Friday, December 07, 2007

Catch-Up

Item #1

I'm so happy! I just received my first Reason's Greeting card this year!

The front of the card said: IF LIFE BEGINS AT CONCEPTION... then, inside: ...THEN WHY DO WE CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS IN DECEMBER?

The picture on the inside is the cutest little angel you've ever seen. It's a sperm with wings and a halo!

Much thanks (and Merry Christmas!) to my friend Spanish Inquisitor.

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Item #2

Olbermann lets loose with one of his immediately classic "Special Comments" that he does every couple of months. Along with accusing "W" of being a "bald faced liar" and saying that he has "no business being President", says this:

"We have either a president who is too dishonest to restrain himself from invoking World War III about Iran at least six weeks after he had to have known that the analogy would be fantastic, irresponsible hyperbole, or we have a president too transcendentally stupid not to have asked, at what appears to have been a series of opportunities to do so, whether the fairy tales he either created or was fed were still even remotely plausible."



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Item #3

I'm a little surprised that Phillychief didn't beat me to the punch on this story, "Fox & Friends launched a salvo in the War on Christmas Monday, attacking an atheist group's "tree of knowledge" erected in front of a Philadelphia courthouse alongside a creche and menorah, while ignoring a 32-foot tree dedicated to "commercial attraction" in the same public square."

Hmmm... weren't we just discussing this sort of a public display representing the atheist viewpoint recently?

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Item #4

By special request, from The Exterminator, two of the greatest Bob Marley songs ever -

Get Up, Stand Up



I Shot the Sheriff


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Item #5

Have a great weekend. I'll be desperately trying to catch up on my reading for the Non-Believing Literati. Our essays on Mary Doria Russell's "The Sparrow" (sidebar) are scheduled to be posted on, or about, December 15. This book was picked for us by Ordinary Girl. I have a feeling The Exterminator will be asking me to make the next pick, but we'll see in a week or so!

17 comments:

The Exterminator said...

Item #4: Thanks for posting the two Bob Marley songs. I'll probably watch them four or five times in the next few days -- although he does make me want to smoke.

Item #5. I thought we'd definitely agreed that you'd select the next NL book. Maybe I just definitely agreed with myself. In any case, if no one has any objection, I think Evo should make the next pick. In fact let's announce it here, on your blog.

EVO WILL MAKE THE NEXT PICK FOR NONBELIEVING LITERATI.

Please don't reveal it, though, until the target date for The Sparrow.

Anonymous said...

I love Olbermann. He's been telling it like it is about Bush for years.

PhillyChief said...

I get email alerts from various groups. One recently was, I think, alerting that Downey would be on Fox. I just didn't have the stomach for it (I usually don't when it's Fox). I also haven't been to the RRS site in awhile, so thanks for the heads up on the tree issue.

I don't know where the Chester county courthouse is. It would have made for a better story had it been Philadelphia in front of say City Hall, under the nose of Penn himself. I don't even think the city of Chester is part of the county of Chester. I don't know. Chester county is largely suburban sprawl that's been grossly over developed in the last 20 years as high city taxes pushed both companies and residents out to the 'burbs. It's mostly Wonderbread suburbia full of soccer moms and their suvs and little developments of evenly spaced replica houses which are islands within larger islands of an ocean of concrete stripmalls and parking lots, all strangled by the fact that no one saw it coming and thus, no one planned for a proper infrastructure of roads and utilities. It used to be farm land and in some places it's still very green and raw but it won't last. Of course the sign of your wealth is the distance between you and your neighbor and how many trees you see. Point is, this is largely upper middle and up whitey land, so I think you can pull off a "Tree of Knowledge" there. I know it all starts somewhere, but I'll dance when it's set up outside the courthouse in Mobile, Alabama or something. Make a statement in the heart of Jesusland! I want to see a Doolittle raid, not just a safe poke at the periphery.

Spanish Inquisitor said...

I'm so happy! I just received my first Reason's Greeting card this year!

That was fast. Glad to see the US Postal Service is still on the ball.

I don't know where the Chester county courthouse is.

It's in West Chester. I've been there.

PhillyChief said...

Ah, so it is in Wonderbread suburbia.

John Evo said...

Philly said: and little developments of evenly spaced replica houses which are islands within larger islands of an ocean of concrete stripmalls and parking lots, all strangled by the fact that no one saw it coming and thus, no one planned for a proper infrastructure of roads and utilities. It used to be farm land and in some places it's still very green and raw but it won't last. Of course the sign of your wealth is the distance between you and your neighbor and how many trees you see.

You talking about Chester? Or America?

PhillyChief said...

I know, it's the homogenization of America.

Unknown said...

Oh no, I'm just now starting to address my holiday cards. I'm tardy! :)

I picked a cute kitten under a Santa hat. I usually don't do cute, but they were cheap at Half Price Books and I am all over cheap.

Do most of you guys send Christmas cards and how do you choose them? Or do you let the Missus do that for you? What about the ladies?

Anonymous said...

The "Reason's Greetings" card sounds great.

I've only sent one Christmas card in the last several years. The picture on the front was a guy in a Santa suit sodomizing a reindeer. Inside it said "Santa's Coming!" I only bought it so I could send it to a friend in Texas who's a Satanist. He loved it.

----- Infidel753

Anonymous said...

"I know, it's the homogenization of America."

One of the fun parts of my job is traveling to forest fires around the country. Okay, forest fires aren't really fun, but visiting actual small towns can be.

This last summer I spent two weeks in Folkston, GA, the gateway to the Okeefenokee Swamp (no, I did not see Pogo, but I did see Rackety-Coon Child). Neat little town. There is a McD and BK, but the rest of the town is local places. Nice.

I spent a week in Happy Camp, CA. It started as a mining camp with a brothel (thus Happy Camp). One pizza place, one non-chain grocery store, one non-chain quicky-mart/liquor store, and one really cool mercantile and hardware store.

I spent a week at a rodeo grounds on the Warm Springs Reservation in Oregon. Dust.

I also spent two weeks near McCall, ID. McCall is in the process of becoming Aspen/Ocean City/Gatlinburg/Gettysburg. Depressing.

As I travel the country, I see the homogenization of America, and it depresses me. It gets harder and harder to find uniqueness.

And yes, i realize this has nothing to do with your initial post, but it was this, or argue with a graphics program.

John Evo said...

@ OG and Infidel - I have pretty much given up on sending any cards to anyone. For years I did send out cards (I would do them OG and my wife did her own). They were usually either funny non-religious or beautiful nature cards. I used to use cards from the World Wildlife Fund also - gray wolves in winter sceens.

@ Billy - my blog is open to anything you want to rant about! Don't worry about the topic.

There's a little town in central California called Maricopa. I haven't been there in 10 or 12 years, but I was amazed to pull in to this little town (about half way between Bakersfield and the Coast). Main Street was exactly like what you would expect in such a town in 1910! No sidewalks - raised wooden plank walkways. Original buildings (well kept). Inside the stores, pictures of the old West. No traffic lights. It was great.

Anonymous said...

We usually send Christmas cards but we haven't gotten around to it yet. Given what my schedule looks like for the next two weeks, it probably won't happen this year. Last year, we sent secular cards.

My husband and I bought a couple of boxes of cards this past September. He picked some religious ones that nearly made me gag! The funny thing is, since I came out with him last week, he's acknowledged that he's a lot more at home as an atheist than as a Christian. Since we're both confirmed atheists now (we came out with our eldest son yesterday, so we're making some progress), those Mary-and-Jesus cards may never get mailed now.

The Exterminator said...

OG asked: Do most of you guys send Christmas cards and how do you choose them? Or do you let the Missus do that for you?

I send some Christmas cards. If I can, I try to find something that represents my sense of humor. Even when I do, I usually wind up adding a personal note and a few wisecracks, which (I like to delude myself into thinking) are often much funnier than the original lame joke.

Now, OG, I have a question for you. Since I'm neither blind nor mentally deficient, why would I let "the Missus" pick my cards out for me? Are you a closet sexist?

(Confession: I usually let the Missus -- who'd snipe at me for days if she ever heard me using that term -- pick out my new clothes. Further confession: There's little in this life I hate more than clothes shopping. So I'm happy to have her go do it as long as she follows the rule not to come home with anything lime green.)

John Evo said...

Since we're both confirmed atheists now

I'm a little behind on my blog reading this weekend. I guess I'm gonna have to get over to the Chapel because I hadn't heard this bit of news! Wow. Things are certainly moving fast for the Chaplain family!

The Exterminator said...

Evo:

I believe, and chappy will correct me if I'm wrong, that her announcement was made for the first -- and so far only -- time right here in your comments thread.

You got this story before Oprah did.

John Evo said...

My "news-breakin' blog"... I'm so proud of myself. Thanks Chapster!

Unknown said...

Sexist? Me? Well.. I wasn't meaning to.. Bah, I was just trying to figure out if men were actually interested in sending out cards. I can hardly get my husband to sign the cards, much less put in a note for his father.

But I have to say, his are much funnier than mine. Who else would start it out with a Dr. Seuss-like rhyme - The cat shat in the hat?

I guess that's what I get for picking out cute cards. I usually go for the nature cards too.