Quick Hitts

I deal with Christmas differently than most atheists.

I celebrate it. I put up lights and a tree and give gifts and say “Merry Christmas” and mean it. I’ve played Santa Claus on several occasions, with the full costume, enjoyed it, and will probably do it again.

Devout Christians rail against how secular the holiday has become. I’m delighted with it.  There is no Christ in my Christmas. it is a purely secular for me. My decorations don’t include a crèche or a bloody crucifix. There are a couple of angel ornaments in the tree, but there are also unicorns and a swinging Spiderman who are just as real.

I’m sure some psychologist would link my delight in a secular Christmas to my childhood. I was raised in a fundy cult that didn’t celebrate Christmas (or Easter, or birthdays, or any other holiday that might result in some fun or joy). Christmas was a horrible time for my sister and me. All our non-cult friends talked endlessly about the cool toys they got, while we sat silent and dejected. When we were asked “What did you get for Christmas” we had to answer “We don’t celebrate it.” “But don’t you believe in Christ?” “Yes we do, but…” and then we’d try to change the subject, embarrassed more than any little kid should be. My grandparents, on my mother’s side, always gave us presents around then, and we loved them for it. It was a delicious taste of what we were missing.

My wife is more of an agnostic, while I’m a hard core atheist, but there was never any question about raising our kids without Christmas. We never even discussed  it. We relished their anticipation. We loved their excitement as they ripped open their presents. And yes, we did the whole Santa thing with them. She didn’t want to deprive them of the fun and I figured learning the truth would contribute to them developing a mil-spec bullshit detector.

Now they’re adults and we all celebrate and enjoy a Christ-less Christmas.

I don’t like everything that goes with it. I hate the commercials, but I have Tivo and listen to podcasts instead of the radio, so they’re not much of a problem. (There should be a $10,000 fine for every commercial that uses the trite theme “Where Santa Shops.” Anyone who uses the actual phrase should be fined a cool million.) I hate Christmas music too. I worked in retail for years, and hearing the same ten songs blasted in an endless loop all day will do that to you.

But I like most of the other things that go with the holiday. I like looking at decorated houses while driving down the road or walking through the neighborhood. I like the tree full of ornaments and flashing lights. (I’m easily entertained by shiny things.) I love giving and receiving gifts. I like the kids who come caroling at my door. I always tell them I’ll give them more if they sing “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer.” They always want to, and their parents, standing in the background, always forbid it, which I find entertaining.

To those who would call me a hypocrite, I say, “Fine, call me a hypocrite. I’ve been called much worse, and if I was worried about other people’s opinion of me I wouldn’t be so open about being an atheist.” If some of my fellow atheists are offended by it that’s their problem, not mine. If theists think it’s sacrilegious or a sin, that’s OK too. Sacrilege and sin aren’t real things in my world, so again, it’s not my problem.

One of the great joys of atheism is freedom. I am free to do whatever I like as long as it doesn’t hurt someone else. The way I celebrate Christmas hurts no one, and my non-theistic family enjoys it immensely.

I know many atheists who eschew anything having to do with religious holidays, and that’s fine too. I have the utmost respect for their decision to divorce themselves from the fantasy and nonsense holidays are built around. But I’ve chosen a different approach, one that’s right for me.

I’m writing this late at night, right after celebrating Thanksgiving. There was no giving of thanks, just a big meal we all worked on, then stuffed ourselves with. Just like Christmas, there was no religious component at all, it was simply a chance for us to cook together, then eat together while listening to “Alice’s Restaurant.” It’s not a proper Thanksgiving without Arlo in the background talking about twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one.

Then we vegged out in the living room and watched one of our favorite movies: A Christmas Story.

I’ve subscribed to Wired for years. At a buck an issue, it makes for good bathroom reading. If it goes up to a buck and a quarter, though, I’ll let my subscription lapse.

You can study good design by A) studying good design and learning from it and B) studying really bad design and learning from it. B is often more useful than A: you learn what to avoid.

Wired has always been an excellent example of bad design. Each page is packed with garish colors that rarely belong together. Their graphs are designed to be clever rather than informative, and usually obfuscate information rather than clarifying it. When they design their Play List page, which has multiple entires about different media, they evidently choose the font sizes for each item by rolling a 20-sided die. The phrase “crack addled monkeys” frequently comes to mind. In the latest issue (Dec. 2008), they’ve really outdone themselves.

The mess starts on page 90, where they devote ten pages to the ten coolest gadgets of the year. Each gadget shares the picture with a giant brushed chrome number, a cute idea, but the numbers are all very different sizes, giving you no perspective on a gadget’s size. The worst offender is #5, where they zoom in on a tiny number and only show a vague piece of the item (a video projector). But that’s minor compared to their biggest offense, one they commit frequently – white text on a shiny silver background. It’s OK if you’re reading under perfect lighting conditions, but if the light is at the wrong angle you get nothing but unreadable, annoying glare until you change magazine’s orientation.

They follow that with another list of gadgets, also one per page, with a design that’s even worse. Every bit of text is at a 45 degree angle and most of it is in tiny print. Some pages even have some text at a 45 degree angle to the right and other text at a 45 degree angle to the left. It’s both ugly and annoying.

I don’t know the newsstand price – it’s not on my copy – but it’s more than $1.00 so I can’t recommend buying it. But if you’re interested in design, flip through it at the magazine rack. If you’re reading this more than a month after it’s posted, it’s worth a trip to the library. You can learn a lot from bad design, and this issue of Wired is even more educational than most.

I’m working on a project that needs some into, outro, and background music. I’d like to use music that sounds like music from the late 80’s: Bands like Ah Ha, Supertramp, The Eurymithics and maybe a hair band or two. Since this will be distributed as a podcast, it has to have a Creative Commons license, or easily obtained permission from the artist.

Please leave your suggestions as a comment.

Update; Forget Supertramp, wrong decade.  Replace them with, say, Duran Duran and INXS.  And don’t forget cheesy girl bands like The Go Gos and the Bangles.  I love cheesy girl bands.

Thanks.

The Republican Part is in shambles. They are now a minority in congress, and more importantly, they’re regarded as far-right fundamentalists by many Americans. They’ve allowed the fundies to take over the party, and the results have been disastrous.

They’ve abandoned their core principles. They claim to be the party of small government, but Bush grew the government more than any other president in history. They’re supposed to stand for strict adherence to the constitution, but Bush was openly contemptuous of the very concept of civil rights. He attacked them and removed them at every opportunity. The GOP has gone from conservatism to fascism, and the American people finally said “enough.”

The proof is in the way the numbers shifted during the presidential campaign. McCain and Obama were neck and neck until McCain selected Palin, a picture perfect fundy Republican, as his running mate. His numbers got a quick, short boost, but then she opened her mouth and people started looking at her record. His numbers started dropping and never stopped. While we don’t know if he would have won without her, it’s pretty obvious she cost him the election.

Everything she wanted, from pipelines to policies, was also, conveniently, God’s Will. Her own daughter is living proof that abstinence based sex ed is worthless, but she remains incapable of accepting that fact. While the US is rapidly losing its lead in science and technology, she wants to teach creationism in schools. She believes that if a woman or young girl gets pregnant as the result of a rape, the government should force her to bear the rapist’s child. The very real possibility of her becoming president may have won McCain a few votes, but it cost him many more.

Most Americans are religious, but far right fundies, the ones who want a theocracy, are maybe 10% of the population. Atheists are another 10% minority, and we have no one to vote for. Committing the party to rationality could get many of us on board, perhaps enough to make up for the loss of the fundy vote. And that loss would be minimal. Who are they going to vote for, Democrats? Yeah, right.

Other Republicans are coming to the same conclusion, finally. They are, of course, being attacked by the fundies, but they need to grow some balls and stand up to them. It is their only hope.

A substantial number of Americans are socially liberal and fiscally conservative. They are small L Libertarians, although they may not identify themselves as such. This matches up nicely with the politics of the original Republican Party, the one formed to fight slavery. The Libertarian Party is a joke, so adopting the ideas and ideals of the small Ls would build their base significantly.

The best approach would be to create a faction in the party, The Rational Republicans, and gradually (but not too gradually) take over the party.

Here are a few winning planks for their platform:

• Admit that Bush was a rotten president, apologize for the damage he’s done, and announce plans to undo it.
• Abandon religion inspired policies.
  • 70% of Americans want to keep abortion safe and legal. Give it up.
  • Adopt the position of most Americans and stop trying to prevent embryonic stem cell research.
  • Condemn those trying to teach creationism in science classes. Make them liable for the costs associated with fighting their nonsense.
• Stop talking about being the party of small government, and actually become the party of small government.
  • Shut down unnecessary government agencies, like the DOE and EEOC.
  • Cut the budget of every other government agency by at least 25%, to start. Then look for further reductions. For instance, reduce the Department of Agriculture to the branch that inspects food, and get rid of the rest of it.
  • Eliminate farm subsidies.
  • Eliminate most foreign aid.
  • Reduce DOD expenses by closing unnecessary bases. We currently have bases in 120 different countries. That’s about 100 too many. Shut down the unnecessary ones and concentrate on defending our borders, instead everyone else’s.
• Admit that the war in Iraq was a horrible mistake, and get out. Obama wants to do this – help him.
• Clean up the mess in Afghanistan, and if that includes going into Pakistan to eradicate terrorists, do it.
• Return to a rational money policy by eliminating the Federal Reserve and returning to the gold standard.
• Repeal the PATRIOT acts and FISA. Restore Habeas Corpus.
• Repeal Real ID.
• End the War on Some Drugs. Admit that a lot of Americans want to get high, and turn that from an expense to a profit center. Allow marijuana to be sold over the counter, and make more dangerous drugs available with an easy to get prescription. This will put drug dealers out of business, cut our prison population by half, and reduce violent crime and police corruption. Reasonable taxes on the stuff would bring in an enormous amount of money, enough to start paying down our national debt.
• Pass the Read The Bills Act and the One Subject At a Time act.
• Make it much easier to start a business. Allow small business people to put half of their SS self-employment tax into their own 401ks. Eliminate the requirement to file taxes quarterly. Reduce licensing and other restrictions that impede small businesses.

That’s enough to get started, but of course there is a lot more they could to do return to their former prominence.

So how about it, Republicans? Do you have the courage to make the change, to become what you could be, and should be? Or are you going to keep catering to the far-far right, and remain a marginalized party whose only accomplishment is to provide a source of derision for most Americans?

I swear I’m not going out looking for stories about cops shooting dogs. They’ve just become so common that I stumble across them every couple of weeks in the course of casual surfing.

This time it was in Pittsburgh. A sheriff’s deputy, looking to serve papers on someone, went into the wrong backyard, where a 10 month old puppy was on a leash. The dog’s owner directed him to the correct address, but the cop killed her dog anyway. The cop claimed the dog “lunged” at him.

I’m beginning to suspect that “Dog Shooting 101” is part of police academy training. The first day of the course the instructor explains the process:

“Gentlemen, marksmanship is one of your most important police skills. Practicing at the range is only a start. Those targets are human sized, and they don’t move.”

“As you know, you can shoot people with impunity, confident that you will not be punished. However, sometimes people shoot back. While it’s good to know that you won’t be punished for killing them, and that they will spend life in jail if they dare to defend themselves, there is still some element of risk in murdering citizens. There’s a lot of paperwork involved, sometimes even a show trial before you’re exonerated. And if you kill a minority we may have to put up with Al Sharpton coming to town.”

“So we recommend taking pot shots at dogs whenever you have a chance. Not only is a dog a smaller target, which will improve your marksmanship, but there are no consequences when you kill one. If you’re feeling rusty, shoot one that’s chained up or in a fenced in yard.”

“And don’t forget this phrase: ‘he lunged at me.’ That’s all the explanation you’ll need.”

“That’s it for today, men. Have a good day, and happy shooting!”

The 1969 Woodstock Festival was the defining moment of my generation. Nearly a half million people attended, and twelve million of them will eagerly tell you about being there.

I’m wondering if the inauguration of Obama will be this generation’s defining moment. How many hundreds of thousands of people will be crowding the capital to witness the historic event?

There are 240,000 tickets available. Diane Feinstein is upset that some folks may sell their tickets, and that would be capitalistic and evil and horrible and Must Be Stopped. So like every other Democrat Republican politician who is offended by the free market in action, she’s proposing a law to make selling them illegal. She claims they could go for $40,000 each. She got this number from politician’s favorite source of numbers – she pulled it out of her ass. (One site claims to have them for 10K apiece, but that’s bogus – no one has them in hand yet.)

Ticket scalping is the very definition of a victimless crime. No one is forced to buy ridiculously priced tickets to anything. Ever. You may want to take your kids to see Hanna Montana, but you don’t have to, and their lives will not be destroyed if they miss it. Don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars to see the Rolling Stones? Simple: Don’t. (Side note: I saw them a few years ago for sixteen dollars. That was after seeing Rush, AC/DC, The Isley Brothers, The Guess Who, The Flaming Lips, Jeff Healy, and a few others I don’t recall at the same concert. You can read about it here.) While I’m annoyed at the prices performing artists are now charging for tickets, I’d rather see them get the money than have it go to scalpers who don’t add any value to the transaction, except for themselves. And while I don’t like scalpers, that’s no reason to consider them criminal.

Yes, it sucks. Yes, it seems blatantly unfair. Yes, the problem is worse because buying tickets from Tickemaster can be half day project. But whenever there is a limited resource (seats, or in this case, standing room) those who want it the most will pay the most.  The laws of man can not defeat the laws of economics. Where there is demand there will be supply. Making it illegal won’t change that. But it will make Diane and her buddies feel good, and isn’t that what really matters?

It’s over.  Finally!  I enjoy the theater of politics (and am fully aware that it is nothing but theater) but this was like watching Warhol’s movie “Empire” (a single eight hour shot of the Empire State building) without taking a pee break.

The Good

In every election there is fraud, chicanery and a bit of honest error on both sides.  The size of the landslide means none of that matters.  The Democrats incessant whining about Al Gore’s Florida votes was more annoying Fran Drescher singing opera.  At least we won’t have to put up with “stolen election” claims any longer.

Anyone who still claims America is a Racist Nation (you can hear the capital letters when they say it) can be laughed at.  Yes, there are still racists out there, and there always will be.  (Human beings, after all, are tribal creatures.)  But the concept that the nation, as a whole, is racist has been put to rest.  Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson may have to find honest work.

Uber-nanny Ralph Nader has been thoroughly bitch slapped.  No one paid any attention to him.  When he visited Dartmouth only 40 people showed up, and less than ten of them were Dartmouth students.

We’ll finally get out of Iraq, the stupidest blunder in America’s history.

No more George W. Bush!  George will go down in history as the worst president, ever.  Worse than Jimmy Carter.  Worse than FDR.  Worse than anyone in our entire history.  Good riddance to horrible, stinky, downright evil rubbish.

The Bad

There is no evidence that it has ever even occurred to Obama that government is usually the problem, not the solution.  The answer to every failure in society is a government program, and when it inevitably fails or makes the problem worse, the solution to that is making the program bigger or creating yet another program.

The ideal situation in Washington is having someone from one party in the White House and another in Congress.  This provides at least a bit of a slowdown government growth. With socialists in both places we can expect more and more big huge monstrous government, although it’s hard to imagine anyone growing it more than Bush did.  My guess is they will view that as a challenge, and exceed expectations.

The Ugly

California’s Proposition 8 passed, writing discrimination against gays into the state’s constitution.  This proves that direct democracy is a rotten way to run government.  It also supports my theory that 90% of the problems in the world are caused by people minding other people’s business.  Gay marriage had no effect on anyone who voted against it.  It’s rather disgusting that a majority of people, a small majority, but a majority none-the-less, decided to institutionalize discrimination against people for doing something they consider icky.

Obama said, clearly and without hesitation, that he wants to “spread the wealth.”  In other words, redistribute income.  Successful, hard working people will be forced to share a disproportionate amount of their income with those who couldn’t bother to be successful themselves.  Perhaps we should start calling each other “comrade.”

We are facing massive deficits.  Not only is the current deficit crippling, but Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security represent trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities.  The government will have no choice but to increase the money supply, which will lead to rampant inflation.

Socialized medicine is on its way.  As P. J. O’Rourke says, “If you think health care is expensive now, wait until it’s free.”  This will accelerate the bankruptcy of the country, and we can expect health care to gradually deteriorate to the abysmal level now found in VA hospitals.

Obama’s poor understanding of economics, coupled with his love of big government, coupled with our current massive debt, coupled with our enormous future liabilities, means that we are thoroughly and deeply screwed.  Like FDR, he and his buddies in congress will make the problem even more dire, and every one of us will be the victims of everything they do “for our own good.”