I was born 16000 days ago!

Well, actually, 16000 days and one hour… now!

Friday Frog

Inmates in Cedar Creek Corrections Center in Littlerock, WA have been raising endangered Oregon spotted frogs (Rana pretiosa) with tremendous success.

What a great idea for a prisoner’s program!

Suum cuique pulchrum est

(I'm the Narcissistic Stalker, btw!)

Dead ducks, odd ducks, lame ducks

One of the things that frustrated me over the past week was the overwhelming emphasis on the King (?) of the Odd Ducks, Michael Jackson, who has now also become a Dead Duck. I didn’t much care about him while he was alive – it must be said, he never touched me as a kid – but I certainly give him his due as a talented entertainer. I don’t think he was worth a solid week of wall-to-wall coverage though, and I doubt he would have gotten one on talent alone; it was the fact he was such an Odd Duck that made him so “newsworthy” in the end.

There were other Dead Ducks this month, of course. Danny La Rue would have to be the runner up for Odd Dead Duck.The greatest transvestite entertainer of his day – my Dad was a fan, and he wasn’t a fellow who normally appreciated the cross-dressing arts. Then there were David Carradine, Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon, Ian Loveday…  entertainment took a lot of hits, a lot of Dead Ducks this month who won’t get their full props because they had the poor timing to die around the same time as Michael Jackson.

In politics there were two major-league Lame Ducks, Governors Mark Sanford and Sarah Palin.

Actually only Sanford was a genuine Lame Duck, being term-limited. Sarah Palin is an Odd Duck by nature and a Lame Duck only by choice, which isn’t really Lame Duckitude at all. When it’s your choice not to run for a second term, it’s incorrect or at least disingenuous to claim that that makes you a Lame Duck, and it’s downright Odd Duck bizarre to then use that as an excuse not to finish your first one. Incorrect, disingenuous, bizarre and full of excuses, that’s Sarah Palin.

Mark Sanford as it turned out was full of hypocrisy and lies, which wasn’t really a surprise, and passionate and romantic (albeit excruciatingly bad) poetry, which was. He always seemed a banal evil, boring to the nth degree. Who would have thought he’d end  up in a sex scandal? It must be said though that given how easily it could have escaped notice – one phone call or email handing over the reins while he took his mini-vacation – this story sounds very much like a classic cry for help, not really a revelation of a hidden inner Odd Duck. He was a genuine Lame Duck, everyone (especially his wife) was pushing him toward a Presidential run, and maybe he just didn’t really want to go there.

Dead ducks, odd ducks, lame ducks… there’s really only one way to sum up the last month in America.

‘Bohella’s Retairn’

Halloo th’ hoose! Ye’re graund tae see!
‘Tis manny as missed ye, wee auld man!
Is it compnay-keepin’ as ye’d be?
A baeat haed-scratchit, an on’y ye can!

An ye’re thankin’ o’ Maergrat,
Ach, I’m shamed tae report
That I left her tae cat
In a fish-naetter’s port.

Sweet Bess, sure she marrit,
An’ Jane came on clapset
While Betty’s sae crabbit
As she baits et an’ traps et.

Aye, sunnit days hae passed ye bye,
Th’ while as ye hae slumbert,
But as ye’re eyeset tae th’ sky,
Let’s off tae Widdew Humbert!

She whinnets laike an upkept child,
An’ she snurts a gromblit snore,
But ‘tis spake o’ her she buckles wild,
An’ haes a lassie’s wemble-bore!

B.T. Murtagh

An apology is in order! (From me)

I hope you all had a nice holiday if you’re in the US, and a nice week regardless of your location. I certainly did.

I had the full week off due to the factory I work at being shut down – luckily I had enough vacation and personal time so as to avoid a short paycheck. I spent a lot of quality time with my boy, watched the first three seasons of ‘The Wire’, finished one book and read three more, plus catching up some magazines, played some video games and watched my boy play more (I’m better at puzzle solving, but he’s got better controller sk1lz), and poodled around a bit on the Tubes – though obviously I didn’t write any posts for this blog, and therein lies the need for an apology.

On returning I noticed some changes to WordPress, which I think have been there a while but I hadn’t really noticed. One of the features I hadn’t noticed before was the stat counter, and I was surprised and very pleased to find that I have more people checking out this blog that I had thought. I frankly thought there were only a handful of people checking once in a while, but apparently I would have to take my shoes off to count the daily visitors during this last week, unless I counted in binary.

If I have that many people check this blog every day fruitlessly for an entire week then I feel I owe you guys an apology for not mentioning that I wasn’t planning to make any entries this last week. Thanks for reading, and if I’m going to go offline for more than a day or so in the future I’ll let you know rather than leave you hanging.

Again, thanks for reading!

The Non-transferability of Oppression

Here’s a letter I wrote to my local paper, the Post and Courier, which they kindly published on February 18, 2004:

Another Prejudice

I was, I say was, surprised and somewhat shocked at the vigor and venom of prominent South Carolineans rushing to “defend marriage” from dastardly gay couples who want to swear the same vows of lifelong fidelity as we heterosexuals do.

What, I wondered, were they “defending” marriage from? The gays aren’t set on destroying marriage, they’re trying to embrace it! Are we really concerned that heterosexual couples will suddenly abandon their marriages en masse if they find themselves sharing the institution with homosexuals?

How can the sacredness of vows between a man and woman be made less sacred because somewhere else two men or two women are swearing likewise? It makes no sense.

Then I remembered that this is the state that took until 1998 to remove the ban on mixed-race marriages from its Constitution, and that 22 percent of South Carolinians opposed the amendment removing it. Suddenly it all became clear.

It’s not about logic, it’s about bigotry. Religious bigotry has been against the law in America almost from the beginning, and racial bigotry has just about caught up. Gays are the next on the list, that’s all.

If the amendment banning same-sex marriages passes, I wonder if it will also last over a century? I voted to repeal the ban on mixed-race marriages, and I’ll be voting against this ban, too. I’m neither gay nor in a mixed marriage, but I’m working to raise my son in a state as free from irrational prejudice as possible.

The Post and Courier requires you to include your postal address with letters to the editor, and I received some interesting private responses.  They fell into exactly two categories; neatly typed and literate letters of support and semi-literate hand-scrawled opposition, the latter showing a disturbing propensity for red ink.

I was appalled to find that this was still an issue anywhere in the United States, even the ex-Confederacy, in 2004. What made it worse was when I extended the argument to gay marriage in conversations with my friends here in South Carolina. My black friends, even the two in interracial marriages, were dead set against recognizing the obvious parallels.

Apparently I wasn’t alone in this, as I saw on “One Punk Under God”:

And, I have to say, I see the same response toward atheists from an awful lot of people who have suffered their own repressions but refuse to extend toward atheists the tolerance they rightfully sought for themselves.

It’s less pronounced from gays than from racial minorities, probably because most religious organizations are opposed to both gays and atheists, but still, there’s little doubt that gays are less supportive of atheists than the reverse.

To get to the meat of it, though, does it matter? Isn’t injustice injustice? We need to fight it where it crops up, and there are genuine arguments to be made that the prejudicial plights of atheists are less than those of our brothers and sisters in oppression.

As an outspoken atheist in the Bible Belt, I’ve been beaten for explicitly that reason three times, and about as many times it’s been one of several possible reasons. I’m pretty sure I lost at least two jobs for that reason, though I can’t swear to it. The prejudice is there, but it’s a damn far cry from what nonwhites and gays have suffered here. I doubt my mouthiness would have survived had I been gay and/or black as well as atheist.

Nonwhites, particularly and especially blacks, don’t even have the option of laying low and ‘passing’ other than in very marginal cases. Gays and atheists can avoid the direct persecution by pretending to be straight and God-fearing; ‘coloreds’  can’t.

Further, we atheists don’t have it as bad as even white gays do; being forced to pretend to be God-heads isn’t even close to being as oppressive as being forced to pretend to be straight.

To bring it back to marriage, it was always possible for an atheist to marry, either another atheist or a theist. There were actual laws preventing interracial marriages in living memory. There are still laws preventing gays from marrying the people they love.

So I’d really like to hear a little less whining about how we atheists are oppressed “just like” gays or blacks. Yes, the fact of prejudice is there, but the quality of it is entirely different. Let’s all fight all prejudice wherever we find it, but let’s not pretend that it’s all of a level.

Friday Frog ALERT!

care2 petitionsite actionAlert
Deadline Monday!

Help Save Frogs from a Deadly Poison »

Leopard Frog

Take Action!

Endosulfan is highly fatal to threatened northern leopard frogs and other wildlife. Please take action to ban this poison today!
The northern leopard frog may be smaller than a cup of tea, but this tiny amphibian is in big trouble. Once prevalent throughout North America, threatened northern leopard frogs are put at an even greater risk by endosulfan – a deadly pesticide that’s been banned in at least sixty countries, but not in the U.S.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is considering a ban on this deadly poison, but they are only accepting public comments until Monday, June 29. Urge the EPA to protect northern leopard frogs and human health by taking endosulfan off the U.S. market »

Endosulfan is a pesticide similar to DDT and other insecticides that have been banned in the U.S. for decades. It has a wide range of environmental and health risks to birds and other wildlife, but threatened northern leopard frogs are especially vulnerable to its effects.

In one recent scientific study, a low dose of endosulfan was enough to kill 84% of leopard frog tadpoles that came in contact with it.

We only have until this Monday to submit your comments to the EPA. Please take action today to protect our health, our environment and our wildlife »
Thank you for taking action!

Natasha
Care2 Campaign Team

Take action link: http://www.care2.com/go/z/e/AFNfO/zJFV/bD5cN
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Eye Of The Storm

Trouble lies behind
And worry ahead;
No matter…
I am in the eye of the storm.

Soft blanket on my head,
Peace, blessed peace,
Has somehow found my heart
In this still time.

It is quiet now,
My fingers cool on the keys.
Quiet breeze on my skin,
Tranquillity on my brow.

In slumber came this wakening
This call to the moment.
My books whisper drowsily,
a murmur in the darkness.

No need to wake, I smile.
My finger caress
Their tender spines
and I, I am content.

Whisper me your loves
When the wind breaks.
When the sun rises
Give me your hearts.

Share then your secrets,
Lovers who played flute,
And songs of before,
And dreams of after.

Smoke stretches,
Fissures in her fur,
Her wise beast eyes
Shut in dreams of mice,

And I am content.
I will be silent now
And lay me to rest here
In the eye of the storm.

B.T. Murtagh

Father’s Day Frog

First of all let me say that my son Eamon Sky, in cahoots with his mother, totally and completely fooled, bamboozled, hoodwinked, duped and misled me as to the nature of my Father’sDay Gift. They put it in a teapot box, and being a regulare drinker of tea I had no reason to question that that was what I was being given – especially since my son was so casually dismissive of it (”It’s not like you won’t guess what it is, Dad!”) & his mother added a cute fillip of misdirection by taping a couple teabags to the box as well.

They utterly got me; I was convinced it was a teapot, and it was not. I don’t collect teapots but I do collect frogs, and this is what I got:

You can’t really see it in the snap but the inner baby frog is a bobble-head so it was very surprising indeed!

Not only was the double-frog cool in itself, but it brought to mind (and this wasn’t planned I think by the tricksters!) a frog particularly apposite to Father’s Day, Rhinoderma darwinii, or Darwin’s frog:

Can you see the resemblance?

Very appropriate to Father’s Day, as this frog species (named after Charles Darwin) is one wherein the father frog nurtures the froglet exclusively, raising it to full froghood in his vocal pouch.

I know I will always be proudly reminded of my status as Dad every time I look at my lovely frog-in-frog present!