The Monday after Easter

Comment from friend who got sprinkled by me with water today: “I’m sure glad I knew you in the years prior to your renewed interest in your ethnic heritage. Things were a lot dryer then.”*

*Today is Smigus Dyngus in Poland – the day when it is legitimate, even expected, to douse others with great amounts of water. Smigus Dyngus is also responsible for more google leads to my blog than all other google leads put together. For reasons unbeknownst to me, the world out there has a peculiar fascination with Smigus Dyngus. It’s just water, for pete’s sake: you dump water on others, what’s so curious about that??

Fat cat living

I’m trying to understand the importance of the message forwarded to me by a friend and reader (I mention ‘friend’ because this brings forth the presumption of helpfulness, attempted in this most indirect fashion). The story (here) is about an extremely obese German cat who was put in a shelter for protection. His owner had been feeding him about ten times the amount of food he needed and as a result the cat just blimped out.

I have several theories here:
1. My friend wants to demonstrate that cats have the same problems as we humans do and so I should have greater respect for these feline monsters whose sole purpose in life seems to be the killing of birds in people’s back yards;

2. My friend is worried that I am not good to my own animal (Ollie the dog who is wonderful, beyond reprimand, he would never ever go after a bird) and is hinting that shelters are there to protect pets from people like me, who refuse to basically spend five hours each day tickling the dog tummy and making sweet cooing sounds (which she thinks is standard owner-to-pet behavior, I’m sure);

3. She is indicating that Germany has problems with obesity and it’ll just be days before the epidemic spreads to neighboring countries, like for instance Poland and so I should warn all friends and neighbors there;

4. The most likely explanation: my pal is so cat-obsessed that she would find this story possibly the most important and interesting story to grace the papers today. Notice that I, by blogging about it, am totally humoring her. That’s what friends are for.

Will the joys of technology never end?

I just wanted to go on record as saying that writing anything by hand is no longer an option: I will never pick up the pen again.

Today, for the first time, I lugged my laptop to a faculty presentation. I wanted to type in a file right away (rather than transcribing it from notes later) because FOR ONCE, the presenter was actually talking about something relevant to my work (a rare event) and so I wanted to store the information for later use.

It was brilliantly awesome to have my little baby laptop right there next to me. I was tired and so there was a danger of me drifting off when the analysis got a bit tedious, but with my baby there, GONE were those squiggly illegible letters that I am capable of producing as sleep takes over and the pen falters. It was all beautiful text, neatly organized, saved, filed, stored.

I am throwing away all pens and pads. From now on, it’s me and my little machine.

Obsessed with religion?

There is a very interesting article in the WashPost today (here) describing the Atheist Convention that took place in San Diego this Saturday. There is a definite voyeuristic tone to it, as if the writer is checking to see if these people are really Normal. With great relief then, I read the following:

The godless do not look so different from anyone else. Normal with a capital N. You couldn't pick them out of a police lineup in the hunt for a secular humanist. … [T]he leader of the American Atheists today is Ellen Johnson of Parsippany, N.J., who wears tailored suits and matching pumps. She is blond and trim and as put together as an astronaut's wife at an Apollo launch. … Really, this gathering looks like decaffeinated Unitarians. Or like a real estate investment seminar in Indiana. Slightly more men than women. Older than younger. A few aging hippie ponytails. A T-shirt that reads: "Who Would Jesus Bomb?"

The association brings together people who support any number of small and large objectives:

[O]ne of the longtime members … runs an atheist-centric summer camp for kids called Camp Quest (motto: "It's Beyond Belief!") … In the lobby are tables selling books on papal corruption and greeting cards that wish recipients a Happy Solstice. … There are bumper stickers that read "Praying Is Begging." Several attendees show a visiting reporter how they scratch out the words "In God We Trust" from dollar bills. One fellow says he defaces $300 a month.

But grouping atheists together appears to be a challenge:

Organized nonbelief is a bit of an oxymoron, or, as Ellen Johnson likes to put it, getting atheists to cooperate collectively is "like herding cats." … Kenneth Bronstein, president of New York City Atheists, recalls attending his first meeting of the Gotham group. "It was sad," he says. "Ten guys in a room, all arguing with each other." A typical rally would draw a dozen people.

One long term goal for the group is the support of politicians who openly and continuously advocate for the separation of church and state. Thus it seems natural that there should be an action committee established toward that end. The reporter offers the following comment:

We wonder how many candidates are ready to have among their endorsements the overtly godless. … [T]he atheists here understand that most of those people are not aligned, specifically, with the atheist movement. It retains a stigma. It is revealing, the atheists admit, that they have adopted the language of the gay rights movement. "I've only been out of the closet for a year," says Seattle's Bob Seidensticker of his atheism. Like many here, he told family members for years that he was a doubter, an agnostic, that he was "questioning." But he recalls that at one family gathering, he was listening to a relative talk about how Noah's ark had dinosaurs; he finally flipped and declared himself. It was liberating, but tough.

Most members of the association were one-time believers. Their knowledge of the Bible can be impressive. Again, from the article:

[One member] is wearing a "Proud to Be an Atheist" T-shirt. He once was a young Bible quoter par excellence on the Southern Baptist circuit of youthful savants. … But one day, he says, he began to compile these "contradictions" in the Bible. He was just a kid. "I made a list of 200 and stopped," he says. His relatives told him, "You read too much." He says, "Can you imagine?"

Gaither spends hours a week in chat rooms debating the Scriptures. That is another thing about the atheists at this convention. They can be snide. They can bash. Frank Zindler, director of the American Atheist Press, does a whole hour on the podium lecturing on "the parasitic class" of priests and ministers engaged in what he called "the ignorance industry," saying, "These guys can spew out more disinformation and nonsense in 30 minutes than I can refute in 30 years."

Yes, these atheists are absolutely obsessed with religion. The weekend was like antimatter Bible camp.

Why have an annual meeting on Easter week-end? It appears not to be a ‘Statement’ of any sort. Practical concerns set the dates: hotel rates are cheaper during this stay-at-home holiday period.