More Obama Doesn't Get It

Let's now talk about the second part of the petition I wrote about earlier.

In God We Trust on our money should also be removed. It would be easy enough to phase it out with new printings/stampings. Our national motto was E Pluribus Unum, Out of Many, One. This motto specifies that though there are many different individuals here, we are all Americans, which is a noble, inclusive, admirable sentiment. In God We Trust cancels that out completely. Only god-believing individuals are Americans. Not so admirable, not at all inclusive, and certainly not noble.

And to address the issue of our "proud heritage*," E Pluribus Unum was established in 1782, by ACTUAL FOUNDING FATHERS! There's some heritage for ya'.

I have been at a loss for years in trying to understand how seemingly intelligent people cannot see how the pledge (even outside of its jingoistic, flag-worshiping ridiculousness) and the NEW (not based on our heritage, but on our darker period of communist-hunting and fear-mongering) motto are unrepresentative of Americans as a whole.

A motto is defined in three ways:
A brief statement used to express a principle, goal, or ideal.
A sentence, phrase, or word of appropriate character inscribed on or attached to an object.
A maxim adopted as a guide to one's conduct.

When an American does not worship one of the three gods named "God," (specifically the god of Abraham - of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) neither the pledge, nor the motto includes that American. Therefore is does NOT express an AMERICAN principle, goal, or ideal. It does not express the character of all Americans. It cannot be a governmental guide to conduct without establishing the religion of the god of Abraham in violation of the 1st amendment.

Obama's spokesperson is apparently one of the "it doesn't hurt you, so just shut up" god-believers, unable to see through his privilege that being told we are not Americans is hurtful and insulting to non-believers and believers in other gods than Abraham's.

Take it off. It's easy enough. Heritage has no bearing here, as the heritages of both the pledge and motto include no references to Abraham's god, nor any other god(s).

*Using the word heritage in this context, besides being inaccurate, is like calling something a "cultural" thing in order to defend it. Like genital mutilation, for example, or suttee, or allowing only rich, white men to vote. Cultural, sure, but no less barbaric. Part of some group's heritage, sure, but does that make them good things that need to be continued? Should we put this photo on our money to honor our heritage of slavery? Should unrepresentative cultural traditions be memorialized and honored publicly, every day, and in every monetary transaction performed, or should they be relegated to history books as things that we used to do, but then we became civilized. "It's our heritage" people might want to think about that.

(1st Picture from Wikipedia - Suttee)
(2nd photo from Old Picture of the Day)

Obama Doesn't Get It

Not too long ago, I signed a petition to ask for the 1954-added phrase "under God" to be removed from the pledge.

At the link, you can read the official White House response. They just don't get it. Yes, a person should be free to pray or sermonize or proselytize in the public square. People do it all the time. Yes, a student should be free to pray or sermonize or proselytize at school. Students do it all the time. Harassment or disruption of class is, and should be, prohibited, of course.

However, there are two problems with the pledge itself.

1) Mindless chanting of a "patriotic" statement of flag-worship that students are taught to recite without learning what it means is ridiculous. But, they can't teach the students what it means without violating the 1st amendment. Leaving the "under God" part in establishes religion, specifically the monotheism practiced by the majority in the US. There's no getting around that. Students who are Buddhist, students who are Hindu, students who are pagan, and students who worship no gods at all would have to be taught that their religion, or lack thereof, is wrong and that the monotheism promoted in the pledge is right.

2) Until schools stop requiring the mindless chanting of the pledge, children who either don't want to mindlessly chant ANY pledge or who don't want to mindlessly chant something that specifically goes against their religious beliefs or lack thereof are singled out for ridicule and harassment unless they ignore their discomfort, compromise their integrity, and just chant along. Great lesson for the kiddies. Shut up about it or be singled out. Kids LOVE that!

The White House response inserts this from Obama himself:

Not every mention of God in public is a breach to the wall of separation - context matters.

Well, yes. True that. But in the context of a public school classroom with students of many different backgrounds and worldviews, forced statements of flag-worship and monotheism-belief to a captive audience certainly seems to breach the wall of separation.

The White House spokesman writes, in regard to how "under God" in the pledge reflects our religious heritage:

We're proud of that heritage, and the strength it brings to our great country.

Fine, he can recite the pledge anywhere he wants when he doesn't have a captive audience of impressionable children with disparate backgrounds and belief systems.

As far as heritage goes, the pledge did not include any gods until fear of Communism made some influential Christians insist on adding it. So that argument is invalid and inaccurate. If people are so concerned with "heritage," we would be mindlessly chanting the original pledge from 1892:

I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

And we would be doing with our arms outstretched in the "Bellamy salute," which is identical to the Nazi salute. Great. Let's go back to that.

Better yet, let's just do away with the pledge in schools and leave it up to individuals and private groups to chant it if they want.
(PHOTO FROM WIKIPEDIA - Pledge of Allegiance)

When Patriarchy Makes the Rules VI

7-year-old Lydia Schottz was tortured and beaten for at least 7 hours until she died. Her 11-year-old sister was severely wounded during the same period.

Who perpetrated this horrific crime? Her parents. Why? The parents are fundamentalist Christians who had read a book by a couple named Pearl, To Train Up a Child. The Pearls assert that if it wasn't good to beat our children with, among other options, 1/4 inch plumbing pipe, their god wouldn't have told us to do so in the Bible.

Fortunately for the Schottz's surviving children, their parents have been sentenced to long prison terms. Sadly for the children, they are now in foster care. Hopefully, they will have the opportunity to grow into decent adults, regardless of the terrible moral standards their parents have taught them.

The Pearls, meanwhile, have been "looking into it," to make sure they receive no blame for little Lydia's death at the hands of her parents.

The Pearls instruct parents to remain calm while beating their children with the plumbing pipe, reinforcing the reasons for their punishment in calm voices. Imagine little Lydia, taking the 7-hour torture session administered by her parents with calm voices and demeanors. Imagine being beaten to death for SEVEN HOURS while being very calmly told that it is for your own good, that you have been naughty, and that you will be happier if you submit and accept the punishment.

What god who thinks this is a good thing is worthy of worship? Wake up, Christians! Your god is an evil, murderous, asshole!

When people ask me in the future how I stop myself from raping, pillaging, and murdering without the guidance of the Bible and submission to their barbaric god, I am going to reply that raping, pillaging, and murdering are their god's methods, not mine, and that they need to re-read their Bible. And then throw it away and practice compassion, kindness, and concern instead.

Sad fact: Based on their magic book, the Schottzes likely believe that all they have to do to get to heaven after they tortured and murdered their own child is to ask their invisible and impotent sky-fairy to forgive them. Justice would at least require that they ask their dead daughter's forgiveness somehow. And try to make it up to their surviving abused children somehow. It's so hard to tell the difference between the four gods of Christianity - father/son/holy spirit and satan. Their MO's are so similar.

Dieters

Every time I read an article that talks about dieters, such as this one by the fantastic Dr. Steve Novella, this is what I see. TOUCH MY MONKEY! But don't eat him!
(photo from wikipedia)

Chiropractors Still Claiming Cures

This just in - Not even 9:00 am yet here in NM, but I just received a phone call from a chiropractic marketing group. The area code is 917, so the call originated in/near NYC.

Her: Would you have time for a chiropractic check up at a local office?

Me: I have a terrific physician, so, no, I don't think I would make time for that.

Her: Have you ever gone to a chiropractor?

Me: Yes, when I was pregnant, I saw a chiropractor for lower back pain, but I can't say it helped much, and she tried to convince me not to vaccinate my kids, so I quit going.

Her: Well, chiropractic has lots of other benefits. Like it can help with sinus and allergy issues.

Me: Mmmm hmmm. I think not. And I don't think you are supposed to say things like that. Shouldn't you first tell me that your claim has not been evaluated by the FDA and chiropractic is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure any disease? [The Quack Miranda Warning]

Her: *crickets* *hang up*

Richard Wiseman Reads My Mind!

I recently purchased Richard Wiseman's book Paranormality: Why we see what isn't there. Dr. Wiseman was fantastic and funny and educationally entertaining at the TAM9 in Vegas a couple of weeks ago, and I wanted to read his latest.

I started reading yesterday evening, and got only 3% into the book (darned Kindle! Give me page numbers!) before discovering that Dr. Wiseman has obviously read my mind with his paranormal skills. Even more magically, he was able to PREDICT what I would have in my mind this very morning, while writing the book, a year or more ago!

Almost immediately before I started reading, I had done a search to see if wet weather really affects my knee pain like I *think* it does. Each answer I saw gave various reasons why it really does make my pain worse: pressure within the knee joint, etc.

Then I began reading. Dr. Wiseman, very early in the book, cites a study on whether or not weather affects arthritis pain!

"WHAT?" I said, "Get out of my head, Richard Wiseman!"

"I can't," he replied [in my dreams], "It's my JOB!"

At any rate, the study showed that people fool themselves into thinking the weather affects their joint pain because we are good at noticing data that verify our prior beliefs, i.e. noticing our joint pain more when it's rainy because we expect the pain to be more noticible, while discounting or ignoring it when the data don't fit our preconception, i.e. all the days the pain was worse, but there was no rain.

Thank you Dr. Wiseman! If anyone reads this, I highly recommend his blog and his book. He gives a great presentation/talk as well, if anyone has the opportunity to see him in person!

A Prostitute Is A Prostitute Is A Prostitute

Recently, a court judge was arrested for rape here. Nigel and I were watching the news and saw the first story in regard to this arrest on July 19. I said to Nigel at the time that it was interesting in a bad way that KOB's anchorman, Tom Joles, in describing the alleged victim of the rape, used "prostitute" four times in two minutes. How many times did he say "alleged victim," "woman," or any other word to describe her? ZERO.

I wrote an e-mail to the news station complaining about this. Haven't heard back.

Today, I searched their website for stories and found several. I watched the videos and read the reports and found that there is some slight improvement in later reports. The reports use the word "woman" four times, and in a video, the judge assigned to the case actually used "victim." So, five in total. However, the alleged victim was called "the prostitute" (one time, they used "escort") twelve times in the same videos/reports!

Let's say that a woman in any other profession besides sex work reported a rape. Would the stories use "the McDonald's employee," "the tax attorney," "the super-model," or similar descriptions to describe the alleged victim? I think not. If those terms were used, they would probably not have been used exclusively.

This feeds into the widely held perception that sex workers cannot be raped, because their choice (or not) of profession implies permanent consent to sex acts. It muddies the waters for the prosecution, whose job will be made more difficult by the use of this inflammatory language to describe the alleged victim.

Some choice quotes from the videos:

"She is fine. There's no other injuries..."(speaking of the alleged victim)

How many injuries other than the rape itself do there need to be for her NOT to be "fine?"

"She's accused of taping one of those incidents."

According to the stories, she had already been forced once to perform oral sex on the defendant, after having said no. Would it be prudent for her to tape future encounters in order to have evidence of rape if it happened again? Would it be prudent for a member of an already suspect profession to make sure her allegations would be believed if it happened again? Probably yes.

"We believe our client is a victim in this case."

Wait, what? I suppose it is an attorney's job to say things like that. And I'm sure it will be much easier to portray the defendant as a victim since the news has ensured that the alleged victim is seen as nothing more than a "prostitute" and therefore is not allowed to say no.

I hope KOB News got a nice check from the defendant's attorneys for services rendered.