This Week in Stoopid: Bigots, Religists and Misogynists, Oh My! [Updated]

OH, it’s been a great week for Stoopid.  Of course, that means not such a great week for humanity.  Usually, I feature just one person – but this week we’re spoiled for Stoopid.

Actually we always are, but this week, I just had to get it all out in one fell swoop.  It is what my blog is for after all – well that, and so I don’t annoy the heck out of Steven with my rants.

I want to apologize that almost all the Stoopid I’ve highlighted in this post is based in the US.  We all know that Stoopid happens all over the world, and I will make an effort to be more inclusive next time.

1. First up today are the legislators in Mississippi, Texas, South Dakota, Indiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, Minnesota, Georgia, Arizona, Louisiana.  I know.  That’s a lot of people, but they all deserve to be here.  I won’t stop blogging about these kinds of issues ever, because they’re just too damn important.  It isn’t just a Pro-Choice thing anymore.  This runs the gamut of women’s health, and the well-being of girls and women all over the US are at risk because of these laws.

I’m going to shut up now, before I say lot of things that probably shouldn’t be in print.

Just click on on the screen-cap to learn more.

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2. Updated: May 25, 2011 @12:37pm

I knew I forgot something.  Last week, one of my friends of FB posted about this brave and awesome Saudi woman, who has been protesting the law that females can’t drive in Saudi Arabia – by driving.  I just got on FB today, and  another friend posted that she’s been arrested.  I don’t think I really need to say anything else, do I?

Click on this.  [This screen -cap is courtesy of  Al-Jazeera by way of the Atheist Media Blog.]

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3. I’d only just read about these people in the city of Bastrop, Louisiana, who have made it their business to make Damon Fowler think he’s less of a person for believing in the constitution.  Perhaps some of you have already heard of Damon Fowler – the high school student, who also happens to be an atheist…in Louisiana, USA.  He recently protested a planned prayer to be said at his high school’s official graduation.  When he sent a letter to the school, citing the ACLU, they backed down.  And then the proverbial s@#$ hit the fan.  (link to the post from Damian and the follow-up from his brother on Reddit)  Cue the ostracizing, sanctioned by the school district and carried out by a whole community.  And, after all this, take a look (and read) to see what still happened at commencement  rehearsal – courtesy of Hemant Mehta@The Friendly Atheist, and then at the actual graduation ceremony.

If I remember correctly, at my high school (in small-town-just-outside-of Cleveland-Ohio), we had a “Baccalaureate”, that was basically a non-denominational church service, separate from  the graduation ceremony but on graduation weekend – which was optional (except for those of us in the choir – lol!)  – and then we had the actual commencement ceremony,  during which I don’t remember having said any prayers or even had a “Moment of Silence”.  That seemed to work well…

Damon Fowler is one brave kid.  I, for one, am proud of him and I support him 100% (and I sent him an email to that effect because he could use all the support he can get right now).   I wish him an excellent life OUTside of Bastrop, Louisiana and far away from the school district and its denizens.  It’s not the first time something like this has happened, and it won’t be the last, but I’m watching.  And, I’m not alone. 

Below is the original post from Damon (which is linked to the Rock Beyond Belief blog that I originally read it in).

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3.  At the top of any self-respecting list of Stoopid belong those people who not only oppose, but OVERTURN anti-discrimination laws – as Governor Bill Haslam (R) and roughly 75% of the men and women in the Tennessee state legislature have done a few days ago.  How disgusting of a person do you have to be to do something like this.  I’m so heartily sick of GLBTs being treated as if they’re the root of all evil, because there’s obviously NOTHING in the world more important than making sure they will never be treated as equals in the eyes of the law.

Click on this.

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4. And, finally, we have the last but certainly not the least of this week’s Stoopids.  As you guys know, I blogged the Rapture-That-Wasn’t on Saturday.  Faced with such blatant CRAZY, there were few other ways I felt that I could have gone about my post, which was not one I was ever going to write.  But, after a brainstorm in the witching hours, I outlined the whole thing in my head and ran with it.  I didn’t sleep on Friday night at all and updated it in real-time all of Saturday.  It was obviously done with a lot of snark and jollification and with my tongue planted firmly in my cheek. 

Nevertheless, I want to make it clear that I think these people are dangerous – to themselves, and to the world we live in.  What is more dangerous than a whole group of people practically salivating at the destruction of our world at the hands of an angry, petulant, mass murderer of a God who they think is on their side?  They are beyond all rationality and almost beyond all help.  In addition, certainly there has been tragedy along with the hilarity – and while these people were responsible for their own actions, Harold Camping now also shares responsibility for these deaths.  However, it is clear that not only is he unchastised, but he’s at it again.  It seems he was simply off by a few months.  Apparently, his millions simply aren’t enough for him and he’s going to milk this for all it’s worth.  Now, whether his followers/believers have had enough from him, I don’t know and I don’t care.  After all, these are people who are willing to excuse Camping’s failed prediction on the grounds that we can’t know when the End is coming, only that it is undoubtedly coming.  I call it the big “Screw You” to the rest of us, and I DO NOT trust these people with my planet.

I wish I could say that I don’t have any friends who believes in this bulls@#$, but I do – not among any of the friends I’ve made since I left the afore mentioned school in small-town-just-outside-of-Cleveland-Ohio, though.

These people get extra super special mention in this week’s “This Week in Stoopid“.

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This Week in Stoopid: Of Humans, Moose and Bears – the Texas Bored of “Education” and Montana’s Cowardly and/or Dastardly GOP [*cough* well, Of Humans]

I try all week, every week, to avoid reading the news.  I’d much rather read new of good tidings than bad these days, with everything going on in the world.   Of course, I fail miserably. (This may have to do with my refusal to unsubscribe from my various newsletters.)  But, I just can’t help but click on the thing I know will piss me off.  This week’s Stoopid is particularly painful, because 1/4 of my family hails from Montana.  As for Texas, well…there’s always bbq…and Austin…and the Space Centers…

I love Montana.  I spent practically every other summer there, from the year my step-father (who was my piano teacher) married my mother, back in 1982 till I went to university.  My step-dad’s family hail from Billings.  My step-grandmother – who is distantly related to the artist and writer, Frederick Remington – was a high school English teacher.  My step-grandfather , who could play every instrument under the sun, was a band director. He taught me how to play percussion.  I have this great “A River Runs Through It” photo of my step-grandfather, knee-deep in his waders in the and fast-flowing river behind the cabin, casting his fly into the rush – my dog, Scruffy picking her way over the stone in the creek bed alongside him.   I really miss him.  My step-grandmother is still truckin’, but has Alzheimer’s.  She’s lost what used to be a very sharp mind (of course, she also adored Bill O’Reilly, a.k.a. he-who-will-never-darken-my-tv-screen-with-his-RWnutjob-presence), but is quite happily puttering away at an assisted living home.  My grandparents had/have a cabin up in Red Lodge, in Custer National Forest. not far from Yellowstone.  A creek runs next to it, and way out in the back clearing, moose bed down with their calves.  Bears wander by occasionally.   On one of our last visits up there before we moved to New Zealand, I had a rather closer encounter with a black bear than I would have liked.  I was walking.  I sat down on a tree stump.  I heard Steven shouting and pointing .  I jumped up and looked behind me just in time to see the backside of the big, sneaky, fuzzy bouncing back into the woods.   I guess, it just got curious and crept up behind me to take a peek.  It was also, apparently, more afraid of little old me than it should have been.  Good times.

That’s what I love about Montana.

What I don’t love about Montana? – its GOP.  What are they doing now?  Still trying to ban homosexuality – by blatant disregard of the Montana Supreme Court.  It’s the party’s official platform, even though the Montana Supreme Court killed the relevant/related laws in 1997.  Even people like State Senator, John Bruggemen R-Polson who make toothless, empty, vanity brave statements like, “Should it get taken out? Absolutely. Does anybody think we should be arresting homosexual people? If you take that stand, you really probably shouldn’t be in the Republican Party,” can’t bring themselves to make a case for action in convincing the Legislature to excise the platform.  Obviously, this isn’t that important of an issue.  Equal rights? Who needs them?  The Crime section of the GOP’s platform explicitly states, ““We support the clear will of the people of Montana expressed by legislation to keep homosexual acts illegal.” Super fishy, I’d say.  But, considering people like my crazy step-uncle  (i.e. he who is has been  working on a 100 volume treatise on Stalingrad for the last 10 years, and who could not be more bigoted, prejudiced, misogynist, homophobic, racist and armed), not surprising. *Sigh*

Speaking of…

Hey there, Texas  State Board of Education! *waves, with one finger*  What’s with the resolution stating that , “”diverse reviewers have repeatedly documented gross pro-Islamic, anti-Christian distortions in social studies texts across the U.S. and that past social studies textbooks in Texas also have been “tainted” with pro-Islamic, anti-Christian views.”   So, the textbooks are being too nice to Islam and Muslims for your liking?   Gee, textbook revenue must really be going downhill.   Here’s an idea.  Maybe you could just rip out all that sketchy, pro-Islamic-skewered history in those textbooks and just superglue in a photo of a mosque with a giant “666” scrawled in a red Sharpie over it, and name the book, “People Who Have Always Been More Evil Than Christians, and Will Always Be More Evil Than Christians.”

Is that “pro-Christian” enough for you?

*words in bold brought to you by the “5 word challenge” through the VOX Diaspora

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Grandpa and Scruffy at the river behind the cabin - Red Lodge, Montana (my brother in the background) - Summer 1986

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