I just watched the latest episode of Moyers & Company with Bill Moyers. He interviewed social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. Haidt has a forthcoming book titled The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. It was a fascinating program. I recommend it, if you haven’t watched it already.

This part of Moyers’ intro sort of sums up Haidt’s premise:

His ideas are controversial but they make you think. Haidt says, for example, that liberals misunderstand conservatives more than the other way around, and that while conservatives see self-sufficiency as a profound moral value for individuals, liberals are more focused on a public code of care and equity.

The thing about any of the social sciences is that they’re tricky to study. You can stick water in a beaker on a hot plate to measure its boiling point, but how do you measure a society’s boiling point? The social sciences are littered with the corpses of theories, plausible and crazy alike, that attempted to explain why we behave (individually or collectively) the way we do.

This Haidt guy has some interesting ideas. Is there any truth to them? I don’t know. I like things that can be measured objectively, and this isn’t it. I know I’m more partial to the ideas of George Lakoff, but I don’t know that he’s right either.

Haidt’s ideas are based on his Moral Foundations Theory. He describes it on its website:

In brief, the theory proposes that six (or more) innate and universally available psychological systems are the foundations of “intuitive ethics.” Each culture then constructs virtues, narratives, and institutions on top of these foundations, thereby creating the unique moralities we see around the world, and conflicting within nations too. [emphasis added]

These six foundations are:

1. Care/harm: This foundation is related to our long evolution as mammals with attachment systems and an ability to feel (and dislike) the pain of others. It underlies virtues of kindness, gentleness, and nurturance.
2. Fairness/cheating: This foundation is related to the evolutionary process of reciprocal altruism. It generates ideas of justice, rights, and autonomy. [Note: In our original conception, Fairness included concerns about equality, which are more strongly endorsed by political liberals. However, as we reformulated the theory in 2011 based on new data, we emphasize proportionality, which is endorsed by everyone, but is more strongly endorsed by conservatives]
3. Liberty/oppression: This foundation is about the feelings of reactance and resentment people feel toward those who dominate them and restrict their liberty. Its intuitions are often in tension with those of the authority foundation. The hatred of bullies and dominators motivates people to come together, in solidarity, to oppose or take down the oppressor.
4. Loyalty/betrayal: This foundation is related to our long history as tribal creatures able to form shifting coalitions. It underlies virtues of patriotism and self-sacrifice for the group. It is active anytime people feel that it’s “one for all, and all for one.”
5. Authority/subversion: This foundation was shaped by our long primate history of hierarchical social interactions. It underlies virtues of leadership and followership, including deference to legitimate authority and respect for traditions.
6. Sanctity/degradation: This foundation was shaped by the psychology of disgust and contamination. It underlies religious notions of striving to live in an elevated, less carnal, more noble way. It underlies the widespread idea that the body is a temple which can be desecrated by immoral activities and contaminants (an idea not unique to religious traditions).

When they asked liberals and conservatives how strongly they felt about those issues, this is how it came out:

I guess my biggest concern is how neutrally the questions were worded. It’s extremely difficult to write bias-free questions. Even his choice of labels raises some questions. In the list above, the first word of each pair is clearly the “better” or more desirable trait. But when I see the word “authority”, for example, I have an immediate negative reaction.

I’ve always disrespected authority. And what is “legitimate authority” anyway? There is very little in this country. The politicians have authority by virtue of occupying the roles defined in the Constitution, but it is not legitimate in my view. They have not earned that authority. They bought it with massive campaign contributions from Rupert Murdoch, the Koch brothers, and a few other unelected billionaires.

Or maybe he is referring to actual legitimate authority, which would result from free and fair elections. I’m all in favor of that, but we don’t have too many of those.

I score low on one perception of the definition, but high on the other. Since I don’t know how free of bias (conscious or unconscious) his questions were worded, I don’t know how much stock to put in his results.

It sure is peculiar that the liberals are so extremely lopsided and the conservatives are so evenly distributed.

Despite my doubts, he nevertheless has some interesting things to say in the interview. It’s worth trying to listen with an open mind and learn what we can from it.

Oh, and notice at the end of the interview that he shares my opinion that the system is extremely broken. He is of the mistaken opinion that it is fixable, though.

I love it when this happens. I bought lunch at this crappy “Hawaiian Grill” today, and, as you can see by the receipt above, the total was $6.66!

I remember eating there once before, and the food was pretty bad. Somehow that memory had faded enough that I forgot. Now I know why it’s bad. It’s devil food! (No, wait. Devil’s food is good! It’s angel’s food that’s bad. No, wait. Angel’s food is good too. I’m confused! They can’t both be good, can they? One thing I do know: This Hawaiian BBQ is bad!)

Back in this blog’s heyday, I wrote an amusing article about restaurant bills that come out to $6.66.

It’s getting harder and harder to pay $6.66 for food anymore. Prices have just gone up too much. Inflation is driving Satan into bankruptcy!

Another weird thing that I haven’t figured out is Subway. I end up eating there about once a week, because there’s one near work. Depending on which sandwich and drink I get, I sometimes see them ring it up on the register as $6.66. That total shows up on the display for about half a second, and then it drops to $6.50! I thought I was imagining it, but I’ve seen it too often now. It’s definitely happening.

I thought maybe the franchisee was a religious nut, and he had programmed the register to subtract 16 cents every time it came out to $6.66, but that can’t be it. I’ve compared the prices printed on the receipt to the prices on the menu, and they match. There’s no reason for it to come out to the higher amount in the first place.

Has anybody else seen that happen or know why a register would display a wrong price at first and then the correct price?

There has been so much bleakness and divisiveness on this blog lately that I decided it was time to run something we all can agree on: Mimes. We hate ’em!

It turns out those sick bastards at Lego actually released a mime figure! That, of course, was just asking for trouble.

I found a Flickr group called “The Brothers Brick ‘A Mime is a Terrible Thing to Waste’ Contest”. Most of the entries aren’t very good. A few are, though. Here are some of my favorites.

I made the mistake of going by Clown Hall today. That’s when I realized that their name isn’t descriptive enough. It’s not just a site populated by conservative clowns who bumble and stumble with illogic and misfacts. It should be called “Clown Car Hall”, because no matter how fast you shoot them down, another comes spilling out. (For the record, I am not actually advocating shooting conservatives here. Just clowns. Conservatives are human.)

The first thing spilling out of the car when I arrived was a column by Cal Thomas, titled “Death of An Atheist”. It’s an amazing accomplishment. You have to admire the craftsmanship that went into it. It is one of the most concentrated pieces of fundie fail I’ve seen in ages. I hope you have some free time. This will take a while.

[Christopher] Hitchens railed against those who believe in God. While an original writer, and smart, there was nothing original about his unbelief.

It’s true. The non-existence of God has long been established as a virtual certainty.

Such views have been expressed since the dawn of humanity. They have also been answered by some of the wisest people who have ever lived.

Not answered persuasively, but answered!

There is a difference between “smart” and “wise.”

But you can add “ass” to the end of either word to get pretty much identical meanings!

As that Scripture in which Hitchens disbelieved says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” (Proverbs 9:10)

This is a typical fundie debating tactic. They just pull quotes out of their ass the Bible and act like that’s some sort of evidence to support their claim. Here’s a quote for you, Cal:

The end of your teens is the beginning of wisdom teeth.

You can attribute that one to me. I’m sure it proves something. Did I win the debate yet?

I have always found atheists to be interesting people…

…because they just may be the world’s smallest minority group…

Actually, atheists are one of the fastest-growing minorities.

…one that gets smaller still as its members pass on and meet God face to face.

Now Cal has wandered off into the logical brush. Somebody grab a cattle prod and bring him back.

Still, atheists demand physical proof of God’s existence, as if they could bring God down and make Him into their image. What kind of God would that be?

The God of the Old Testament.

He would be their equal and, thus, not God at all.

Wasn’t that what that whole Jesus business was supposed to be about? God made flesh and all that? Then for the next 2000 years, God made into a biscuit.

Evidence, alone, has never moved anyone from unbelief to faith.

By definition, it can’t. If there’s evidence, there is no need for faith.

If proof were enough, all of the unbelieving contemporaries of Jesus (and Moses) would have believed in God because of the miracles they performed.

That suggests that they never performed any miracles. In fact, the evidence that either even existed at all is scant for the former and non-existent for the latter.

Two people presented with exactly the same information can respond in opposite ways. Faith is not based solely on facts. It is a gift from a God who exists.

It’s actually a curse from our evolutionary history. We needed to be able to make correlations based on feeble evidence. Suppose you’re a caveman walking through the forest. You hear the leaves rustle, then a tiger jumps out, yet you somehow survive (perhaps by performing a ritual human sacrifice (i.e., you trip your slow, fat cousin, so he gets eaten and you escape)). The next time you hear the leaves rustle, it’s in your best interest to assume there’s a tiger in the brush, not a squirrel.

It’s probable that religious folks have been worshiping a squirrel for the last 4000 years.

Hitchens wrote a book called “God is Not Great.” It’s a clever title, but how would he have known, since they had not been properly introduced?

They probably had been introduced. People come to my door all the time, trying to introduce me to God.

C.S. Lewis, once an atheist and thus conversant with the subject, wrote after his conversion, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

I hope that isn’t the “proof” that converted C.S. Lewis. If so, he’s even more of an intellectual featherweight than his reputation indicates. If I’m reading it correctly, that’s the old “I see the proof of God everywhere. Just look around!” argument. In other words “Somebody had to create the universe!”

It’s also a good lesson in not believing what appears to be true. The sun doesn’t rise. That’s an illusion caused by the rotation of the Earth. C.S. Lewis was not a flat Earther. He knew that was just a poetic expression. However, for millennia, people did believe that the sun rose and set. No, actually, they “knew” it. They looked around, and they saw it every day. It had to be that way.

Likewise, you can’t look at the existence of the universe and “know” that it had to be created. That is a logical jump that you have no basis for making.

Some people exist, however nervously, believing that this life is all there is. The late singer Peggy Lee put the result of such faith this way: “Is that all there is? If that’s all there is to life, then let’s break out the booze and have a ball, if that’s all there is.”

Although you can’t swill booze and engage in merriment 24/7, it is nonetheless good advice (in moderation). Too many religious people make themselves miserable in this life in order to buy themselves booze and merriment after death. The tragedy is that they are never allowed to enjoy the one life—the one existence in any form—that they will ever have.

Why contribute to charity, or perform other good deeds? Without a source to inspire charity, such acts are sentimental affectations, devoid of meaning and purpose.

What a cold, sterile life Cal Thomas leads. His only motivation for helping others is to acquire brownie points from God. It’s also selfish. Presumably he plans to spend those brownie points to buy his way into heaven.

If survival of the fittest is the rule, let only the fit survive.

The Straw Man argument actually serves two purposes. One is obvious, and one is less obvious. In its obvious use, the person making the argument invents a simplified (and often mischaracterized) version of the opponent’s position and logically dismantles that. It makes him look like the winner of the debate (at least to those who don’t understand the other side’s actual position). (The crocoduck is the most hilarious use of the Straw Man argument of all time.)

The less obvious use of the Straw Man argument is to convince the speaker himself. Cal Thomas is mischaracterizing evolution as being solely about survival of the fittest. That’s an important element, but the forces that drive selection and evolution are more complex. Furthermore, the survival of the human species is driven by more than just biological evolution. No society could endure if it lived by the animalistic “there’s always a bigger fish” rule alone.

But Cal Thomas likes his oversimplified version of evolution. He can comfortably reject that version. That version doesn’t challenge his beliefs about the universe and his place in it.

That was the sentiment of Ebenezer Scrooge before his visitation by those three spirits and his subsequent transformation. Let the poor and starving die, he said, “…and decrease the surplus population.”

It’s not just Ebenezer Scrooge:

Who is to say such a notion is wrong without a standard by which to judge wrong.

Certainly not the Libertarians or the teabaggers. I have no idea what this has to do with Christopher Hitchens’ death, but Cal Thomas brought it up.

To object to God is to create morality from a Gallup Poll. In Gallup We Trust doesn’t have the same authority.

That’s a cute line, but it’s irrelevant. Nobody is objecting to God. We’re only objecting to the behavior of some of the people who believe in him.

To his other point, we do create morality from a Gallup poll. Not an actual Gallup poll, but by the consensus of the governed. That’s how, over the centuries, we have determined that genocide, slavery, and capital punishment are wrong, to name just a few. All three of which, by the way, are approved by God as “moral” and “good”.

Hitchens was a gifted writer, but who gave him the gift?

This is a retread of the C.S. Lewis argument from above. It exists; therefore God made it that way.

Why was he not a gifted actor, surgeon or athlete? Why was he not talentless? Was it an evolutionary accident, which would mean his gift and his life were meaningless and merely a “chasing after the wind”? (See Ecclesiastes) Apparently he thought so.

And this is a retread of the “quote the Bible for proof” argument. Cal is starting to peter out (See Peter).

An atheist will tell you he doesn’t need God in order to be good, or perform good works. Maybe not, but the very notion of “good” must have both a definition and a definer.

Yes. Good is defined by the collective agreement of society. The definition of good has changed throughout history.

We cannot allow good to be defined by God. He is one of the most atrocious monsters in all of literature.

Who is the author of evil?

Based on the evidence provided in that last link, obviously God.

And if God is nonexistent, why do we call it evil?

Good point. We shouldn’t. Evil is a mythological term that has no usefulness in an enlightened society.

Is one person’s evil another person’s good? Does such a view lead to ethics that must inevitably be situational?

Yes. Not all situations are black and white.

(BTW, the essence of that quote predates the movie.)

Scripture warns, “The fool has said in his heart ‘there is no God.’” (Psalm 14:1)

I love that quote. Fundies love to slam it down on the table in triumph, as if to say “Checkmate, bitch!”

Get back to me when you come up with a better argument for that point, will you Cal?

In this season when many celebrate the object of their faith, there is no joy in the death of one who had faith that God does not exist. Hitchens now knows the truth and that can only be the worst possible news for him.

Actually, Hitchens can’t “know” that. He stopped existing a few days ago.

In the extremely unlikely chance that there is something after death, it cannot be the God and heaven described in the Bible. That book is so full of contradictions and inaccuracies that it can’t be an accurate description of the afterlife. That means that it is the fundies who will be in for the rude shock when they depart this mortal coil.

Since I have a second oddly-suggestive photograph of Kim Jong-Il, I need to write a second article. Here are some comments I found on a fundie “news” site about the Christmas trees that the South Korean fundies are putting on the border to piss off the North Koreans.

A Christian calling himself A_Proud_Infidel says:

Overseas, the Commies persecute Christianity worse than their ACLU brethren in the USA!

I don’t think the exclamation point means he’s shouting the entire comment. I suspect that’s how he always writes USA.

USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!

Along those same lines, raffaro writes:

SHIT aren’t atheists pigs trying that here in America.Looks like they have alot in common with those Staliist pigs after all !!!!!!!

Camarottajr says:

I guess we have to wait for the “JackAss In Chief,” barack hussein obama to weigh in on this after he finishes his meeting with the mu slimes about tolorance…! My bet is JackAss In Chief barack hussein obama won’t say a word, what say you?

I say he needs to meet with the Christians about tolerance.

Orent asks why we allow North Korea to continue to exist, to which Lilly Maus replies:

“Allowed to continue?”…Did you know they have the bomb??? did you know they don’t have morals ???…Now add bomb + no morals = KABOOM…

I’m not sure what evidence the “no morals” claim is based on. I’m guessing it’s because communists are atheists, so of course they have no morals!

glenp827 writes:

CHRISTMAS TREE is a pagan symbol coopted for the holiday

to which Violet asks:

Is that why makes atheists so angry? We stole their Yule Logs and conifer trees.

Yes. That’s exactly why. It has nothing to do with fundies trying to turn the United States into their own version of North Korea.

Elsewhere on that page, Violet also says:

Guess South Korea is getting a taste of what it is to be an American Christian. We deal with this all the time. Somebody is always yapping about how Christians offend them.

Actually, Christians don’t offend me, and I don’t know very many non-Christians who are offended by them. We’re just offended by their actions.

Somebody named jong (really?) writes:

God bless those that put up the Trees. Throw a bag of rice at North Korea that will shut them up. Or even better put a nativity on the US Consulate and make sure it is well lite(I am sorry I forgot we have a muslim homosexual as President and Sec. of State is also a Marxist little chance of that happening)

Not to mention the fact that we don’t have a US consulate in North Korea.

Doug has a treasure trove of gems for us:

The ungodly will go at any length to stop Christianity at all costs. They’ll even risk a war, if need be. This incident is an example of their insane quest to shut down God in our lives. Outside our borders lays a vast world of hate for Christians. If you are a Jew or Christian, they want to kill you. Bottom-line: The world hates Christians and Jews………

And inside our country, these ungodly’s, have crept in like cockroaches bringing mayhem into our streets. We were once a peaceful nation, and now we’ve become a nation in terror. They want to take God out of the equation. And let political correctness rule the day. You want troubles in this life, leave Christ out of your life, because you will get no blessings from God.

And we’ve become a nation under siege by these ungodly nations. Watch how this Christmas tree issue unfolds in N. Korea, and watch how the media will fold into “political correctness”!

A fundie group in South Korea is going to put up three giant Christmas trees on the border with North Korea. This is part of the stupid back-and-forth provoking that these two immature siblings have been doing since the cease fire 58 years ago. They’re like little kids in the back seat on a long car trip. “Mommy! Kim is on my side!” “No I’m not. You’re poking me!”

Little kids with nukes, that is.

Maybe a better analogy is the crazy old man on the outskirts of town who has a vicious dog in his backyard. The neighbor boy thinks it’s great fun to shove a stick through the chain-link fence and repeatedly poke the dog. Not only is that a bad idea, but an even worse idea would be for someone else to go up to the kid and encourage him to keep at it. Jab that dog even more!

Well, an American fundie group thinks poking mad dogs is a splendid idea! Liberty Counsel tells us:

North Korea has claimed that South Korea’s plan to place three Christmas light displays in the shape of large trees is “a mean attempt for psychological warfare.” Their official site states, “The enemy warmongers… should be aware that they should be held responsible entirely for any unexpected consequences that may be caused by their scheme,” according to the Associated French Press.

Mad dogs are more fun to poke when they’re really mad!

This highlights the extreme hostility towards Christianity and Christmas that is still a daily part of the lives of those living in North Korea. Their government is not just content to ban the celebration of Christmas inside their nation, but is willing to declare Christmas lights seen from their borders to be similar to an act of war.

Wow. A literal War on Christmas™! It’s almost like Liberty Counsel is getting ready to make some sort of unsupportable logical jump.

Here in America, a Texas school banned Santa; a California school went another step and also banned poinsettias and Christmas trees, alleging that each was too religious. In addition, Governor Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island renamed a Christmas tree a holiday tree against the wishes of the tree’s donor and the outcry across his state. It appears Gov. Chafee is well-suited for survival at the North Korea border. His policies are better for kow-towing to the Commies than celebrating Christmas.

And another Gold Medal in the Long Jump for Liberty Counsel!

They actually open their article with this “quiz”:

You might be a communist if…

• You ban poinsettias from a government school;
• You rename a Christmas tree a “holiday” tree in a state building…or
• You threaten your neighbors with unexpected consequences if they want to put up Christmas lights.

They found a couple of instances of people being overly-cautious about merging church and state, and they think we’re on the path to living in North Korea.

Here’s a quiz for you, Liberty Counsel:

You might be a fundie if you equate the defense of the First Amendment with communism.

And they seem pretty proud of it, too. Be sure to tag him, or you’ll get fined.

The above image came to me via email. It’s from Truth Saves, but I was unable to find it on that site. The site has a lot of other good stuff, though.

As you’ve noticed, I’m still having a lot of trouble finding time to post new articles. Since I very much would like the site to continue, I’ve been pondering how to do so given the changes in my life’s priorities.

I have an idea on how to proceed. Long-time readers (if they all haven’t wandered off due to no new posts) might not be completely happy with the changes, but the site probably can’t continue in its current form. I hope to have some news about that shortly.

Jesse Helms was one of the most destructive senators we’ve ever endured. One of his little side projects was trying to defund the National Endowment for the Arts, because the angry voices in his head told him that some art is obscene.

The ad above was made by a feminist group called the Guerrilla Girls. Wikipedia tells us this:

Guerrilla Girls are an anonymous group of feminists devoted to fighting against sexism within the visual fine art world internationally.

The ad apparently was trying to embarrass the big art museums into displaying more than just white guys’ art, so it’s not really an open letter to Jesse Helms. What does it say about fundie Republicans when they’re being used as examples of shame?

I think the reason the teabaggers and other extremists hate intellectuals and other educated people is they know we’re laughing at them, but they can’t quite figure out the joke.

Since I know a thing or two about school shootings, that image was begging for me to shoot it full of holes.

First of all, like all subjects, there seems to be a diversity of opinion on guns, and that’s fine. Some of those opinions are held by rational people, and that’s even better.

The problem is, there are some people out there with extreme opinions, who think and behave irrationally. Those are the people who bother me. They poison the well. They’re so extreme that they make it impossible for rational people in a rational society to have a rational national discussion on the topic.

There are several topics that seem to attract a disproportionately-massive share of the lunatic fringe. Abortion is one. Guns are another. I don’t know which has the craziest crazies, but I do know which are the most dangerous. Never combine irrational extremist emotion with firearms.

(BTW, just so you know where I’m coming from, I don’t like guns, but I have no desire to repeal the Second Amendment. I do question the sanity and/or logical capabilities of the most rabid of the gun supporters.)

Let’s start with the logic of the argument expressed in the above image.

Problem #1: Correlation ≠ causation. For example, CBS began broadcasting color television signals in January of 1950. Joseph McCarthy began his witch hunts less a month later. Therefore, color television caused McCarthyism!

Problem #2: Children did not take machine guns to school. Therefore, the “fact” that they could, in theory, purchase the gun had no bearing on the safety of their school.

Problem #3: It’s just plain incorrect. There were numerous school shootings prior to 1934! Where’s your machine gun now, Charlton?

For example, the earliest known school shooting was the Enoch Brown school massacre (a.k.a. Pontiac’s Rebellion school massacre) on July 26, 1764.

Wikipedia mentions a few shootings in the 1800s. By the early 1900s, school shootings were all the rage. Wikipedia lists eleven shootings between 1900 and 1934. That’s an average of one shooting every three-and-a-half years. That’s not very rare, is it? Sounds a lot like our modern era, doesn’t it?

So tell me, gun nuts: How is allowing students and teachers to pack heat going to keep our schools safe?

BTW, I just wanted to point out one of the especially unpleasant school shootings of the early 20th century. Read the Wikipedia entry for the San Francisco shooting:

February 12, 1909 San Francisco, California. 10-year-old Dorothy Malakanoff was shot and killed by 49-year-old Demetri Tereaschinko as she arrived at her school in San Francisco. Tereaschinko then shot himself in a failed suicide attempt.

OK. Murder-suicide. We’ve seen that pattern play out numerous times. It’s this last part that’s especially disturbing:

Tereaschinko was reportedly upset that Malakanoff refused to elope with him.

She was ten years old!!! WTF!!! I know standards were different then. I know teenagers often got married, sometimes to much older men. But she was ten freakin’ years old!!!

Who the hell did that guy think he was? Mohammed?

Last weekend, I went to the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival. It isn’t the sort of event where I expected to encounter the forces of superstition, fear, and misinformation. Oh what a fool I am.

Overall, actually, I was rather impressed. Although ostensibly a harvest festival, the event overall contained all of the images of the season, which includes that most evil of holidays, Halloween. (BTW, harvest festivals are also pagan, so really, the entire event is non-Christian.)

Despite the festival’s pagan undertones, several of the food booths were run by churches. I also noticed that some of the churches in town were decorated with witches, black cats, and other Halloween imagery. It struck me that if this were held in the Deep South, not only would the churches not have evil, satanic, pagan decorations, but all their members would be out picketing.

(That’s right. I live in one of the least fundie regions in the nation, and I run an anti-fundie blog. That’s because if I lived anywhere else in the country, my brain would explode. That’s what happens when you put something filled with matter into a vacuum.)

But, as I alluded to at top, the event wasn’t devoid of superstition.

Park Place

My first encounter occurred as I was driving into town. This event attracts 200,000 people over two days, so I got there early to avoid traffic. There isn’t much on-street parking, so all of the locals seize the opportunity to let you park in their lot—for a fee, of course.

I passed numerous signs advertising parking. “Park here! $5!” (I’m assuming they don’t mean 5-factorial. “What do you mean $120? Your sign said $5!” “Exactly!”)

“Park here! $10!”

“All-Day Parking! $15!”

I was able to get fairly close. Then I came to an intersection and had a dilemma. I saw two parking signs.

The one on the left said “Park at our church! Only two blocks from the festival! $5!”

The one on the right said “Park at our elementary school! Only four blocks from the festival! $10”

Hmmmmm… decisions… decisions…. I can spend $5 and only have to walk two blocks, but my money goes to brainwash the gullible with misinformation. Or I can spend twice that, have to walk twice as far, but my money helps to buy supplies for a destitute school.

Without even pausing long enough to blink, I turned right and parked at the elementary school.

No Comfort

As I was walking toward the festival, I saw a couple of guys standing on a street corner. They appeared to be handing something out.

Some people have “gaydar”. I have “fundar”. I know that isn’t a good pun, but you try to come up with a funny name for it. It’s actually not a special skill. Anytime you see somebody handing something out on a street corner, it’s virtually guaranteed to be a fundie.

I immediately realized that this could be something I could make fun of on my blog! (I’m always working for you folks, even when I’m doing other stuff!) Sure enough, it was!

“Would you like to have a $100 bill?” one of the fundies asked, holding up an oversized $100 bill.

Woohoo! Jackpot! A giant $100 bill!

That could only mean this is one of Ray Comfort’s fundiebots! I’ve been reading Ray’s emails for quite a while. He always has oversized crap like this to pass out. On the back, of course, is a Bible tract.

I was excited, because I knew these guys were out there. They stake out high-traffic areas, trying to snare the unwary, but I had never seen any in the wild. I was beginning to think they were extinct in Northern California (sort of like the grizzly bear, and just as dangerous).

“Is that Ray Comfort’s tract?”, I asked.

“Yes sir!”, the fundie said.

“Sure, I’ll take it!” I folded up my prize and stuffed it into my pocket, so no one would be able to steal it from me.

If you folks are lucky, and I have time (HA!), I’ll dissect the thing in a future article.

BTW, this thought occurred to me: Couldn’t I take Ray Comfort’s $100 bill and use it to pay for parking at that church up the street? Shouldn’t it be legal tender for them? “Keep the change!”, I’d tell them. I’m so generous at times!

The Twelve Commandments

As I continued my long, four-block slog to the festival, I passed a church (There were quite a few churches along that short stretch of road. What is Half Moon Bay’s problem?).

They had posted the Ten Commandments out front:

Umm… I mean Twelve Commandments.

A-OK Psychic Readings

Wandering around the festival, I happened upon this sign in the window of an alleged psychic:

Obviously, her powers do not extend to spelling.

The On the Media blog has an interesting article by PJ Vogt. He writes that he considers the above image to be one of the most memorable photos shot on the morning of Sept. 11.

I agree. The incongruity of the mundane with the horrific is riveting. The photograph also contradicts our memories of that day. Every image we’ve seen of that day, both on the day itself and in the decade since, has been of the destruction and devastation. And then there’s this photo, which contradicts all of those memories. How do we reconcile this image with those others? How do we fit this into our brain? It doesn’t match the narrative we thought we knew.

I had a second reaction, though. I’ve seen this before. Not this exact image, but all the elements. In fact, I remember reading about it back in the 1970s, in an old book in the school library.

Humorist Robert Benchley predicted this image almost 80 years ago, in an article titled “Johnny-on-the-Spot”. I’ve scanned the article and posted it below, for your edification. The book I pulled it out of is The Benchley Roundup, first published in 1954. I’m not sure when the article itself was originally published, but I’m guessing late 1920s or sometime in the 1930s.

The article is dead-on. I’ve seen lots of photos over the years of significant events, and there’s often some guy somewhere in the foreground or on the side seemingly oblivious to the momentous activity just 30 feet away. (You might find Benchley’s derby fixation strange, but everybody used to wear hats in those days. I guess in Benchley’s experience, it was always a derby.)

If you want to read more Robert Benchley, you’ll have to haunt used book stores. Project Gutenberg has one measly book online. (You can thank Disney and their lapdog tree-skier Sonny Bono, who got copyright extended until doomsday to protect the profits from Mickey Mouse.)

So now, enjoy the prescience of Robert Benchley: