South Africa has now called Vermont Senator and Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders a Nazi. Yup. They called Bernie Sanders a fucking Nazi. Next they'll call Hillary Clinton a pedophile.

For those unfamiliar with Sanders, he is Jewish. His family died in the fucking Holocaust. Sanders is a self proclaimed Democratic-Socialist. That is, a Scandanavian style Socialist. Think, Capitalist in favor of unions, a strong welfare state, and lots of regulation of the business world.

That NR would make such a claim is beyond the pale. This is beyond the limits of decency. It is, however, more ratfucking.

Ratfucking for Fun and Profit

Throughout the great history of this nation (which was founded around 1968, I think) RATFUCKING has been a guiding principle of all that is good and holy.  Our Nation’s founding fathers (the sweaty ghost of Richard Nixon, Lee Atwater, The Zombie Corpse of Ronald Reagan,  and Lily Von Shtupp for some reason), decreed that rats must be fucked at every opportunity.

Ask John Kerry, or Tammy Duckworth what being a war hero gets you in modern politics. They understand. The interwebs are all a quiver over Donald Fucking Trump shooting into a double digit lead over Scott “fuck the poors” Walker and Jeb “Worse than my brain damaged brother” Bush right after his attack on John “Bush already ratfucked me, bro” McCain. Of course he’s winning! He’s the one willing to fuck the rats.

The GOP base is deeply racist and homophobic. Trump’s racist rants play right into their sweet spot. +

We all know that Trump's star will fade (unless he goes all Perot and runs third party style - note to The Donald: please do this!). Eventually Walker and Jeb! will duke it out in a race to the spot just to the right of Franco. The winner of that battle will then try their best to ratfuck the Democratic nominee (probably Hillary, maybe Bernie). 

It likely wont work given demographic trends and such. But they will try. They always try.

Cemetery Man - making Sense of Her Corpse

Cemetery Man

The "Zombie" genre has been around for quite some time. To be fair, "Zombie" movies are really a sub-genre, of a sub-genre. Horror is the genre, Vampires make up a sub-genre, and what is a zombie but another type of vampire? (maybe it's the other way around: what is a vampire but a sort of zombie?).

Anyway, the genre really got going with George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead. Romero saw the zombies as a metaphor for us, and used the fright film structure to satirize American Society.

Romero took the satire even further with Dawn of the Dead, which pitted consumerist zombies against consumerist survivors in a modern shopping mall.

The Dead Series spawned a third film, Day of the Dead, and the parody Return of the Living Dead, and its sequels.

Dario Argento (who had a connection with Dawn of the Dead) made many low budget, extremely gory zombie flicks in Italy.

Along the way many films have imitated Both Romero and Argento. I contend that movies like Halloween, and Friday the 13th (and their sequels) are members of the zombie community. Think about it, undying, slow moving, implaccable, remorseless killers stagger about and hunt hapless human victims. (I suppose by my logic Jaws also fits, but perhaps that's taking it a bit far).

So, after all that build up, here's the first mention of Cemetery Man, the film I'm reviewing.

Cemetery Man is about a grave digger (Rupert Everet, of My Best Friend's Wedding) who must dispatch the dead, who tend to rise from there graves seven days after being planted. No explanation is given for this phenomenon, nor is one needed.

In the tradition of Zombie movies, the dead are re-killed by a bullet to the head; we would expect no less.

Everet keeps a detached, reserve about him. His reaction to the horror he encounters seems to be annoyance at all the work he has to do. The thought of a bus load of dead children doesn't shock him, or fill him with sadness, or even rage, it makes him dread all the hard work he will have to do. He is perfectly laconic, and indifferent to human suffering.

He is helped by a mute assistant (Francois Hadji-Lazaro, who was fine in City of Lost Children)

Then things start to change. He falls in love, and this being a zombie movie we can see where it's going. The moment his love appears we know that she will die, and that he may be forced to deal with the zombie she will become.

However, the film offers the possibility that she doesn't die, or that she does and the cemetery man loses his mind.

Things are complicated more by the mute assistant falling in love with the severed head of a dead girl (weird, huh? I said most people would hate this movie).

This movie treats the zombie genre like no other film has. Through attitude, and tone it transforms it. Through reaction, it transcends it. It shifts gears more quickly than a NASCAR driver on amphetamine. Like some of the best films of the french New Wave (Shoot the Piano Player, Breathless) it moves effortlessly from funny, to macabre, to sad and back around again.

Whereas Romero made zombies scary, comic, pitiful, and human, this film mostly forgets them. The zombies are much less important than our strange grave digger, and his, at times belated, reactions to them.

Cemetery Man is a strange, distant, cold movie. It inverts a well worn genre, and in the process creates something new and interesting.

Daddy Man, Silly Man, God Man and Me

Daddy Man, Silly Man, God Man and Me
by Terry Doss

That copper pot been in the kitchen, long as I
'member. It always bubblin' and hissin'. Sometime I
run a toy car on a makin' believe road in the kitchen.
Daddy Man told me stay away. That pot'll burn you, he
say. I keep away. It keep on bubblin' and hissin'.

Over in the corner sit the man Daddy Man brung home. He
play makin' believe with me too. Sometime he run the
car in what he call the "sittee." When I ask Daddy Man
what the "sittee" be, he told me it just silly makin'
believe. I think maybe that right. I seen that man
lookin' silly at me, like I look at bugs in the
kitchen, when I squish them.

Come up supper time, Daddy Man holler for me. Go fetch
wood he say. I go out back to the wood pile. I fetch
in one, and two, and three pieces sometime. Stack it
to the mark on the wall that Daddy Man made. Silly Man
got his supper then. My bowl at the table too. Daddy
like to eat out the front door. He like to look at
the moon. Silly Man don't even finish his bowl. I
finish what he don't eat. Daddy Man don' t like us to
waste.

I wash the supper bowls and go say my amens. Ask
God Man to bless Daddy Man and me. Ask him to bless that
Silly Man too. Ask him maybe someday let me see the
"sittee." I tell him I saw him in the sky today,
making a deep shwoosh. Amen.

I climb in my blanket and stay quiet. Daddy Man come
in the house, all heavy boots on the wood floor. He
go and check my cleanin' in the kitchen. He talk with
the Silly Man a bit. Heavy boots on the wood floor
again. Daddy Man sit in his chair and look at the special
book. I look at it sometime, but I'm not s'posed to.
It has one, and two, and three and four ladies in it,
not with any clothes. I wonder if one maybe Momma
Lady.

That night I dream 'bout God Man in the sky, all
silver and poopin' clouds. He come down in a big
shoosh and I climb on his shiny back. He fly me off
to the "sittee" and Momma Lady be standin' not with
any clothes on. Silly Man be holdin' her hand. I
wave and smile all teeth on the back of God Man. God
Man tell me not to feel better than anyone, just 'cuz
I fly off on his back. That what they call pride. I
look back to Momma Lady and Silly Man got his hand on
her milk sacks. Like I do with the goat sometime, he
squeeze a bit and aim the milk in his mouth. God Man
throw me off and I hit the wood floor next to my bed.
I climb back into bed and sleep 'til the sun start up
in the sky.

Daddy Man makin' eggs an biscuits. He tell me Silly
Man don't want any today and I eat his. I eat 'til I
am full as a dog tick. Daddy Man don't like us to waste.

I clean the breakfast dishes and Daddy Man, he go out
in the wood, checkin' the loop lines. Silly Man ask
me if I want to see the "sittee" with him. I ask him
how he gettin' to the "sittee" an he tell me he got a
car. He say he and me can go in it. I laugh at his
silly talk. I tell him I can get to the "sittee" on
the back of God Man, and if he can hold on tight,
maybe he can go on the back of God Man too. I tell
him we can go to see Momma Lady and he can squeeze
milk out of Momma Lady's milk sacks. Silly Man get
all quiet, and look at the floor. I think maybe he
miss his Momma Lady. I miss my Momma Lady too.

After cleanin' the kitchen, I go out to the field
past the creek and find a patch of clover. I rip up
big handfulls of it and make a basket out of my shirt
to hold it. I pull enough so it start to fall out the
side of the shirt, and start for the house. I hear
God Man swhooshin' in the clouds, but I don't see him.
I whoop and holler to him, but he don't slow down. I
carry the clover back to the house.

The bunnies hop to the back of the cage when I push
the clover in. They eat and I put their poop in a
bucket with the shovel. Daddy Man tell me to spread the
poop far out and not in one place. He tell me the
bunny poop be hot and can burn the plants. I let the
poop cool down before I throw it out in the woods.

The bunnies eat clover from my hand sometime.
Sometime, Daddy Man have me hold the bunny to keep it calm
before he hit it with a hammer. Excited bunnies taste
sour he tell me. It make me sad a little, but it
better than when Daddy Man grab them by the ears and whop
them. They scream when he grab them. They scream,
and scream, and then whack, they are quiet, and they
kick their bunny feet for the last time I s'pose.
Bunny meat taste good. Like chicken.

Afternoon time and Daddy Man come back from the wood.
He ain't got nothin' from the loop lines. He tell me
to go inside and play with Silly Man.

I go in the kitchen and there sit Silly Man. He
been sleeping all day. I shake him awake and ask him
to tell me about "sittee" again. He say that "sittee"
have light all the time, not just in the day. I ask
him if he 'member his Momma Lady, and he 'member her
for me. He 'member her rockin' him for sleep, and
cookin'.

Daddy Man come in from outside while I play with
Silly Man and whop! Silly Man kick his feet for the
last time I s'pose. I hear God man swooshin' outside,
and inside that copper pot keep bubblin' and hissin'.

Dear Oklahoma GOP,

Dear Oklahoma GOP,

Comparing food stamp recipients to wild animals reveals much more about your character and state of mind than it does about those individuals who must rely on government assistance. It seems clear that you lack even the most basic level of empathy and humanity. You reveal that you are kind of, well, dumb. Even on the basest political level, this was a statement that could only be made by an idiot. While we’re on the subject of your stupid sociopathy, saying “I’m sorry that you are too dumb to understand my insipid anaology” really doesn’t count as an apology.

Thanks,

An actual human.

 http://www.salon.com/2015/07/14/please_do_not_feed_the_animals_oklahoma_gop_compares_food_stamp_recipients_to_park_animals/

No title - Just words

The problem with punching yourself is that you instinctively hold back. Even if you don’t want to, you pull the punch. Your hand just will not hit your own face with the same force it reserves for the faces of others. This is a real problem.
After a while I gave up the hitting. For a time I toyed around with cutting myself. Apparently this is some sort of fad. Teenage girls compete to see who can inflict the most damage on their own arms.
Cutting, however, has a down side. It’s messy. Even a slight slice oozes blood. You have to bandage it right away. Then you must clean up the stray drops that have found their way onto the furniture. Then, days later you can accidentally re-open the wound, and you have more cleaning to do.
Cigarettes are better. The first time you touch a lit cigarette to your arm, you have to do it quickly. You will find that you pull away automatically. Still, it works well. The pain is searing. Intense. The skin melts. Even after the cherry red ash is pulled away, the pain remains. The blister rises immediately. Then, after it pops, a hole forms in your arm. It takes weeks to heal. The burn creates a lovely scar, which serves to remind you that you are still alive. Sort of.
With practice you can hold the heat against your skin longer. Do it slowly. It hurts more this way. It’s best to drag the process out. Pain brings a rush of endorphins. It snaps you back to life.
I was busy working on the cigarette trick. She was already half way out the door. It comes quickly. The darkness. The need. The hunger. She was talking, but I wasn’t listening. I had shut her out. It was better that way.
Standing in the bedroom door, her eyes sparkling with anger, cool, soft light streaming around her like some diaphanous corona, she looked unreal. She looked like some sort of fairy tale princess. Just a little goose girl, about to alight from her place, and fly away. She was really very beautiful. But I couldn’t see it. Not then.
I was shrouded by the darkness of the bedroom. Hunched on the floor. She couldn’t see what I was doing. She didn’t know. That was best. If she knew I was hurting myself, she’d try to make me stop. I couldn’t stop yet. It didn’t hurt enough yet. I had burned a hole deep in my forearm, and decided to work on another spot.
“Are you listening to me?”
I wasn’t. I couldn’t. Everything about her was bringing me misery. I couldn’t smell her hair from where I was, but I knew how it would smell. Like violets. Depression doesn’t hurt. Cigarette burns hurt.
“I’m trying to explain. Listen to me.”
“No.”
“Will you please listen?”
“Why?”
Depression feels like nothing. That’s the part no one understands. It is deep, black, nothing. You feel dead. Empty. There really isn’t a metaphor that can do it justice. Pain is better. Anything is better. Drugs, sex, self mutilation, these are all just ways to stave off the hollow, rotting flesh, empty, dead skin sack feeling that drains all the color from the world.
“Damn it. John, I love you. I’m sorry. I just want to explain what happened.”
Suicide is not a real option. Death just seems like more of the same nothingness. Agony, now that is an improvement.
For a time I played with the idea of cutting off my own fingers. But eventually I’d run out of digits, then where would I be? I’d have to find something else to excise, and who knows where it would all end.
She turned. She had given up on getting me to understand. She was leaving. This was final. Gone. I didn’t want her to go. But, I couldn’t work my mouth to tell her to stay. I really fail in this area.
So, as she made her final exit stage right, I lit another cigarette, and went to work on the other arm.