“We the People” and separation of church and state

October 28, 2011

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20500

Subject: “We the People” and separation of church and state

Dear Mr. President:

For the first time in my life, I am compelled to sit down and write a letter, by hand, to a government official. I am writing in response to today’s email by Joshua DuBois, Executive Director of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, to the signers of the “We the People” petitions, “Remove ‘In God We Trust’ from Currency” and “Edit the Pledge of Allegiance to Remove the Phrase ‘Under God’.”

Mr. DuBois wrote that you “strongly support” the separation of church and state but that “that does not mean there’s no role for religion in the public square.” Where do you draw the line? To me, the separation of church (religion) and state (government) means that our public officials, in their capacity as representatives chosen by the people, must not imply that our government favors some religions over others, or irreligion over religion; to do so is to hack away at the “wall of separation” that we hold so dear as Americans. Yet you and most other politicians do this all the time and then give non-answers when we demand change.

I am an atheist, but in order to pledge allegiance to the country of my birth, I must check my worldview at the door and take up someone else’s personal convictions. Is that freedom of religion?

Consider our previous motto and pledge: “of many, one”; “one nation indivisible.” Doesn’t the government’s favoritism toward particular religions pervert these ideals?

Respectfully,

Jordon Kalilich
Seattle, WA

I know that this will go straight into the trash and that the best reply I can hope for is a form letter saying, “Thanks for your letter, citizen. Vote for me,” but it would be worse if I had not written it at all.

Gainesville

I used to come here when I was little. My aunt went to school at the University of Florida and mostly stayed in the area. So when I was a kid, I would visit with my family from time to time. We would stay at her house off Main Street or in the Rush Lake Motel near campus (don’t go there). When I came here once with my dad, we had dinner at Leonardo’s 706 (which I described in my journal as having “the best darn garlic rolls in town”—I must have been insufferable as a kid).

We actually went to UF at least once. It was ostensibly to go to the butterfly garden they have there. I remember us cruising around campus slowly (the speed limit is only 20 MPH) and seeing the orange and blue street signs. I also remember hearing the question of where I wanted to go to college. Like I knew what I wanted to study, although in retrospect it should have been obvious. UF seemed like the natural choice.

People have asked me what it feels like to have graduated. I’ve told them I don’t know. Now that I’m packing up, it’s hitting me. Actually, I’m not packing up as much as throwing old stuff away and cleaning up. A moving company is going to pack my stuff, and I actually cannot help them lest I void the insurance or whatever. I still have to vacuum and stuff, though. I finally have one that works. Or, it will when I put it together.

I fell and scraped my knee a few days ago. Actually, both of them. And my hand. Haven’t done that in a while; I felt like a kid again. One of my knees kind of hurts in a way that the other one doesn’t. It’s like something’s messed up inside. I hope it gets better, but I guess that’s what happens when you’re not a kid anymore. I’m not complaining; I just find it therapeutic to talk about relatively bad things that have befallen me. I can’t do it with some people because they think I’m complaining, and then they get all defensive as if I’m attacking them somehow. Luckily, this is the Internet, so I don’t have to actually hear you.

In hours, Kate will be on her way here once again. Yes, you read that right. Kate will be here with me for the third time. She’s going to be accompanying me on a family vacation and my move to Seattle, which is probably her favorite place that she hasn’t visited yet. Even though I’m not actually packing my stuff, moving is still stressful, and I’m very happy that she’ll be by my side for this important part of my life. We’re going to have so much fun.

I won’t be saying goodbye to Gainesville for good; my parents moved to this area last year. I get two weeks of vacation my first year.

Here’s a video of my friends Yamilee and Austin discussing how they left their religious faiths for atheism. Fascinating, and not just because I know Yamilee and Austin. Check it out.

Intermission

Aaaand we’re back. I’ll continue talking about my adventures with Kate soon (probably interspersed with other posts), but it’s been a long time since I’ve talked about anything else, so I thought I’d fill you in. (Funny how that happens, isn’t it? I get lazy for a few days, and then I’m finally ready to write something but I’m just too dang busy to do it.)

The first day of classes was August 23. This semester has been pretty good so far. My classes aren’t too bad. I’m taking four classes, as usual, and my course load actually seems lighter than it was over the second half of the summer, when I took two classes.

As for socializing, I’ve been spending a lot of time with my friend Andrea, which is good because I didn’t see her very much for a while. I’ve also been getting to know my new roommates, whom I’ll talk about more later. And, of course, I’ve been hanging out with Andy, who’s still one of my roommates.

I entered the football ticket lottery this year, and I won, so I have tickets to all of the home games. I really should have entered the lottery in years past, but I just never felt like doing it. It’s a great way to make money: just go to the games you want to go to and sell the rest of your tickets to other people to make an overall profit.

I didn’t go to last week’s game, which was the season opener against Miami (Ohio) (I believe “Ohio” is supposed to be whispered; read it again and see if it sounds better.) I sold my ticket instead. But I plan to go to this week’s game against USF with my sister and a bunch of her friends. It should be fun. I haven’t been to any football games since I was a freshman (this was my last one), and since it’s my final year, I feel like I need to get some more of those experiences in.

Last week, I wrote a letter to the editor of the Alligator about a column titled “Christian Philosophies Shaped America.” They ran my letter yesterday, and you can read it online as well (but probably not for long since their links die after a certain amount of time.) This is my third letter that the Alligator has printed; the previous ones were from October and February.

One link today: Google Scribe, an apparently new toy that offers autocomplete suggestions for everything you type. (Via Andy Biao of waxy.org, who suggests, “for fun, try typing any word and hit enter repeatedly.”)

Adventures with Kate, part two

Kate, Andy, and I got off to a slow start on Sunday, August 8. It was already the afternoon when we decided to go tubing. For those of you who don’t know, tubing is a popular pastime in the Gainesville area. Basically, you get yourself an inner tube; go to one of the slow, meandering rivers out in the country; and enjoy the ride.

If it sounds pretty dang halcyon (according to Google, no one has ever said that on the Internet), like the way you would imagine the young boys of yesteryear going down for a swim at the watering hole, it’s not really like that. People tend to go tubing down the Ichetucknee River at Ichetucknee Springs State Park, which may or may not be pretty crowded. And a whole cottage industry of tube rental companies has sprung up around the park so that you can stop at some little place on the side of the road, get a tube for $5, and, when you’re done, leave it at the park for Jimbo ‘n’ pals to pick up when you’re done. Not a bad setup.

The park contains several entrances to the river—on-ramps, if you will—that determine the length of time you’ll spend floating downstream (there being a single place for all tubers to get out). By the time we were all ready to go, only the entrance that was furthest downstream was still open, so our journey down the river would only last about an hour.

Aside: Do you know what makes rivers flow? Rivers are formed when water comes out of a hole in the ground—this is the source of the river—and then, thanks to gravity, all this water flows toward lower ground (downstream), like when water flows down the driveway when your dad is washing the car. The ground gets lower and lower till it reaches sea level, and, voila: the water enters the ocean. Fast rivers come from mountains and stuff because they’re high up, and slow, meandering rivers are found in flatter places. This is all extremely obvious, but most of it no one ever told me outright, and it only really hit me when I was in maybe high school. Because, you know, I don’t often sit around, thinking about rivers and stuff.

The drive to Ichetucknee Springs State Park was longer than I remembered, and we were even concerned about making it to the last river entrance on time. I realized that we’d be driving right by my parents’ new house. Kate and I had been planning to spend a few days there, so I decided to call the ‘rents and ask if the three of us could have dinner there on the way back from the river. Of course, they said it was fine.

We stopped at a place for some tubes. One of the good ol’ boys noted that I was wearing a Beatles shirt and said I looked like I could be one of them Beatles; he added that he just seen one of their movies the other day, great movie, the one where John Lennon has the ring stuck on his finger and the crazy Indian cult is after him tryin’ to kill him and all. Great band, they were.

There weren’t too many people at the park, and the three of us made our way to the entrance farthest downstream. I was the only one who had actually gone tubing before, so Kate and Andy probably didn’t know that getting in was the hardest part. We were standing a metal platform just above water level. The water was moving along pretty quickly, so it wouldn’t be too easy to lay down your tube and get yourself in. Andy went first. He slipped on the platform and fell into his tube. Kate got into hers awkwardly. I got into mine like a pro, but the water was really cold, so I wasn’t extremely pleased either.

Since the water was moving so swiftly, Andy hung on to a nearby tree branch to wait for me and Kate. After we all got together, he managed to help Kate reposition herself on the tube so that she would be more comfortable. And then we felt free to float along, enjoy the natural scenery, and relax.

In fact, you can’t spend too much time relaxing because you have to watch where you’re going. The river might not take you around turns so easily, and you can find yourself running into the edge where there are sticks and spider webs and who knows what. It helps a great deal to be able to steer yourself by rowing with your hands, even if it looks silly. So it was out of necessity that Andy and Kate picked up on the art and science of being a human rowboat.

After a while, we reached the end of the river. Well, not really, but we reached the point where we had to get off. The river was roped off and there was another platform off to the side where you had to go and get out. We left our tubes at the designated area and took a tram back to the section of the park where we had started. The trams came every few minutes, but they would be fairly full. Andy had the misfortune of sitting next to a chipper scout leader who was making jokes with everyone around him. Luckily, the ride didn’t last very long (although I’m sure for Andy it did).

Andy and Kate wanted to swim in the springs from which the river sprung, so we drove to the upstream part of the park. It was closed to tubing at this point, but the springs—halcyon swimming holes, if you will—would still be open for a while. I had never been to this part of the park, so it was new for me too. There were a few springs. The nearest one was filled with people, and Andy and Kate decided to swim for a minute or two before getting out. I didn’t go in because the water was too cold.

But Andy and Kate insisted that I swim, so we decided to go to the spring that was farther away. It was about a ten-minute walk through a wooded path, and only a few other people were there. We went into the water. It was extremely cold, and I swam around frantically, perhaps all the more frantically because I was still wearing my shoes. After a minute or two, I started to get used to it, but I still wanted out. So I got out, and I was afraid that I would be freezing since I didn’t have a towel. Surprisingly, I was just fine. I guess it was because there was no wind. It was always windy in South Florida, and I always dreaded getting out of the pool.

We dried off and headed toward my parents’ (and I guess also my) new house. I told Andy where to turn, but he missed the turn because he couldn’t see the driveway for the trees. Seriously, the entrance is pretty discreet. The mailbox by the side of the road is pretty much the only indication that anyone lives there. But Andy turned around and made his way down the dirt driveway that looks like it could be long but is actually pretty short. And then, standing amid the trees, the new house came into view.

I had only been there once, when my parents were still checking out the place. Now the place already looked like home even though they had just moved in. (The fact that we had most of the same furniture helped quite a bit.) I checked out my room, which had a new bed and was filled with boxes, most of which I didn’t have to pack (but I would have if I had had the time, honest). I felt at home pretty quickly. Andy and Kate chatted it up with my parents and grandmother.

Mindful of Andy’s vegetarianism, my parents made spaghetti for dinner, and everyone was pleased with how it came out. After dinner, we watched a little football on TV, it being the start of the preseason and all. But it was getting late, and we were all tired, so we decided to go back to the apartment.

But before we did that, we stopped at the Ben & Jerry’s on Archer Road to get a little ice cream. Andy had almost finished his ice cream before Kate decided what she wanted, and if you don’t know them, then you won’t be able to tell who I’m taking a jab at by mentioning that fact. After our dessert, Kate and Andy played a card game; apparently they just have decks of cards lying around for you to hang out and play. After that, we went home. Kate and I had a big day in store for us.

The Mohammed Image Archive is a collection of images of Mohammed, spanning the entire history of Islam, by Muslims and non-Muslims alike. (Via Atheist Revolution)

Have you ever heard the claim that the MMR vaccine causes autism? Here, in comic book form, is the story of the scientist whose bogus study set off a wave of fear, uncertainty, and doubt that has yet to die down. (Via waxy.org)

Interfaith forum

Regular readers probably have forgotten that I attend meetings of Gator Freethought, the campus organization that’s friendly to atheists, agnostics, and all others who question religious beliefs. We’ve had our last meeting of the year, but that wasn’t the end. Blake, the outgoing president of the club, was going to be representing freethought at an interfaith forum on campus.

The event was held on Wednesday evening, the last day of classes, in the smaller ballroom in the student union. There were a lot of empty seats, probably because people were at home studying for their upcoming exams. I guessed that most of the audience members were there to see their guy or gal take part in the discussion; not many people looked like they were genuinely disinterested. I have to admit I was in the former camp. I sat with a group of Freethought members.

(Derail: People always seem to say “disinterested” when they mean “uninterested.” I’ve also seen an excellent clip from The Rachel Maddow Show [which I otherwise don't watch, by the way] in which Ms. Maddow says “uninterested” instead of “disinterested.” If you’re uninterested, you don’t have any interest—you’re bored or you don’t care—and if you’re disinterested, you don’t have any interests—anything that could be considered a possible source of bias or prejudice. Paul Brians has an entry on this error in his Common Errors in English Usage web site, which is worth checking out. In the associated book, there’s a cartoon in which a man says to a woman something like, “Let me make myself clear: I’m not disinterested, I’m uninterested.”)

Um, right. So, the forum was emceed jointly by what appeared to be a Christian and a Muslim. Answering their questions, as well as some from the audience, were the panelists:

• Representing Christianity was a guy from Campus Crusade for Christ. He seemed ill at ease and spoke with thinly disguised contempt at the other belief systems that were represented. He must have said that Jesus “stepped into the pages of history” at least six or seven times. I was surprised they couldn’t get a better speaker, considering how many Christians there are.
• Representing Islam was a dapper local businessman. He had a good sense of humor and explained how Islam gives people advice on how to live their everyday lives. He used the word “brother” in referring to some of the other panelists and joked with brother Blake that only a freethinker was brave enough to sit between a Muslim and a Jew.
• Blake was the only student on the panel. His answers were short and to the point (giving him less of a chance to dig himself into a hole, he said later), and he was careful to represent freethought in general without mentioning the A-word. I liked his answer to the question, “Who is the most important figure in your religion (or lack thereof)?” He said, “Yourself,” because freethought is about thinking freely (hmm…) and not taking for granted the things that other people tell you.
• Representing Judaism was a local rabbi, who explained how Judaism also gave advice for everyday life. A kid from the audience, badly feigning ignorance, asked him some innocent-sounding questions to try to get him to link Judaism with Zionism. The rabbi didn’t fall for it. You could have cut the tension in that room with a knife right then.
• Speaking for all denominations of Hinduism was a distinguished Indian woman of a certain age. She explained how Hindu beliefs and practices vary greatly and called out some of the moderators’ questions as being specifically geared toward the Abrahamic religions. She had to dip out about halfway through, so she made a quip about avatars as another distinguished Indian woman of a certain age took her place.
• Speaking specifically for Hare-Krishna-ism while wearing Krishna robes and Krishna face paint was a young representative from the local Krishna House. She gushed with enthusiasm while getting all buddy-buddy with the other Hindu and quoting the Bhagavad Gita in Sanskrit. Though she would get extra credit in the enthusiasm department, she used a lot of terms that were vague (like everyone’s favorite, “energy”) or not very clear to us laypeople.
• Finally, representing the Bahá’í Faith, whose name I had to copy and paste from the Wikipedia article, was a professor or something (what, you want me to actually read the program I took home?). The Bahá’í Faith (Ctrl-V) is essentially a greatest-hits compilation of the world’s major religions, but Ms. Bahá’í Faith didn’t do a good job of explaining what it was actually about. She talked a lot without saying very much.

It was a great way for Blake to go out as Gator Freethought’s president. He was definitely one of the better speakers on the panel, and even though freethought was the odd belief system out (as evidenced by the tacking-on of “or lack thereof” to seemingly every question), he did a good job of representing our club.

And this is what I do when I should be studying for exams. I’ll be glad to have them over with. By the time I write my next post, I’ll be home free… for a little while.

Need to come up with blog post titles that are sure to draw readers in? Go to the Linkbait Generator for random gems like “8 Ways to Get Rich with Ninjas” and “10 Myths About Mustaches That Hollywood Wants You To Believe.” I was sure that “Sony DSC-H55 Digital Camera Review” would net me some intense comments from photography-loving Google searchers, but it’s nothing but the same old same old right now. (Via The Presurfer)

The great debate

My university brings a lot of notable speakers to campus every year, although lately it seems that they’ve been lacking in the star-power department. I don’t usually bother to see speakers I’ve never heard of, so I haven’t been to many speaking engagements in a while.

But on Monday, I found out from an Alligator opinion column that Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D’Souza would be participating in a debate called “The Great Religion Debate” on Tuesday night. As soon as I read about it, I knew I had to go.

Okay, I hadn’t heard of Dinesh D’Souza, but I had heard of Christopher Hitchens. Maybe you’ve heard of his book, God Is Not Great. Just by the title, you can tell which side he was on. And maybe by the fact that I had heard of him.

On Tuesday evening, my friend Mark and I went to the debate. We were a little late because we had come from Free Culture‘s last meeting of the semester, but fortunately, some of Mark’s friends were saving seats for us. Needless to say, we were able to get tickets just fine, even though the place was pretty packed.

The moderator was a UF professor who asked extremely long questions and then gave each speaker a little bit of time to answer. I was familiar with some of the arguments they made for and against religion and gods’ existence. D’Souza was a relatively engaging speaker, which made him sound fairly convincing in spite of all the untruths and logical fallacies he trotted out.

Hitchens offered plenty of witty remarks, though, and some of his comments inspired applause from the audience. In one such remark, he characterized Vatican City as a fiefdom, carved out by an agreement with a fascist dictator, that was being used to shelter child-rapists from justice. Incidentally, my mental applause-o-meter indicated that more people agreed with him than with D’Souza.

The most interesting part was the Q-and-A session at the end. Most of the audience’s questions were pretty simple, and the debaters provided short answers. One guy, however, literally referred to Hitchens as Satan, provoking shouting and jeers from the rest of the audience. Bad memories suddenly came back to me, but things calmed down after a minute.

Blake, the president of Gator Freethought, asked each debater what it would take for him to switch to the other side. I believe Hitchens’ answer was “Rabbit bones in the Precambrian layer,” and D’Souza seemed to dodge the question.

During the debate, Hitchens mentioned that he and D’Souza had been discussing a certain topic over dinner beforehand, and they also mentioned how they would be debating at Notre Dame (where, I assume, D’Souza would be the audience’s favorite) the next day. I thought it was pretty interesting that two people who disagree on so many things could be touring together and debating night after night while still being able have dinner together. That’s professionalism.

For more quotes and a pretty picture, see the Alligator‘s article about the debate.

In San Francisco: humorous signs from a counter-protest of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church.

News from Canada: Students Failing Because of Twitter, Texting. Speaking of which, you can now follow The World of Stuff on Twitter!!

Tired of your big, evil bank doing evil things with your hard-earned money? Then stop doing business with them. Duh! Move Your Money is a campaign urging people to switch to local banks and credit unions. (Via The Consumerist)

This is different

The UF police department shot a student last week. I was immediately reminded of this, which happened during my first month as a student. As you hopefully don’t remember, I took part in the ensuing protests, which I soon realized was an idiotic thing to do. Since then I’ve been wary of appearing to stand up for crazy jerks or people who just happen to have done crazy, jerky things.

The Sun and the Alligator have provided an overview of last week’s incident. To make a long story short, the student had been threatening people and was getting violent, so the police shot him in the head with an assault rifle after other attempts to subdue him failed. I’m not going to pass judgment on this one for fear of coming up on the wrong side of public opinion. I just hope it gets resolved before it can tarnish the value of my yet-to-be-earned degree.

I went in for an eye exam on Monday. I had been scheduled for one over the summer, but I missed it due to my trip to Europe, so I was overdue. The last time I went, the doctor said I was slightly farsighted and wrote me a prescription for glasses in case I felt I would need them. I knew my vision could only get worse, so I wasn’t looking forward to this visit.

Imagine my surprise when the doctor said that my farsightedness had corrected itself. Apparently that’s possible at my age. Another crisis averted… for now.

For your viewing pleasure, here’s the archetypal Academy Award-Winning movie trailer. (Via waxy.org)

I had no idea that our governor was such a jerk. Here’s how Charlie Crist deals with atheists. (Via Pharyngula)

Enter a number, and Number Gossip will tell you some fun facts about it. (Via J-Walk Blog)

Kate’s visit, part three

It was Tuesday, January 12. (I’m really falling behind here.) I went to work/school, and Kate met up with me for lunch. We had the infamous/not-really-infamous Krishna Lunch, served on the Plaza of the Americas outside my workplace, Peabody Hall. Fortunately, Kate liked the food.

After lunch, Kate sat in on my classes. First, there was Numerical Analysis (<sarcasm>fun!</sarcasm>), and later, Databases. Kate actually works with databases and stuff like that, so as the professor was giving a lecture on the basics of SQL, Kate told me that she could probably give the lecture herself. I wouldn’t doubt it.

Tuesday evening was our Esperanto Club meeting in which we would introduce a real Esperanto speaker from an exotic land. I invited 100 people on Facebook, and only one showed up. I blame myself for not promoting the event more, but I didn’t promote it very much because I didn’t have enough time to reserve a room. So I blame myself for not reserving a room before winter break, although I’m not sure if that was possible, so maybe I shouldn’t beat myself up over it. Anyway, the show went on, and we explained to the one guy there how Kate learned and had used Esperanto.

I think it was that night that Kate gave Andy and me a primer on the Russian alphabet. Andy was interested in learning Russian (or maybe just the alphabet, I’m not sure), so we went over the vowels and then the consonants. It took a while—there are a lot of them, and Andy and I were struggling to pronounce some of them. I thought it might be hard to learn a new alphabet, but surprisingly, in the weeks that have followed, I’ve been able to sort of pronounce Russian words that I see.

On Wednesday, Kate got ready in time to go with me to work and class. Wednesdays are kind of frantic for me this semester, so we grabbed a quick lunch at the KFC Express on campus. Kate didn’t really like the food, but I could have guessed as much. I’m glad she tried it, anyway. After that, she sat in on my other classes, Software Engineering and Accounting.

We stayed on campus for dinner because Kate was interested in attending a lecture. We ate at Pollo Tropical at the Reitz Union, and she loved it, which made me happy. (Wikipedia has some bare facts on Pollo Tropical for those of you unfortunate enough not to be graced by its presence within a reasonable distance.) After that, we went to the presentation. A professor from UC Irvine talked about the history of criminal identification technologies, including the rise of fingerprinting and then DNA.

On Thursday, I had my weekly lunch with my sister. We eat at a different place each week, and this week, it was Moe’s. She brought along her friend Nathalie, and I, of course, brought Kate. We didn’t have much time, but Kate and my sister chatted it up.

Kate had been wanting to take an official tour. She had looked into it and said that there would be one starting at 2:00, so we hurried over to the Welcome Center after lunch. I was going to be late for Numerical Analysis, and I wasn’t sure if they gave tours to non-prospective-students, but I thought we should give it a shot. When they asked about her potential relationship to the university, I just told them that she was a junior computer-science major at PBCC looking to transfer, and when asked why I was doing most of the talking for her, I just said her English wasn’t very good (even though it is, I hasten to point out). We had to give her contact information, so I wrote a fake address, and we hurriedly parted ways: my class had just started, and her tour had just started.

Later, while I was at work, she said she had gotten lost from the tour group and would meet me at my Databases class. So she met me there, and afterward, we had a little bit of time to grab coffee (well, she grabbed coffee and I helped her drink it). After that, we went to the Gator Freethought meeting. Kate had asked about any student organizations she might be interested in, so I suggested Gator Freethought, which promotes science, skepticism, and critical thinking. The topic of the meeting was logical fallacies, which I thought was kind of interesting, but the discussion was pretty chaotic, so I wasn’t sure how much of it Kate could follow.

So that was Thursday.

Back to the present for a moment. Today (well, yesterday, since I’m writing this after midnight) I found out that J.D. Salinger had died.

I first read The Catcher in the Rye in my freshman year of high school. It was influential on me, as I noted at the time:

(As a side note, my writing may seem unusually informal today. That’s because I have to read The Catcher in the Rye for English, and it’s written in very informal speech. It’s a good book, if you really want to know. I was actually reading it today while I was waiting for about five hours for my sister to get off the lousy computer. I was that much into the darn book. I mean it.)

Ha ha. I didn’t say “damn.”

Anyway, The Catcher in the Rye instantly became one of my favorite books, and it’s one of the few that I still reread with any regularity. In fact, I was just thinking of picking it up again the next time I go home, which will probably be soon. After recent re-readings, I’ve wondered whether I can still identify with Holden Caulfield. I’m older than him now, after all, and I’m in college. Who’s to know? I guess I’ll have to keep reading to find out.

The Onion has responded to the news in the style of The Catcher in the Rye: Bunch Of Phonies Mourn J.D. Salinger. It actually works well if you think about it.

New year, new beginnings

I finished my New Year’s Day by watching the Gators dismantle Cincinnati in the Sugar Bowl. It was the last college game for quarterback Tim Tebow, whom I’ve mentioned here. People love him. There’s even a site called Dear Tim Tebow that’s collecting well-wishers’ well wishes.

I like Tim Tebow because he’s a good football player, but many people also like him due to his religious views and practices. He’s very vocal about them, going so far as to cite Bible verses on his eye black. That the NCAA and a state university allow this constitutes an example of what can be called “Christian privilege.” Atheist Revolution has more about Tim Tebow and Christian Privilege. It’s written from a critical point of view, so the tone may surprise many Gator fans.

And on Saturday, I was fortunate enough to attend the wedding of my high-school friends Yamilee and Austin. Due to a mix-up, not many people actually showed up for the wedding, but the ceremony was very lovely and my sister, a bridesmaid, did a great job on her readings. (Aww.) It was a full Catholic Mass with a large proportion of non-Catholics in the audience, so they were standing when they were supposed to be kneeling and stuff like that.

Some friends I hadn’t seen since high school were there, so I got to catch up with them at the reception. Haitian food was served (Yamilee is Haitian), and I tried some of it. Who knew goat could be so delicious? Oh yeah, and then there was dancing and stuff too, which I didn’t partake in. I partook in the cake, though. Delicious cake.

From what I understand, Yamilee and Austin moved immediately after the wedding and now live where Austin has a job. Soon, they’ll be joining the Peace Corps. So I probably won’t see them for a while, but I’d like to if I can. And yeah, this is the first time I’ve ever been to a friend’s wedding (as opposed to a relative’s). I’m sure it will be the first of many… or, well, some.

Since then, I’ve started classes, but I’ll catch you up on that later. Right now it’s link time.

For your viewing pleasure: a color film of London from 1927. (Via The Presurfer)

Google’s autocomplete suggestions give insight on the weird stuff that people search for. Slate held a contest to find the pair of queries that could be best classified as “more intelligent” and “less intelligent” based on Google’s suggestions. And now there’s Autocomplete Me, a blog devoted to showcasing bizarre suggestions that had presumably actually been used by real people.

Welcome to 2010

Happy New Year, and welcome to the Teens, or whatever we’re going to call them. (Wikipedia says “Tens”?) I’d like to call 2010 “twenty ten,” but I’ll probably be inconsistent, at least until next year, when “twenty eleven” beats “two thousand eleven” in the syllable department.

Last night I had dinner at Olive Garden with Nick, Mike, TJ, and some of their other friends, and then I went to my friend Michelle’s new apartment to ring in the new decade. I had hardly seen her since our high school days, so it was nice to catch up a little bit. There were only a few other people there, most of them also from high school, so that was nice too.

You know how you always count down to the new year, and then it doesn’t feel any different? Well, this time, it did feel a little different for me. I felt a little older, a little more mature. Even though I’m twenty years old, this is the fourth decade I’ve lived in. How curious. I was going to say the fourth consecutive decade, but that’s implied. Hopefully.

Speaking of which, some radio stations are finally going to have to make a tough decision that they’ve been putting off for a while. I’m talking about the ones that play your favorite hits from the ’80s, ’90s, and today. I remember hearing that phrase during the ’90s and wondering what they would do in the 2000s. Turns out that they decided to keep the phrase, repurposing “today” to mean the 2000s. But now that we’re in the Te(e)ns, are they going to say that “today” encompasses more than ten years?

I haven’t really done anything today. I’ll probably just chill at home and watch the Sugar Bowl.

January 1 is a day when important things happen, including new laws going into effect. Starting today, blasphemy is illegal in Ireland. Yes, blasphemy, a victimless “crime” for which people are increasingly rarely prosecuted in most industrialized nations.

In protest against this senseless law that fortunately doesn’t apply to me, I was going to add some arguably blasphemous images to this post. I’ve decided not to because (a) I don’t want to make it seem like I’m picking only on some religions, and (b) I would fear for my and my family’s safety due to the past actions of idiot extremists of a certain religion. I feel like a coward. Hopefully someday I will have more courage.

Props, then, to the much braver folks behind blasphemy.ie, an Irish web site that has illegally posted some arguably blasphemous quotations, including this one from George Carlin:

Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it.

Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time! But He loves you.

He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!

Here are all 25 blasphemous quotes. (Via Pharyngula)

Speaking of dangerous laws, many great works of literature and film should have entered the public domain in the United States today. Under the copyright law that existed in 1953, all works published during that year—including The Crucible, Fahrenheit 451, Disney’s Peter Pan, the first issue of Playboy, and the first James Bond book—should have entered the public domain by January 1, 2010. Instead, newer laws have locked them up until 2049.

Duke Law’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain has more info: What Could Have Been Entering the Public Domain on January 1, 2010? You may also be interested in reading about Why the Public Domain Matters.

Interestingly, Wikipedia says that the first issue of Playboy was undated, so it may already be in the public domain. That’s currently the case for works that were published in the US without a copyright notice between 1923 and 1977. Does anyone want to look into the matter further?