Kim Davis Memes

Who wore it better?

I’m being lazy by posting these, but they’re funny and (gasp!) actually make legitimate points so… if a picture is worth a thousand words, this is a full essay for me. Enjoy (or scream and rant and rave, whatever floats your boat).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~V

 

Anarchy Devine

Would you vote for this man?

Huffington Post reports that Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, in his support for Kim Davis, the jailed Kentucky Clerk of Court, is now encouraging people to obey only laws they determine to be “right”. This is terrifying talk from someone who wants to sit in the White House and become the most powerful man in the land. It essentially encourages Christian anarchy. At a time when our nation seems more divided than ever, is this the kind of rhetoric we want to hear from our political leaders?

Does Huckabee actually think these things through? Is he so blinded by his faith that all reason has left him? (I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt that he at one time possessed the capacity for reasonable thought) Can he envision the world he’s suggesting? Our entire legal structure would crumble if this were to happen. Anyone could break any law with impunity under the guise of “Religious freedom” or simply “I don’t think that law is right.”

Imagine All the People

I’ve been watching the political race for the US Presidency unfold, and I’ve been thinking about some of the topics that have dominated US news for the past few months and I’m struggling to understand why we as a nation, as a species even, cannot seem to agree on certain issues that seem to me to be very plain and not controversial at all.

For instance, let’s take the popular topic of the hour: Cecil the Lion and the backlash against trophy hunting. I can’t see anyone making a reasonable, rational argument to support  killing endangered or nearly endangered species. Setting aside the discussion about shooting deer as a supposed method to thin the population to prevent starvation in the winter months when food is scarce, (that’s probably another topic altogether), hunting for sport is cruel and serves no purpose. As Ricky Gervais said recently:

“It annoys me that it’s called ‘trophy hunting’ because it has nothing to do with hunting. There’s a big difference with, you know, hunting for food cleanly and honestly, as we said before, and wanting to know what it’s like to murder a majestic animal for no reason other than the thrill of what it’s like to murder something… Why is bullfighting fun? Why is torturing an animal the fun bit? It’s not fun to do, it’s not fun to watch. I wonder about the psychology of the people that like seeing an animal in fear or tortured or its life snuffed out for no good reason.”

Isn’t this something that we could all agree upon? Is banning trophy hunting really controversial?

Book Banning: The Joy of Censorship

You can burn a book, but you can’t kill an idea

There are certain groups of people who seem to love banning books and censoring thoughts and language. Among the most notorious are conservative Christians and Nazis. (Although we could throw in Muslims as well, to be fair). Interestingly, while conservative Christians aggressively try to ban or censor anything they find that is objectionable to the Christian faith, they have no problem at all with defending freedom of speech when it comes to insulting Islam.

Over the years, many classic books as well as many benign children’s books have fallen under strict religious scrutiny and have drawn the ire of religious zealots who feel it is their duty in life to protect the rest of humanity from itself. Take a look at a sample of books that have been banned over the years:

The Physics of Freedom

Action and Reaction. Thus works the universe.

[I apologize for my absence. Life demands attention in all matters and I’ve had some important issues to deal with which has taken me away from my writing. But now you can sit back and enjoy my triumphant return! Yay!]

 

Some of you may have read my post on the stupid memes that continue to proliferate around the internet. I’ve found another one that inspired me to sit down and bang out yet another rant. Check out this doozy:

Poor Phil. Is he suffering from Rodney Dangerfield syndrome?

Now, I’m pretty sure Phil didn’t whip up this beauty of a meme all by himself. In fact, he probably had nothing to do with its creation although I’m pretty sure he’d agree with it. Nonetheless I’ll address this topic as though I were speaking to the creator of the meme and not Phil directly.

Heritage of Hate

A rose by any other name…

I touched on this subject in my last post and I guess I didn’t get it all out of my system (as is often the case). I’d like to take a moment to counter all of the misguided and ignorant arguments in defense of the Confederate flag. If you live in America (and probably even if you don’t) you would be hard pressed to have missed the commotion recently about a particular symbol from American history: The battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, or as most people know it, either the Confederate flag or the Rebel flag.

A Slice of Tolerance

In recent weeks two stories in America dominated the headlines. At first they might seem unrelated, but closer examination reveals a few philosophical connections. The two topics of which I speak are the controversy over the Confederate flag and the Supreme Court ruling about marriage equality. Let’s take a look, shall we?

In the wake of the tragic shootings of nine people in a black church in South Carolina, public attention was once again directed towards a symbol that many feel represents hatred, oppression, slavery and treason: the Confederate flag. There is no end to the disagreements about the origins and history of this flag, and certainly a great deal of misinformation is flying around the internet. Two things, however, are painfully clear and cannot be disputed:

An Insightful View Into the Loss of Intellectualism and Critical Thinking

This is a first for me on my blog. Normally I would take an article like the one I’m about to show you and use it as inspiration for my own thoughts, which I would then write about here. In this case, there’s no possible way I could write a better article than David Niose has on what I believe to be the very heart of much of what is wrong in the world today.

Now, having just read those words, please don’t tune out. I know many of you want to only expose yourself to happy, positive thoughts, (not that this article is necessarily negative) but I believe this article is so profound and important that it should be read by everyone. I believe this so much so that I’m reposting it here.

The intended audience is the American public, but I think this relates to just about everyone, everywhere. Anti-inellectualism and lack of critical thinking is pervasive in nearly all cultures and societies globally and is really at the root of much of our human dysfunction. Please feel free to share this with others.

An International Greeting

The internet is a marvelous, mysterious, dangerous thing. I won’t prattle on about that last item. I’ve done some of that already. I want to focus on the first two. Years ago, I owned and operated an entertainment website that featured a chat forum. Through that forum I was able to connect with people all over the globe. I formed some decent friendships in the years I frequented my site (and others).

I stepped away from that world almost a decade ago because I was becoming too consumed with my online life and my real life was suffering. I don’t regret that choice. Now that I’m blogging though, I’m reminded of some of the things I loved about that old life of mine. I’m still fascinated by my ability to connect with people half a world away. Some might argue — validly — that the internet is changing the way that humans interact with one another and I would agree. Like the proverbial two-edged sword, this brings about consequences that are both beneficial and, well… not beneficial.

The Joy of Blogging

When I began blogging several months ago, I approached each post as though it were a self-contained piece of work, like product on an assembly line. A better analogy might be that I wrote like every blog post were an English assignment from my college days and I sat at my laptop, fingers stretched and ready to tickle the keys, prepared to crank out another “A+” paper. (I maintained a pretty decent GPA during college). I did this, in part, because I wanted to use this blog to showcase my writing styles and talent for potential employers. This was to be my electronic portfolio. I wrote humor, editorials, articles on science and technology and a lot of other miscellaneous pieces.

I still write those kinds of posts, but I’ve found that lately I’m pulled towards just writing about myself and my own thoughts on life and allowing these posts to flow organically together. I think I’d forgotten that blogging originally started as electronic journals where folks shared their inner thoughts with no purpose other than to get their ideas out of their heads and into a physical space. Journaling has been around for a long time, but only with the invention of the internet did the concept of sharing these thoughts with the world become popular. It was a novel idea. I, with a click of a button, can get a glimpse inside the mind of a perfect stranger and experience their perspective.