Our Internet seclusion this weekend led to us missing out on the first few news cycles of this unbelievably inane and vulgar Qur’an burning business. Kind of just makes you want to leave it off. But every once in a blue moon, the Internet makes good on its promise as a democratizing news and entertainment source— or at least points you towards a pretty hilarious and offensive video:
It seems to me that if Bertrand Russell were alive today, he wouldn’t have to use “devastating…cold logic” in Why I Am Not A Christian so much as just make it a scrapbook of Current Events.
Sam and I are living an Internet-less life this holiday weekend, so fortunate I got an email on this timely unpleasantness just before the unplugging:
The note came from an old friend whose hemisphere status I can never keep track of; last I knew she was working with the Guatemala Solidarity Project. They have a (few weeks out of date) summary of the situation on their website here: http://www.guatemalasolidarityproject.org/actions.htm .
Part of the email I got is below and mostly an exhortation to contact local officials to keep them mindful of the fact that the situation isn’t going unnoticed. Seems like a useful Sunday afternoon por aquellos que pueden escribir en Español- si malo o no…
*Please immediately call the governor of the department of Altaverapaz at 011 (502) 7951 4311
* Please immediately email President Alvaro Colom at cbarrientos@presidencia.gob.gt
Please also cc: goberaltaverapaz@gmail.com, esay@oj.gob.gt, solidaridadguatemala@yahoo.com, stuand_wckr@yahoo.com, fdaltaverapaz@mp.gob.gt, mpcoban@hotmail.com
The demands of the members of Saquimo Setaño and CUC are:
1. The General Prosecutor of the Public Ministry reexamines and evaluates the actions of Prosecutor Sebastian Cucul concerning this case.
2. The President of the Supreme Court of Justice evaluates the role of the Judge of the First Instance of Penal Cases with office in Cobán Alta Verapaz.
3. The Human Rights Ombudsman and COPREDEH (Presidentioal human rights commission) closely monitors the situation in the community.
4. The Secretary of Agrarian Affairs uses all tools available to find a solution to the land conflict that is injuring this Q’eqchi community of Cobán.
5. The Governor of the Department of Alta Verapaz guarantees the safety of the members of the community.
Please write in English or Spanish your concern about the situation. Your email can be brief or long but it is important members of the regional government know they are being monitored. If possible, please write an email in your own words. Please include your location in the email.
Days later edit to add— this site posted the whole email.
My dear friend Michael ruined my night the other day by pointing out to me how Google’s automatic definition giver tackles the word “literally.”
lit·er·al·ly/ˈlitərəlē/Adverb
1. In a literal manner or sense; exactly: “the driver took it literally when asked to go straight over the traffic circle”.
2. Used to acknowledge that something is not literally true but is used for emphasis or to express strong feeling.
What the hell, Google. You are literally killing me with this horseshit second definition business.
In other news, I find it a little uncomfortable to tick off “the power of America’s example” in a list of our virtues literally minutes after expounding on the oft-neglected qualities of George W. Bush. Oy gevalt.
Speaking of satire, I really hate in any way noticing his existence, but I was disheartened to notice in this article about Glenn Beck’s Sunday-after attacks on Obama’s “liberation theology” a mention of Republican concern that all this aggressive rhetoric could backfire. I would always sooner prefer these sorts of people rush headlong into disaster without tarrying to check for it up ahead. Quotes like this
You see, it’s all about victims and victimhood; oppressors and the oppressed; reparations, not repentance; collectivism, not individual salvation… It’s a perversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ as most Christians know it.
and his March rant against any church that dare promote “social justice” strike me as pretty astoundingly out of touch with the basic tenets of, I don’t know, Christianity. Oh well— I know better than to expect Americans to notice pretty much anything that isn’t blinking and neon. At least the Tea Party is still good for rib-ticklers like that in the last thirty or so seconds in this Morning Edition piece.
A quick note in treehugger news— a coworker said something about genetically engineered salmon this morning, and I just looked it up. Sure enough, the FDA is holding hearings on both the permissibility of and potential labeling for genetically engineered salmon.
Unlike ordinary salmon, AquaBounty’s genetically modified fish grows during the winter as well as the summer, so it reaches an 8-pound market weight in 18 months instead of 36. That’s accomplished by inserting part of a gene from an eel-like creature called the ocean pout into the growth gene of a Chinook salmon, then injecting the blended genetic material into the fertilized eggs of a North Atlantic salmon.
We got an underwater camera in a gift bag from a dear family friend during our wedding. We almost forgot the gift bag at my house but were able to coordinate a handoff at SeaTac the next morning with a different dear family friend.
Most the pictures turned out pretty blurry and indistinct (like this attempt to capture the awesome transverse tidal dunes).
Some (an extreme minority) turned out really well.
With a title that sexy, you knew it had to be something boring.
I was really glad the Citizens United thing didn’t take me by surprise (thanks, Warren). Between the initial comments on the Burlington Coat Factory Mosque and the willingness here to call Citizens United the big stinking pile of shit it is, I’m happy to see that the Fierce Advocacy of Every Now and Again isn’t getting buried on the way to midterms.
Sam and Devin dot com 