Alabama Never Disappoints

I'm getting kinda sick of writing about religion in this country, but I just keep reading about things that I can't, in good conscience, ignore.  I wouldn't do you that disservice, loyal readers.  I will remain your beacon of light in these confusing times!


Anyway, some hick-ass town in Alabama has begun a program that will allow nonviolent misdemeanor offenders the choice of jail or going to church every Sunday for a year.  How can such an idea even get past the, "Hey, what if we offer them church or jail?" stage?  These people will be the first to talk about how much they love America, then wipe their ass with one of the country's most fundamental ideals.  I don't care if 100% of that town's population are practicing Christians; the program is simply unconstitutional.


Supporters are probably already saying, "Well, they don't have to go church.  It's their choice."  Wrong.  Church vs. jail isn't a choice at all (insert "What's the difference?" joke).  Offenders are essentially being forced, by the government, to attend church.  Who wouldn't rather sit in a pew for an hour a week than serve a prison sentence.  Even a weekly colonoscopy would be better; at least you'd be allowed to go home after taking it in the ass.  This is basically a "get out of jail free" card.  What productive result could possibly come from this program?  Odds are, most people in that town go to church fairly regularly anyway.  If it didn't stop offenders from committing the crime in the first place, it's not going to do much good in preventing them from doing the same thing again.  Especially if the only punishment is being forced to eat a tasteless wafer and take sip of wine every Sunday.


The pastor of one participating church is a little more optimistic: "You show me somebody who falls in love with Jesus, and I'll show you a person who won't be a problem to society but that will be an influence and a help to those around them." It's hard to decide which atrocity committed in Jesus' name to mention... Let's go with slavery.  As recently as the '60s, mainstream Christians were using the Curse of Cain as a justification of racism (because, obviously, this one guy was the forefather of all African people).  But let me guess; these people never truly understood Jesus, right?  Never mind the countless instances of slavery being condoned in the Old and New Testaments (Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear.  Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ.  [Ephesians 6:5]).    But I suppose I'm just nitpicking outdated passages that aren't meant to be taken literally.  I wonder how anyone knows which Biblical passages ought to be taken literally and which ones are just silly misunderstandings?  Or is it that "slave" was the translator's choice, and the Bible really means "servant"?  Call it what you will, these people were denied the most basic human rights and treated as livestock; if you think slaves were any better off 2,000 years ago, you're retarded.

I think this pastor needs to take a look at some actual facts.  The lower one's socioeconomic status and education level, the higher the likelihood that one will be religious.  Do you know what else the poor and uneducated are more likely to do?  Commit crime.  Seems kind of counter-intuitive, doesn't it?    Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion has more concrete figures, but I can't be bothered to look them up.


The problem isn't that other religions are excluded.  The problem is the logic behind this illegal program.  Attending any religious service does nothing to fulfill a criminal's debt to society.  And, although some might disagree, it's not a punishment and therefore will do nothing to prevent the criminal from breaking the law again.  In Alabama, you can steal up to $2,500 worth of stuff and still be charged with a misdemeanor and be eligible for this program.  I would trade 51 Sundays in church for a free $2,500 shopping spree any day. 


One nation under god is right.  He's been on top for centuries and still hasn't nutted.

Render Unto Caesar...

A New York town clerk has decided to use her official (and lowly) government position to impose her religious belief on other Americans and deny them their right to marriage.  Rose Marie Belforti, the owner of a dairy farm in a town called Ledyard, is refusing to sign the marriage certificate of a lesbian couple because she believes it's immoral.  She apparently has no qualms about breaking her oath to "faithfully discharge the duties of the office of town clerk".  I'd be a little surprised if that oath wasn't made over a bible.


When New York first allowed gay marriage, Belforti told the town board that a clerk must be hired to sign marriage licenses for gay couples because she would not do it.  While it's legal for a clerk to delegate duties to a clerk, the town didn't have one.  With only six local government offices, a clerk was never needed.  Simply hiring a clerk may seem like a fair compromise, but this will draw tax money away from other areas to pay for this new position.  Sure, one new employee won't break the bank, but why should the burden fall on tax-payers?  I wouldn't want one cent of my taxes to pay for someone else to fulfill duties that this woman is perfectly capable of performing herself.  Not to mention the fact that she is legally obligated to do so and that refusal to grant a license to an eligible applicant is a crime.


In an attempt to placate those who are justly angered about this fiasco, Belforti is now refusing to sign marriage licenses for anyone.  I guess the logic is that if she screws over everyone, then it isn't discrimination.    


 I don't know where this lady gets the balls to take the law into her own hands, but people like her shouldn't be given any kind of authority that might affect other peoples' lives.  Christians claim that American religious freedom grants her the right to not perform duties that go against her faith.  Well you should've thought of that before you took a legally binding oath to uphold laws that (technically) have no basis in religion and therefore could come into conflict with religious beliefs.  Imagine how those defending this criminal would feel if the town clerk was a muslim who refused to sign a marriage license because alcohol is consumed at weddings.  


As of Saturday, September 17th, the U.S. Constitution is 224 years old.  But we still can't seem to accept that this nation was not founded on any kind of religious belief.  And next time someone tells you that those incorruptible and infallible Founding Fathers endowed this nation with traditional Christian values, remind them of this excerpt from the 1796 Treaty of Tripoli: "the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion".

I Didn't Realize the Camden School District Was So Ballin'

       Camden is makin' it rain. A grant from Jersey's Departmant of Criminal Justice is helping to fund a five week long program in which 65 high school students will attend anger management and conflict resolution classes.  They will also sign a pledge not to cut school and attend all the sessions.  Each student that completes the course will receive $100. 

       I realize $6500 isn't really going to break the bank, but is this really the best way to spend it?  The money, as reported here, comes from a $63,000 grant.    I don't know where the rest of the moeny is going, but part of the grant mandates that the money be spent by the end of September if the city wants to be eligible for the same grant next year (I assume to prevent the city from simply hoarding the money).  But it still kinda seems like it's being pissed away.  And with that kinda money, you'd think they'd come up with a better name for the program than ICE T (I Can End Truancy; he's from Newark, not Camden).  Since the kid has no obligation to not cut class after September, critics say there's nothing to keep them in school after the program ends.  The kids in this program are most likely either the kind who would show up anyway, or the kind who wouldn't (for whatever reason; this post isn't talking about why urban school districts suck).  So, either they are problem students that will simply repeat their past behavior after the incentive is gone, or they were would most likely go on to graduate regardless, there doesn't seem to be any real effect on the likelihood of the selected students' graduating.

       But I suppose there is more involved.  For example, the number of students that could be positively affected in the long-term because of this program.  I'd like to see the kind of data used to justify the program.  The cynic in me wants to assume that the students were chosen so as to ensure that the program will have a high completion rate, although there would still be some token problem students chosen as well.  I would say that if a program like this really worked, it would be more widely-used, but I don't think this has ever been done before.  I still don't think $100 and a couple classes are all it takes to resolve the real problems here. 

All-in-all, I'm kinda on the fence about this.  I can't imagine that the burden of this program on the individual tax payer is very difficult, especially if that one small percentage really does change the life of another human being.  But it certainly seems more practical to buy better books or equipment or fund a music program or something.

So it comes down to this: do you want to improve the value of one person's life, or help fund the development of the next Beethoven?  This is beginning to sound like an argument against abortion.  Quite a subtle, slippery slope, no? 

Will Smith Becomes Real Hero, Working on Saving the Rap Game

       Having three hip hop artists on my iPod (Mos Def, Lupe Fiasco, and Talib Kweli), I consider myself an expert on the genre.  And it is in bad shape.  Like nearly all genres of actual music, it is facing very real threats from commercialization, materialism, and dumbing down.  Every time you turn on the radio, you hear some auto-tuned asshole with an almost-catchy beat and corny-ass rhymes invariably talking about the same thing that everyone else is.  It's either "I sell drugs better than you", "I rap better than you", or "I fuck more bitches than you".  My favorites are the guys who rap about rapping.  Why actually do the work to become a legitimate hip hop artist when you can just make your first single all about how you already are the greatest ever?

       I don't expect every song to be a serious piece of art dealing with real social issues like poverty and racism, but does everything on the radio have to be so mind-numbing?  Not anymore.  Big Willy is back!  According to the Huffington Post, Will Smith has been working with producer "Mars" Edwards.  Having saved the world so many times, you know he has the street cred to change the game.  His smooth and manly voice will be a much-appreciated alternative to those awful noises that come out that hole in Lil Wayne's face.    I just hope he hits the studio in time to make another Men in Black song when the third installment of that series hits theaters in May 2012.  That should leave him plenty of time to solve the 2012 Doomsday Prophecy.

      

Media Irresponsibility

I don’t know if the news was any better back in the day, but it can’t have been any worse.  It seems a new low is reached every day.  Remember the grilled Cheesus?  That seems positively highbrow compared to some of the things I’ve seen lately.

On the websites of both Yahoo! and AOL, there was a link to an article about how “devastated” Lamar Odom and Khloe Kardashian were after they were involved in a car wreck that killed a 15 year-old kid.  I’m sure they were, but shouldn’t the focus have been on the family of the victim?  I know that the only reason this death was reported at all was because those two were involved, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the family didn’t want to engage with the media in their time of grief.  But neither article seemed even slightly interested in the actual tragedy, only in how their precious celebrities feel.  After the accident, Kardashian tweeted, “Angels are surrounding me always...Thank you!”  Not one word about the poor kid.  

Disclaimer: I don’t follow her on Twitter, so for all I know she could have expressed her

condolences before or after that tweet.  I refuse to look at her Twitter to find out.

I can see why celebrities are consider celebrities newsworthy because they are public figures.  But not everything that is newsworthy should be on the front page.  Why is it cost-efficient to pay millions of dollars for pictures for pictures of an infant who has done nothing more than be born to famous parents?  Because there are even more millions of people out there that will buy the magazine simply because it has that picture on its cover.  As far as I’m concerned, “celebrity news” magazines should be no more popular than a newspaper printing stories about a Bat boy-chupacabra sex tape.  Actually, now that I think about it, it should be way less popular than that newspaper.  

Unfortunately, it gets worse.  A CBS affiliate in Chicago aired a story about a night of violence in which a 16-year-old was killed and two others hurt.  During an interview with a four-year-old witness, an anchor asked if the boy would stay away from guns.  The answer that was seen on TV was “I’m going to have me a gun!”, after which the interview ended and the anchor commented, “That is very scary indeed.”  However, the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education got a copy of the entire interview.  As it turns out, there was an unaired portion in which the anchor asks why the boy wants a gun, to which he replies, “I’m going to be the police!”  Stay classy, Chicago.

As depressing as the success of celebrity “news” is, the racism is even worse.  The unfair representation of minorities in the media is nothing new.  But editing a recorded interview with the intention of portraying a four-year-old boy as a stereotypical gangbangin’ black kid is disgusting.  The worst part about it is that that’s a financially successful way to run a news network; if it bleeds, it leads.  The fact that the truth was uncovered is only mildly encouraging.  I sincerely doubt this was an isolated incident. 

I understand that journalism is a business, and a successful business has to appeal to enough customers to make money.  It’s just a shame that enough people consume the dumbed-down garbage produced  by so many media outlets that it’s actually profitable.  Never mind the fact that fewer people watch the news and read the paper; the public never should have accepted this as news in the first place.  Like I said, there’s a place in the news for celebrities.  But it should be sandwiched between black and white ads in the middle of the paper, not above the fold.   

Should Everyone Really Have the Right to an Opinion?

What a day.  After work, I ran a few errands.  In one store, I heard two old women talking about all the foreign countries that make the goods sold in America.  Lady One said, "It's so funny!  This shirt right here was made in Guatemala!"  Lady Two replies, "Oh, I know.  I won't buy anything made in Pakistan, though."  For real?  You don't mind supporting manufacturers that pay people, often children, shit wages in dangerous conditions, but Pakistan is a clear no-no.  Is supporting terrorists so much worse than running sweatshops?  I'd be willing to bet that more lives have been destroyed by sweatshops than terrorists.  I don't understand how someone can justify supporting one and not the other.

So then I went to buy some groceries.  I was looking for powdered Gatorade mix when the middle-aged woman in the same aisle asked if I was looking for a good fruit juice.  I told her what I was looking for and she ignored what I said and suggested Fuze juice because "it has lots of vitamins and minerals."  I so regret not shattering her sense of self-righteousness by telling her Fuze only contains 5% actual fruit juice.  I guess I'm getting soft.  I'm sick of being told what I should and should not eat.  I have every right to weigh 700 pounds if I want to.  And do your goddamned homework before you go making suggestions to people as to what to eat and drink.  By which I mean read more than a few words on the label.

So then I went home.  I checked the websites I usually check and found an article on yahoo! that caught my eye.  A man in Indiana was denied the opportunity to donate blood because he seemed gay.  And that is entirely legal!  The ban on allowing homosexuals to donate blood dates back to 1983, a time when there were no reliable ways to test blood for HIV and AIDS was believed to only affect gay people.  Despite every single blood donation being tested for HIV, just last year the decision to ban gays from donating blood was upheld by the Department of Health and Human Services.  And again, this guy, while "admittedly and noticeably effeminate", is straight.

And then the icing on the cake.  Another yahoo! article about some guy Herman Cain, apparently a "Presidential hopeful", who supports the attempt by some Murfreesboro, Tennessee residents to ban the building of a mosque in their town.  Not only does he believe this is legal, he actually said that building the mosque is an "infringement and an abuse of our freedom of religion".  It's hard to explain how ass-backwards that statement is.  It's like trying to explain why blue is not yellow.  George Orwell himself could not come up with a better example of doublespeak.  He went on to say, "Our Constitution guarantees separation of church and state. Islam combines church and state.  [We're] objecting to the fact that Islam is both a religion and a set of laws."  He is such a satire of himself that I almost suspect this to be some kind of Stephen Colbert prank.  How does someone whose reasoning power is so flawed even make it to adulthood?  Does he not see the influence Christianity has on almost every law that this country has made?  And what would he say about the poll that shows 2/3 of Americans consider this nation a Christian country?  I'd be willing to bet his stance on separation of church and state would soften a bit.  I also wonder how he would feel if a largely atheist town wanted to ban the building of a church?  By the way, this guy used to run a pizza franchise.  Quite a resume for a Presidential hopeful.

This is why I want to live on a mountain.  The problem isn't America.  It's people.

 

At the Risk of Sounding Like a Hippie...

That's what I'm talking about!  According to Reuters, a hiker in Yellowstone who accidentally came across grizzly cubs was mauled to death by the mother.  It's a terrible shame that this happened; that's obviously not what I'm talking about.  While the situation is still being investigated, Yellowstone's initial response is that the bear behaved naturally and so will not be killed.  So that is what I'm talking about.

To be clear, I agree with the killing of the bear mentioned in the article that killed a man in his sleep in an "unprovoked" attack.  But if you're walking around in an area known for bear activity, you know what you're getting yourself into.  Odds are neither man deserved to be killed by a friggin' grizzly bear.  But it's nice to see that Yellowstone recognizes the fact that the bear was in its natural habitat and behaved as any bear should.  It would be even better to see them stick with that position (assuming the investigation finds that initial reports are accurate), despite possible public pressure.

It worries me that PETA probably agrees with me.  But they probably wouldn't want that other bear killed either.  So I'm not a hippie!