Rejections

Writers are, by definition, losers. And I am, perhaps, king loser. Here is a rejection from yet another publisher.

1:39 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Ten Things I Hate

1.       Duffle Bags – They're long. They're green. They suck.

2.       Ear Wax Remover — You know, some people cultivate ear wax; they spend months, sometimes even years collecting and building it up; why remove it? Ear wax remover sucks.

3.       Tap Dancing Classes — If you're a woman, fine. But if you're a man, nothing shouts, 'hey, come kick the living dog shit out of me,' faster than tap dancing classes. I mean, seriously, you might as well staple a target to your asshole.

4.        Giraffes – What can I say? They annoy me. They're like a horse's retarded, mongoloid cousin.

5.       Mayonnaise — Ugh. Gag me. There's no way in hell I'll ever eat any white, stinky substance that looks like an elephant just belched it out of its cock.

6.       Earrings (men) – "Hi. My name is Brad. Check out my sweet earring. Why don't you just slip your finger in it, tear it out, and then rape my bleeding ear hole. P.S. I'm a douche."

7.       Self-adhesive postage stamps – You know, after I lick a stamp and mail off a bill, I like to walk around for the rest of the day tasting peppermint flavored asshole. It's a constant reminder that the credit cards companies are fucking me over. It's like tossing a debtor's papier-mâché salad.

8.       Toe-Nail Clippers – Why are they so fucking huge? Are these toe-nail clippers or Godzilla's finger-nail clippers? Besides, whatever happened to tearing them off with your teeth? Toe-Nail Clippers suck.

10.  The Number 9 – I fucking hate the number nine. It disgusts me.  
        It looks like an inebriated six. Fuck the number 9.

11. People Who Follow Celebrity Gossip – "Hi. Oh, you're emotionally invested in a celebrity's sex life? Here's a razor blade. Now run along and do the world a favor. Quick! Do it before you procreate."

1:19 PM - 0 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

An Open Letter to Marc Espar

[NOTE: Below is a letter I sent to Marc Espar, a local city councilman attempting to introduce a public smoking ban here.]

Mr. Espar,

I see that the fine politicians in Michigan City have decided to drink the national Kool-Aid and attempt to ban smoking in public. Congratulations. On what are you planning to justify such a measure? Stepping in line with other cities; following their precedent? On what studies are you basing claims that second hand smoke causes lung cancer? Are you basing it on the notorious 1998 World Health Organization's study, the one that has been cited for a decade now when low level hucksters want to strip people of behaviors about which all do not agree?
            Allow us, for a moment, to look at the WHO report.
            When the study initially yielded unwanted results, the WHO tried to bury the report, but reporters for a British newspaper got wind of the suppression of the report and rallied to get it released. Their efforts snowballed, and the study was officially released. What was in it? What was so damning that the WHO tried to suppress it, and why do anti-smoking crusaders cite this report as their main contention in fighting smoking in the public square? The key, as it turns out, is not the study itself; it's the press release disseminated to accompany the study. In blaring, bold fonts, the press release ominously warns, "Passive Smoking Does Cause Lung Cancer, Do Not Let Them Fool You." The press release goes on to state, "The results of this study, which have been completely misrepresented in recent news reports, are very much in line with the results of similar studies both in Europe and elsewhere: passive smoking causes lung cancer in non-smokers."
            Now, let's look at the actual study, starting with the conclusion and working our way backward.
            Keeping in mind the headline and above quoted paragraph from the press release, let us now read the conclusion,
            "[…] our study provides the most precise available estimate of the effect of ETS [Environmental Tobacco Smoke; a term interchangeable with Second Hand Smoke; the two, it should be emphasized, are the same] on lung cancer risk in western European populations. We found no increased risk for childhood exposure, a result consistent with most of the available data. The risk from ever exposure to spousal ETS was consistent with the combined available evidence from European studies, but it was lower than some previous estimates—a result that could be explained by the large number of subjects whose exposure to ETS ended several years earlier. The lack of reported results on the effect of cessation of ETS exposure in previous European studies does not enable us to explore this explanation. There was also a nonsignificant dose–response relationship with duration of exposure. We also found an association of similar strength with workplace exposure. Dose–response relationships were more consistent and risks were higher, although in most cases they were not statistically significant, with combined indicators of spousal and workplace ETS exposure." [Emphasis added]
            Interesting, isn't it? We are presented with two different ends; which will you believe, the press release or the actual study? The last sentence in the conclusion is worth considering. Dose-response relationships should increase with increased exposure. If no increase is recorded or noted or detected then it is likely that the cause and effect are unrelated—or, as the study itself admits, "in most cases they were not statistically significant."
            The study also indicates that children exposed to second hand smoke are 22% less likely to develop lung cancer when compared to those unexposed. Read that again. Children exposed to second hand smoke are 22% less likely to develop lung cancer. (Or, in the language of the study, "Results: ETS exposure during childhood was not associated with an increased risk of lung cancer (odds ratio [OR] for ever exposure = 0.78; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.64–0.96).)
            Well, so obviously the WHO study won't help your cause, so what about the EPA study released in 1992. This is the study that kicked off the whole second hand smoke scare that you are currently trying to capitalize on in an attempt to push through your totalitarian agenda.
            Let us pause for a moment to debunk this fraudulent report on which you and so many like you continue to stake your claims. The EPA report was a meta-analysis, meaning the only study conducted was an analysis of already-existing studies. Meta studies are renowned for being easy to manipulate, and the EPA pulled a Joseph Goebbels in the lies they propagated and facilitated through this exercise in agenda dissemination.
            To begin with, the EPA announced results of the study before their analysis was complete. Then, when the study was distributed, it was noted that their margin of error had been doubled in order to attain the already-announced results—and this was after the EPA cherry picked their results by ignoring two-thirds of the data available to them.  
            In this massive 500 page study, which should go down in the annals of piffle as a brilliant exercise in intentionally confusing gobbledy-gook, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) found countless examples of blatant lies and manipulation. According to the CRS, "The studies relied primarily on questionnaires to the case and control group members, or their surrogates, to determine ETS exposure and other information pertinent to the studies." Or their surrogates. That is an interesting bit of information. In other words, the study at times relied on hearsay presented from people who were charged with answering questions they themselves shouldn't have been answering.
            In 1998, Judge William Osteen lambasted the EPA study in a 92-page decision. He condemned the EPA's methodology by pointing out that the "EPA adopted statistical testing methods rejected by epidemiologists, ignored the possibility that more than one confounder interacting jointly could explain the claimed association, and inconsistently interpreted the results of confounding analysis to promote finding an association; (4) EPA switched from a peer- reviewed methodology to an unpublished one in excluding study bias as an explanation for the claimed association; and (5) to create critical ETS dose-response evidence, EPA inexplicably used a trend analysis that included unexposed (i.e., control) subjects, in violation of EPA's Risk Assessment Guidelines and standard epidemiologic practice."
            Judge Osteen then wrote,
            "In this case, EPA publicly committed to a conclusion before research had begun; excluded industry by violating the Act's procedural requirements; adjusted established procedure and scientific norms to validate the Agency's public conclusion, and aggressively utilized the Act's authority to disseminate findings to establish a de facto regulatory scheme intended to restrict Plaintiffs, products and to influence public opinion. In conducting the ETS Risk Assessment, disregarded information and made findings ..ive information; did not disseminate significant epidemiologic information; deviated from its Risk Assessment Guidelines; failed to disclose important findings and reasoning; and left significant questions without answers. EPA's conduct left substantial holes in the administrative record. While so doing, produced limited evidence, then claimed the weight of the Agency's research evidence demonstrated ETS causes cancer. Gathering all relevant information, researching, and disseminating findings were subordinate to EPA's demonstrating ETS a Group A carcinogen."
                Yet the media ignored Judge Osteen's decision. So, too, did they ignore the CRS' findings that studies ignored by the EPA in the meta-analysis showed no risks at all—this is an allusion to the Brownson study, a study funded in part by the National Cancer Institute. Had the Brownson study been included in the EPA report, their conclusions would have been downgraded to show less risk. The likelihood of this happening evaporated, however, in light of the fact that their results had been announced before they were compiled.
            In a German study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology in 2002, which studied flight attendants over a 37-year period, the following conclusion was routinely ignored by the media. "We found a rather remarkably low SMR [standardized incidence ratio] for lung cancer among female cabin attendants and no increase for male cabin attendants, indicating that smoking and exposure to passive smoking may not play an important role in mortality in this group. Smoking during airplane flights was permitted in Germany until the mid-1990s, and smoking is still not banned on all charter flights. The risk of cardiovascular disease mortality for male and female air crew was surprisingly low (reaching statistical significance among women."
          One can easily find many more studies buried or quietly released that debunk claims on which you are undoubtedly basing your planned ordinance. But why let facts get in the way? This is obviously not a public health concern. It all comes down to personal taste; you, and people like you, oppose or dislike smoking, so you frame it as a public health issue and pass your totalitarian legislation. When all is said and done, this isn't about the public; it's about you and people like you. The world obviously revolves around you. If you don't like something, you legislate against it. You do everything in your power to force others to conform to your standards, to conform to your worldview, and you will employ any means necessary to achieve your objective.
            One must remember that America is a Republic, as such one's civil rights do not supersede the other's. I have as much a right to smoke as you have to complain about my smoking, and, in turn, I must take your complaints and criticisms in stride. To frame your disagreements in lies in order to pass legislation favorable to your disposition is, in fact, politicking of the most ghastly variety. Remember, too, once you set a precedent, you are potentially depriving yourself of rights dear to you.
           I implore you to reconsider this proposed ordinance. It is simply not a public health issue; it's only been fraudulently presented as such; and to frame it in such terms is at best a logical fallacy—assuming causation through correlation—and at worse blatant lies and manipulation. As Joseph Goebbels once famously stated, "Tell a lie often enough and it becomes the new truth." That is exactly what has happened with the 'second-hand-smoke-as-progenitor-of-public-health-woes' mentality that has swept the nation for well over a decade now—although its antecedents date back to the 1950s.
           Do the right thing; reconsider your ordinance. Let's set an example here: we will not follow the big cities—your Chicagos, your New Yorks and Dublins—in propagating fascistic tendencies; let's rely on facts, on empirical evidence; and the evidence in the case of second hand smoking simply isn't there. Allow us to keep our rights. Let us no longer apply precedents to strip us of personal freedoms.
           I will leave you now with an exchange from "A Man For All Seasons," and hope you bear this in mind when considering your proposal. If you allow this to go through, you may one day be forced to give up something you prefer based on your own vicious precedent.
          Now, from "A Man For All Seasons,"

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil the benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

Please, do the right thing, discard this ordinance.

Thanks,
Daulton Dickey.

11:24 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

What Citizens and Journalists Are Saying About Barack Obama (D—Ill)

Question: What do you think of Barack Obama?

Susie Methmaker, 23, from Virginia

"I fantasize about slurping on his balls and licking his shaft. He’s the greatest."

John Johnston, 31, from Washington

"He’s godlike. That’s the only way to put it. God. Like. I want him inside me."

Bill Everett, 46, from New York

"He’s new. He’s different. He’s going to change things. Change change changity-change. And the biggest change is he’s going to be the first President who’ll be comfortable with splattering his man-butter on a gay man’s face. And I hope to be that gay man. I daydream about the sounds his balls will make when they slap against my ass cheeks."

Carroll Robertson, 34, Journalist from Oregon

"I, too, daydream about Barack’s ballsack slapping against my butt cheeks. I want to go down on him."

Bryan Williamson, NBC News

"Barack is a swell guy. He’s awesome. I can’t wait for him to become president. It’s going to be pretty sweet. My colleagues and I have been performing fellatio on him publicly for months now. When he gets in the Oval Office, we’re going to step it up a notch and aim for a home run. I want him inside me."

Anthony Roonie, CBS News

"I’m going to vote for Barack. Then I’m going to call him and ask if he’ll father my butt baby."

Question: What does Barack stand for? On what social or political issues do you find yourself in agreement with him?

Susie Methmaker, 23, from Virginia

[Silence; she stutters and stammers]

John Johnston, 31, from Washington

[Long pause]

Bill Everett, 46, from New York

"Change change changity-change. He’s going to change things."

Why?

"Because he’s different."

How so?

"Because he’s going to change things."

Like what?

"Things that need to be changed. And he’s just the man do to it."

Why?

"Because he’s different."

Carroll Robertson, 34, Journalist from Oregon

"You’re joking, right?"

No. It’s a serious question.

"He’s just, you know, different."

How so?

"Because he said so. And that’s good enough for me."

Bryan Williamson, NBC News

"Well, being in the media, I’m in a unique position to differentiate newness from staleness."

So differentiate Barack for us. How is he different?

[Terrified; points behind my shoulder]

"Holy shit! What’s that?!"

[I turn to look; Bryan runs away, screaming:]

"We’ve got to move to Defcon five! Someone’s about to play the race-card! Move! Move!"

Anthony Roonie, CBS News

[Ignores question]

"Barack, if you’re reading this: Will you please, please, pretty please with sugar on top father my butt baby? Please?"

There you have it, folks. Everyone agrees Barack Obama is different, that he’s going to make significant changes, as though a president has the power to affect that type of changes he suggests will occur under his administration, and yet no one can begin to describe what he stands for or how he is in any way different or unique. This is Julius Henry reporting from the campaign trail. And remember: politics should be issue oriented, not hero worship. This is, after all, to determine the next president; it’s not a cult of personality. Thank you and good night.

(C) 2008 D. Dickey.

2:57 PM - 4 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Surprise! Another hippy pseudo-science scoffed at

From LiveScience.com

The best part?

"One of the earliest advocates was John Lilly, the notorious California counterculture M.D. who, after heavy doses of LSD, claimed to communicate with dolphins — and aliens, for that matter. Although Lilly hoped the slaughter of whales would end once humans understood how smart the creatures were, his work ultimately nurtured a feel-good industry that now supports the violent harvesting of dolphins from the wild — which kills many in the process and forces the survivors into captivity, where they are fed a diet of dead fish and must frolic before an audience thrice daily to the tune of "R-O-C-K in the USA."

Dolphin Therapy Smells Fishy

By Christopher Wanjek, LiveScience Bad Medicine Columnist

posted: 11 March 2008 09:26 am ET

For some physically and mentally handicapped children, swimming with dolphins is a dream come true. That dream is shared by a multi-million dollar industry that provides so-called dolphin-assisted therapy for a few thousand dollars per session.

For the dolphins, the interactions with humans tend to be a nightmare.

Yet while laboratory animal are at least poked and prodded for some good for humankind, interacting with dolphins provides no long-term human health benefits and is largely an unproven therapy that can cheat patients out of real treatment, according to two recent studies.

Reason for depression

Dolphin-assisted therapy emerged in the 1970s as a possible treatment for depression and later as a means to help children with autism and other mental and physicals disorders. It is a therapy founded on good intentions.

One of the earliest advocates was John Lilly, the notorious California counterculture M.D. who, after heavy doses of LSD, claimed to communicate with dolphins — and aliens, for that matter. Although Lilly hoped the slaughter of whales would end once humans understood how smart the creatures were, his work ultimately nurtured a feel-good industry that now supports the violent harvesting of dolphins from the wild — which kills many in the process and forces the survivors into captivity, where they are fed a diet of dead fish and must frolic before an audience thrice daily to the tune of "R-O-C-K in the USA."

Anecdotal evidence abounds on the Internet of dolphins making children feel better. Only one peer-reviewed study, however, from 2005, supports dolphin-assisted therapy, and this was a weak study at that. Published in the British Medical Journal, the study documented 25 adults with mild depression who were flown to Honduras for two weeks to either enjoy the beaches and play with dolphins, or just enjoy the beaches.

Remarkably, all the patients felt less depressed, but the 13 patients who played with dolphins were slightly less depressed than the 12 patients stuck with just a free vacation.

Fishy studies

Admittedly, it is tough to pull off a classic, placebo-controlled study on dolphin-assisted therapy. Patients tend to know whether they are swimming with dolphins or, say, squid dressed like dolphins. If they can’t tell the difference, then there’s no fixing their depression.

Nevertheless, this was the strongest study in favor of dolphin-assisted therapy, according to a review by Anna Baverstock and Fiona Finlay of the Community Child Health Department in Bath, England, in a paper to be published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, now available online.

Baverstock and Finlay conducted the review because a mother was seeking medical support for her son, and they needed to determine whether swimming with dolphins had any health benefits for children with cerebral palsy. The answer was no, or at best, dolphins were as equally effective at making children feel better as puppies, warm beaches or clowns.

Similarly, in September 2007 in the journal of the International Society for Anthrozoology, Lori Marino and Scott Lilienfeld of Emory University analyzed five studies supporting the use of dolphin-assisted therapy and found major methodological flaws in each one. The studies were either too small, prone to some obvious bias, or offered no long-term perspective.

Squeaking by

Two legitimate studies, however, provide some evidence that dolphins can affect human health, in theory. The more recent one comes from a Japanese group, published in the Journal of Veterinary Medical Science in 2006. The scientists found that dolphins increase their vocalizations when interacting with people and that this form of sonar, called echolocation, can penetrate the human body.

This complements work by a German group, published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology in 2003, which found that echolocation could have an effect on biological tissue under some circumstances if repeated over several days or weeks. Just what the effect would be is unclear and, nevertheless, 80 percent of the dolphin-therapy sessions the scientists analyzed didn’t reach this level of interaction.

As the obscure journal titles might reveal, this is all fringe science. It may be that we are merely charmed by the dolphin’s Joker-like smile, which of course isn’t a smile but rather the natural shape of its mouth that fools us into thinking they like us.

• GALLERY: Endangered and Threatened Wildlife
• Special Report: Toward Immortality
• Amazing Animal Abilities

Christopher Wanjek is the author of the books "Bad Medicine" and "Food At Work." Got a question about Bad Medicine? Email Wanjek. If it’s really bad, he just might answer it in a future column. Bad Medicine appears each Tuesday on LiveScience.

11:37 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

A letter to a Deaf Girl

Dear Deaf Girl,

First, allow me to apologize for my major faux pas. I hadn't realized, when I pulled out my gat and popped two caps in your ass, that you were deaf. In my understandably embarrassing gaffe, I mistook your sign language for similar signs employed by rival gang members. And, being from the 'hood as I am, one learns to shoot first and ask questions later. So when I saw you manipulating your fingers in a way reminiscent of my rival gang members, I knew I had to act, lest I take time to consider the situation and risk getting shot. This is simply the hard knocks one such as myself faces while living in the hood.

Now, and I'm sure you completely understand this, I have never had, nor do I currently have, any ill will toward you—or anyone else afflicted with hearing problems. Again, it was a mistake. I genuinely thought you were throwing up signs.

I hope you get well soon,
Sincerely,
Maurice 'Pimps-Up-Hoes-Down' Fairweather III

P.S. The next time you're in the 'hood, try not to use sign language.  

5:52 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Yep. I’m bored.

Q: What would you like people to call you?
A: "Daulton, who is called Daulton"

Q: If you could bring back any TV show for another season, which one would you pick?
A: HBO's Rome. That or Golden Girls. Or, better yet, Golden Girls in Ancient Rome. That'd be sweet. Bea Arthur would make a totally believable Gladiator.

Q: What's your ultimate kryptonite?
A: Midget porn.

Q: Would you choose never to have nightmares again if it meant you had to stop dreaming altogether?
A: Doesn't matter. I spend the bulk of my waking hours dreaming. "Some people say," chimed Jimi Hendrix, "daydreaming's for all the lazy-minded fools with nothing else to do. So let them laugh, laugh at me."

Q: Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?
A: Pick up your remote control, turn it to PBS. Then quickly change the channel before the show's obnoxiousness inspires you to pull an Oedipus and tear out your eyes.

Q: What sea creature would you want most as an imaginary friend?
A: A shark. With lasers attached to its head.

Q: If you threw a magic penny into a magic sinkhole, what would come out?
A: A magic shit stain in my magic underwear—and to answer your question: no, I am not a Mormon. But I play one on TV. My name is Mitt Romney. On television I play a Mormon Superhero. 

Q: Can I have half of your sandwich?
A: Do I look like I'm running a halfway house here?

Q: If you could force anyone to sing any song, who would you make sing what?
A: I would make Pope Benedict XVI sing "Anarchy in the UK" by the Sex Pistols.

Q: Did the butler really do it?
A: Yes. Alfred sodomized Robin while Batman hid in the closet and diddled his man-berries.

Q: If you met a monster made out of a hundred babies, how would you teach it to dance?
A: Teach it to dance? I'd teach it to run. By introducing it to Michael Jackson, a legion of Catholic priests, and Brian Peppers.

Q: Yard gnomes or coconut monkeys?
A: Coconut monkeys. [Insert lame 'spanking my monkey' joke here.]

Q: Sporks or a very special episode of Charles in Charge?
A: "New boy in the neighborhood/ Lives downstairs and it is understood./ He's there just to take good care of me,/Like he's one of the family.

Charles in Charge/ Of our days and our nights/ Charles in Charge/ Of our wrongs and our rights

And I sing, I want,/ I want Charles in Charge of me.

Charles in Charge/ Of our days and our nights/ Charles in Charge/ Of our wrongs and our rights

And I sing, I want,/ I want Charles in Charge of me."

Now, Having said that: Sporks.

Q: What's your doppelganger's favorite type of pie?
A: Hair. Or booger meringue.

5:34 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

On Atheism

I do not believe in God. I do not believe in the numinous. I do not believe that an omniscient, omnipresent deity shaped everything out of nothing. If Jesus actually existed, he most certainly was not the son of God. Moses, if he even existed, which he probably didn't, most certainly did not receive tablets of rules from God Himself. The same goes for Abraham. He most probably did not exist, but if he did, he most certainly wasn't chosen by God. Why was Abraham—then Abram—chosen by God? The Hebrew Bible doesn't say. Apparently he was arbitrarily chosen to be the man from whom all popular monotheistic belief systems would flourish. God, it seems, simply played eenie-meenie-miney-mo in choosing who he would choose to be the author of His dynasty on earth. I do not believe a single notion offered up by the Judeo-Christian beliefs. Nor do I believe that the Archangel Gabriel descended from heaven to dictate God's word to Mohammed.

I take the blasphemy challenge right now: I deny the Holy Spirit.

I do not believe in miracles. I do not believe in divine intervention, in the temporary suspension of natural laws for the benefit of a single person. And yet I do not call myself an atheist. I am not an atheist. The word 'atheist' means nothing. Literally. It is not an ideology, it not dogmatism. It is the antithesis of such notions. It is simply a broad phrase used to designate people who refuse to buy into Bronze Age superstitions and fairy tales.

To those who believe, an atheist is a heretic, a vile, contemptible person who somehow wants to propagate his or her ideology and corrupt those who believe. To those who don't believe, however, the term is empty; it's hollow. I take issue with non-believers who call themselves atheists because they're backhandedly justifying believers' sinister claims about atheism—that it's a belief; that it's a dogma; that it somehow defines something to such a degree that 'atheists' feel the term defines them in some way.

I do not subscribe to these notions because I do not define myself by what I don't believe. And that is the only thing 'atheism' denotes: a lack of belief in the absurd. If that was the case—and this has been pointed out many times, so I am only reiterating it here—then you can brand every theist as an atheist. You can say a Christian or a Jew is a Zeus atheist or a Hindu atheist. Yet they don't say such things. They don't define themselves by want they don't believe, but they're more than comfortable in defining us by what we don't believe. And they define it in strictly pejorative terms.

And it's time to end this nonsense.

For too long us non-believers have been on the defensive; it's time we go on the offensive. It's time we stop respecting others' beliefs. Why should we respect someone's belief? Why? Because it's been declared by fiat? Horse-shit. It's time we challenge these people. It's time we no longer sit idly by and watch as Intelligent Design is allowed into our schools, or that stem cell research isn't funded--strictly on religious grounds. And it's time we stop using the word 'atheist.' That's their word, not ours. Leave 'atheism' behind. We don't need it and it doesn't help us.

Currently reading : Livy: The Early History of Rome, Books I-V (Penguin Classics) By Titus Livy Release date: 25 June, 2002

9:21 PM - 2 Comments - 5 Kudos - Add Comment

Kung-Fu Jesus: A Serial Adventure

Kung-Fu Jesus: A Serial Adventure

The Curse of the Golden Phallus

Episode One: Reconnoitering the Romans

Will Jesus attack the Romans? Will they slice and dice him? Or will he prevail? Tune in next week, Kung Fu Jesus fans, for the spectacularly stunning climax.

6:34 PM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Tag! You’re It!

Once you've been tagged you have to write a blog with 10 weird, random, facts, habits or goals about yourself. At the end, choose 10 people to be tagged, list their names and why you tagged them. Don't forget to leave them a comment saying 'you've been tagged" with a link to your blog. You cannot tag the person that tagged you so there.

1. My head is misshapen.
2. My eyes hurt sometimes.
3. I once spent an entire summer reading Finnegans Wake. I didn't understand it, but I laughed my ass off. It is, without a doubt, the funniest book I've ever read, though I could not even begin to explain why it was so funny.
4. I can give you a brief summary of the fall of the Roman Republic from the tribunate of Ti. Sempronius Gracchus in 133 bc down to Marcus Antonius' defeat by Octavian in 31 bc at Actium—an anticlimactic battle, if ever there was one.
5. Sometimes elbows freak me out—and in a totally non-sexual way.
6. I believe platonic love can exist between a man and a spatula—because the good lord knows you can't fuck one. I've tried. On several occasions.
7. The term atheist means nothing. Literally. I don't consider myself one by virtue of the fact that I don't define myself by what I don't believe. If that was the case, you could call a Christian or a Jew a Muslim atheist or a Zeus atheist. I don't believe in the tooth fairy, but I don't call myself an atoothfairyist.
8. Sometimes the sky freaks me out. I keep waiting for it to split open, like a giant Venus Flytrap, and rain spoiled spider carcasses onto the earth.
9. I'm currently researching the history of Rome and have been toying around with learning Latin.
10. There once was a man from Nantucket whose dick was so long he could suck it. He said with a grin, as he wiped off his chin, "If my ear was a cunt I would fuck it." And that man once worked at Taco Bell. It's true. I know because my sister's boyfriend's cousin's uncle's nephew's sister's brother told me, and he never lies. Never.
    

1. Alice—and you have to do a new one.
2. The Marv—you, too, foo'!
3. Elvis Costello
   
4. Bildhauser. Because I like typing his name—and in a totally non-gay way.
5. Peggy
6. Frank
7. Erica
8. G
9. Jeremy C. Shipp
10. John Edward Lawson

6:59 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment