I love the way this one reverberates. I think they ran a Farfisa organ through a guitar and then fiddled with the wha-wha…or at least that appeared to be what Ira Kaplan was doing on stage when I saw them play in NYC circa ’96. I also saw Richard Thompson that year, probably my last great year of concert-going before I stopped being obsessive about music and transferred my obsession to books. Oh, well.
Play the softer version with dozing infants in the room.
In Peru, a suspecting husband filmed his own wife in bed with the local parish priest, doing the nasty in church. The woman is apparently pregnant with the priest’s child, and is hoping he will recognize it. He has been suspended from his sacerdotal duties by the archbishop of Trujillo. The video, broadcast on Peruvian television, is here.
Geoffrey Robertson, in his recent book, The Case of the Pope, writes:
It may be that more is yet to come: after paedophile priests, promiscuous and predator priests will enter the spotlight […]
The vow of celibacy is widely disregarded. A recent survey in Poland showed that 54% of priests would like to have a wife, while 12% owned up to already having one.
Isn’t it about time clerical celibacy became a thing of the past? If all the other Christian denominations can get by without it, then why can’t the Catholic Church?
h/t UAAR
I fell for it again. I bought Corriere della Sera today because they have a new promo, “Classics of Freethought;” for one euro you get a thin volume of Voltaire, Rousseau etc…provided you buy the newspaper. So I did.
And on the front page is an article telling me the Vatican has already prepared an official prayer for the beatification of Pius XII, that stone-faced, humorless pope who never spoke a word against the Nazi atrocities during the entirety of World War II.
The prayer begins, “Our Lord Jesus Christ, we thank You for having given to the Church Pope Pius XII, that faithful teacher of Your truth and our angelic pastor…”
Barf. Does “introspection” have an entry in the Catholic Encyclopedia? Or is it taboo, like “relativism?”
By now I’m guessing that most of my readers also read Jesus and Mo. I want to share Mr. Apostate with you now. Mr. Apostate has a very different style than J&M, and rather reminds me of Glen Baxter and Bazooka Joe. Here’s one I liked:
Please send links to more apostate comix.
Jerry Coyne wrote a series of posts last week that got my mouth watering for good old Lower East Side home cookin’. Evidently, we share a pathological love of bagels and other delicacies of Jewish delicatessen: the bialy, the pickle barrel, pastrami and endless varieties of smoked fish. Smoked salmon – or lox, from the Yiddish lox– is perhaps my favorite foodstuff ever invented, besides spaghetti. (And no, spaghetti-and-lox is not a good idea; don’t even bother.)
Italy, a country as famous for its food as it is for its museums (and rotten politicians), has a disturbing lack of bagels. Rome has an American-style hot dog stand, burritos, falafel and Tex-Mex diners, but IT HAS NO BAGELS. This is odd because almost every American I meet who has lived or spent some significant time in Italy has lamented the absence of bagels and expressed the concomitant wish that someone would open up a bagel shop.
Anyone out there planning a trip to Italy, be forewarned: you will get sick of pizza before the week is through. Ethnic food is second-rate and expensive. Pack a dozen or so bagels for your trip; we’ll supply the lox. Buon viaggio!
Jesus and Mo – that atheistically philosophical comic strip starring our favorite prophetic odd couple – have been inspired to one of their dialogues by Italy’s dear Foreign Minister Franco Frattini. Frattini has gotten oodles of attention this week while he’s been in China. The Friendly Atheist reprinted the UAAR’s letter to President Napolitano in English, where they call for Frattini to step down over his atheophobic remarks. This blog has had many hits as well, and thanks go out to everyone who left me encouraging comments. Welcome, new readers!
If you don’t read Jesus and Mo, check them out:
A quick thought from Voltaire, because I’m out the door now.
“Be assured that one enthusiastic, factious, ignorant, supple, vehement Capuchin – the emissary of some ambitious monks – who goes about preaching, confessing, communicating and caballing, will much sooner overthrow a province than a hundred authors can enlighten it. It was not the Koran which made Muhammad succed: it was Muhammad who caused the success of the Koran.”
…and we need all the help we can get!
My post on Italy’s theocratic pretensions has been linked at Butterflies and Wheels. So here’s a big sombrero tip to you, Ophelia!
Go to “Latest News.” And to think just yesterday I wasn’t helping.
I suppose I have my mother to thank for turning me on to Tom Lehrer, one of the most brilliant musical satirists alive. His stage patter alone would be worth listening to, but the fact is that each of his songs is a polished little diamond of parodic perfection.
Lehrer was very much admired by the educated snobbery of another age – being very much an elitist snob himself – though I doubt too many people under forty have him on their iPods (I do).
If you don’t know him, I’d recommend the winning “Lobachevsky” which is as good a place to start as any. It’s the sordid tale of a mathematician who plagiarizes his great masterpiece, which is then turned into a Soviet blockbuster film “starring Ingrid Bergman” – or alternately Brigitte Bardot – “as part of hypotenuse.”
Atheists, non-believers and freethinkers are pissed off across the globe like never before. Just this past week I discovered new freethought websites in Greece, Cyprus, Uganda and Italy.* I’m now keeping a list, so if you know of any I don’t please send info.
I am pissed off this week because Italy’s Foreign Minister Franco Frattini wrote an article which he published in the Osservatore Romano, a Vatican newspaper, attacking atheists as “perverse” and a “threat to society.” I’ve translated the money quote into English so non-Italian readers can see what theocratic bigots are running the roost here:
“Christians also must be able to forge an agreement with Muslims on how to fight those aspects which, like all extremisms, threaten society. I refer to atheism, materialism and relativism. Christians, Muslims and Jews can work together to reach this common objective. I believe it’s time for a new humanism in order to struggle against these perverse phenomena, because only the centrality of the human being is an antidote to fanaticism and intolerance.”
So it’s war he wants, and he’s rallying his homophobic, misogynistic friends at the Vatican against his fellow citizens in a holy alliance which is supposed to include their worst historical enemies, Jews and Muslims. I’m beginning to think we’ve entered a new phase of religious warfare on Earth: it’s no longer going to be Muslims vs. Christians or skirmishes over minor doctrinal differences, but the faithful against the secular. The only thing they can agree on is that non-believers are the enemy (at least they can finally agree on something) of their unfounded truths.
I should point out Frattini’s howler in his call for a new humanism. Is he really unaware of the fact that almost all atheists are humanists? And that faith in the supernatural is by definition not humanism, because it relies on a power outside humanity to solve humanity’s problems? That’s why we call ourselves humanists.
I wrote a short note to President Giorgio Napolitano over at the Quirinale in my best polite Italian, explaining my personal indignation. The UAAR has called for Frattini’s resignation, stating that his ideas are “clearly incompatible with the [Italian] constitution and detrimental to Italy’s international standing” as a “founding member of the European Union.”
But what pisses me off even more are my fellow atheists and secularists – Italian and American – who chide my microscopic efforts. “Why bother? This country is rotten to the core. It won’t change because you wrote an email or posted something angry on your blog.” What should I do, accept that Italy is a Vatican proxy and that I live in a Catholic theocracy? Are these the same people who want me to “accept” that the Tea Partiers mean business and will be ruling the United States in an Evangelical coalition, imposing their God on the rest of us while we kvetch that “it’s pointless to speak out”? The whole point of Gnu Atheism – if you haven’t been listening – is that those days are a distant memory. Non-believers have begun to speak up in unprecedented numbers the world over and they are not going to shut up any time soon.
Go ahead and declare war on us. We’ll continue to send indignant emails, and start blogs and websites dedicated to combating your superstition, ignorance and contempt for reason. And, in the fullness of time (we can cite the Bible, too, guys) we will win this battle. One blog at a time.
* The hat tip goes to PZ Myers, who is tracking the global spread of freethought websites daily at Pharyngula.
Marc Di Martino 