Friday, February 27, 2015
Miscontraceptions is on YouTube
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Winnie's
It's biting the dust. I am actually running out of places to go that don't suck, I think.
Reader Jack wrote in, "Two bartenders at Winnie’s Bar and Grill in Chinatown have told me that they are closing sometime in March as the landlord is renting the space to someone else (they have gone for 3 years without a lease)."
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Artificial blight
Prime Burger gets kicked out due to jacked up rent, the space remains empty for three years. Why does the landlord get a tax deduction?
What it means to love your neighbor
It is right here that we touch the very heart of Christianity. It is right here that we come up against the Cross. It is right here that we prove or disprove the reality of our love for God. It is easy to love our family and friends. It is not hard to love "everybody" in a vague and general sort of way, but to wish well to (and pray for, and be ready to help) that fellow at the next desk who stole your girl, or that woman across the street who told lies about you, or that double-crossing relative who got all of Aunt Minnie's money, or that criminal in the newspaper who raped and killed the six-year-old child - well, it's hard enough to forgive them, let alone love them. But with the divine virtue of charity we can do it; in fact we must do it, or our love for God is a fake and a sham.Happy Lent.
The Faith Explained, Leo J. Trese, 2001, p. 134
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
A response to Stephen Fry
To those who feel that Stephen Fry has delivered a devastating blow to religious belief, let me say simply this: this objection is nothing new to Christians. St. Paul, Origen, Augustine, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton and many, many other Christian theologians up and down the centuries have dealt with it. In fact, one of the pithiest expressions of the problem was formulated by St. Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century.And so on.
Labels: religion
Thursday, February 05, 2015
Just get the vaccinations, k?
Chris Christie also senses this change in the wind, which is why he is in the news as well, irresponsibly giving aid and comfort to anti-vax woo woo in the middle of a growing measles epidemic. And this only a few months after he issued draconian quarantine orders to people with no evidence of ebola in order to placate the panic-stricken “execute ebola victims” right that, with Ann Coulter, saw no point in white people treating diseases suffered by Africans and urged instead that we treat rich Jews and convert them to get their money
Labels: science
Wednesday, February 04, 2015
Gay and Orthodox
Summary, like most articles on how to be a good religious person - Don't be a dick.
I love all members of the Church as best I can, seeing them as co-strugglers. I love them as brothers and sisters in the faith. However, I find it disconcerting when any group takes it upon themselves to proclaim moral superiority above the whole body of believers- as have certain politically ultra-conservative Orthodox Christians. We are all free to have opinions about any number of things, but we are commanded to firmly proclaim the truth in love and abide by the rules and traditions of our faith. We are all to encourage each other to fight the good fight, but to do so in love. I see very little of this happening when some take it upon themselves to be the absolute moral authority of the Church, disparaging those whom they see as lesser, and proclaiming they are not fully Orthodox. I have seen this first hand- when it comes to the issue of homosexuality and gay members in the Church. When these issues are discussed, some ultra-conservative Christians feel the need to reinforce the law to the T– sans grace, speaking only about what the canons say regarding these topics, and using the Church fathers as a backbone of their arguments.
Jefferson on government
If there's a wall of separation between church and state, the Supreme Court also doesn't have the final authority to interpret the Constitution.
"You seem ... to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy," Jefferson wrote in an 1820 letter to a friend who was thinking too much of the early court's authority.As seen here.
"Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps... Their power [is] the more dangerous as they are in office for life, and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control," Jefferson continued. "The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots."
Labels: politics
Best Secular Prolife graphics of 2014
My fave - "Memo to people who think that because I'm anti-abortion, I must also have something against sex: Nope! I think sex is great! I just don't love sex literally more than life itself.
Snowpocalypse Roundup
Peter Woit - we're all wusses. Second Avenue Sagas - WTF Mate, why are politics driving transit decisions? And a look at the worst snowstorm in NYC history, when the trains kept running just fine for the most part.
Labels: New York, trains, trends
Tunnels under the Pelham train station
Not the Metro-North one, but the NYNHH one. I know this isn't a train blog, but what the hey, it's right by where I used to live. Looks like that line's been there since 1873.
The Branch Line now serves freight and Amtrak trains. The commuter tunnel long since has been filled and closed. There seems to be no visible remnants of the tunnel, with one possible exception. Approximately where the tunnel stairs would have been entered, the curb along Manor Circle is cut away as if to allow easy access. This cutaway remains today.
Tuesday, February 03, 2015
I find it reassuring that I'm not the only one that thinks our current culture is creepy
Body hair, and more specifically pubic hair, is an indicator of sexual maturity. Not all cultures remove pubic hair or see it as undesirable (see: our own culture 30 years ago). Pubic hair on a woman indicates that she is sexually mature. So what does it signify when we associate the REMOVAL of pubic hair with ‘femininity’? (1) That a fully sexually mature woman is undesirable? That to be ‘feminine’ a woman must resemble a pre-pubescent child? That a woman’s body is not acceptable the way it is naturally? (2,3) Those are certainly the messages I glean from this cultural expectation placed upon women.Basically, I agree with everything in this article.
A law that I agree with on policy grounds, but oppose on legal grounds
The Rape Survivor Child Custody Act. Seems like a home run:
Kiessling is also on the board of directors of Hope After Rape Conception, which is fighting a crucial battle to reform child custody laws. A majority of states have no laws preventing rapists from obtaining custody or visitation of the children conceived through their violence. Absent such laws, a mother choosing life after rape faces the horrifying prospect of an 18-year co-parenting relationship with her rapist. Very understandably, people in that impossible situation are under tremendous pressure to abort.but
The RSCCA rewards states that protect survivors from custody claims with federal grant money, which will hopefully speed along the process of getting appropriate legislation enacted in all 50 states.So they're trying to get Congress to use grant money to prod states to legislate. Bad bad idea. I will probably be writing to my state legislators to support state action on this matter, and to my congressmen to oppose federal action on this matter.
