tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34886512413523669152024-03-05T03:46:47.623-05:00Atheist CamelDromedary Humphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14165566701791663057noreply@blogger.comBlogger544125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3488651241352366915.post-31693976026122694512017-06-03T19:41:00.001-04:002017-06-03T19:55:49.763-04:00A Final Blog Post and Call to Arms<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia5P00Wr_HqZw00SdRnl91ImsUuvf3BiBkQHe5a3Jq6IZjbBxjyxQbBXxBxQ_n2wwXVy64ij-VOqQwgEmLiOp_JenOJZBbLw4jjG-YoOmTT37ZtauIZE8c9-mOTf_pzEJup4HH2C85FVM1/s1600/resist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia5P00Wr_HqZw00SdRnl91ImsUuvf3BiBkQHe5a3Jq6IZjbBxjyxQbBXxBxQ_n2wwXVy64ij-VOqQwgEmLiOp_JenOJZBbLw4jjG-YoOmTT37ZtauIZE8c9-mOTf_pzEJup4HH2C85FVM1/s320/resist.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /><br />Dear Faithless Readers,<br /><br />As was obvious by my absence, I have drifted away from my blog. The horrific realities of our current political state have supplanted my religious aversion and activism. While I'll forever hold my atheist and anti-theism position, it pales in comparison to the political threat at hand. Therefore, for the foreseeable future I bid you all adieu, and implore you to keep resisting both religious incursions into our freedom, and the destruction of our nation by oligarchs and traitors from within. <br /><br />Thank you for your readership, your comments, your insights and friendships.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I leave you with this one last thought: <br /><i><br /><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody _1n4g"> <span style="color: blue;">“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is le</span><span style="color: blue;">ss
formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the
traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers
rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government
itself. <br /><br />For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents
familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he
appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He
rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to
undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that
it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.” <br />- Cicero, Roman Statesman 42 CE</span></span></span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody _1n4g"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /><br /><span style="color: black;">Your faithless servant,<br />Dromedary Hump</span><br /></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_lC1k1r62WhN2kslmaarHBFE__HI-pm5dgfWE1t_U6vbjqSEMlUEmHuXiR2hYjLQxdUTYIwRducOc4M6dgk7YltUJAmyaCSM-5KaQFFNF5Mid_2KtKrdyHifwPxYyaPkKz9bHmtdaaaaP/s1600/camel+lone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="685" data-original-width="1024" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_lC1k1r62WhN2kslmaarHBFE__HI-pm5dgfWE1t_U6vbjqSEMlUEmHuXiR2hYjLQxdUTYIwRducOc4M6dgk7YltUJAmyaCSM-5KaQFFNF5Mid_2KtKrdyHifwPxYyaPkKz9bHmtdaaaaP/s400/camel+lone.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /><br /></span>Dromedary Humphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14165566701791663057noreply@blogger.com49tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3488651241352366915.post-8432073441861183972017-01-30T15:33:00.000-05:002017-01-30T15:35:18.152-05:00Voyage of the Damned..lest we forget.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSeYThID6ENMoQZMJ7JgQJzG6z8R-9LRpnCvDGLtGGRu61TselCNTxkFff9jmX_Ua35pNl5dYcLdfV026LgPgOZH0LiCJfVBqhY4pw0T6uF2xj0pfaijtQ5uc5CZzHuXLM4pdvoj2fd46n/s1600/murdered+1939+6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSeYThID6ENMoQZMJ7JgQJzG6z8R-9LRpnCvDGLtGGRu61TselCNTxkFff9jmX_Ua35pNl5dYcLdfV026LgPgOZH0LiCJfVBqhY4pw0T6uF2xj0pfaijtQ5uc5CZzHuXLM4pdvoj2fd46n/s320/murdered+1939+6.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwgEWjzUwEduXY3ScUn-rRbV6wjHUjoB-vxCl2wyE4NTSs7CR_36d3-H1WzoqDTqNxHGdBhjGsBoP_YyoxNySwBE_ooDnB0o1iZgl2_faPB1UQ9FNHkbag-E6i4XwBAof5qvnunZqELL7C/s1600/murdered+1939+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwgEWjzUwEduXY3ScUn-rRbV6wjHUjoB-vxCl2wyE4NTSs7CR_36d3-H1WzoqDTqNxHGdBhjGsBoP_YyoxNySwBE_ooDnB0o1iZgl2_faPB1UQ9FNHkbag-E6i4XwBAof5qvnunZqELL7C/s320/murdered+1939+2.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In 1939 the SS St. Louis left Germany for Cuba. Aboard were over 900 Jewish refugees escaping Nazi Germany. After their two week voyage, Cuba refused them entry. The ship sailed to the US in the hopes of finding sanctuary. They could see the lights of Miami from the vessel.</span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCmKHAjtw4bZu_vnQlYLrBR3O8X4UDBy5iTDXSfifTrgLTkXdoomEEW-l3g0V_z4MHGErSftIeF8ckk82sx63hqQrKnG18guUlQa3oDs02rrovLOfEXPhTjE73yyJIOsSN0VW8ZvyWjxTR/s1600/murdered+1939+7.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCmKHAjtw4bZu_vnQlYLrBR3O8X4UDBy5iTDXSfifTrgLTkXdoomEEW-l3g0V_z4MHGErSftIeF8ckk82sx63hqQrKnG18guUlQa3oDs02rrovLOfEXPhTjE73yyJIOsSN0VW8ZvyWjxTR/s320/murdered+1939+7.jpg" width="203" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMFkBF-uu6P7JU8G4EGsBVfxEyky8LZomxpOSG0MVPrrPlyrluJz-SyZ_Ni5J0KxcbY8kL4wUCtjKr-W0O8o_1-RjYBuqDSBLGZPxhi7D13RoG5vN96NYs0JH246FzuOiRQA7R-I9rl1iP/s1600/murdered+1939+5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMFkBF-uu6P7JU8G4EGsBVfxEyky8LZomxpOSG0MVPrrPlyrluJz-SyZ_Ni5J0KxcbY8kL4wUCtjKr-W0O8o_1-RjYBuqDSBLGZPxhi7D13RoG5vN96NYs0JH246FzuOiRQA7R-I9rl1iP/s320/murdered+1939+5.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The ship's captain, and many of the passengers sent ship to shore cables to the State Department and to President Franklin Roosevelt appealing for refuge. The Sta<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">t</span>e Department told them they must return to Germany and apply for official visas and "wait their turn". The cables to FDR went unanswered. <br /><br />The ship returned to Europe. Four European nations accepted them ... three of whom were eventually over run by the Nazis. </span> <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQEzV-05t00ub4eAg0Xr_rPFYCvk6rA23LvakvuQQPlFiiC3Lnw8ja6Ly56ipFymFMekFT2VTmnTzdnIyg1JacP7dEsT_R_uGDTkoov5xe8jiC3E0S0PzhPpsHODViecxFjibg-KyUluR6/s1600/murdered+1939+3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQEzV-05t00ub4eAg0Xr_rPFYCvk6rA23LvakvuQQPlFiiC3Lnw8ja6Ly56ipFymFMekFT2VTmnTzdnIyg1JacP7dEsT_R_uGDTkoov5xe8jiC3E0S0PzhPpsHODViecxFjibg-KyUluR6/s320/murdered+1939+3.jpg" width="197" /></a><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">By the end of the war, 257 of those 900 refugees would die in Nazi concentration camps and be fed into the ovens. Here are some of their pictures. You don't need to know their names, just remember what religious prejudice and hate and fear can do, and that with all our desires to be "Great Again", we failed miserably at greatness in 1939. We're failing miserably at greatness again in 2017. <br /><br /><span style="color: blue;"><b>Write your senators, your congressperson. Tell them, the world is watching.</b></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMFUuoG4kjMvV8RG26qUuXuIK2_a9Opf0UMjnJ4DcLlp5x7UEKkRPTaHf4bka_d6rTuyhYOFk_XBEX394koqasNRJYXg00H1_AJ6FSaDrjf1B3z1GGF6RzCRYilRwUQG6tCEAcp2aus7s8/s1600/murdered+1939+4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMFUuoG4kjMvV8RG26qUuXuIK2_a9Opf0UMjnJ4DcLlp5x7UEKkRPTaHf4bka_d6rTuyhYOFk_XBEX394koqasNRJYXg00H1_AJ6FSaDrjf1B3z1GGF6RzCRYilRwUQG6tCEAcp2aus7s8/s320/murdered+1939+4.jpg" width="219" /></a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipEdu4ZjuzLcdyppjcF7-4a1dPtT6rYTBMyNRwRuzyPZCVUCgv4i3ftDH4UloOXKeHvw7xXQerD_HptpWv_RHWrd0ULVYbx9B6WP5NycjdRyRFGB87_QDYKJ1PCrUhFDlQycs2ByZd5m1j/s1600/Murdered+1939+1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipEdu4ZjuzLcdyppjcF7-4a1dPtT6rYTBMyNRwRuzyPZCVUCgv4i3ftDH4UloOXKeHvw7xXQerD_HptpWv_RHWrd0ULVYbx9B6WP5NycjdRyRFGB87_QDYKJ1PCrUhFDlQycs2ByZd5m1j/s320/Murdered+1939+1.jpg" width="220" /></a><br />
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<br />Dromedary Humphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14165566701791663057noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3488651241352366915.post-9306515772058905542017-01-28T18:04:00.002-05:002017-01-28T18:06:11.394-05:00Rage against the kidnapping of Liberty.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhJpxD7P0nzMjhExxJcharl3thyphenhyphenNIb-_4d-0jEkPBI3iCX7ytqiC08VN_4RQuJyaEfzBnfud5tsebOVUWUcTLk2g86a7-ZOMFWs_-QowrDeIRZwa0t-YwGcdX08RBRG704f-4uX72MZvrU/s1600/lady+liberty+in+chains.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhJpxD7P0nzMjhExxJcharl3thyphenhyphenNIb-_4d-0jEkPBI3iCX7ytqiC08VN_4RQuJyaEfzBnfud5tsebOVUWUcTLk2g86a7-ZOMFWs_-QowrDeIRZwa0t-YwGcdX08RBRG704f-4uX72MZvrU/s400/lady+liberty+in+chains.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">After
today's executive action banning Muslims from entry we have crossed a
threshold I never thought we'd see again after the Japanese internment
during WWII, and our turning away of Jewish refugees - sending them back
to their deaths in Europe.<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> History will judge us harshly for
this, and we deserve it as a nation. We are no longer the "land of the
free", nor "home of the brave". That faded on January 20, 2017 and
disappeared today. <br /><b><br /> Contact your senators and congressperson. Tell
them to rage against this injustice and those that will surely follow. And may the
Founders forgive us.</b></span></div>
Dromedary Humphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14165566701791663057noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3488651241352366915.post-87130157772929113202017-01-27T13:20:00.001-05:002017-01-27T16:17:39.621-05:00How much further can we fall as a nation of liberty? Here's a hint: <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRUJmM2Vmy6bBZNT0cTVRyRg5YJJo18-rMb7wyTGPPzADSBTuBnjA34E6Yb8wo7iYJfNKkkeC6tDfhyphenhyphendp-ygpXEpQRGf0fDoS7WfbeAu95pSEjW1Y_MZ2dUJcWRILISXi0DpdLKHIj27Ta/s1600/Jewish+criminals.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRUJmM2Vmy6bBZNT0cTVRyRg5YJJo18-rMb7wyTGPPzADSBTuBnjA34E6Yb8wo7iYJfNKkkeC6tDfhyphenhyphendp-ygpXEpQRGf0fDoS7WfbeAu95pSEjW1Y_MZ2dUJcWRILISXi0DpdLKHIj27Ta/s400/Jewish+criminals.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />Trump has declared he will be releasing the names of immigrants who commit crimes in the US. Click on <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-publish-weekly-list-crimes-immigrants-commit-refugees-aliens-executive-order-us-a7546826.html">"here" </a> for the whole story. </b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Anyone who is blind to what is happening is ignorant. Anyone who isn't horrified by what this represents spits on the graves and the memory of every member of "The Greatest Generation" who sacrificed and died fighting fascism in Europe. Those who do not speak out against it deserve every condemnation that history heaps upon them. <br /><br />Perhaps it's just by chance that Trump announced this "initiative"today; it's </b></span><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Holocaust Remembrance Day. <br /><span style="color: blue;"><br />"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana.</span></b></span>Dromedary Humphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14165566701791663057noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3488651241352366915.post-33564118938311071452017-01-18T09:17:00.001-05:002017-01-18T09:17:16.384-05:00End of an Era...Beginning of an Error<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXt4uCpw190m-v_-CfqX2hzGMDmDf6ro78h0PUZ5VB-1GoEtqEZcB7euIsyi0VWpdgcJJivRl39bH1Ujm54Bx0khg_UnlaVHQnaN100rpjvQzdueMEdH0-8oPZS4auS265Gx5-1lCTuthV/s1600/Obama+America.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXt4uCpw190m-v_-CfqX2hzGMDmDf6ro78h0PUZ5VB-1GoEtqEZcB7euIsyi0VWpdgcJJivRl39bH1Ujm54Bx0khg_UnlaVHQnaN100rpjvQzdueMEdH0-8oPZS4auS265Gx5-1lCTuthV/s640/Obama+America.jpg" width="432" /></a></div>
<br />Dromedary Humphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14165566701791663057noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3488651241352366915.post-26054412575965404252016-12-29T18:53:00.000-05:002016-12-29T18:53:05.212-05:00Important New Book: Women Beyond Belief<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8Fi_ZlgAHMO91e3QQOJzCAbelFi0SCPLl1li2U8uYMduNvzR1knmSitXnQcz60o8et_BoCf_uTZ2UNb2M0p3WdAIVRK6YLmTy3Mdl7a8pLAFBn50Gc-8iC4kh12BlUpyUDNA_jiUYa3vl/s1600/women+beyond+belief+book+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8Fi_ZlgAHMO91e3QQOJzCAbelFi0SCPLl1li2U8uYMduNvzR1knmSitXnQcz60o8et_BoCf_uTZ2UNb2M0p3WdAIVRK6YLmTy3Mdl7a8pLAFBn50Gc-8iC4kh12BlUpyUDNA_jiUYa3vl/s400/women+beyond+belief+book+cover.jpg" width="258" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />When I read a book that I think my readers will enjoy and benefit from, I like to share the good news. "<i>Women Beyond Belief</i>" is one of those books. <br /><br />Karen
L. Garst has compiled twenty-two essays into a book entitled “<i>Women Beyond
Belief: Discovering Life without Religion</i>,” which can be found on
Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and bookstores. Dr. Garst became incensed when
the U. S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby
in 2014. This decision said that because of its religious views, Hobby
Lobby, a craft store, would not be obligated to follow the dictates of
the Affordable Care Act and provide certain forms of birth control to
its employees. “Will we never end the fight for women’s reproductive
rights?” Garst stated. Once again, religion has influenced the laws of
our land. Politicians cite their religion in supporting restrictions on
abortion, banning funding for Planned Parenthood, and a host of other
issues that are against women. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> The mainstays of the modern atheist movement - Richard Dawkins,
Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett - came with
backgrounds in science and philosophy. They launched a renewed effort to
show people how destructive religion can be and how all Abrahamic
religions are based upon a late Bronze Age / Iron Age mythology, borrowing from other
mythologies of the time. Dr. Garst wants to add a focus
on women and the role this mythology has played in the culture of many
countries to denigrate and subordinate women. She states that <i>“Religion
is the last cultural barrier to gender equality.</i>” And she is right. More
and more women atheists are speaking out. And as we all know, if women
leave the churches, they will collapse.<br /><br />The twenty-two essays are all written by women who describe their journeys and experiences from religion to reason. They are varied and compelling. Here is an excerpt from one of the contributors:</span><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<b><span style="color: blue;">“But at the end of the day, I kept coming back to one simple realization: I
fundamentally did not believe that one religion (Christianity) could tell another
religion (Hinduism) that it was wrong, that its deities did not exist, that its
moral compass was askew, that the beliefs of its people—while noble—did not
coincide with the lord-and-savior Jesus Christ and his father-in-heaven God,
and therefore could not possibly be valid. <br /><br />To me, Hinduism embraced beliefs and
morals and a lifestyle that was so much more relatable and beautiful than
anything Christianity, even in the Seventh Day Adventist form, had ever taught
me. The thought of discounting all of it to adhere to a religion that I was
essentially born into by way of my geographic location was completely backward.
I couldn’t get over the notion that devout faith to one religion obliterates
the ability to believe in another, despite the fact that so many millions of
Hindus formulated their realities and structured their (in my opinion much more
meritorious) belief systems based on those religious principles.”</span></b> Taylor Duty <br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span> <br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Dr.Garst has received
support with reviews by Richard Dawkins, Valerie Tarico, Peter
Boghossian, Sikivu Hutchinson and other atheist authors. <br /><br />If you know of a friend or family member who may be struggling with their religious upbringing, and who may benefit in their transition into reason and reality by the sharing of these stories you'd be doing them a great service. I don't think you'll find a better resource. I found it eye opening and very revealing, myself having not been raised in a religious environment thus never having experienced the escape to modernity and reasoning. <br /><br />I encourage you to check out Dr. Garst’s blog at www.faithlessfeminist.com and consider pre-ordering this excellent book. </span><br />
<br /><br />Dromedary Humphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14165566701791663057noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3488651241352366915.post-40010069508289651012016-12-23T13:54:00.001-05:002016-12-23T13:54:50.539-05:00Happy Holidays<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCLONHPUpSQLYMxG4LdRfXPZOqwK2PQ1UVCFuyxqSE71jyPBpw_cnEG1XOwffWGwhxpTNmblQPSxC327DrViVNwGFaLHR_3RNIippubZ9jF0agA0HXrvD4ImfMAEYC4ZDRmZY42PoppWfW/s1600/camel+santa+hat+2016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCLONHPUpSQLYMxG4LdRfXPZOqwK2PQ1UVCFuyxqSE71jyPBpw_cnEG1XOwffWGwhxpTNmblQPSxC327DrViVNwGFaLHR_3RNIippubZ9jF0agA0HXrvD4ImfMAEYC4ZDRmZY42PoppWfW/s1600/camel+santa+hat+2016.jpg" /></a></div>
<br /><span style="color: blue;"><b><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Wishing you and your family a happy holiday, and a better 2017.<br />Stay safe.</span> </span></b></span>Dromedary Humphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14165566701791663057noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3488651241352366915.post-81971115974553328172016-12-22T15:23:00.002-05:002016-12-22T15:23:47.302-05:00On Defamation and Veneration<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkd2CeaqV9AmBWIWM5IIphJSteHvx_QPD5gqaNPXWcLKoHeGiR7P5THgsSJMVgchY4sEppqxJHe3wxEPZ-p5W5TUKFBB4r_7dbMZeVxN5_S-oMPKjZ8vPd0KDS9psPymfGD8MUz4oESkNz/s1600/trump+thank+you+jesus.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkd2CeaqV9AmBWIWM5IIphJSteHvx_QPD5gqaNPXWcLKoHeGiR7P5THgsSJMVgchY4sEppqxJHe3wxEPZ-p5W5TUKFBB4r_7dbMZeVxN5_S-oMPKjZ8vPd0KDS9psPymfGD8MUz4oESkNz/s320/trump+thank+you+jesus.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span class="uficommentbody1n4g">I listened as they
called my President a Muslim.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">I listened as they called him and his family a
pack of monkeys.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">I listened as they said he wasn't born here.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">I watched as they blocked every single path to
progress that they could.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">I saw the pictures of him as Hitler.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">I watched them shut down the government and hurt
the entire nation... twice.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">I watched them turn their backs on every
opportunity to open worthwhile dialog.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">I watched them say that they would not even
listen to any choice for Supreme Court no matter who the nominee was.</span>
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">I listened as they openly said that they will
oppose him at every turn.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">I watched as they did just that.<br /></span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">I listened.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">I watched.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">I paid attention.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">Now, I'm being called on to be tolerant.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">To move forward.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">To denounce protesters.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">To "Get over it."</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">To accept this...</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">I will not.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">I will do my part to make sure this great
American mistake becomes the embarrassing footnote of our history that it
deserves to be.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">I will do this as quickly as possible every
chance I get.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">I will do my part to limit the damage that this
man can do to my country.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">I will watch his every move and point out every
single mistake and misdeed in a loud and proud voice.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">I will let you know in a loud voice every time
this man backs away from a promise he made to them.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">Them. The people who voted for him.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">The ones who sold their souls and prayed for him
to win.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">I will do this so that they never forget.<br /></span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">And they will hear me.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">They will see it in my eyes when I look at them.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">They will hear it in my voice when I talk to
them.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">They will know that I know who they are.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">They will know that I know what they are.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">Do not call for my tolerance. I've tolerated all
I can.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">Now it's their turn to tolerate ridicule.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">Be aware, make no mistake about it, every single
thing that goes wrong in our country from this day forward is now Trump's fault
just as much as they thought it was Obama's.</span><br />
<span class="uficommentbody1n4g">I find it unreasonable for them to expect from
me what they were entirely unwilling to give.<br />
</span><br />
</span><span class="uficommentbody1n4g"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Author unknown</span>.</span></div>
<br />Dromedary Humphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14165566701791663057noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3488651241352366915.post-1442836037022280202016-12-10T18:19:00.003-05:002016-12-10T18:19:37.839-05:00Treason, Thy Name is Trump.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZKdRJhUWHh6YA-sofIi2bK24Ie8kIzGMmduTpxc0aJPMsc_k7RvuRp9ItGogj5JumQccnqsTvewDqO8v1Aw7TzAz9YRzjatMwNir8ORZ9H4iE2TGcJbjmjjRztZQcxzvwgVd3qtS-gH2u/s1600/trump+treason+cartoon.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZKdRJhUWHh6YA-sofIi2bK24Ie8kIzGMmduTpxc0aJPMsc_k7RvuRp9ItGogj5JumQccnqsTvewDqO8v1Aw7TzAz9YRzjatMwNir8ORZ9H4iE2TGcJbjmjjRztZQcxzvwgVd3qtS-gH2u/s400/trump+treason+cartoon.png" width="258" /></a></div>
<br /><br /><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"LOCK HER UP!" was the constant chant of the mindless all through the
election as their Fuehrer egged them on. <br /><br />I say now the chant we should
embrace is "HANG THE TRAITOR!" and keep chanting it until he's tried and
convicted, along with any of his handlers who participated in or knew of
the Russian meddling. <br /><br />If hanging was good enough for Mussolini it's good
enough for him.</span></b>Dromedary Humphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14165566701791663057noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3488651241352366915.post-79883450311068894342016-11-29T09:57:00.001-05:002016-11-29T09:59:13.271-05:00And so it begins....<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFECNHKGOr8XhwQwLLMPEd4XQQKHAFYrUPl0cu0zkIsiDaW7Kp6qH0jMMEoVfFMD5WiQtk7m49Gk06mdkw0bzc2woDZhlt1dLTQu8KtCaUusbJ5L1RWZODYhD0zBTGyWZRuyxknV2aZxYJ/s1600/republican-fascism.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFECNHKGOr8XhwQwLLMPEd4XQQKHAFYrUPl0cu0zkIsiDaW7Kp6qH0jMMEoVfFMD5WiQtk7m49Gk06mdkw0bzc2woDZhlt1dLTQu8KtCaUusbJ5L1RWZODYhD0zBTGyWZRuyxknV2aZxYJ/s320/republican-fascism.jpg" width="215" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/11/29/trump-suggests-loss-of-citizenship-or-jail-for-those-who-burn-u-s-flags/"><br />Trump suggests loss of citizenship or jail for those who burn U.S. flags</a></span><br />
<br />
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/11/29/trump-suggests-loss-of-citizenship-or-jail-for-those-who-burn-u-s-flags/<br />
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<br />Dromedary Humphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14165566701791663057noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3488651241352366915.post-17700589027411563442016-11-28T19:48:00.000-05:002016-11-28T19:48:00.435-05:00An appeal for a real response to an obscene reality<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPnhs2WNPEwifKDGwki9W8op0cVaDzoNBKUf1hfx8TvIKYVJGmzdvG3TptbO2ETwekYNBHxkCGp_3usTfLtMYlUqntbLAXNLt5MRYkVJpg3Fel-pPAQzUCvIf-GWKx_qIBc7Uv-sN5L2Be/s1600/american_fascism_by_fametsuri_.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPnhs2WNPEwifKDGwki9W8op0cVaDzoNBKUf1hfx8TvIKYVJGmzdvG3TptbO2ETwekYNBHxkCGp_3usTfLtMYlUqntbLAXNLt5MRYkVJpg3Fel-pPAQzUCvIf-GWKx_qIBc7Uv-sN5L2Be/s400/american_fascism_by_fametsuri_.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">On Facebook people are posting hysterical admonishments that we must "stop Trump from being inaugurated!". As if by posting memes and signing petitions it will make one iota of difference. One may as well pray to stop it, for all the good that will do.<br /><br />The reality is he's not going to be stopped. He was duly elected. And if by some ridiculously remote chance the electoral college electors do not cast their votes for him, more than likely Pence would end up in the Oval Office. No improvement there. <br />
<br />I deal in reality as ugly as it may be, not wishful thinking. Therefore, if we really want to do something feasible, actionable, and meaningful in response to the obscenity that will befall this nation on January 20, I urge everyone to make a donation to the <a href="https://action.aclu.org/secure/protect-peoples-rights-liberties?s_src=UNW160001SEM&alt_src=UNV160001SEM&ms=gad_SEM_Google_Search-Evergreen-ACLU%20Brand-4_SLK4_aclu_p_163229547762">ACLU</a>, and/or <a href="https://secure.ppaction.org/site/Donation2;jsessionid=D653AB03BA2F09BD7DE15E3C3C1C2E0E.app20108b?df_id=12913&12913.donation=form1&s_src=Evergreen_c3_PPNonDirected_shorturl">Planned Parenthood</a>, and/or the <a href="https://ffrf.org/donate">Freedom From Religion Foundation</a>, and/ or <a href="https://support.au.org/">Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.</a><br /><br /> <b>They are going to need our support now more than ever.</b></span>Dromedary Humphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14165566701791663057noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3488651241352366915.post-86095423495611148702016-11-09T18:21:00.002-05:002016-11-09T18:21:49.681-05:00An Apology to the Free World<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmFmbiN_130bK13Q1RpMYzvVauzhfDtp4VGfuml9rIjP7iM0FiFCoHSWiU5tImjgPye6noSkDNLxwmLQJN7tvqSl3wqdhSsyP3NsKt5PRd79Ji4t9xE3a7xNVFDcAe54MHKvgVmn0SJqYe/s1600/thomas+jefferson+quote.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQXZc0rOR28CZSd9GhBl_vcmxYWt9jfk2ZvGPR5IZHMeTHJZu4zYW3JdJcudp-LAtHyQ9bJHX2GajgTH-X2JSD38MZZxUN6v2g0SGjRmKieleg1rUXqfYZ341KezKmUrWGxbdKUBfykRoc/s1600/Alamo+meme+Land+of+Free+Asylum+for+stupid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQXZc0rOR28CZSd9GhBl_vcmxYWt9jfk2ZvGPR5IZHMeTHJZu4zYW3JdJcudp-LAtHyQ9bJHX2GajgTH-X2JSD38MZZxUN6v2g0SGjRmKieleg1rUXqfYZ341KezKmUrWGxbdKUBfykRoc/s320/Alamo+meme+Land+of+Free+Asylum+for+stupid.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #0000ee;"><b><span style="color: black;">The fools have had their say, they have anointed their champion</span></b><span style="color: #0000ee;"><b><span style="color: black;">; and now the world will pay the price. </span></b><span style="color: #0000ee;"><b><span style="color: black;">I'm sorry, World.</span></b><span style="color: #0000ee;"><b><span style="color: black;"> Forgive us. They know not what they do. </span></b></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #0000ee;"><span style="color: #0000ee;"><span style="color: #0000ee;"><span style="color: #0000ee;"><br /></span></span></span><u> </u></span>And to those who would congratulate the winners, who seek to reconcile, and who use Jefferson's quote as a means of assuring their under educated-right wing-Jesus loving-gun totin'- racist-angry white brethren of no hard feelings I say FUCK THAT!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmFmbiN_130bK13Q1RpMYzvVauzhfDtp4VGfuml9rIjP7iM0FiFCoHSWiU5tImjgPye6noSkDNLxwmLQJN7tvqSl3wqdhSsyP3NsKt5PRd79Ji4t9xE3a7xNVFDcAe54MHKvgVmn0SJqYe/s1600/thomas+jefferson+quote.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /><br /><img border="0" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmFmbiN_130bK13Q1RpMYzvVauzhfDtp4VGfuml9rIjP7iM0FiFCoHSWiU5tImjgPye6noSkDNLxwmLQJN7tvqSl3wqdhSsyP3NsKt5PRd79Ji4t9xE3a7xNVFDcAe54MHKvgVmn0SJqYe/s320/thomas+jefferson+quote.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I wonder how magnanimous Thomas Jefferson would have been if he was
Jewish, lived In 1930's Germany, and his "friend" endorsed the "final
solution". Or if he was Black, and his white "friend" joined the KKK. Or
if he was of Japanese descent in 1942 USA, and his "friend" endorsed
internment for Japanese-Americans.<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> No... it's one thing to
disagree on the size of a budget, or foreign affairs, or the running of a
pipeline, et al... But it's a whole 'nuther thing to embrace
someone who holds in contempt human rights, human dignity, and the
sanctity of the freedoms this nation was founded upon. <br />I'll have none of
it. <br /> And none of them.</span><br />
<br />Dromedary Humphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14165566701791663057noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3488651241352366915.post-13268267056205938862016-11-06T18:45:00.002-05:002016-11-06T18:45:13.251-05:00A final thought before November 8<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu9uXHVn8rlSxufLlVaifs9DNqM1hok2Q4O0JhpL7ESB2QTxn009e0rVd3PHpIZahsgjK98knKc1YMPrDbjwFrcTBOMJnPanLRZ-HnhvWTFdcVIxjO9mUZVhONBqHEOTvZDPInL70MgdgM/s1600/Dear+Americans.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu9uXHVn8rlSxufLlVaifs9DNqM1hok2Q4O0JhpL7ESB2QTxn009e0rVd3PHpIZahsgjK98knKc1YMPrDbjwFrcTBOMJnPanLRZ-HnhvWTFdcVIxjO9mUZVhONBqHEOTvZDPInL70MgdgM/s400/Dear+Americans.jpg" width="350" /></a></div>
<br />Dromedary Humphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14165566701791663057noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3488651241352366915.post-41901683852783775692016-10-05T19:10:00.000-04:002016-10-05T19:13:18.634-04:00Have these Jews forgotten what Fascism looks like?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTCPWQgyiI_o86GLSajy246-PvkQjqZ3kQ8zVKZVEChvShvqE4uE_FMEYAqUrvscJhKuSbjg1z_jZxI8mfC_N7kCF3ASXBiPUIZlLrz14d1eMjX9oj1OibvbInux1jiy2kjzuQlGlBcrIo/s1600/jewish+collaborators.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTCPWQgyiI_o86GLSajy246-PvkQjqZ3kQ8zVKZVEChvShvqE4uE_FMEYAqUrvscJhKuSbjg1z_jZxI8mfC_N7kCF3ASXBiPUIZlLrz14d1eMjX9oj1OibvbInux1jiy2kjzuQlGlBcrIo/s400/jewish+collaborators.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">According to the Religion News Service, Jewish voters favor Clinton over Trump by a wide margin. Here's the key extract:<br /><span style="color: blue;"><b><br />"... 61 percent of Jewish adults said Clinton and 19 percent picked GOP nominee Trump in the American Jewish Committee <a href="http://www.ajc.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=7oJILSPwFfJSG&b=9302337&ct=14924017&notoc=1" target="_blank">survey</a>." </b> <a href="http://religionnews.com/2016/09/14/poll-jewish-voters-support-clinton-over-trump-by-3-1-ratio/">Whole story here.</a><b><br /></b></span>All well and good. But it begs the question: What exactly do the remaining 19% of Jewish voters see in a Trump presidency? According to the article, some are annoyed by the nuclear deal the US and our allies made with Iran, but can that really account for almost one in five Jews preferring the obscenity, xenophobia, and fascist like concepts Trump has expressed as his platform? <br /><br />Having come from a Jewish family, one that lost relatives in the Holocaust, the similarity between Trump's programs ...one might say "solutions" ... to our national ills is so blatantly fascist that it makes one blanch, or should.<br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It includes singling out of minorities, Mexicans, Muslims and Blacks. According to Trump he'd reinstate water boarding ("enhanced interrogation" is the nice term), profiling, and "stop and frisk" (which has been declared unconstitutional). How one can hear that, read that, and not think: "I vant to see your papers mein herr!" baffles me. <br /><br />Oh but of course, anyone who is or looks black or Muslim or Mexican has to be up to something. His declaration that Muslims know more than they tell, that we must treat Muslim "neighborhoods" differently; that every illegal Mexican is a rapist or criminal (after all "someone is doing all the raping!") and must be rounded up; that Blacks are their own worst enemy and are the highest crime producing people in the nation...all of it speaks of demonization, of scapegoating that smacks of totalitarianism. <br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">How does an educated Jew who knows anything about the Holocaust accept the singling out of minorities today, any more than they would have accept the singling out of Gypsies, Jews, the physically handicapped, the Trade Unionists, the Socialists in Germany and then across Europe? <br /><br />Can it truly be <b><i><span style="color: red;">"Well, I'm not a Black, or Mexican or Muslim, so what do I care?."</span></i></b> Can 75 years of time have really blunted the horror that such "special treatment" and "solutions" delivered? Can they really embrace the<b><span style="color: red;"> <i>"It can't happen here."</i></span></b><i> </i>fallacy? Can those 19% of Jews be so callous or so blind or so hateful that they'll readily wear the same emblem that their ancestors' persecutors wore in the last century, just invisibly?<br /><br /><span style="color: blue;"><b>No explanation or commitment to other national issues could justify this obscenity among people who shouldn't have to think twice about it. 1 in 5 Jews will vote for Trump!!?? It's enough to make me ashamed of my Jewish roots. </b></span> <br /> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span>Dromedary Humphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14165566701791663057noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3488651241352366915.post-85194453913821878602016-09-29T17:13:00.002-04:002016-09-29T18:17:35.344-04:00A dear friend's appeal on behalf of Trump. I still love him never the less.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz7-_qVcLK-zDmOdy6cRWin9J4T1S7Ew39nO_0R5Luxm42AiVJxjwsdYnhAAHyQ0N_F58arclwwITpu1NErXWKYzcw9xM1rBAdF-N5hLwL8Lkwcq_CllaI5UbYQBMk3VRnMSdO0K8FY4Wg/s1600/trump+guns.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz7-_qVcLK-zDmOdy6cRWin9J4T1S7Ew39nO_0R5Luxm42AiVJxjwsdYnhAAHyQ0N_F58arclwwITpu1NErXWKYzcw9xM1rBAdF-N5hLwL8Lkwcq_CllaI5UbYQBMk3VRnMSdO0K8FY4Wg/s320/trump+guns.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">He's my childhood friend. Fifty-five years we've known each other - caroused, hunted, camped, fished, and almost died canoeing and driving while under various influences. I love him like a brother. <br /><br />But, alas, he has never quite shaken off the <b><span style="color: red;"><i>"Guns and taxes is all I give a shit about, and fuck them welfare niggers, ragheads and queers who hate America!" </i></span></b>mentality. A mentality that I must confess I once shared, a long time ago in another life. I oft received obscene and racist mass email mailings replete with gross cartoons or photograph meme's from him, evidently part of the stuff he regularly receives from his similarly racist and right wing New York friends. Happily he respected my request to be removed from that distribution. <br /> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><u>Today I received this email from him:</u><br /> <span style="color: red;"><b>"Pal the next president will be appointing at least one probably 2
supreme court justices.. I don’t think even you will like Clinton’s
choices.. You gotta vote Trump."</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> <br /><u>My response: </u><span class="text_exposed_show"><br /><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b>"Thanks... but I don't vote for infantile, hateful, narcissistic,
sociopath, misogynistic, xenophobic, racist, fascistic, inveterate liar
reality stars for president. If I did it would be Charlie Sheen ... a
coke head who always thought he was "WINNING" too. </b></span></span></span><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /><br />And I'll settle for any Supreme Court justice who isn't 'in the mold of' Scalia
or Thomas. <br /><br />No... I'll stick with the hideously elitist phony woman with
international experience and a modicum of mental stability who doesn't
fuck her own daughter. But..,I do appreciate your advice...as always."<br /></b><span style="color: black;">I don't expect a reply. I hope there isn't one since I have exactly no interest in engaging in debate on this. I'll always love him, I'll always be there for him ...but I mourn the passing of time that has left him so many years behind the evolutionary progress of civility and reasoned thought. <br /><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Meanwhile, <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">T</span>rump demands that non-Christians identify themselves during a rally, and invites the attendees to vote on whether they should be allowed to stay. Just think about that ... the implications on a broader scale. That any thinking person can't see what he is and be repelled <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">speaks <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">to<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></span>the spiral into fascism with which our nation is flirting. It<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">disgusts and horrifies me. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-non-christians-raise-hand_us_57ec9600e4b024a52d2ce788"> Whole story here</a> </span></span></span></span></span>Dromedary Humphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14165566701791663057noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3488651241352366915.post-77233903967047897992016-09-13T19:48:00.000-04:002016-09-13T20:11:56.398-04:00FLASH: The Catholic Church Steps Up to the Plate on Ending Clergy Child Abuse. LOL ... Just Kidding!!!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSrwJHZK3ZtSPA8kAufo7-TpIGOycwEyWE7-zDG5pEkhI22fd4d2wL9EB0dBexEofK12jqDkK6yLL6QlbIKt2mQKMNlBXj73q6TOKqMBs6DJaUKWCFvhOODo4ssxrNEpm8EiBwpmpkPFE4/s1600/child+molesting+priest.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="161" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSrwJHZK3ZtSPA8kAufo7-TpIGOycwEyWE7-zDG5pEkhI22fd4d2wL9EB0dBexEofK12jqDkK6yLL6QlbIKt2mQKMNlBXj73q6TOKqMBs6DJaUKWCFvhOODo4ssxrNEpm8EiBwpmpkPFE4/s320/child+molesting+priest.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /><br />In case you didn't hear, the Catholic Church's commission and advisory board to the pope on ending clergy sexual abuse of children has made a major stride in fixing the problem that has plagued this cabal of sex perverts and hypocrites for centuries. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-catholic-church-is-taking-a-big-step-to-curb-sex-abuse_us_57d855cce4b0fbd4b7bc0a91?section=&section=us_religion">The whole story here.</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />This intensive plan that will no doubt flush the child molesting priests and bishops out of their ranks once and for all is pretty much summarized in this one sentence: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>"Following a week of meetings in Rome, the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors <a data-beacon="{"p":{"mnid":"entry_text","lnid":"citation","mpid":1,"plid":"commission_for_the_protection_of_minors_holds_plenary/1257479"}}" href="http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2016/09/12/commission_for_the_protection_of_minors_holds_plenary/1257479" target="_blank">announced</a> several new initiatives, <span style="color: red;">including a training program for bishops and a day of prayer for victims of sex abuse."</span></b>Hey, don't scoff. At least it's better than the all too telling quote by Bishop Robert Cunningham last year as shown under his photo above.<b><span style="color: blue;"><br /></span></b></span></span><br />
<div id="stcpDiv" style="left: -1988px; position: absolute; top: -1999px;">
Bishop Robert Cunningham</div>
<div id="stcpDiv" style="left: -1988px; position: absolute; top: -1999px;">
Bishop Robert Cunningham</div>
<div id="stcpDiv" style="left: -1988px; position: absolute; top: -1999px;">
Bishop Robert Cunningham</div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="color: blue;">Yup... it's been a long time coming, but there it is: </span><u><span style="color: blue;"><i>training and prayer.</i></span></u><span style="color: blue;"> Bam! Why didn't I think of that? I'm sure this will come as a welcome sea change to the tens of thousands of victims left in wake of the deaf, dumb, blind, sick, and utterly ludicrous Catholic Church. I for one am glad THAT's over. </span><span style="color: red;"><br /></span></b></span></span>Dromedary Humphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14165566701791663057noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3488651241352366915.post-63483010927136076932016-09-03T19:54:00.002-04:002016-09-03T19:54:29.063-04:00Behold... Born Unto You This Day, the Holy Potato. Let us pray.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br /><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />So... they slice open a potato, and lo and behold an execution device appears, placed there evidently by their God of Potato Messages. It's immediately declared a "divine presence" by this group of aging and obviously senile Catholics. <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/montreal/holy-potato-seniors-residence-quebec-1.3745333">Read all about it here</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />Seriously? A signal from God? And he sends it inside a fricking tuber, because he's what... Irish? or maybe because he yearns for some tater tots? <br /> <br />Never mind that it's a commonly recognized disease that causes the death and thus darkening of cells inside of the potato. Never mind all that normal reasonable scientific fact of freekin agriculture, it's a sign from Gawd! It's a "Miracle"!<br /><br /><b><span style="color: blue;">I fully expect that potato to be canonized. It would be just as deserved of that nonsensical mumbo jumbo as is Mother Teresa. In fact...maybe even more so. At least the potato didn't prolong, and take satisfaction in, the suffering of dying patients. Catholics. Ya just gotta shake your head. </span></b>. </span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Dromedary Humphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14165566701791663057noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3488651241352366915.post-18510624687935252582016-08-28T20:24:00.000-04:002016-08-28T21:26:33.720-04:00Dissent: UnAmerican, or a Patriotic Duty? <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody _1n4g">I
consider myself patriotic. But not blindly so. I love this country,
with all its faults and inequities. I'd rather live nowhere else. If
called upon to genuinely defend this nation ... I mean for real this
time ... I'd do so without hesitation.<br /><br />But
those who see </span></span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody _1n4g"><span class="st">San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick's</span> act of dissent by refusing to stand for the anthem out of protest over how this nation treats people of color, as being worthy of punishment or
worse, are false patriots. <br /><br />I'm seeing it from the<b> "</b></span></span><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="UFICommentBody _1n4g"><b>LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT!"</b> crowd; whites who have never known prejudice; people to whom the concept of <b><i>"something is amiss in this nation, let's try and make it better, more fair for everyone"</i></b> is just plain unpatriotic. They are the ones who spit on the very Constitution they claim
to love. They are blind patriots ... and ignorant.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When I got back from Vietnam I wasn't exactly grateful for the fact the
US had lied to me and sent me there under a false premise. I was young
and angry. <br /><br />Soon after my return home I went to a movie with the future Mrs. Hump. Back in '69 they played the National Anthem before the film. I refused to
stand for the anthem. An old guy behind me growls: <b><i>"Show some respect for your country."</i> </b> I almost lost it but I didn't . I said seething through my clinched
teeth. <b><i>"I got back from Nam two months ago fighting for a lie this </i></b><span class="text_exposed_show"><b><i>country sold us; so unless you're man enough to make me stand go fuck yourself."</i></b><br /><br />I don't regret it. Neither my act of dissent, nor my retort. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> And that's about all I have to say about that football player's right
to express his dissent and his dissatisfaction with how people of color are
treated in this nation. Other than to say I support his action of conscience ... and his courage. <br /></span> <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-zuGwtJMj83gCg8J44xVh8MtthfwMKYN6OAVTsGgj5pHCYO49hRivUNdaCC7K-isG5FpxNjuqk3q3W8-ltCk-zf5bMcYh3vyfeZxPmMQn-N3RoYgnPRJoSaSipvs10cSCoxb2CQ47dz29/s1600/dissent.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-zuGwtJMj83gCg8J44xVh8MtthfwMKYN6OAVTsGgj5pHCYO49hRivUNdaCC7K-isG5FpxNjuqk3q3W8-ltCk-zf5bMcYh3vyfeZxPmMQn-N3RoYgnPRJoSaSipvs10cSCoxb2CQ47dz29/s320/dissent.jpg" width="247" /></a></span> </div>
Dromedary Humphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14165566701791663057noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3488651241352366915.post-74694375526054358322016-08-25T19:38:00.001-04:002016-08-25T19:38:30.491-04:00France: Making Secularism Look Idiotic One Moronic Law at a Time <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6c12c16de16ad492a3fbb6ff90fffdd148014329/0_142_4252_2551/master/4252.jpg?w=620&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=356bb017f4034870c72e28c869707e7c" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6c12c16de16ad492a3fbb6ff90fffdd148014329/0_142_4252_2551/master/4252.jpg?w=620&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=356bb017f4034870c72e28c869707e7c" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Look, I've never held myself up as a bastion of tolerance and brotherly love. I have no patience for religionists who wear their foolishness as a badge of honor. I look at Hasidim attire as patently idiotic; I don't want a waitress' "dead Jew on a stick" necklace dangling in my food at a restaurant; and I find Muslim head scarves and burkas ridiculous. <br /><br />But I acknowledge that how I feel has exactly nothing to do with people's right to wear what they please as long as it doesn't interfere with my rights or exceed the bounds of good taste (i.e. wearing only an athletic supporter while teaching a class on thermodynamics in a publicly funded college would be an example). As a secularist it's simply a matter of live and let live ... their goofy garb not withstanding.<br /><br />Evidently the French don't share this mentality. Their laws involving religious garb or symbols have become so draconian as to actually embarrass me as an atheist / secularist. <br /><br />If you haven't read about it, the police in France forced a Muslim woman to <u><b>remove</b></u> more of her covering at a beach than her religion and modesty permits. It's the law! It's part of the law that also says one cannot wear yarmulkes, or any distinctive religious garb publicly that falls outside the "norm" of French culture. It is a law so beyond the pale that when I first learned of it I thought it was an article from the satirical site The Onion. It isn't. It's quite real. <b>Read the whole <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/24/french-police-make-woman-remove-burkini-on-nice-beach">story here</a>. <br /></b>It smacks of a bizarre reversal of what was done to the non-religious or to Jews during the Spanish inquisition: <b><span style="color: red;">"You damn well better start eating that pork, or we'll arrest you for being a Jew!"</span></b>. <br /><br />What the heck has happened here? How can a nation whose motto is "</span><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span class="st">Liberté, égalité, fraternité" speak of liberty and equality and brotherhood on one hand, while the other hand holds a baton ready to punish those less deserved of liberty or equal treatment because of what they wear?<br /><br /><span style="color: blue;"><b>I wonder how it got to that point. <br />I wonder how much worse it will get there.<br />I wonder if it can happen here. <br />I'm disgusted. </b></span></span><br /><br /></span>Dromedary Humphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14165566701791663057noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3488651241352366915.post-22713293339634263012016-08-07T07:44:00.000-04:002016-08-07T07:44:13.721-04:00The Product of Religious and Political Stupidity <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5aIL6QMt-56a2rv93_BtBp5H8R5lp0NCkDFeld-zfuARlxH-A4VKkWJYvvrnPH7CiMxamUJy8n0gnQBCnVB9aFo6kdAQ-cxaEfdjva6B88Jbl3W2MNLiJMhPIdeqaLvy6CRzouoXbQUCW/s1600/trump+jesus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5aIL6QMt-56a2rv93_BtBp5H8R5lp0NCkDFeld-zfuARlxH-A4VKkWJYvvrnPH7CiMxamUJy8n0gnQBCnVB9aFo6kdAQ-cxaEfdjva6B88Jbl3W2MNLiJMhPIdeqaLvy6CRzouoXbQUCW/s400/trump+jesus.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /><span style="font-size: large;">What do you get when you combine devotion to an imaginary supernatural being, with the worship of a narcissistic sociopath, congenital liar, and purveyor of hate? This guy. </span>Dromedary Humphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14165566701791663057noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3488651241352366915.post-57922271473190932962016-07-14T19:55:00.000-04:002016-07-14T19:55:35.663-04:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/76/0b/e8/760be82e33256ae6d366dcab71c6d245.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="201" src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/76/0b/e8/760be82e33256ae6d366dcab71c6d245.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.pensitoreview.com/Wordpress/wp-content/uploads/photo-melania-knauss-001-e1440514743553.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin4T6yEGwrZV49p5Z8Ru4OVmlBXl3W0C4jaRqTT7K8N1jEp_xWodtY2v5Ei5Q0Z1UW-ymTeg-Xr9qVsH584f5O57mfS5laedcRXiZ9wdzkUXLWQHUWCvKRJwC03WmIxoXDZSW7jynzkOuI/s1600/trump+and+teen+daughter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin4T6yEGwrZV49p5Z8Ru4OVmlBXl3W0C4jaRqTT7K8N1jEp_xWodtY2v5Ei5Q0Z1UW-ymTeg-Xr9qVsH584f5O57mfS5laedcRXiZ9wdzkUXLWQHUWCvKRJwC03WmIxoXDZSW7jynzkOuI/s200/trump+and+teen+daughter.jpg" width="140" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfnOL_JZEQ2biRrjpcfs4yineWjJII3cZBwzT4qmXSC8oZRhWMcltYXwVbuumUPNbepeyb7z3LHfzYSAqZSTzIUMELmF0-gtS6Ben6TYJOM_qa3QbwLBSWe2HinIfPJFSQHPBcgEnAZowQ/s1600/trump+wife.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />The Pew Research center reports that Evangelicals have come out strong for Donald Trump. Seventy-eight percent would vote for him for president today. <a href="http://religionnews.com/2016/07/13/white-evangelicals-overwhelmingly-back-trump-survey-says/">Here's a link to the story and poll data.</a><br /><br />I'm unsurprised. Why wouldn't Evangelicals support a man who has been divorced twice;
lusts after his own daughter's "figure"; is a fake Christian who misquotes biblical verse, and panders
to the religiously stupid; makes fun of the disabled, is an inveterate
liar, and has a wife who poses nude?</span><br /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfnOL_JZEQ2biRrjpcfs4yineWjJII3cZBwzT4qmXSC8oZRhWMcltYXwVbuumUPNbepeyb7z3LHfzYSAqZSTzIUMELmF0-gtS6Ben6TYJOM_qa3QbwLBSWe2HinIfPJFSQHPBcgEnAZowQ/s1600/trump+wife.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="131" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfnOL_JZEQ2biRrjpcfs4yineWjJII3cZBwzT4qmXSC8oZRhWMcltYXwVbuumUPNbepeyb7z3LHfzYSAqZSTzIUMELmF0-gtS6Ben6TYJOM_qa3QbwLBSWe2HinIfPJFSQHPBcgEnAZowQ/s200/trump+wife.jpg" width="200" /></a> <b><span style="color: blue;">After all, Christians in
general, and Evangelicals in particular are utter hypocrites. Hypocrisy
is a veritable sacrament to them. Let them be damned. </span></b><br /></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCyJyjJ-vgR_gPWSMfcQBk_xgChKLHTaLpmD0J1408B6QG4-MuliB11HjJDqTkhYaQaWzBqHlvg1aA95N80Z047odJsNtiV8xg2ER-X6i1Ocyz9ENJmS7yi9AXzbXV_MPsK9eVFzg2FoY6/s1600/trump+mocks+reporter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCyJyjJ-vgR_gPWSMfcQBk_xgChKLHTaLpmD0J1408B6QG4-MuliB11HjJDqTkhYaQaWzBqHlvg1aA95N80Z047odJsNtiV8xg2ER-X6i1Ocyz9ENJmS7yi9AXzbXV_MPsK9eVFzg2FoY6/s320/trump+mocks+reporter.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Dromedary Humphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14165566701791663057noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3488651241352366915.post-42338196373400972992016-07-08T21:08:00.003-04:002016-07-08T21:08:53.130-04:00Violence, Hate and Sickness in America: The Religious Answer <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimAXcLh8qirmv6F4xHkN1Y5ViGVLf3-_nnHCRHiA9ooGpDRxOnX1ojb7rCfkOa_OKxpgWgvPnG158KKJDYXxlzStTR3-j47XETD5HEQrZXdB0cW6EM6v9lKlajuITB5e_R0qbNZC3IYuZF/s1600/death.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimAXcLh8qirmv6F4xHkN1Y5ViGVLf3-_nnHCRHiA9ooGpDRxOnX1ojb7rCfkOa_OKxpgWgvPnG158KKJDYXxlzStTR3-j47XETD5HEQrZXdB0cW6EM6v9lKlajuITB5e_R0qbNZC3IYuZF/s320/death.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">From time to time I go to the religion section of the Huffington Post to see what the religiously impaired are up to. Given the horror of the assassination of police in Dallas, and the brutal killings of African American civilians by police in the past few days, the religious leader take on the issue and what needs to be done about it took center stage. <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/how-faith-leaders-are-grappling-with-this-weeks-shootings_us_577ffc7be4b0c590f7e95387">You can read the article here, albeit, it's hardly enlightening. </a><br /><br />This one comment from a pastor caught my eye: <span><span class="_5mdd _1n4g"><span><span><br /><b><span style="color: red;">"Dear Lord today please protect black men who are driving, selling, walking, riding bikes, working or just breathing,” "</span></b></span><br /><br /><span>Naturally it really tweaked my hump to read that. Appeal to the Lord to protect black men, because if you don't beg god it doesn't know what to do? Because it has
the power to do that, but was too busy over the past few days, months,
years, helping some balls players win some games to intervene and stop an innocent passenger from being blown away in cold blood at 18 inches? Why not just do the
old <i>"our thoughts and prayers are with the victims"</i> nonsense that they all spew as easily as saying <i>"God bless you"</i> after a sneeze and leave
it at that as though that platitudinous religio-gibberish means
anything.</span><br /><br /><span>The fact is we are a sick society. Racism, white privilege, political extremism, xenophobia, a culture that s</span></span><span><span><span>ees
guns and violence as the answer, the means to an end, for everything - this is our nation's prevailing mentality. We have become the example of what civilization
should never become; the obscenity that every other industrialized
nation points to in horror. </span><br /><br /><span>So naturally I'll be
asked <b>"That's all well and good...but what do we do about it?"</b> I
haven't the foggiest idea. I'm not sure it's even fixable anymore, our ills having been either ignored or embraced for so long they may now be terminal. But what I do know is two things: <br />1) that
spewing religious platitudes, praying to a make believe sky daddy , or
imploring people to "hold on a little longer", as though there is a fix
afoot is patently inane and less than useless. And...</span><br />2) <span>Pogo was right: <i><span style="color: blue;"><b>"We have met the enemy, and he is us."</b></span></i></span></span></span></span></span></span>Dromedary Humphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14165566701791663057noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3488651241352366915.post-34477089965605136412016-03-18T14:03:00.001-04:002016-03-18T14:10:32.904-04:00The Bible: Either Love it or Leave it...you can't have it both ways<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://api.ning.com/files/wggDR0Y3MYy7d0lHGugQbPoZiFaUQXR9AJMTt5stnNT9IQ9SvdMlUqve5o9Oe7ra7fErNCDFd8amRj314GSLSE4GN0WHWdqs/biblequote.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://api.ning.com/files/wggDR0Y3MYy7d0lHGugQbPoZiFaUQXR9AJMTt5stnNT9IQ9SvdMlUqve5o9Oe7ra7fErNCDFd8amRj314GSLSE4GN0WHWdqs/biblequote.jpg" height="400" width="317" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In a recent interview Jimmy Carter decried the use of the
Bible as justification for immoral and unethical behavior. Here’s an extract:</span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><br /><br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: red;">“You can pick out
individual verses throughout the Bible that show that the verse favours your
particular preference, and the fact that the Catholic church, for instance,
prohibits women from serving as priests or even deacons gives a kind of a
permission to male people all over the world, that well, if God thinks that
women are inferior, I’ll treat them as inferiors. If she’s my wife, I can abuse
her with impunity, or if I’m an employer, I can pay my female employees less
salary,...”</span></i></b></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />
<br />Whole interview here: </span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://churchandstate.org.uk/2014/03/jimmy-carter-warns-bible-is-being-used-to-promote-the-abuse-of-women-and-girls/">http://churchandstate.org.uk/2014/03/jimmy-carter-warns-bible-is-being-used-to-promote-the-abuse-of-women-and-girls/</a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So the question becomes: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: blue;">“Yeah…and? Problem?”</span></i></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: blue;"> </span></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />
The fact is that the Bible, the “Good Book”, is, according to believers, the
last word in how their God wants people to behave. He sets the tune, and the
sheep dance to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How then can Jimmy
decry Christians who take God and His Bible at His/It’s word and accuse them of
less than Christian behavior?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How does one
have the nerve to say on one hand as a Christian he embraces the bible, while
on the other hand it shouldn’t actually be taken seriously, lest we behave
badly?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>W<span class="uficommentbody">hy
doesn't he just renounce the bible, since its been justifiably used to do just
that for some 1700 years?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="uficommentbody"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="uficommentbody"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
<span class="uficommentbody"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Seems to me if he wants to continue to believe a
mythical dead Jewish guy is God he can do it without holding the bible up as
some bastion of morality and ethics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Thomas Jefferson respected Jesus' [alleged] specific words, but rejected
everything else in that book of supernatural foolishness and immoral horrors.
Jimmy could do it too ... all Christians could do it. <br />
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br />
</span><span class="uficommentbody"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My point is: those who use that book as a guideline
/ as a model for and justification of their behavior, as obscene and evil as it
may appear in the 21<sup>st</sup> century, are...by definition...more Christian
than the one who rejects its guidelines but embraces its existence as holy. <br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: blue;">Want people to
stop using the Bible as support for their misogynist, homophobic, xenophobic,
and violent behavior?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then declare it an
obsolete and false doctrine. Disown it as a product of ancient ignorance and
prejudice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To condemn the actors but not
their script, and its authors, is patently absurd and hypocritical.</span></b></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span>Dromedary Humphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14165566701791663057noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3488651241352366915.post-4123839943814239202016-03-11T19:38:00.002-05:002016-03-11T20:00:18.654-05:00Fear and Loathing in the US: If you’re not having a déjà vu moment, you may be part of the problem <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3yraGeavJWSxGFsSPLd3py-mTjH85JX_MqQ0mBz9c0OD9ipe3HVECLFNgOkt8iSlCxGSJU3zNsgJDFzwaiUU8NdeXJ21rfXe1fl4UfWqVqcnsrpULw1JNLGZcOfLEUQxJBNDAEeV-Qs0C/s1600/Trump+brown+shirts+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3yraGeavJWSxGFsSPLd3py-mTjH85JX_MqQ0mBz9c0OD9ipe3HVECLFNgOkt8iSlCxGSJU3zNsgJDFzwaiUU8NdeXJ21rfXe1fl4UfWqVqcnsrpULw1JNLGZcOfLEUQxJBNDAEeV-Qs0C/s400/Trump+brown+shirts+2.jpg" width="270" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I don’t typically scare easily. Oh sure, the occasional
furry spider may startle me, but I don’t go into flash backs over it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But coming from a Jewish back ground, and
what with my parents having lost relatives in the Holocaust…I’m starting to get
a funny feeling that I’ve seen this all before, and I’m scared. </span></div>
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Before I go any further, I must apologize to my readers, especially those who
bought my books. In them, more than once, I declared that the greatest threat
to this nation is not radical Islam from without, but Christianity from
within.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I may have been wrong and I’m
sorry.</span></div>
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Perhaps I can be forgiven, because I was foolish enough to be lulled into
accepting that what happened in Europe in the
1920s and through the 1930s could never happen here; that we learn from history;
that we would never repeat its most heinous events; that we are better than
that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, it can, we didn’t, we may, and
we aren’t.</span></div>
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Once this nation looked toward a bright future. Once our politicians, on both
sides of the aisle, had high ideals and great hopes for our future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We didn’t always accomplish those goals,
those promises, but the promises were invariably predicated on hope, on growth,
on advancement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Usually only the method
toward achievement divided us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not so
anymore. </span></div>
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As I hear the rhetoric of the GOP front runner, slathered with hate speech, with
fear mongering, with innuendo, with encouragement to violence against those who
may protest that speech a knot forms in my gut.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When I hear him espouse truncating the 1st amendment to be more to his liking and benefit I cringe. When I see the racism, scapegoating and demonizing of minorities as people
coming to take American jobs while they perpetrate "rape and murder" throughout the
land; or the lumping together every member of a given religion as <i>“they all
hate us! I don’t know why...”</i> , I know I’ve heard this somewhere before. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">When the throngs of followers, largely white, and
largely less educated - are driven by that rhetoric to the point where they
feel compelled even encouraged toward meting out violence and doing so with a
sense of entitlement and im<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">pun</span>ity… I am seeing something I remember from old
photographs and newsreels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only the
brown shirts and the guttural speech and accents are missing. </span></span><br />
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<br />
As I hear that would be leader, that con man, that hater and purveyor of hate-
babble his circular and self aggrandizing say nothing babble, and as he directs
his fanatical and mesmerized followers to pledge their allegiance to this cult
of personality … a feeling of familiar dread comes over me. </span></span><br />
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<br />
Some will say I’m exaggerating, that I’m being mel<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">o</span>dramatic, that I’m
distorting this into more than it is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They’re wrong. I’m seeing this for exactly what it is:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b>Fascism.</b> To ignore it, to down play it, to say <i>“it can
never happen here”</i> is to be in denial.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Worse, that denial makes us complicit in what could well be our
future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not too horrible to
contemplate… it is our duty to contemplate it now, before it’s too late.</span></span>Dromedary Humphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14165566701791663057noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3488651241352366915.post-19496620472081663362016-02-14T08:45:00.000-05:002016-02-14T08:58:46.173-05:00Obituary for a Theocratic Tyrant.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2RXcaQNMPAMpqnv6FqWfVHZUL32fim7_BPZS4xYT_3v2inbav7oiDuY-p9DyXIJffl3g7O0W-PlmEFbx3LPnMGCzmrGgjEYG9mZVv_t6OYhXlQFjTOCGylJU2tmpv29VogCnlPZcnsw_n/s1600/Scalia+Ten+commandments.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2RXcaQNMPAMpqnv6FqWfVHZUL32fim7_BPZS4xYT_3v2inbav7oiDuY-p9DyXIJffl3g7O0W-PlmEFbx3LPnMGCzmrGgjEYG9mZVv_t6OYhXlQFjTOCGylJU2tmpv29VogCnlPZcnsw_n/s1600/Scalia+Ten+commandments.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /><span style="color: red;"><b><br /></b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;">Antonin Scalia represented to me the worst kind of tyrant. His decision on the Gore V Bush election issue was obscene. His failed attempts to overthrow Roe V Wade would have set women's reproductive rights back fifty years. His racism was verbalized more than once while on the bench. His prejudice toward gays was blatant. <br /><br />He interpreted the Constitution strictly, as "a dead document", meaning not to be interpreted in / or adapted to today's societal realities, but only by its original words in its original time period. But his point of view, his decisions were, by my observations, equally if not even more driven by his devout Catholic beliefs. He was just as dedicated to the dead document perspective / literal interpretation of the law as he was to the literal interpretation of the Bible . He was theocratic. He lived in the past on virtually every social issue that came before him. His objective was to maintain the status quo, and suppress societal growth and advancement. If he ever decided in favor of human rights and progressive thought, it was tantamount to a blind squirrel finding a nut now and then...rare. My guess is <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">he bemoaned the fact that he was born too late to serve as a church appointed prosecutor during the Spanish Inquisition. </span> <br /><br />There's my obituary for him.</span><b><span style="color: black;"> </span><br /><br /> "How disrespectful! How dare you speak ill of the dead. What about his family?" </b></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />The above is typical of the comments I received in response to comments I posted to facebook. Yes, it's disrespectful. And is intended to be. <br /><br />Why should I be respectful? Because he's dead? Because his brain ceased to function and his heart has stopped? Because his body is in decomposition? Why should the state of nonexistence garner respect for a person who commanded none from me in life? I've said this before: I'm not John Donne - every man's death does NOT
diminish me, and certainly not the demise of a tyrant. <br /><br />This mentality hearkens back to nonsensical religious superstition. <b>"<i>Do not speak ill of the dead, lest they haunt you from the grave."</i></b> Thanks. I'll take my chances. <br /><br />As for his family: I doubt any of them are on my facebook friend list, or are readers of my blog. If they are surfing the net at the hour of their beloved's death, they have bigger issues than worrying about my words of contempt. <br /><br />No, this phony piousness for
the dead that we must supposedly feign even though we despised them in
life is hypocrisy<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">... religiously inspired archaic hypocrisy</span>. I don't do hypocrisy. If you didn't honor him in
life, but think the end of his bodily functions requires some
sanctimonious false respect... take your hypocrisy elsewhere. <br />I'll have none of it.</span></span>Dromedary Humphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14165566701791663057noreply@blogger.com19