Sam Harris: Not Being Indoctrinated Into Christianity
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Category Archives: Persons
Aphorism: On the Unsolicited “Have a Blessed Day” Complimentary Closing
By Madison S. Hughes (11.22.2011)
I take offense to it for three reasons:
1. It implies that I deign the same irrational superstitious belief.
2. The audacity of it being so freely used reminds one of how it has been allowed to become a meme of the Christian White Privilege that so permeates our culture.
3. The passivity of those that recognize such, but somehow feel it is not worthy of a stance for their convictions.
I always respond with:
Don’t assume I share your delusions.
Have a Reasoned Day,
MadisonThe rhetorical question is, why, to some, would my response come-off as sounding bombastic, yet somehow it is considered taboo to criticize the sender’s complimentary closing? The answer may be found in number two above.
Nothing Hitchens Does Is Ever Boring
Mason Crumpacker and the Hitchens Reading List
When Christopher Hitchens got the Dawkins Award in Houston, I posted the following report from Chron.com: Though [Hitchens] was asked a variety of questions from the audience, none appeared to elicit more interest than the one asked by eight-year-old Mason Crumpacker, who wanted to know what books she should read. In response, Hitchens first asked where her mother was and the girl indicated that she was siting beside her. He then asked to see them once the presentation was over so that he could give her a list.
As the event drew to a close, Mason and her mom, Anne Crumpacker of Dallas, followed him out. Surrounded by attendees wanting a glance of the famed author, Hitchens sat on a table just outside of the ballroom and spent about 15 minutes recommending books to Mason.
Judgment Day: Intelligent Design On Trial (Creationism vs. Evolution) – Full NOVA Documentary
In this award-winning documentary, NOVA captures the turmoil that tore apart the community of Dover, Pennsylvania in one of the latest battles over teaching evolution in public schools. Featuring trial reenactments based on court transcripts and interviews with key participants, including expert scientists and Dover parents, teachers, and town officials, “Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial” follows the celebrated federal case of Kitzmiller v. Dover School District.
Christopher Hitchens: Drops the Hammer on Those Who Exploit and Patronize People on Their Deathbed
Stephen Fry and Friends Salute Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens Night: A Review
“I’m not as I was,” Christopher Hitchens poignantly remarked recently. Afflicted by oesophageal cancer and, now, pneumonia, Hitchens, who I interviewed for the New Statesman last year, was too ill to appear in conversation with Stephen Fry at the Royal Festival Hall in London last night. But rather than cancelling the event, the organisers assembled an extraordinary selection of Hitchens’s comrades and friends to pay tribute to the great essayist and polemicist.
Read more . . .
Noam Chomsky Speaks to Occupy: If We Want a Chance at a Decent Future, the Movement Here and Around the World Must Grow
The 1970s set off a kind of a vicious cycle that led to a concentration of wealth increasingly in the hands of the financial sector, which doesn’t benefit the economy. Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power, which, in turn, arrives to legislation that increases and accelerates the cycle. . . Take a look at what’s happening right now. The big topic in Washington that everyone concentrates on is the deficit. For the public, correctly, the deficit is not much of an issue. The issue is joblessness, not a deficit. Now there’s a deficit commission but no joblessness commission. . . The public wants higher taxes on the wealthy and to preserve the limited social benefits. The outcome of the deficit commission is probably going to be the opposite. . . Well, now the world is indeed splitting into a plutonomy and a precariat, again in the imagery of the Occupy movement, the 1 percent and the 99 percent.
Read more . . .
Aphorism: On the Judging of Ourselves
By Madison S. Hughes (12.18.2009)
Other people are simply the benchmarks by which we judge ourselves. The humble seek the companionship of others they adjudicate as superior, while the haughty search for those deemed to be inferior. The former look up to others for enlightenment, while the latter look down on others for power.
Always Question Authority 