Happy (Belated [1]) Bisexual Visibility Day Y’all
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Department Of Seven Words That Should Give People Hope
But That People Mostly Ignore
Your magic pill is how you live. [2]
Those seven words are from a Clear + Vivid podcast moiself heard several weeks back. The subject was…many subjects. It’s an episode I can’t find now – which I findironic in that one of the episode’s topics was discerning regular/age-related forgetting v. dementia-type forgetting. The podcast’s guest explained why, for example, I can tell you what I had for dinner eight *years* ago on a warm summer evening with my daughter in Paris bistro, but I likely can’t remember what I had for dinner eight weeks (or even days) ago.
There is a science (as in, cognitive strategies) to make meaningful memories at any age. However, as C+V host Alan Alda and his guess discussed, people would rather have the science behind such discoveries lead to a Magic Pill® to boost memory (or anything else). This is because – surprise! – we evolved to be…well…effing lazy. [3]
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Department Of Mark Your Calendars:
“You keep accusing me of blasphemy all of the time,
but I cannot be convicted of a victimless crime.”
( Dan Barker, former evangelical Christian minister turned atheist activist,
in his 1992 book Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist )
Wednesday 9-30 is International Blasphemy Day. Why not write a blasphemous [4] haiku to celebrate? [5]
Here’s a sample of my past contributions.
First things first: get the silly Old Testament proscriptions out of the way:
Eli, Saul – y ‘all heard?
Life is great; nothing’s unclean!
Shrimp rolls, anyone?
In the spirit of ecumenicism, a gentle dig at those gentle Zen Buddhists:
Get real, Grasshopper
The sound of one hand clapping
Sounds just like one clap
I’ll kill two birds with one stone in this swipe at a tenet of many forms of Hinduism
and Buddhism and – wait, make that three birds! – the New Age/past lives crowd:
Reincarnation?
Right – get a life! But next time
Come back with some proof
And of course, no Blasphemy Day contest would be complete without a California surfer’s
take on the Christian sacrilege that was heliocentric theory:
Telescope; awesome.
So, like, we spin around them?
Copernicus, dude!
For several years there have been Blasphemy Day t-shirt slogan contests, inspired in part by a United Nations resolution meant to pacify uber-sensitive Islamists. But that resolution was the very reason I took a “why bother/what’s the point?” attitude toward composing a Blasphemy Day slogan (or even haiku) for Islam. I mean, considering the possible reactions, who is going to wear a shirt poking fun at something that mandates death to fun-pokers?
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Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [6]
The oft-quoted [7] Robert Ingersoll was one of the most notable orators and speechmakers and civil rights activists of his time (post-Civil War America)…yet few remember him today. Trained as an attorney, ’twas his oratory tours – speaking on topics as wide-ranging as Reconstruction period to Shakespearean literature to religion to science – that made him famous. He was…”the friend of Presidents, literary giants like Mark Twain, captains of industry like Andrew Carnegie, and leading figures in the arts. He was also beloved of reformers like Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Other Americans considered themselves his enemies, (as he bitterly opposed the Religious Right of his day. He was an early popularizer of Charles Darwin and a tireless advocate of science and reason. More, he argued for the rights of women and African-Americans. Ingersoll also praised the virtues of family and fireside. And he practiced what he preached. Contemporary sources say Ingersoll enjoyed almost idyllic contentment in family life. Opponents frequently despaired of finding anything to disparage in his personal life.” [8]
* * *
May you value your daily habits more than your magic pills;
May you prize making memories over conserving energy;
May your opponents despair of finding anything to disparage
in your personal life;
…and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
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[1] Bi-lated?
[2] Translation: Nurture once again trumps nature, in that your lifestyle – your daily habits, from what you eat, how much you sleep, how you move through the world) are more impactful on your health and longevity than any magic pill ever will or could.
[3] “We evolved to conserve energy” – sounds more respectable, doesn’t it?
[4] From Mirriam-Webster: blasphemous, adjective, : impiously irreverent : profane
[5] And if you do, please share it with moiself.
[6] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
[7] At least, in my blog
[8] excerpt, Free Inquiry, Robert Green Ingersoll biography.
