Indulgent Fear-and-Anger-Based Political Rant

This is perhaps the most personally stressful election I've lived through. When I think about waking up on Nov. 5th and going to check the election results my stomach somersaults. Not, in a good present-awaiting christmas-eve sort of way, but in the sort of way when you stub your toe really hard in the dark and you need to feel it to check to see if its bleeding or not. There is no good outcome, just a chance of a really really bad one.

I would be elated if Obama won. But I still wouldn't feel good about where we are as a country. Bush has so thoroughly destroyed our economy, environment, and world reputation that Obama would just be scrambling to try and fix everything.

And if McCain wins, I fear that we will just continue down the same sinking-ship path we are on. I don't think that McCain is exactly another Bush - I do believe that he feels he is a "maverick" and will make independent decisions, but he seems to be just as off-the-mark on everything as Bush is. Also, he has fallen apart in the debates, letting his hot-headedness and pissed-off condescension get in the way of his thinking processes. Not at all good qualities for a president who will need to delicately maneuver within the international community.

Increasing the scary-factor is the possibility of Palin being President. I've heard the argument that you shouldn't let consideration of the Pres dying and the Vice Pres taking over be a major influence in your voting decision. Why the heck not?! Both of these candidates have a higher likelihood of dying in office than most (via old age or assassination). And the thought of Palin being president sends me into a tissy of fury and panic.

I hate the selection of Palin as the Vice Pres so much, it's intensely insulting to me as a women that the republicans thought that the selection of any woman would appease me and get my vote. There are so many other actually qualified republican females they could have chosen! Instead they chose the attractive bimbo; the stereo-type of what the feminist movement has been fighting since its inception. The country would crash-and-burn under her leadership (or rather the leadership of the people who would be her puppeteers).

Biden is the the steady slowly-plodding tortoise of the relatively harmless democratic status-quo. I think he could hold-the-fort and continue following whatever direction Obama sets as president. Not a raving review, but not the tragedy of a Palin Presidency at least.

I'll be carrying around this ball of uneasiness in my gut until the morning of Nov. 5th (hopefully it won't be dragged-out) when I can either give a big sigh of relief or I don't know what. If McCain/Palin win I may cry, through my coffee at the TV, go numb, check the house prices in Canada... I can't even think about it.

Ghosts, and the People Who See Them

If you are a regular reader of my blog you can probably guess that I don't believe in ghosts.

However, throughout my life I have encountered people, who I respect and are otherwise very rational, who insist that they can sense/see/feel spirits. Many of these same people even reject religion and other dogma as ridiculous. So I find it difficult to just totally dismiss their claims.

I know many otherwise normal and rational religious people slip into to kooky-land just for religion and nothing else. Could the same be true for my ghost-seeing friends? I suppose.

I also know that things do exist that we can't directly sense and that we can become aware of the evidence for these things if someone teaches us how. This holds true in both science and sociology. For example, most American white people and men have no idea that they have immense societal privilege until someone else makes them aware of it. This is often met with skepticism and disdain and even dismissed by the privileged - but none-the-less privilege exits! So is this the case with my ghost-seeing friends? Perhaps.

Also, I often wonder about the flow of energy. Everything else in our environment functions in cycles - water, rock, carbon, etc. What about energy? It comes from the sun, hits the earth, get tangles up in plants, animals, people, fossil fuels, and whatever else, and then if flows away? Is there a cycle here that we don't know about? If there is, could that help explain the whole ghost thing?

I don't know why, but I want my friends to be right. I want them to be sensing something. I don't think its because that would help me deal with the concept of death, well maybe a little - but that doesn't seem to be my main motivation. It is also kinda of exciting if they are right, the opportunities to potentially communicate and there is enjoyment in knowing there is mystery out there - like the deep ocean, and outer space.

"Oh No She Called Me a Turd"

This was a comment posted today regarding my Menards Ad Post. I was gonna wait to share this until I got a few more kooky comments and then post them all together. But the more I read this one the more I enjoy it - so it would be selfish of me not to share.

"cry baby atheist! are you ashamed you don't believe? big deal so they wrote that. if you really are an atheist then all you should say is " oh menards is so silly." let them do what they want. I wouldn't want your sissy business. why can you have your belief but oh no nobody better have their's."oh gee kroger sells meat and I'm a vegetarian and they put it in their ad,I better call them and cry." Go away you sick narrow minded turd."oh no she called me a turd, boo hoo!"

I love the language: "cry baby" "sissy" and "turd." Its almost endearing.

Kroger must be a grocery store, right? I haven't heard of it before.

Returning of Favors

I just plucked up enough courage to check my Google Analytics stats after my hiatus from blogging and discovered two awesome blogs linked to me, so now I return the favor: Hords of blurp readers - go check them out!

Exercise in Futility
Psychodiva's Mutterings


Also of note - Planet Atheism and the Atheist Blogroll saved my blog from total abandonment over the summer. Thank you to the creators and facilitators of both!

Central Wisconsin Film Fesitval

Three of my husband's animated music videos will be in the Central Wisconsin Film Festival the weekend of Nov. 7 and 8. We will both be there - if you live near Steven's Point come and check it out!

Here is my favorite of his films (Music is "When Water Comes to Life" by Cloud Clout):

Ass-Kicking Women of Mythology - Via the Primordial Blog

Its nearing Halloween, so in honor of the lost feminine in religion and mythology here is a link to a blog series featuring "Ass-Kicking Women of Mythology" via the Primordial Blog.

Stand Down!

Highly amusing:



Created by my friends and sound-geniuses Josh and Dan of the band Estate. They also run a sound biz called Transonic.

Photo Shoot

Here are the my favorite rough pictures from my last photo shoot with Foat Design. The white sheet we used as the backdrop was a bit too small and the walls crept in here and there - but that's easily photoshop-able.

Pics that make me LOL

More chuckle-makers from my random internet wonderings!






(As always, if any of these images belong to you let me know and I'll provide credit, take them down, or whatever.)

Palin as Pres

I found this link/game on PZs blog, so many of you have already seen it - but its too awesome not to share. Plus they update it every day. Any one figure out how to make the dino appear?

Not so Horrible Endings

Is it just in America that endings are considered so horrible?

I see statistics all over the place lamenting the high percentage of marriages which end in divorce. I don't get it; a marriage ending in divorce isn't bad. In fact, I think its the smart thing to do if the people who are married aren't happy with each other any more. Its stupid to stay married if the only thing keeping you together is the institute itself. When I hear couples bragging about how long they have been married I always wonder "yeah, but for how many of those years have you been happy?" Marriage isn't an endurance test. Psychologically healthy people grow and change. Couples may only be meant to be together for certain periods of their lives; growth and change may lead them in different directions, and and when they are not happy together anymore they should move on. (Note: This is coming from a happily married woman who espoused her high school sweet heart - ironic, eh?)

Same goes for the ending of jobs. When my old job was ending many friends came to me to express sympathy. While I value that they meant to be kind, I didn't feel that the ending of that job was worth mourning. I was happy to be free to find something more personally satisfying.

I don't mean to trivialize the pain and psychological work that endings/change cause. Perhaps that's why Americans hate endings so much - they force a sort of mental workout and thoughtful independence which is uncomfortable to an intellectually apathetic country.

What I'm getting at is its time for a change with the blog. This month marks two years of blogging which was originally fueled by the frustrations of an atheist in a religious nation. But now I feel inspired by more positive things and have been avoiding the blog as it has a tendency to encourage me to indulge my scathing inner cynic (which I guess this post demonstrates). So I'm going to give the blog a face lift and see if I can't be a little more positive for a while. Perhaps, I don't have it in me and its a bad idea to attempt to go against my nature, but I'm not going to totally ban rants. I just want a more positive and balanced outlet.

Cheers to a new day!