Adding Insult to Inquiry

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Not A and Not B

Not A and Not B (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Many folks who know me have accused me of being a smug know it all. The accusation is not entirely without merit however it is drastically overstated. They decide they do not like what I have to say, and rather than try to go after my argument and find what it is lacking, attack me and call me arrogant. I am not the only person who receives this treatment of course. Conservatives in our culture like to bemoan the liberal, educated elites. This bit of chicanery trickles down over their fan-base (given the nature of American politics I have decided to stop calling it their demographic) who eat it up, actually believing these snake oil salesmen have their best interests at heart. Continue reading →

It’s Just a Number

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Youngest and Oldest Church Member

Youngest and Oldest Church Member (Photo credit: Old Shoe Woman)

Today my Pop turns 60. I suppose it is something of a milestone birthday. Sure the AARP starts sending you stuff at 55 but in our collective consciousness we don’t really view someone as “senior” until they’ve reached the big six-oh. Somehow it seems like less of a big deal than I would imagine. Maybe it’s his understated attitude about it. Yes he grumbles about not being able to get around the way he used to, or handle the cold as well, but for the most part, it’s just another year, and hell, I grumble about that stuff. Continue reading →

The Twenty Two Page Bible

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One of comics' most iconic covers: The Avenger...

One of comics’ most iconic covers: The Avengers #4 (March 1964). Art by Kirby & George Roussos. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I would like to think I am a decent person. I care about others, I am generally honest, usually hard-working, and avoid hurting others whenever possible, which is to say: 99.99 percent of the time. I really don’t know what more we need to do to be good. Others may disagree, but moral strength seems to be relatively simple to achieve and yet so many people want to make it more complex. They look to ancient texts, or more accurately, combinations of ancient texts, which often don’t always agree with each other, to create an overly complex, and freakishly detailed, account of what it is to be right. I haven’t really understood the need to look to those books for that, though if I were to be honest, it is not just inherent goodness, or excellent upbringing, that created my sense of morality. I have my holy texts too. Continue reading →

The (not quite) Unsung Hero

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C. Everett Koop. "Ira Byock". Dartmo...

C. Everett Koop. “Ira Byock”. Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center . . Retrieved 2007-08-14 . (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yesterday the world lost a great man. It was no great tragedy, Dr. C. Everett Koop lived a very full, very long life. Not many of of us get to ninety-six. Still, the loss of this man pains me. As with most people, there have been many celebrities that I have casually labeled as a personal hero. Each of these had some hand in forming the person I am today, from the morals I learned from Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie, to the personal courage I learned from Christine Jorgensen. Dr. Koop was different and more important in two key ways. Continue reading →

The Ever Faster Race

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"Technology has exceeded our humanity"

“Technology has exceeded our humanity” (Photo credit: Toban B.)

I would like to state, for the record, that I am no Luddite. If anything I am a technophile. I love my computer. I love gadgets. I love learning new things about new technologies that are coming along. When the day comes, if my finances allow, I will be first in line for a neural input jack. So I have no disdain for technology. What I do have a dislike for is our seeming need to divorce technology from ethics, or from its broader social consequences. Continue reading →

A Light From The Dark

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Two equestrian riders, girls on horseback, in ...

Two equestrian riders, girls on horseback, in low tide reflections on serene Morro Strand State Beach (Photo credit: mikebaird)

 

It may not be readily obvious, except perhaps to those of you who now me IRL, that I have suffered, on and off, from crippling low self-esteem. No doubt part of this is due to my trans* status. There are probably other factors as well. We have a culture that can still be terribly unkind to people who do not march lock step to its drumbeat. We weren’t destitute, but we were fairly poor, which again, our culture looks down on. The reasons are likely many, but I don’t want to talk about all of that. I want to talk about the upside of it. Continue reading →