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The Trout Quintet
June 12, 2022 @ 3:00 pm EDT
« Haddonfield Food Tour
Mount Holly Food Tour »
Schubert's beloved Quintet in A major (Trout) is but one part of this classic program by Gene Drucker, violin; William Frampton, viola; Roberta Cooper, cello; Timothy Cobb, bass; and Gili Melamed-Lev, piano. The instrumentalists are joined by mezzo-soprano Susannah Woodruff in three of Beethoven's Irish Songs and Drucker's work Of Troubled Times. This program returns after its pandemic postponement two years ago.
The health and safety of our audience and musicians are of utmost importance to Music at Bunker Hill. We will take the following precautions to keep everyone safe at our concerts:
All concert attendees must be fully vaccinated and provide proof of vaccination at concert.
Masks are mandatory.
To promote social distancing, we will sell only 50% of Bunker Hill's capacity for fall concerts. Advance purchase is advised.
Concerts will be played with intermission.
Receptions will not be held.
Tickets $28: https://musicatbunkerhill.networkforgood.com/events/38138-spring-concerts
This program is made possible by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Gloucester County Cultural and Heritage Commission.
www.musicatbunkerhill.org/the-trout-quintet.html
Bunker Hill Presbyterian Church
330 County Rd 651
Sewell, NJ 08080 + Google Map
Collingswood Open Mic Night
TruTV Impractical Jokers: The Drive Drive Drive Drive Drive Tour
February 3 @ 8:00 pm EST
John Pizzarelli featuring the Rowan University Jazz Band
February 3 @ 8:00 pm - 10:00 pm EST

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Jewish Brothers' Resistance Inspired 'Defiance'
By Martha Wexler
The Holocaust has been a cinematic staple for decades. Filmmakers in Hollywood and Europe have churned out hundreds of movies about the rise of fascism and the destruction of European Jewry. From the grainy footage taken by GIs liberating concentration camps to blockbusters like Schindler's List, these films have imprinted our consciousness with images of Jewish victimization and righteous gentile courage.
So when a friend gave director Edward Zwick a book that defied the notion of Jewish passivity, Zwick overcame his initial reluctance and made yet another Holocaust movie — Defiance. It tells the story of the largest armed rescue of Jews by Jews during World War II. Zwick has said he hopes it will amend what he calls the "abiding iconography" of the Holocaust.
That book was Nechama Tec's 1993 work, Defiance: The Bielski Partisans. Tec, who was herself saved by Polish Christians, is a professor emerita at the University of Connecticut in Stamford.
Tec stumbled on the Bielskis' extraordinary history in the 1980s, while researching another book. To check some information, she called a man named Tuvia Bielski, a former Jewish partisan leader living out his last years in Brooklyn. At a recent screening of Zwick's new film in Washington, D.C., Tec reminisced about that phone call.
"He was very friendly and wanted to know what book I'm writing," Tec said. She told him she was writing about a man who had helped more than 300 Jews escape from a ghetto, saving them from certain death at the hands of the Nazis. Tuvia Bielski's reaction was, "Big deal. When you come to me, I will show you how people saved more than a thousand."
Tuvia's Story
Indeed, by the end of the war, Tuvia and his brothers had sheltered 1,200 people. Only 49 died because of enemy action — a phenomenal survival rate.
Tuvia and his brothers, Zus and Asael, grew up in the village of Stankiewiecze, in a region that was eastern Poland until 1939. That was the year Hitler and Stalin signed a nonaggression pact and divided up Poland, putting the eastern part under Soviet control. This lasted until 1941, when Hitler broke the treaty and invaded the Soviet Union.
Once the Nazi troops moved in, they confined the Jewish population to urban ghettos. Soon after establishing one such ghetto in the town of Novogrudok, in December 1941, the Germans carried out an aktion. They murdered 4,000 Jews, including the Bielskis' parents, Tuvia's first wife, and Zus' wife and baby daughter.
In her book, Tec wrote, "As they mourned, this tragedy became a turning point. Now more than ever they would concentrate on not submitting, on freeing themselves from the German clutches."
Over the next three years, the Bielski brothers gave shelter and protection to Jews who, like them, had fled into the region's forests and swamps.
Tec says Tuvia became obsessed with saving Jewish lives. He did take part in military activities, but for him the most important thing was to rescue people.
Saved By The Bielskis
The Bielski partisan detachment, as they became known, would send scouts into the ghettos and arrange escape routes for Jews. Among those they aided was 14-year-old Jack Kagan, now a retiree living in London.
The Germans had already murdered Kagan's mother and sister in Novogrudok when he joined in a miraculous escape through a tunnel dug out of the ghetto — an engineering feat. He recalled seeing the Bielskis once he reached safety in the woods.
"When I arrived at the camp, and I saw two brothers, Asael and Zus, together with a reconnaissance party which came — probably another 12 or 15 riders — on tall horses, sitting with machine guns on the horses. For me it was an unbelievable sight, coming out from a camp where there was starvation, with German guards continually punishing us, and coming out suddenly to freedom and to see the Jewish fighters."
The Bielski brothers indeed stood out. Tec notes that they belonged to a rare segment of the Jewish population: peasants. They grew up poor on a farm, and learned survival skills that proved crucial in the forest. They knew the terrain. They knew how to ride horses, milk cows and search for water. Kagan still marvels at the town they built in the forest, with workshops for shoemakers, tailors, metalworkers, a tannery and a bakery. The goods they produced supplied not only the Bielski detachment, but also Soviet partisans in the area.
Were They Heroes?
Tuvia and Zus are remembered as big, hulking men — tough characters who did what they had to in order to keep their people alive. Kagan recalled one Soviet partisan leader saying he'd "met only one Jew who could outdrink and outswear any Russian. And that was Tuvia."
To survive, the partisans plundered food from surrounding farms. Tuvia ordered the execution of Belarusians and Poles who had denounced Jews to the Nazis. "He cleaned up the area," Tec says. "If you kill 10, if you destroy 10 farms, with the family and stuff, nobody is going to do it anymore." The Bielski brothers also killed three fellow Jews for insubordination.
The Bielskis' relationship with their gentile neighbors and their cooperation with Soviet partisans remain sore points in Poland. For eight years, the Polish government's Institute of National Remembrance has been investigating charges that Bielski fighters took part in a massacre of 128 Poles in the village of Naliboki in May 1943.
A spokesman for the government investigation says that charges against the Bielskis are based on oral testimony from townspeople in Naliboki. But, the spokesman adds, the testimony was not supported by any documentation. The panel has yet to issue its final report.
Piotr Gluchowski, a journalist for Poland's biggest newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, is writing his own book about the partisans and has looked into the Naliboki massacre. He says the witnesses against the Bielskis were parroting what they had read in a book by an avowed anti-Semite. He is certain the Bielskis were not complicit in the massacre, but he suggests the panel is reluctant to exonerate the Bielskis for fear of alienating right-wing, nationalist Poles.
Reconciling History
Gluchowski thinks Polish audiences will view the movie Defiance differently from their American counterparts. In his view, the Bielskis were Communists who were organizationally under the command of the Soviet government. Stalin was using the partisans not only to drive out the Germans, but also to make sure the region would not revert to Polish control after the war.
Tec insists the Bielskis were not Communists. She says they were not political at all, but she acknowledges that their group included members with various political inclinations. And, she says, it was only later in the war that Stalin sent in political figures to bring the partisans under firmer Soviet control and assign Bielski fighters to fight alongside the Soviets.
After the screening in Washington, someone asked why it took so many decades for the Bielskis' story of resistance and rescue to come to light. Was it that the story runs counter to our notion of Jews as passive victims of the Nazis? Tec thinks the time lag isn't surprising. "The Holocaust was the annihilation of European Jewry," she says, "so we focused on the perpetrators ... on the destruction, on who destroyed, what they destroyed."
Only after these topics were explored, Tec says, could scholars turn their attention to the exceptional situations, where rare instances of compassion and resistance shone in a time of horrors.
Martha Wexler


My childhood ambition was to be a runner or a cartoonist.
My partner in life and my health.
I have a pretty bad habit of putting pens and markers in my pockets without lids on, which have bled out on some pretty nice sofas and surfaces in the past.
It's really important to me that my work is shared, that it's accessible that it's an experience.
Slightly obsessed with Casey Neistat.
See more of Shantell Martin's work here.


What is So Exciting About MongoDB?
Ronald December 4, 2015 What is So Exciting About MongoDB?2015-12-04T13:02:24+08:00 Topics: Web Development. Subjects: MongoDB.
The main task of programs and programming is telling computers what to do. When programs are successful at that job, interesting and innovative things happen. MongoDB is a whole new way of telling computers how to organize information.
Programmers and computer linguists who learn how to use MongoDB will control the next generation of information collating and storage. According to the ranking in DB-Engines, in December 2015 MongoDB is fast moving up, and is currently number 4 in terms of popularity of database management systems.
Tables have long been the standard way of handling data regardless of how much the various computer languages have changed over the years. For over 30 years the main structure for handling data has been a set of rows made up of columns that contained data. This was known as the relational database, and became popular in the 1980's because of its ability to handle transactions, its fast queries, and its spatial efficiency.
This form of data storage has created a great deal of difficulty for programmers as they have worked overtime to change the essence of data from an object form to a relational form and back again. Tools evolved (Object-Relational Mapping systems) for every language that was object-based, but using then has been a time-intensive job.
In the 90's attempts were made to create object databases as alternatives to the relational databases, but there was no real success. MongoDB is one of the first successful document databases that no longer uses two-dimensional, flat tables for record storage.
MongoDB instead stores documents. For instance, a table without a column for a first initial could not fully store the name B. Daniel Boone. The name would be stored without the first initial, or the intake person would insist on using B. Daniel Boone's full first name. With MongoDB, the whole name can be stored as B. Daniel Boone, with the next name stored as Martha Boone, no first initial. Even if Daniel had two first initials, the record could be stored in MongoDB because it is stored as a document and not in table format.
Location based data as it has geo-spatial capacities.


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Archive for the 'Atheism' Category
Posted: June 30, 2020 in Anarchism, Atheism, Humor, Science, Science Fiction, Skepticism
Tags: E-book sales
Since June 1, over half of our e-books have been on sale at all of the usual e-book vendors (Kobo, Apple, Amazon, etc.). Most are priced at $.99, and none of the sale titles are above $2.99. The sale ends on Tuesday, June 30. So, if you want to get some cheap, worthwhile e-books, now's the time. The sale titles are as follows. The sale ends at midnight.
An advance look: 24 Reasons to Abandon Christianity
Posted: April 17, 2020 in Atheism, Christianity, Religion, Sex
Tags: 20 Reasons to Abandon Christianity, 24 Reasons to Abandon Christianity, Abominations, Abraham, Adultery, Bestiality, Bible, Blasphemy, Cruelty, Death penalties, Donald Trump, English common law, Fornication, God, Graven images, Homosexuality, Jesus, Job, Lotus principle, Murder, Pandemic, Rape, Satanic Temple, Seven Fundamental Tenets, Slavery, Ten Commandments, Torture, Witchcraft
For the last month I've been self-isolating, and have been working on a long-neglected project. Since 2014 or 2015, I've been intending to expand 20 Reasons to Abandon Christianity (an 8,000-word pamphlet I wrote 20 years ago) to book length, and to increase the number of topics it covers. The purpose of 20 Reasons was to list all of the misery-producing traits of Christianity in one place, and I was pleased with the result when the pamphlet appeared in 2000, but over the years I gradually realized that the topic deserved much more extensive treatment.
With the election of Trump (with his evangelical true-believer base), the project took on more urgency, and now with the onset of the pandemic and consequent self-isolation, I finally have the time and motivation to finish the book.
At the moment I've written somewhere north of 30,000 words, and will likely write at least that many more by the time I finish the first draft in, I hope, late May or early June. The following is the first draft of Chapter 11, one of the new chapters. I'll undoubtedly alter and expand it over the next month or two.
Christianity has an exceedingly narrow, legalistic view of morality
"Everything which is not forbidden is allowed." – the Lotus Principle (English common law)
Christians have certainly taken that principle to heart: they at least pretend to obey the dictates of the Bible (and their priests, popes, and preachers), while acting as if anything not specifically prohibited – no matter how sleazy, unethical, or outright monstrous – is perfectly fine, precisely because it is not prohibited by what they consider the only moral code: that expounded in the Bible.
They often pretend to keep the Bible's commands punctiliously (keeping all of these commands would be utterly impossible), and to underline the sacredness of those commands will cite Jesus's words in Matthew 5:18: "For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." Of course, they only keep those biblical commands they choose to keep, especially those in vogue among their fellow Christians and those most open to public view.
The words of Jesus in Matthew 5:18 sum up Christian morality: follow the law as prescribed in the Bible.
But what a law!
Here are the most prominent prohibitions in the Bible, the Ten Commandments. (This very common list is an abbreviated version of the commands in Exodus 20.)
I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt not have any strange gods before Me.
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
Thou shalt not make any graven image
Keep holy the Sabbath day.
Honor thy father and mother.
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods.
This is a rather minimal set of moral precepts. The first three commandments, presumably considered the most important by their author, speak only to the pettiness of that author. The fourth seems reasonable except that it implies wasting time on religious rites. The fifth also seems reasonable, but does it really merit being a fundamental part of a brief moral code? The sixth is more than reasonable and should be a basic part of any code of morals – and it's a pity that the Old Testament god repeatedly commanded its followers to violate it. The seventh commandment makes sense to some, but again, should it be a fundamental part of a moral code? Aren't there other things a bit more important? The eighth is also reasonable and should be part of any code of morals, as should the ninth. And the tenth commandment is simply weird: stealing is already prohibited by the eighth commandment, so why include this thought crime unless part of the author's purpose was to control the thoughts as well as the actions of believers.
Let's see what else the Bible prohibits or condemns. (This is far from a complete list of biblical prohibitions/condemnations, and in most cases there are additional Bible verses prohibiting or condemning these things. Almost everything else the Bible condemns or prohibits is equally trivial or absurd as the list that follows.)
Working on the sabbath (death penalty). (Exodus 31:14-15, Exodus 35:1-2, Numbers 15:32-36)
Worshiping other gods or idols (death penalty). (Deuteronomy 13:6-9, Deuteronomy 17:2-5, Colossians 3:5)
Cursing one's parents (death penalty). (Deuteronomy 17:24)
Rebelliousness (death penalty). (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)
Witchcraft (death penalty). (Exodus 22:18, Leviticus 20:27)
Eating shellfish (an abomination). (Leviticus 11:10-12)
Blasphemy (death penalty). (Leviticus 24:14-16)
Wearing mixed fabrics. (Leviticus 19:19, Deuteronomy 22:11)
And, of course, sacrificing a blemished ox. (Deuteronomy 17:1)
But where the authors of the Bible really get hot and bothered is in their condemnation of sex. The Bible explicitly prohibits or condemns the following:
Adultery (an abomination and a death penalty). (abomination: Ezekiel 23:36-37, Leviticus 18:20, 27; death penalty: Leviticus 20:10, Deuteronomy 22:22, Ezekiel 23:45-47)
Fornication (death penalty). (Leviticus 21:9; death penalty: Ezekiel 16:35-40)
Cross dressing (abomination). (Deuteronomy 22:5)
Homosexuality (abomination and death penalty). (abomination: Leviticus 18:22, Leviticus 20:13; death penalty: Leviticus 20:13)
Sex with an "unclean" woman (abomination). (Leviticus 18:19, 27)
Being a rape victim but not crying out (death penalty). (Deuteronomy 22:23-24)
Inability to prove (female) virginity (death penalty). (Deuteronomy 22:13-21)
Sex with wife and mother-in-law (death penalty). (Leviticus 20:14)
Bestiality (death penalty and abomination). (death penalty: Exodus22:19, Leviticus 20:15; abomination: Leviticus 18: 23, 27)
All of this begs the question, what doesn't the Bible prohibit?
Slavery. The Bible nowhere condemns it, and in many places condones it, and even includes instructions on how to (mis)treat slaves. (See Chapter 16). And in one notable passage (Exodus 21:20-21) explicitly treats slaves as property.
Torture. The Bible not only doesn't forbid torture anywhere in its nearly 800,000 words — it commands it: a number of passages order believers to not only kill, but to torture transgressors to death by burning or stoning (e.g., Leviticus 20:14, 20:27, 21:9). One might also mention that the Almighty is more than a bit of a sadist, as witnessed by, to choose but two among many examples, its horrific treatment of Job and its mental torture of Abraham
Rape. Not only doesn't the Bible forbid rape, but in many instances God commands it, including child rape. Numbers 31:17-18 provides a "twofer": in it, God not only orders child rape, but also mass murder.
Racism. There is not a single word in the Bible condemning it.
(Aggressive) Violence. Nowhere does the Bible condemn physical aggression. Rather, it commands it, over and over again.
Coercion. Again, the Bible nowhere condemns coercion. On the contrary, the relationship of God to its "chosen people" is coercive almost in its entirety, and what is slavery (which is implicitly condoned by the Bible) if not the ultimate form of coercion?
Cruelty. The Bible nowhere condemns it, and large parts of the Old Testament glory in it.
Mass Murder. God explicitly commands it (Hittites, Canaanites, and other victims of the "chosen people" in the "promised land").
All of this helps to explain why so many Christians behave so abominably toward their fellow humans and other animals. They've learned from the example of their "moral" guide, and think that as long as they observe some of the injunctions in the Bible, especially those relating to sex, they'll be "saved." Beyond that, they believe they have complete carte blanche to do anything, no matter how cruel or vile. (Here, one can't help but think of religiously observant mafia members, and of the Catholic Church which is only too happy to welcome them and take their money. One can't also help but think of the torturers and torture implements employed by the church for centuries during the medieval and Renaissance periods.)
In response, Christian apologists would point out that there are many passages in the New Testament, especially those purporting to be the words of Jesus, prescribing kindness and tolerance. What they don't point out is that in Matthew 5:18 Jesus specifically endorsed, as "the law," all of the terrible things cited above, and that he never denounced the horrors of slavery or torture. That there are some good things in the Bible doesn't excuse the many awful things in it, nor its many grave moral omissions.
It's not hard to come up with a much better and much shorter list of "commandments." In fact, The Satanic Temple (whose members have been aptly described as "atheism's shock troops") has done so with its Seven Fundamental Tenets:
One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
One's body is inviolable, subject to one's own will alone.
The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one's own.
Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs.
People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.
Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.
You decide, which seems a better moral guide, the Ten Commandments or the Seven Fundamental Tenets?
Quote of the Day 1-21-20 (Bill Maher)
Posted: January 20, 2020 in Atheism, Humor, Religion
Tags: Bill Maher
"Atheism is a religion like abstinence is a sex position."
–HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher
Our Best Posts (Addictions, Anarchism, Atheism, Baseball, Capitalism)
Posted: September 27, 2019 in Addictions, Anarchism, Atheism, Baseball, Capitalism
Tags: Addictions, Alcoholics Anonymous, Anarchism, Atheism, Capitalism, Christianity, Faith, God, Islam, Lee Elia, Nonviolent direct action, Prostitution, Quotations, Religiosity, Science fiction, Self-made man, Wage Labor, Yogi Berra
We hit 100,000 views a few days ago, and to celebrate (if that's the right word) we're listing the best posts we've published, divided by category. Here's the first installment.
Alcoholics Anonymous Is Not Effective
Alcoholics Anonymous Is Religious, Not Spiritual
Anarchist Science Fiction: Essential Novels
Anarchism: What It Is and What It Isn't
An Anarchist Bibliography
The Most Effective Political Approach: Nonviolent Direct Action
Don't Call Them Libertarians
Syllogism of the Day
Astrology: Fraud or Superstition?
Faith: A False Virtue
Which Is Worse, Islam or Christianity?
A Favorite Baseball Anecdote
RIP Yogi Berra — some favorite quotes
Annual Lee Elia Appreciation Day
Inverse Relationship
Wage Labor
Self-Made Man
This is the first of several "best of" posts we'll be running over the next week or two. The following installment will cover several categories: Economics (much more on capitalism there), Gardening, Interviews, and Journalism. We'll also be putting up multiple installments devoted purely to humor, because humor posts comprise by far the largest category on this blog — over 500 total, out of the roughly 1,500 we've put up so far.
New Book — Godless: 150 Years of Disbelief
Posted: July 17, 2019 in Anarchism, Atheism, Christianity, Humor, Religion
Tags: Ambrose Bierce, Book discounts, Book Sales, Chaz Bufe, E. Haldeman-Julius, Earl Lee, Emma Goldman, Freethinking, Godless, Johann Most, Joseph McCabe, Matilda Gage, Pamela Sutter, PM Press, S.C. Hitchcock, Satire, Sebastien Faure, See Sharp Press
PM Press just published my latest book, Godless: 150 Years of Disbelief, which I compiled/edited. Here's their description of the book:
Godless is a compilation of wide-ranging texts, both hilarious and horrifying, on atheism, belief, and religion. The selections in the book appeared in various formats from the late nineteenth century through the early twenty-first, and their authors were often active in the anarchist, Marxist, or radical leftist movements of their day. Derived from printed pamphlets, books by small publishers, and essays that appeared in widely distributed newspapers, these texts serve as freethinking propaganda in a media war against morbid authoritarian doctrines.
With both a sophisticated analysis of inconsistencies in deistic beliefs and a biting satirical edge, Godless gives ammunition to those fighting fundamentalist bigotry—and more than a few reasons to abandon Christianity.
Readers previously familiar with the authors' political polemics will be rewarded in contemplating another side of their remarkable literary output. Contributors include Emma Goldman, Ambrose Bierce, Chaz Bufe, E. Haldeman-Julius, Earl Lee, Johann Most, Joseph McCabe, Matilda Gage, Pamela Sutter, S.C. Hitchcock, and Sébastien Faure.
PM is offering a 50% discount on Godless (with the coupon code JULY) until July 31.
And speaking of 50% discounts, See Sharp Press's 50% off sale on all books (and even greater discounts on our anarchist and atheist pamphlet collections) continues, but will end this coming Sunday, July 31.
Definition of the Day 1-31-19 (Prayer)
Posted: January 31, 2019 in Atheism, Religion
Tags: Ambrose Bierce, American Heretic's Dictionary, Devil's Dictionary, God, Prayer, Praying
PRAYER, n. 1) A form of begging, unusual in that it's often practiced as a solitary activity. When practiced in groups, it is normally referred to as "worship." 2) A humble supplication, the premise of which is that the omnipotent, omniscient creator of the universe will benefit from the guidance of the humble supplicator.
Definition of the Day 10-9-18 (Agnostic)
Posted: October 9, 2018 in Atheism, Christianity
Tags: Agnosticism, Ambrose Bierce, American Heretic's Dictionary, Astrology, Devil's Dictionary, New age beliefs, Penn & Teller, Pew Research Center, Psychics, Reincarnation, Spiritual energy
AGNOSTIC, n. 1. An atheist who craves social acceptance; 2) A person who feels superior to atheists by merit of his ignorance of the rules of logic and evidence.
(Adding weight to the second definition, Pew Research Center just released a poll showing that agnostics were two-and-a-half times more likely than atheists to hold at least one irrational new age belief ["new age" being pronounced as a single word starting with "s" according to Penn & Teller] — in spiritual energy; psychics; reincarnation; and/or astrology. Agnostics were only slightly less credulous in this regard than Christians.)
Another Goodbye to Another Very Good Friend — Michael Zubay
Posted: September 24, 2018 in Atheism, Music
Tags: Bass, Bass guitar, Bass lines, Life Is Good, Michael Zubay, Pinche Blues Band
Pinche Blues Band at Boondocks Lounge a few years ago. Michael Zubay is at left playing bass guitar.
My good friend and on-again-off-again bass player for the last eight or ten years, Michael Zubay, died last night from cancer. I loved him. We clicked both musically and personally. If I wanted someone to talk to who I'd trust, Michael was the guy. He was honest, helpful, tremendous fun to be around, and tremendous fun to play with. He also was funnier than hell and had a good, dark sense of humor. He was a very good friend and a very good musician.
Michael was an atheist, and in place of a religious service there will be a day-long jam session and party for all of the musicians he played with over the years. No date yet, but I'll post video if and when it's available. (Update: The jam happened yesterday on November 11; Jay Werth videoed it, and I'll post links to some of the videos once Jay has them up on Youtube.)
Here's probably the best recording I have of Michael from back in 2014 when we had the Pinche Blues Band together. His bass lines are absolutely wonderful (check out the syncopation and how much the bass line drives).
Michael wrote a number of songs, and we'll record his best one, "No Job Blues," on our next CD (probably as Stone Dead). I'll post it once it's available.
More later.
Which is worse, Christianity or Islam?
Posted: June 1, 2018 in Atheism, Christianity, Islam, Religion, Science
Tags: Abortion, Al Qaeda, Albigensians, Apostates, Bible, Bill Maher, Boko Haram, Charlie Hebdo, Child marriage, FGM, Fundamentalism, Honor killings, Internecine warfare, ISIS, Koran, Ku Klux Klan, MILF, Misogyny, Private prisons, Religious Persecution, Right to Life, Saudi Arabia, Slavery, Syria, Terrorism, United States, War, Witch burnings, Yemen
For the last few months we've been running the best posts from years past, posts that will be new to most of our subscribers. This is a slightly revised and expanded post from January 2015.
Given the spate of near-daily Islamic-fanatic atrocities, and the wholesale pandering of the Trump administration to its deranged theofascist base, this post seems especially relevant now. Indeed, who today can't be wondering, "Which is worse, Christianity or Islam?"
Let's take a look at some of the worst structures and practices in both Islamic and Christian lands, both current and historic:
Slavery is still practiced in many Islamic nations. The most notorious recent example is the enslavement of thousands of Yazidis by ISIS in Iraq. The Nigerian fundamentalist group Boko Haram is also notorious for enslavement of its victims.
At the same time, slavery persisted in widespread form in Christian lands until 1888 (Brazil) and in perhaps its most brutal form ever in the most religiously devout part of the United States until 1865. And enslavement of prisoners in the United States is still very widespread, currently involving at minimum hundreds of thousands of prisoners "paid" a few pennies per hour by for-profit corporations.
There is plenty of justification for slavery in both the Bible and the Koran, and not one word against it in either book. (If you doubt this, run a search on Google or Bing. In fact, you'll find justification for all of the horrors listed in this post.)
So, which is worse in regard to slavery, Christianity or Islam?
Islam "wins" this one based on the sheer brutality of some current Islamist groups.
At present, the most vicious and most active terrorist groups are Islamic (ISIS, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda, Taliban, and MILF — this is for real: the acronym stands for Moro Islamic Liberation Front). These groups are responsible for the murder of uncounted thousands of innocent people across the globe in recent years.
But Christian terrorism also exists, though in more subdued form. In the United States, the Ku Klux Klan is a proudly Christian organization. As well, "right to life" Christian fanatics occasionally murder abortion providers and bomb abortion clinics; and they routinely stalk and anonymously threaten abortion providers, providing a dictionary definition of terrorism: they're trying to frighten and intimidate — terrorize — abortion providers into no longer providing this constitutionally protected medical procedure.
Still, there's no question that at present Islam "wins" this one hands down.
Internecine Warfare
By far the worst current example of internecine warfare is the Sunni-Shia mass bloodletting in Syria and Yemen, with thousands of casualties every single month.
But historically, Islamic internecine warfare has nothing on Christian internecine warfare. Just go back a few hundred years. Consider the Beziers massacre of 10,000 to 20,000 Albigensian heretics in 1209 by a crusader army commanded by papal legate Arnaud Amalric. Justifying the mass murder of helpless prisoners, Amalric famously said, "Kill them all. God will recognize his own."
Then go forward just over 400 years to the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) for religiously motivated (Catholic vs. Protestant) murder and mayhem on a mass scale. Then if you add in all of the nonreligiously motivated internecine warfare between Christian nations (Hundred Years War, U.S. Civil War, World War I, World War II, etc.), Christianity "wins" this one going away.
Subjugation of Women
The situation of women is unquestionably worse in Islamic lands than Christian lands. In some Islamic countries, the barbaric practices of female genital mutilation and child marriage are still very common, with the number of victims up in the tens, probably hundreds of millions. In far more Islamic countries, women are still very much second class citizens. Their testimony in court is accorded less weight than that of men, Islamic fanatics seek (sometimes successfully) to deny them education, they're forced to wear head-to-toe coverings, they're forced into arranged marriages, and "honor" killings are common and culturally accepted.
In the West, women still earn less than men, face street harassment and domestic violence, face a glass ceiling in employment, and rape is still a major and under-acknowledged problem. Go back a few hundred years, and you'll find religiously inspired witch burnings all over Europe. And nearer to the present, denial of property rights, denial of the rights to contraception and abortion, and systematic denial of employment in many, many professions.
But bad as all this is, the situation of women in Islamic countries has been and is far worse than in Western lands. Islam "wins" here.
Persecution of Nonbelievers
In Islamic countries, it is simply unsafe (often deathly unsafe) for Muslims to abandon Islam. Many of their fellow Muslims will feel completely justified in murdering those who abandon the faith, and far more will condone such killings. Going beyond this, as the Charlies Hebdo atrocity in Paris demonstrates, Islamists feel entirely justified in murdering nonbelievers who were never Muslims, simply for criticizing Islam. And it's not just unofficial Islamic thugs doing the killing. In Saudi Arabia, it's a capital offense to be an atheist or an apostate, and the Saudi authorities are notorious for imprisoning and brutally whipping atheists and apostates, and threatening them with execution.
In the Western countries, it's been several hundred years since the torture and murder of apostates and heretics was commonplace. There are still unconstitutional laws on the books in several U.S. states denying atheists the right to hold elected office or serve on juries, and high-profile atheists are sometimes stalked and threatened, but the situation of nonbelievers in Muslim countries is undeniably far worse. Islam "wins" again.
At present, there's no denying that Islam, which Bill Maher calls "the mother lode of bad ideas," is worse than Christianity. But why should this be so? Consider the above: the worst examples of Islamic barbarism are current, and the worst examples of Christian barbarism are in the past, mostly centuries in the past.
What happened? In a word, science. In the West, science with its question-test-and-logically-analyze attitude has flourished and has eaten away at traditional religious beliefs. This has resulted in a good majority of "believers" being "cafeteria Christians" who pick and choose their "beliefs," and reject those which are too ridiculous or too inhumane. Hence the slow but fairly steady social progress over the last few centuries. This social evolution never happened in Muslim lands.
To put this another way, religions are toxic to the extent that their basic tents are toxic and to the extent that their members follow their teachings literally.
Many of the teachings in the Bible are every bit as barbaric as those in the Koran. But a hell of a lot more Muslims than Christians take those teachings literally.
Our 50 Best Posts of 2017
Posted: December 30, 2017 in Addictions, Anarchism, Atheism, Book Reviews, Christianity, Cults, Economics, Evangelicals, Humor, Interviews, Islam, Jokes, Livin' in the USA, Mormonism, Music, Politics, Religion, Science, Science Fiction
Tags: Best-of lists
We published about 250 posts in 2017, and consider the following the 50 best. We've divided them into categories to make navigating easier; as with our past "best of" lists, the Humor, Politics, Religion, Music, and Science Fiction categories account for most of the posts. (Because several of the posts fit into more than one category, they appear in more than one place.) We hope you enjoy them.
Yet more Interesting and Marginally Useful Internet Crap
Graphic Definition of the Day: Bootlicking
Definition of the Day: Reform
Extremely offensive but funny anti-Trump meme
Kathy Griffin does Donald Trump a favor
Quote of the Day: Jim Carrey
Jumbo edition: Interesting and marginally useful Internet Crap
The political prank of the decade
Offensive Cartoon of the Day
Graphic of the Day ("So Scottsdale")
Another Good Old Fashioned Religion Roundup
Definition of the Day: God
Mustang Sally flow chart (updated)
Definition of the Day: Vintage
Definition of the Day: President of the United States
Once again, Interesting and Marginally Useful Internet Crap
Bernie Sanders and Trump
Venezuelan Anarchist framed, detained and tortured by Maduro's police
The Opioid Epidemic — what no one is talking about
Al Perry "censored" by Youtube and PC Police
The Black Bloc and Free Speech
Why are Evangelicals sticking with Trump?
Venezuelan Anarchist Beaten by Maduro's Police
How to fight radical Islam
The Good Things Trump Has Done
Donald Trump is in bed with radical Islamists
So, you think the Democrats are your friends?
What if Clinton had won?
Who's responsible for this political disaster?
How not to talk to people about politics (and how to do it effectively)
Nazi Germany and the USA (updated)
Meme of the Day: Homeland Security
Bombs Not Food?
Review: The Doomed City, by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
Review: Walkaway, by Cory Doctorow
Review: American War, by Omar Al Akkad
AA, the War on Drugs, and Disastrous Misconceptions (revised)
20 Reasons to Abandon Christianity (complete)
The Fundamentalist Menace
Notable Atheist Science Fiction Novels (updated 2017)
Another goodbye to another good friend (Gary Lee Russell — guitarist in Killer Pussy)
The joys of being a musician
How Amazon nearly killed a small press
So, you want to buy a telescope
Interview with T.C Weber, author of Sleep State Inerrupt
How Amazon nearly killed a small press (interview with See Sharp Press publisher Chaz Bufe)
A Few Ways to Moderate Your Drinking
Anarchist Science Fiction: Essential Novels (updated 2017)
Review: Artemis, by Andy Weir
Review: The Moon and the Other, by John Kessell
Review: The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O., by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland
Review: Normal, by Warren Ellis
Review: Last Year, by Robert Charles Wilson
Posted: September 17, 2017 in Atheism, Religion, Science, Skepticism
Tags: American Astronomical Society, Astrology, Astronomy, Bart Bok, ESP, Heinrich Himmler, Horoscopes, Inverse square law, Lawrence Jerome, Magic, Magical Thinking, Mark Snyder, Michel Gauquelin, Michel Petiot, National Science Foundation, Peter Glick, Precession, Predestination, Ptolemy, Ronald Reagan, Tetrabiblos
(This is an updated version of the pamphlet Astrology: Fraud or Superstition? originally published by See Sharp Press in 1987.)
Origins and Popularity of Astrology
For millennia, human beings have looked up at the night sky and asked themselves, "What does it all mean?" One of the oldest recorded answers is provided by astrology: the belief that the stars and planets strongly influence our lives.
Humans began observing the night sky tens of thousands of years ago, but astrology is of more recent origin. The earliest records of astrology date from approximately 4,000 years ago, at a time when science was unknown and the religious/magical view of the world was near universal. (Religion and magic were a natural outgrowth of wonder and ignorance; they likely survived, at least in part, because they were useful to the priests and royalty as a means of frightening their subjects into line.)
Thus, astrology was the result of combining the ancient practice of observing the night sky with a magical view of the world, specifically what Lawrence Jerome, in 1975 in The Humanist, calls the "principle of correspondences." He explains this principle as follows: "The omen or magic object has certain physical properties that are related to the external world by analogy. For instance, the reddish color of the planet Mars means to the astrologer that it is magically related with blood, war and metal iron. . . ."
After its invention by the Babylonians (whose priests both used astrology and read the entrails of animals to foretell the futures of kings and nations), astrology was further developed by the ancient Greeks, who named the planets after their deities and ascribed the qualities of those deities to the planets. (Those qualities are still the ones ascribed to the planets in "modern" astrology.) Finally, in the second century c.e., Ptolemy wrote his Tetrabiblos, the astrological bible, in the city of Alexandria and brought astrology into its "modern" form.
During the Middle Ages, astrology was denounced by the church and went into eclipse, though it remained popular in the islamic world and in the East. In Europe, it began to flourish in the late Middle Ages, from roughly the 13th century on, and was very popular during the Renaissance. But the rise of science toward the end of the period sent astrology into eclipse once again, and it didn't resurface as a widely held belief until the turbulent years of the early twentieth century.
Since its resurrection, belief in astrology has touched all segments of the population, not only in the U.S., but in Europe as well. Most of the top Nazis believed in astrology. Himmler's astrologer, Wilhelm Wulff, even wrote a book on the subject, Zodiac and Swastika. Hitler himself, however, apparently did not believe in astrology and viewed it as merely a convenient means of manipulation.
In the U.S., a number of years ago Time magazine identified Ronald Reagan as a client of astrologer Carroll Righter, and a survey in the 1980s revealed that 15% of college undergraduates believed astrology was scientific. Today, the percentage is far higher: in 2014, a National Science Foundation (NSF) report stated that 30% of college graduates consider astrology scientific.
Among the general population, the percentage is even higher. Three decades ago, Jon D. Miller of Northern Illinois University reported that 39% of adult Americans believed that astrology is scientific. Things have only gotten worse since then. The 2014 NSF study reports that 45% of adult Americans believe astrology is scientific. One suspects considerable overlap between that group and the 46% cited by the NSF who don't know that it takes the Earth one year to orbit the sun.
In the 1980s, two-thirds of U.S. daily newspapers carried horoscopes. There were at least 10,000 full-time and 175,000 part-time astrologers in the country. And astrologically related books, magazines, and magazine articles were a glut on the market. A few sample titles: "The Astrology Way to Stock Market Profits," "Birth Control by Astrology," "Astrology: Judging Compatibility," and "Choosing by the Stars: Appropriate Perfumes."
Things haven't changed much since then. If anything, the percentage of newspapers carrying astrology columns has probably gone up, the number of astrologers has almost certainly gone up along with population and credulity, and astrology books still sell like, well, astrology books.
(A number of years ago I wrote, under a pseudonym, a "horrorscope" for a humor magazine in which I listed among my credits an article in Motor Trend titled, "Astrology and MPGs: Tune Your Car by the Stars." After reviewing astrology book titles, my only question is when Motor Trend will get around to publishing such an article.)
Why Astrology is Magic, Not Science
In addition to its being based on the magical "principle of correspondences," there are many other reasons to regard astrology as a system of magic rather than as a science. First of all, astrologers have never attempted to explain how astrology supposedly works—that is, why the apparent positions of different astronomical bodies supposedly have different effects upon different people. As Bart Bok, former president of the American Astronomical Society, put it:
Many believers in astrology have suggested that each planet issues a different variety of special as-yet-undetected radiations or "vibrations" . . . [but] there is apparently conclusive evidence that the sun, moon, planets, and stars are all made of the same stuff, varieties and combinations of atomic particles and molecules, all governed by uniform laws of physics. It does not make sense to suppose that the various planets and the moon, all with rather similar physical properties, could manage to affect human affairs in totally dissimilar fashion.
Second, astrology does not even take into account all of the major bodies in our solar system, let alone all those in our galaxy or the hundreds of billions of other galaxies in the universe. Many astrologers still make their planetary computations using only the planets known to the ancients; they don't take into account those discovered by modern science (Uranus, Neptune, and the minor planets); and no astrologers take into account the nearest stars, which are far nearer to us than those in the zodiac constellations, whose stars are at wildly varying distances.
Third, there is no reason whatsoever to believe that the mysterious, undetectable, astrological forces supposedly emanating from the planets would be any stronger than the gravitational forces of the planets. And those forces are weak indeed. At its nearest conjunction, Mars exerts far less gravitational force upon a newborn infant than the midwife or doctor who delivers the child.
Fourth, astrologers, in their computations, do not take into account the inverse square law, which is a fundamental law of physics. It says that the amount of radiation received by a body varies as the inverse square of its distance from the source of the radiation. For example, the amount of light reaching a ship four miles from a lighthouse will be only one-quarter (per unit of surface area) of that reaching a ship two miles from the lighthouse, and one-sixteenth of that reaching a ship one mile from the lighthouse. But laws of physics do not matter to astrologers, and they don't care whether Mars is 40 million or 200 million miles away. They only concern themselves with the apparent position—to a viewer on Earth—of Mars in relation to the backdrop of the zodiac constellations and the other planets. So, if the astrological "radiation" ("vibration"—choose your own nebulous term) of the planets does influence human beings as astrologers claim, it would have to be a most peculiar type of radiation, one which disobeys a fundamental, well-established law of physics.
Fifth, many astrologers ignore precession. The Earth's rotational axis is not stable, and the Earth wobbles like a top—but much more slowly. So slowly, in fact, that it takes approximately 26,000 years for the Earth's axis to complete one rotation around the 47-degree-diameter circle it describes. This slow wobbling is called precession. It means, among other things, that the stars we now see in summer will be seen in winter (and vice versa) 13,000 years from now. It also means that the sun has receded almost a full sign along the zodiac since the Tetrabiblos was written nearly two millennia ago. So, the calculations of astrologers who rely on that hoary source are now off almost a full sign.
Sixth, the most popular type of astrology is natal astrology, in which astrological forces supposedly leap into action at the moment of an individual's birth, imprinting her or him with certain characteristics. But the choice of the time of birth as the moment of supposed astrological imprinting makes no sense at all. Astrologers choose the time of birth purely because it's convenient. They might object that a mother's body shields her baby from astrological "radiation" until birth, but that argument ignores the fact that almost all babies are born indoors, and it would be illogical to think that this "radiation" could penetrate wood, concrete and steel, but not a few centimeters of human flesh.
Some astrologers, especially the "humanistic" variety, attempt to discount criticisms such as these by claiming that the planets and stars do not produce astrological effects, but, rather, that the positions of astronomical bodies only serve as "indications" of astrological forces. This is a transparent attempt to evade questioning of astrology's supposed causal mechanism by retreating into a fog of ever-vaguer claims. By taking such a position, astrologers are saying in effect that for unknown reasons the positions of some of the stars and planets are indications of the undetectable effects of unknown types of undetectable forces emanating from unknown, undetectable sources. Such a proposition is even more ludicrous than the traditional astrological view that the stars and planets—never mind how—influence our personalities and daily lives.
Finally, there is absolutely no empirical evidence, absolutely none, that astrology has any value whatsoever as a means of prediction. What scientific testing has been done indicates that there are no astrological "effects." For instance, former Michigan State University psychologist Bernie Silberman asked astrologers to list compatible and incompatible signs. Silberman then inspected the records of 478 couples who divorced and 2978 who married in 1967 and 1968 in Michigan. He found no correspondence beyond that of random chance between the astrological signs predicted to be compatible or incompatible by astrologers and the signs of those getting married or divorced. French statistician Michel Gauquelin has conducted far more detailed tests which also have discovered no astrological effects. (Gauquelin's early, highly publicized report of a "Mars effect" on professional athletes was the result of an error in his calculations, and similar studies conducted by others showed no such effect.) In one test he examined the signs (moon, zodiacal, planetary, ascendant, and mid-heaven) for 15,560 professionals from five European nations in 10 different occupations. He found no evidence of any astrological effects. His calculations showed that the correlation between astrological signs and occupations to be that of random chance.
Reasons for Belief in Astrology
The fact that millions of astrological believers claim that they "feel" astrological influences in their own lives and "see" astrological influences at work in the lives of others is a prime example of wishful thinking, and nothing more. Believers in astrology, like other religionists, want so badly to believe in their preordination system that they "feel" and "see" effects where none exist. Similarly, a great many born-again christians claim to "feel" the presence of Jesus or the "holy spirit" and to "see" the hand of Satan at work in astrology and other occult beliefs. (Most born-again christians really do believe that Satan exists.) And if believers in astrology want us to accept their feelings as evidence supporting their beliefs, they must, to be consistent, grant the same evidentiary value to the feelings of born-again christians, which in some ways directly contradict the feelings of astrological believers—all of which demonstrates the unreliability of personal feelings as "evidence" in matters of this sort.
Why would anyone believe in anything as patently absurd as astrology? Probably for reasons similar to those of persons who believe in such patent absurdities as transubstantiation or their own "personal savior." One particularly disturbing aspect of this belief in the absurd is that many astrological believers not only do not use logical (scientific) reasoning, but they do not want to use it. Their "reasoning," like that of climate change deniers, is that of a stubborn child: "If I want it to be true, it must be true!" So, they adopt (probably unconsciously) a dishonest intellectual attitude, clinging obstinately to anything which seems to confirm their belief, while ignoring the plethora of inconvenient facts which call it into doubt. The pathetic clamoring about Gauquelin's since-disproven "Mars effect"—while other similar studies indicated that no such effect existed, and the above-listed objections to astrology went unanswered—is a case in point.
The standard reply of astrologers to this is the childish, "You're one too," which evades the question of their own dishonesty by implying that skeptics also ignore inconvenient facts. Unfortunately for the astrologers, that does not appear to be the case. A study of information evaluation by psychologists Peter Glick of Lawrence University and Mark Snyder of the University of Minnesota, published in the May/June 1986 Humanist, concluded that skeptics are "fact-oriented," while astrological believers are "theory-driven":
[S]keptics paid close attention to the information they gathered . . . while believers largely ignored what targets told them when it came to pass judgment on how well the astrological horoscope had predicted the targets' personalities.
A study of credence in another occult belief, ESP, published in the March 1980 Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, tends to confirm that occult believers ignore contradictory evidence much more often than skeptics. In that study, skeptics and ESP believers read articles with which they agreed and with which they disagreed, and then answered questions about the articles. Approximately 90% of the skeptics correctly remembered the conclusions of articles regardless of whether the articles were pro- or anti-ESP, while fewer than 40% of the ESP believers correctly recalled the conclusion of the article which debunked ESP; a large majority of the believers "remembered" that the article debunking ESP concluded that ESP exists.
Another of Gauquelin's experiments provides a more amusing example of the self-deception of occult believers. He took out a newspaper advertisement in which he promised free personalized horoscopes to all who answered the ad. One hundred fifty persons responded. Gauquelin then sent out the same horoscope to all 150 and asked them how well it fit them. Ninety-four percent replied that they recognized themselves in it. The horoscope was that of Dr. Michel Petiot, a mass murderer.
Why do occult believers have such a reluctance to face facts? Glick and Snyder concluded that, "in order to maintain the sense of being able to predict events, the believer makes the facts 'fit' the theory whether or not these events are consistent with the theory's predictions." The reason for this blindness is obvious.
It's an unfortunate fact that a great many people do not want to go to the work of making their own decisions. They want someone or something to tell them how to act, how to think, and how to feel. Astrology, like other religious beliefs, fills the bill. As a system of preordination ("Oh! You're a Scorpio! You must . . ."), it gives believers a nice, neat means of interpreting reality and of tailoring their behavior and expectations to fit the prescriptions of their belief system. Astrologers themselves admit this, with some of them maintaining that astrology "controls," "influences," or "can serve as a road guide." (The difference between these descriptions is one of degree, not substance.)
Still, why do so many choose astrology as a belief system rather than Mormonism, Catholicism, Islam, etc.? A probable reason is that astrology meets the desire of many people for a preordination system, yet it does not contain the most unpleasant aspects of conventional religions. It is silly and utterly irrational, and almost certainly influences some to make unfortunate personal decisions. (Consider the effect of articles such as "Birth Control by Astrology" upon those who take them seriously.) In extreme cases, astrological belief may incline individuals toward passivity—after all, if everything is written in the stars, why not just go with the flow? But unlike such religions as Judaism, Christianity, Mormonism, and Islam, astrology is not based upon guilt, misogyny, and sexual repression. It is simply based upon credulousness, ignorance, irrationality, and the eagerness of human sheep to be led.
Astrology is a handy crutch for those who are repelled by the more overtly reactionary, inhumane aspects of conventional religions, but are not yet ready to free themselves from supernatural preordination systems. In itself, this turn from organized religion is mildly encouraging. But it would be far more encouraging to see believers in astrology rise from the Procrustean bed of their irrational beliefs and begin to think for themselves.
Americans' Belief in Astrology Persists and Grows
More and More Americans Think Astrology is Science
Anarchist and Atheist Science Fiction Novels
Posted: July 30, 2017 in Anarchism, Anarchist science fiction, Atheism, Book Reviews
A few years ago we put up lists of what we consider the best anarchist and atheist science fiction novels, along with brief comments about the books, and cover images from many of them.
Since then, we've been adding new titles, new comments, and new cover images, especially over the last year or so. At present, the anarchist sci-fi list is roughly three times as long as it was when we put it up in 2013, and the atheist sci-fi list is about twice as long as it was.
If you have interest in these areas and you haven't looked at the lists for a while, or if you've never seen them, please check them out. We think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
A Blast from the Past: America's newest theme park — NaziWorld
Posted: July 8, 2017 in Atheism, Christianity, Humor, Livin' in the USA, Politics, Religion, Science, Skepticism
Tags: Creation Museum, Creationism, Disbelief 101, Donald Trump, Holocaust denial, S.C. Hitchcock, Springtime for Hitler, Theme parks, Water sports
(For the last few months we've been running the best posts from years past, posts that will be new to most of our subscribers. This one is from 2013. We'll be posting more blasts from the past for the next several months, and will intersperse them with new material.)
by S.C. Hitchcock, author of Disbelief 101: A Young Person's Guide to Atheism
The State of Kentucky features a Creation Museum dedicated to a theory that is refuted by, and I mean this in the literal sense, every living or mechanical thing you will ever see. (Not one thing, biological or technological, popped into existence without an ancestor.) Taking my cue from the success of this "museum," I've decided to create a theme park based on Holocaust denial.
I'll call the park NaziWorld and will create a main attraction called The Holocoaster. Patrons will thrill to a ride with more twists and turns and loops than Holocaust-denial "logic." Featured attractions will include a horror castle called Dr. Mengele's lab, a haunted graveyard with six million empty graves, and a beer garden/sports bar (The Berchtesgarten, naturlich) with "Spingtime for Hitler" playing on a continuous loop on its big-screen TVs.
Most Americans know as much about World War II as they do about biology, so this seems like a sound business plan. Most are familiar with the whiskery square that darkened Hitler's septum, and know that the Nazis wore sexy uniforms, didn't like Jews, and had a lot to do with the war that was filmed in black and white, but that's about it.
If this works, and it will, I've got plans for more money-making theme parks. How about a "trickle-down" waterpark, where the water is supplied by the executive suite restrooms high overhead?
What could possibly go wrong? Americans (at least our current [2017] sad excuse for a president) will lap it up — or should that be "lie down for it, and let it wash over them"?
(Editor's Note: Sorry S.C., couldn't resist adding that final sentence.)
Get your popcorn ready: Bill Nye the science guy to debate idiot Creation Museum founder Ken Ham
God Must Be Sending a Message: Creation Museum Visitor Struck by Lightning (patheos.com)
10 Weird-Ass Theme Parks That Are Totally Real (buzzfeed.com)
Zip Line Evangelism: Creation Museum Opens 'Non-Religious' Exhibits To Expand Audience (secularnewsdaily.com)
Next Year, the Creation Museum Will Indoctrinate Children for Free (patheos.com)
Creation Museum Falls Short (issuespublichistory.wordpress.com)


Toyota Australia has announced a slightly more practical option for the LandCruiser Prado, with a relocated space wheel moved to underneath the body providing a lighter tailgate operation.
Buyers can still continue to specify the Prado with the tailgate-mounted spare wheel, but to broaden the already very wide appeal of the SUV buyers can option for a lighter-weight tailgate without the spare. This makes it easier to open, especially when the vehicle is parked facing down hill.
Going for this option also gives buyers a unique opening glass hatch that opens independently of the main tailgate, providing quick access to the cargo area. The option is being offered for the automatic GXL, VX, and top Kakadu, and is inspired by special edition Prado models of the last few years.
Buyers in rural areas might be turned off the option however, as the relocation of the spare to under the vehicle does take the place a second fuel tank. With the spare mounted on the tailgate two fuel tanks provide a combined 150L, with a theoretical range of 1875km (using the 8.0L/100km average consumption for the auto as the calculation).
For SUV buyers the Toyota Prado remains as one of the most popular seven-seat options on the market, and is the most popular in the large SUV segment. So far this year (through July) Toyota Australia has sold a whopping 10,702 examples of the Prado, which is actually up 8.4 per cent year-to-date and up 17.8 per cent compared with the month of July last year.


Mel B shock: I'm the new Bachelorette!
In a new preview for what appears to be an explosive upcoming episode of The Bachelorette, Sophie Monk's father is shown VERY unimpressed with some of the boys vying for the heart of his daughter.
Who exactly is the contestant under fire? Front-runner Sam Cochane! The man with the blonde locks is shown in the preview making a lewd remark, as he wasn't aware that Sophie's parents had gone undercover and are nearby.
The episode which airs next Wednesday follows Sophie as she decides to have her parents pose as drivers and chauffeur the contestants around so they can garner insider knowledge the boys.
'I've got something very cheeky planned,' Sophie narrates.
'Mum's in one car. Dad's in the other car,' she added, over footage showing her parents picking up a number of the fourteen remaining men.
While in the car with Sophie's dad, Sam is heard remarking, 'Lust is you wanna bang 'em and love is you want to look after them'.
In the preview footage Sam's face completely drops as he figures this may reduce his chances of winning over Sophie.
Tune in on Wednesday to see the drama unfold!


This page shows businesses on Maple Road. Click on a business to bring up its details and a map showing its location.
G P F Consultancy is a reflexologist who provides alternative treatment by applying pressure to patients' feet, hands and ears.
Happy Days Photography Service is a photography company offering a range of photography services.
Map showing Maple Road in Bristol.


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Jai Lava Kusa Collections Updated | Jai Lava Kusa News Jai Lava Kusa Collections Updated: Jai Lava Kusa has been running with decent crowds all over and the movie managed to collect Rs 41.85 crores in five days.
Young actor NTR is on cloud nine after his recent outing Jai Lava Kusa which has been directed by Bobby. Tarak's outstanding performance has been widely applauded by the audience and the movie has been raking decent figures during this holiday season. Rashi Khanna and Nivetha Thomas are the female leads in the movie and Jai Lava Kusa has been running with packed houses all over. Devi Sri Prasad composed the music and Jai Lava Kusa music too has getting decent response.


text:
Antonia Hock of The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center: Rising Through Resilience; Five Things You Can Do To Become More Resilient
Coach: — If you routinely find that you are struggling to move through challenges or find yourself in negative self-talk, I would recommend finding someone you admire for their resiliency and spending time with them. How did they become resilient? What do they do that helps them build confidence? How do they stay positive and move forward? Often sharing experiences and talking with someone about these skills can help them become a bigger part of your own personal arsenal. I also think moving towards a positive action-orientation can be accelerated by surrounding yourself with people who exhibit these traits. If you want to be resilient, surround yourself with people who are also resilient.
In this interview series, we are exploring the subject of resilience among successful business leaders. Resilience is one characteristic that many successful leaders share in common, and in many cases it is the most important trait necessary to survive and thrive in today's complex market.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Antonia Hock.
Antonia Hock is the Global Head of The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center where she leads a dynamic advisory business focused on innovating the Customer Experience (CX) and Talent Experience (TX) for clients worldwide.
Antonia is a sought-after, author, thought leader and frequent global keynote featured speaker. She is considered a global expert on organizational transformation and building experience-based brands, creating a culture of customer-centricity, empowering employees and issues around diversity in the workforce, and innovating experiences for the future.
Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory?
I came to terms early in my career that I was by nature driven towards chaos, turnarounds, new ideas, start-ups — anything that was a "build" vs. a stable, run-rate business that needed only incremental improvement to thrive. When I came out of college, I joined an early stage dot com and that fed my desire to build and create. It also allowed me to tap into my entrepreneurial spirit while simultaneously allowing me to experience the heavy lifting and long hours required to build a business.
I also love working with big brands that have resources and an appetite for being market-makers through innovation and calculated risk. This led me to work for fast-moving progressive companies like Microsoft, HP, and Siemens where I earned a reputation as a maverick: the one you call when you have a big challenge with high stakes attached. I also learned some important lessons about the value of culture, wellness, and genuine care in the workplace. Those are underserved areas that can break a business apart and destroy even the best financial performances.
After years of building successful business units centered on transformative technology, I was presented with the opportunity to work for The-Ritz-Carlton — but with the new twist of taking that legendary service, culture, and wellness focus to market as a methodology that can be implemented in Fortune 500 companies to drive business results. Much of what we do focuses on changing the lives of employees and customers with a strong focus on care, empowerment, and a personalized approach to connection.
Can you share with us the most interesting story from your career? Can you tell us what lessons or 'takeaways' you learned from that?
I was a young high-performing, high-potential manager, and I was invited to a very important meeting with 20 senior executives who were 95% men. The meeting room was small, with a boardroom table that fit only 10 seats, and 15 seats around the outside perimeter of the table. I arrived early to the meeting, and out of respect for the seniority of others in the meeting, I took a seat on the perimeter. After the meeting was over, I was called into my skip level boss' office where I was told that I might not make it as a leader in the business because I could not claim my rightful place at the table. In this culture, my seat choice was signaling to all the other executives that I was deferential and not bold, aggressive or confident. I thought I was being thoughtful, but that was a wake-up call for how my actions would always signal my self-concept and my ambition. I am forever grateful to those male leaders in this situation who took the time to teach me that lesson early in my career because it jolted me from the patriarchal way I was raised, and I never made that mistake again.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
The Ritz-Carlton has always been focused on values and culture that put the wellness of our employees and our guests front and center in all that we do. We have been living by values of empowerment, genuine care, personalized attention, and creating indelible memories for over 30 years. Whether we are caring for each other or caring for a guest, these values allow us to create an environment that is focused on wellbeing — emotional, physical, and mental — and that is life-changing for all. This is at the center of why we are sought after experts in designing and implementing culture that supports happy employees who in turn create very special experiences for customers and guests. In a world where wellness is not a corporate focus for most, we stand out as a business model that drives exceptional financial performance by investing in a culture of wellness and empowerment.
I had an exceptional female leader early in my career who showed me that her road to success did not require her to change her personal narrative. She had a complicated family life and a complicated upbringing, and instead of hiding that from all of us, she invited us all into her world. We all came together for a team meeting where we all stayed the weekend at her home sleeping on the floors and sharing the bathroom, and we came out of that weekend much more connected to each other. She gave me the confidence that I could be my full self and not compromise my identity to succeed. She also gave me some of my most meaningful performance reviews where she invested in the coaching and insights to help me raise my game. She modeled how a selfless leader behaves, and it changed my trajectory.
Ok thank you for all that. Now let's shift to the main focus of this interview. We would like to explore and flesh out the trait of resilience. How would you define resilience? What do you believe are the characteristics or traits of resilient people?
Resilience is in the same category of traits as courage and grit. For me, resilience is the ability to thrive and survive when the world is imploding around you, the circumstances are poor, you have already experienced set-backs, and many other people would be paralyzed to move forward — or move at all. Resilient people thrive on overcoming adversity by laying out plans and acting with speed and confidence. They don't feel sorry for themselves or exhibit a victim mind-set. They don't blame external factors and make excuses. Resilient people tap into an internal well of optimism, a problem-solving toolbox, and a practical, pragmatic outlook that enables them to take actions in the face of doubt, poor-odds, stress and emotional challenges.
When you think of resilience, which person comes to mind? Can you explain why you chose that person?
When I think of resilience, I immediately think of Beck Weathers from the ill-fated Mount Everest summit attempt in 1996 that is covered in John Krakauer's book Into Thin Air. After weeks of grueling climbing under the most extreme conditions in the world and summitting, his climbing group faced terrible circumstances and weather conditions that killed many over a period of days. They were a fragmented group of climbers that were spread across the mountain on the decent. Beck Weathers, who was snow-blind and spent the night at 27,000 ft alone and exposed, then descended the mountain further before being left for dead by group of climbers based on their assessment of his condition. We knew he was near death in those conditions, and he knew that he had been left to die. His choice was to find the internal fortitude to get up and walk down the mountain or die trying. Beck is the ultimate example of resilience for me: Finding a way to tap into your inner well of strength under terrible circumstances. He found the determination and commitment to moving forward when most others could not. That's the pinnacle of resilience.
Has there ever been a time that someone told you something was impossible, but you did it anyway? Can you share the story with us?
As a junior in high school, like so many teenagers, I was ready to consider my college path. At this time, I was attending a public high school in Indiana with good general academics and a large vocational program designed to cater to students with a variety of post-high school plans. I worked very hard throughout high school, and I was an excellent student with strong testing scores, extra-curricular activities, sports, and civic engagement. I had always dreamed of going to a school that would challenge me, and I had quietly set my heart on an Ivy League school. I thought for sure that everyone in my life would help me dream this big dream and encourage me to "go for it". What I encountered was much different. Instead of unwavering support, I had just the opposite reaction from almost everyone in my life. I received comments like: "You aren't smart enough", "You aren't Ivy League material.", "Why would a girl want to get an expensive education just to be a wife and pop out kids.", "Go to a state school and find a husband — it will be cheaper.", "You don't have the right pedigree. Only private school kids get in.", "Your public education will doom you to fail at that level.", "Your academic skills aren't even close to good enough.", "That dream is too big for you." "You are too sensitive and shy to handle that type of school." I was confronted with negative feedback across the board, everywhere I looked. But in my heart, I knew that I was going for it no matter what. Scroll forward — and on the back of my own hard work, two devoted alumni interviewers, and some grit — I found myself as a freshman at Dartmouth College. The net lesson I learned as a 17-year-old is that you must believe in your own power, you must do the work required, and never let circumstances or obstacles keep you from being resilient! The calvary is not coming.
Did you have a time in your life where you had one of your greatest setbacks, but you bounced back from it stronger than ever? Can you share that story with us?
I was so fortunate to cross paths with a visionary young leader when I was ready to make my leap to be a first-time people leader. He was a superstar and considered to be one of the strongest upwardly mobile in the company. He was hiring for a sales leader to turn around a train wreck of a business. I was a young lone contributor with no formal people leadership credentials, but I competed the heck out of that interview cycle, and he decided to endorse me for the role. The other leaders in the interview process, for good reason, thought I was a high risk candidate especially with the work required to overhaul the human capital, transform the customer experience, rebalance the P&L, and deliver operational excellence with 10 months to go in the fiscal year. But he put his superstar reputation on the line to hire me, and I got the job.
As I first time leader, this was a daunting task, and it was bumpy. The learning curve was steep, and this was not a hand-holding culture, so I had to figure it out on my own. I struggled to make headway, and I came up short over and over. I was ridiculed and publicly doubted in staff meetings. People joked about my ability and betted on how long I would last. Every day, I walked into that job with hard work to be done and virtually no support. I had a C-level leader tell my boss that I would never make it, that I was a poor hire, and he should know better. I would destroy his career with my eminent failure. But he hung in there with me, and I found my sea legs. At the end of the 10 months, I moved a $200M P&L from last place in the US to #2 in the US, and I overhauled everything that was asked of me. The biggest trait that I drew on was my resilience. I never bought into the haters, and I never doubted I could crack the code. I got tougher and tougher over that year — more and more determined every day. And I had a toolkit of great business experience that I drew upon to deliver exceptional results.
Did you have any experiences growing up that have contributed to building your resiliency? Can you share a story?
I have always been a passionate equestrian, and as a young girl, my love of horses extended to every kind of horse — rescues, wild, young, old, Western, English, Hunter/Jumper. You name it; I wanted to ride it. With this attitude always comes risk. I was 10 years old, and I was riding in an indoor arena on 3-year old Saddlebred that had only been under saddle for a short period of time. Something spooked him, and he wildly bucked me off. My foot got caught in the stirrup and I was dragged around the arena at top speed. I finally got free, and then I got kicked in the stomach and stepped on by a 2,000lb animal. By the time I got up, I was bloody, dirty, shocked, and crying. My father caught the equally traumatized horse and tied him up. Then he came over to me and told me I had 30 seconds to cry, collect myself, and then I was going to get back on that horse and ride him. If I didn't, the horse would never respect me, I would be fearful of riding later, and I would doubt my skill down the road. I was horrified that my dad would ask that of me, and I wanted to be left to cry and go home. But he was right. I got back on and rode that horse, and we both felt better afterward. That day, my horse and my father taught me an important lesson about bring resilient. How you handle adversity in those moments will create patterns of resiliency and confidence that will be long-lasting. I also learned that I could do more under tough circumstances than I thought, and that created confidence. The confidence to act is also a gift.
Resilience is like a muscle that can be strengthened. In your opinion, what are 5 steps that someone can take to become more resilient? Please share a story or an example for each.
When I discuss building resiliency, I like to take people through my CARVE principle:
If you routinely find that you are struggling to move through challenges or find yourself in negative self-talk, I would recommend finding someone you admire for their resiliency and spending time with them. How did they become resilient? What do they do that helps them build confidence? How do they stay positive and move forward? Often sharing experiences and talking with someone about these skills can help them become a bigger part of your own personal arsenal. I also think moving towards a positive action-orientation can be accelerated by surrounding yourself with people who exhibit these traits. If you want to be resilient, surround yourself with people who are also resilient.
Pick an activity where you know you will struggle, and then commit to that effort. This might be a new sport, a new language, or a new craft. I like this approach because you are working on your resiliency in a safe environment, but the skills can apply across your entire life. Set a goal, and then put a plan in place to work towards that goal. When you experience a set-back, practice the positive mindset, action plan, act with speed and confidence, and keep going! When I was learning to deadlift, I was the absolute worst in the gym. I couldn't lift even the lightest weight off the floor. I couldn't make my body adapt to the movement. My form was terrible. I was so frustrated with myself. So I watched videos, practiced in front of the mirror over and over, sought out others to watch and correct my form, and I never gave up. In the end, I was able to conquer the skill — but the road wasn't easy, and I drew on my resiliency to get me through.
Having a resource pool is an important feature of resiliency. We all need to build up our resources, skills, and network of people who can help us solve problems, provide support, or guidance. Resilient people know when and how to apply skills or reach through to others who can be useful and meaningful in challenging circumstances. Actively cultivating this environment for yourself will help accelerate your success!
Visualize:
I really love the concepts used in sports psychology for building resilience. Athletes face setbacks all the time, and often they have to respond immediately, so this is a great area to study that model. One technique I really like is to visualize yourself being resilient. Pick a challenging real-world scenario and sit quietly and step yourself through every step you would take to overcome the challenge. How would you act? What tools would you use? When you accomplish your goal at the end of the visualization, how would you feel? Secondly, I would recommend that you reflect on scenarios from the past where you may not have acted decisively, where you felt paralyzed, unsure, or maybe you chose to do nothing, and the outcome was not positive. Spend some time thinking about how someone you perceive as resilient would have handled the same scenarios. What would you do today? Often building resilience is about focusing on self-awareness, expanding your problem-solving skills, and building confidence to act.
When you experience a set-back in your life, and you feel a sense of fear or paralysis, I recommend practicing three immediate steps. First, you should stay engaged, so the moment to act doesn't pass. Then quickly: 1.) Find something positive in your mind that relates to this set-back. What have you done before that you could draw on? What skill could you apply? The goal is to build your confidence and find some positivity to bring focus. 2.) Make an immediate mental plan that is tactical — what can you do right now to start moving in a different direction? I find some action, big or small, unsticks a scenario before it becomes overwhelming in your mind. Do something! 3.) Think about one or two things you will do in the near term to solve, improve, or change the situation, and make a deadline to act. This ensures that you will keep moving forward. Building resilience is also about perseverance! Sometimes, it's just about working a plan one-step at a time. You don't have to solve it all, but resilient people keep moving!
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Investing in young adults has the potential to create such change and momentum for all of us and the world we live in. I see so many teenagers and young adults struggling with tough circumstances, difficult home challenges, and social and economic adversity. The infrastructure to help make change is so limited for this group of young people. I would like to see more programs like YearUp that are exclusively focused on opportunities and support for young adults. Giving this group real life skills, career support, mentors, and hope that the future can and will be different makes a real difference to an entire generation. I would love to see more major corporations come out in support of this program, and I would love to see more people give their time, skills, and leadership in the service of our young adults. https://www.yearup.org/
We are blessed that some very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them 🙂
I would love to connect with Kim Ng. I admire the drive, commitment, and patience that she has exhibited throughout her career, and I'd love to congratulate her on her new GM role!
How can our readers follow you on social media?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/antonia-hock/
https://www.instagram.com/antoniahock/
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Antonia Hock of The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center: Rising Through Resilience; Five Things You Can… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
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text:
Safety and learning goes hand in hand
29 October 2019 | Youth
Michelline Nawatises
Africa has the world's highest road traffic injury rates and Namibia has one of the highest levels of road traffic injuries on the continent.
Road traffic injuries are a huge burden on our economy, and more importantly, on our people.
Last year in Namibia, 571 people were killed on the country's roads. Among the most vulnerable are child pedestrians, who face grave risks just walking to and from school every day.
At AI Steenkamp Primary School, situated in Windhoek, six pupils have been injured in road traffic incidents over the past five years.
This is why the Private Sector Road Safety Forum (PSRSF), the international road safety NGO called Amend, the Puma Energy Foundation and the FIA Foundation are working in partnership on an important road safety programme at the school.
An improvement in infrastructure was launched on 24 September at the school.
AI Steenkamp principal Rudolfine Kamahene said most accidents occur when children commute to school.
"Schools are meant to be a safe place in and around the premises and the greatest priority for us is the safety of the learners," she said.
Windhoek mayor Muesee Kazapua believes the programme will be a great success and ensure that the safety of the country's future leaders is a priority.
"Holistically in Namibia it is worrisome when it comes to road safety, as most victims are learners. An initiative of this magnitude is important to expose this awareness to the learners and road users, as they are careless when it comes to road safety," he said.
He said the City of Windhoek has approved a non-motorised transport strategy that provides pedestrian and cycling lines.
The PSRSF was established in 2013 as a link between the private sector and government organisations that are active in the road safety sector. In partnership with Amend, it provides basic road safety education training to primary learners and has trained 19 000 learners to date.