My incoherent Rants of the Week®

Martin Luther King, jr revisited via the net

Hippies

Politics

And why is it that people who are really, really concerned about politics (any party) are invariably obsessive assholes?

Religion

I used to have one rule about door-to-door evangelists, regardless of their sect: If they knew more about their religion than I knew about their religion they could stay. If I know more than them about their own religion they had to go. I never had one stay. I find it sad that certain denominations send out it's least-prepared lusers to the world as missionaries.

And while I'm ranting that subject, I really destest the hubris of those churches who send missionaries all over the world to covert them. Smacks of not-so-latent racism. Want to help people? Feed someone in your own fscking neighborhood. fscking busybody hypocrites. Social luddites. Undereducated bullies.

Religion is a private matter, dig? As in between you and your god [if any]". What could possibly be more personal and subjective than one's relationship with one's maker [if any]? Why is this so hard to understand?

What causes fundie xtians, self-professed followers of a demonstratably tolerant and gentle man, to hate so much?

The only thing wrong with xtianity, is, indeed, the xtians themselves. (was it Nietzsche or Marx that said that?)

Women

I think that women will continue to benefit from casting off social programming. Far too many women have been programmed to be docile, submissive and faux-stupid waiting for a White Knight husband. Equality in a relationship is unlikely if one party is taught to be submissive.

We need to teach our daughters that it is ok to:

• be happy in their bodies.
  Women are seriously beautiful and don't need to starve or carve themselves to be ok. Vanity surgery is an abomination against the body-temple.
• have their own opinions, and be challenged by those who disagree.
  Boys do so make passes at girls who wear glasses.
• acknowledge and act on their human/sexual needs .
  As long as we brainwash our daughters that good girls don't have sex (and even if they do, they sure aren't allowed to enjoy it) we will have the predator/prey game. And many times the prey will get seriously injured. The answer: make sure that no really means no in every circumstance, and then teach our sons that same truth.
• they have worth as people, quite independent of their looks, bra size, weight, marital/maternal status.

Men

We need to teach our sons to:

• cast off the old behaviors of violence and of bodyguard.
• learn to have other real relationships other than the one with their significant other.
  Building friendships is critical but entails a certain amount of risk. Are we ready to take that risk?
• constructively wield the inherent strength and potential of the male body.
  Our abilities and power need to be channeled to benefit ourselves and others around us. In the absence of guidance, our sons turn on themselves, on each other, on society in general.
• retain a healthy amazement with life.
  Like the Vikings said, "Do not trust with a sword he who cannot dance." Should we send out 'virgins with rifles' to take life before they have learned to cherish it? Is war an authentic act for those who do not understand what they defend?

Intolerance

If the UPS workers want to develop more sympathy for their position they might be better off lobbying for the right to display their status (full/part time) and average hours worked on a nametag. When customers started seeing their ass-busting UPS person is clocking 50 hours/week as a part-timer, I figure the customers would start barking. And that's how change gets made. The customer drives change. Nobody cares about the worker. That's how capitalism works; pay the worker less than s/he's worth.