55 and Alive

A couple of years ago I became aware I was approaching 55 when all the AARP ads started arriving in the mail. If the US wants to find Osama bin Laden, tell the AARP he’s 55 and has diabetes and they’ll get a piece of mail to him at whatever address within a week! So, on December 6, 2010, I will be 55. I met with some of the old crowd for lunch and then for the Rams’ football game last week where we bet on what new way the Rams would invent to lose in the last three minutes to break our hearts; no one picked a bad pass interference call. Most of my friends married much earlier that I. My friends talked about their kids in and out of college, their grandkids (yikes!) and ceaselessly gave me grief for having a 12 and 9 year old at home. We talked about business, the economy and stupid things we did when we were young that we never told our wives or kids about for fear of fury or fatal repetition after our own undeserved good fortune. We had brief discussions of politics but, my friends have nearly all lost their minds to Faux News, vote Republican against their own and their kids and grandkids’ economic interests and don’t want to stop drinking the Kool Aid. I referred them to facts, posts at this blog and other reality based content but, to no avail. Really good chicken wings, decent ravioli and continued good company and wait service mellowed us all until we left with promises to meet again soon. [More ...]

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The Dollar Got More Annoying

This is not about the falling value of our currency with respect to the rest of the world, but rather a reprise on my 2007 post, In God We Trust wherein I complained about the propagation of the cold war addition of God to our money in the latest series of presidential dollar coins. The had stamped "In God We Trust" around the edge, along with the date. But the latest dollars have God on the face, and hide the date and the uniquely and importantly American "E Pluribus Unum" on the edge. Do they think that Sacajawea trusted in in the Old World God? I really think that we should get rid of the old cold war legacies, and take God back off of our money and back out of the pledge to the flag (as I discussed in The Changing Recipe of Pleasure Lesion Stew). One could argue that this would show the world that we are confident of our faith, instead of protesting it too much.

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Power brokers displaying penises

The crack reporting team of The Onion once again catches a story that has been missed by all other media outlets: "World's Power Brokers Hold Annual Summit Where They Show Each Other Their Penises."

ST. MORITZ, SWITZERLAND—One hundred fifty of the world's most powerful people in the fields of politics, banking, business, and media met this past weekend at an exclusive Swiss resort for the 54th annual invitation-only summit where they show each other their penises.

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Did Anne Frank go to hell?

Now here is a question I'd never thought to ask. Not of myself, mind you. I discarded belief in any afterlife long ago. But it is a good question to pose to fundamentalist Christians. And so Rachel Evans did. Credit where due, I found it via the Friendly Atheist. If you read her post and comments, you see a lot of hemming and hawing from Chrisitans who believe a) in a kind, loving, and just God who b) sends everyone to hell except the most extreme sycophants. They try to have it both ways. In brief, yes, all Jews go to Hell. But when considering this actual young, innocent person, who was a victim of Martin Luther's plan enacted by a Catholic leader, they sputter.

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