More from Ireland

A friend who lives in Ireland wrote me the day after Ireland approved gay marriage. I loved what she said and asked her permission to post it here. She said yes, so here you go:

Today was historically significant here in Ireland. Ireland is often viewed as a reactionary, religious backwater; e.g. civil divorce has only been legal since 1996, and abortion is still not legal. Women in Ireland can travel to England for abortions, they can legally sneak around the law as a result of the X case.  A young girl, aged 13, became pregnant after rape. Social services wanted to send her to England for an abortion. Recently, Savita Halappenavaar, who was refused an abortion even though her life was at risk, died at Galway General Hospital.  Her husband said they were told that the pregnancy could not be terminated because "this is a Catholic country". 

While Ireland fought for independence, a glorious ideal, it developed into a theocracy after the war in 1921, and a subsequent Civil War that ended a year later. It did have some trappings of a democratic country, but the government always had to allow for control from Rome in family matters. It is said that in 1936, when then-President DeValera wrote the Constitution, that he modelled it on the much-admired American Constitution, but that although he had almost complete autonomy, he had to accept the input and the control of the archbishop, or as I refer to him, the "evil archbishop".The Constitution, while exalting the family, allowed for the state, in a multitude of situations, to show a lack of compassion for what amounted to state-sanctioned cruelty. The constitution was fundamentally unfair to women, to unmarried fathers, to orphans, to gay people, etc. The church apparatus, with the evil archbishop as its totem, destroyed attempts to socialise medicine here. The "mother and child" scheme threatened the Church's power. Interestingly, Ireland happily jumped on the fanatically anti-communist witch-hunt bandwagon in the United States in the 1950's.

However, today, Ireland should be proud of itself! The people have voted in a new Constitutional Amendment allowing gay marriage. Previously, gay couples could have some sort of civil contract, but now they can get married if they want. I think that rules on surrogacy will still have to be worked out but I am really happy about this new development - although it won't change the past for those who suffered through criminalisation, cruelty and bullying, it will certainly make for a happier future. 

Indeed. Thanks to my anonymous friend for allowing me to share this with readers. 

Acronym insanity

You know what acronyms are, right? Like DOD for Department of Defense. Acronyms are the initials that become so well-known, they virtually become the "names" of organizations or concepts. Well, here's a doozy for you and it's absolutely perfect for our braindead era:

I ran into this gem while reading an article about an AI expert who is calling on others in the field to oppose: 

"lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS)—armed robots that enter the battlefield without human masters and make decisions about who to kill."

LAWS. Could any acronym be more appalling than this one? LAWS are the robots in the sky who will come to kill you. You can't invent irony this deep and delicious; you just have to encounter it cold turkey.

And as for the call for all AI researchers to oppose this, hell yes! Haven't you heard of SkyNet? You're creating it, fer god's sake.

Have you heard of this?

I went to see my doctor yesterday because I had an earache. It began months ago as an itch deep, deep, deep in my ear -- so deep that it couldn't be scratched. Drove me crazy. But recently the itch turned to pain, and then it spread to my jaw and upward to my temple area. I just figured I had an ear infection. Get some antibiotics and I'd be fine. But when I got to the doc's office, it was like a visit to medical Bizzarro World.

First the assistant met with me. When I told her my symptoms, she said I probably had an allergic earache. She said everyone was coming in with this problem. Allergic earache? Who's ever heard of such a thing?

When I saw the doctor, he agreed with the assistant and said every other patient was arriving at his office with one of these allergic earaches. He added that at the moment, he was suffering from it, too. I thought this was incredibly odd. In all my many years, I've never heard of this problem.

The worst part is that the cure involves taking my least favorite drug: prednisone. If you've taken it, you know why I hate it. Gonna be a whole lotta shakin' goin' on. It makes you so jittery.

Anyone out there ever heard of allergic earaches? Have you had one? Sheesh.

Just a note

People often arrive at this blog via the Amazon Kindle page for Xmas Carol. It includes a short bio of the writer (me, Keith O'Connor) and a link to this blog.

Sometimes I wonder what people think when they arrive here this way. I mean, there they were, on Amazon looking at a horror/sci-fi novel and wondering whether to buy it, and ZOMG! They're suddenly on a gay atheist blog.

So here's the thing. I am a gay man and there are churches out there who attack gay men, and consider anti-gay hatred to be a central tenet of their faith. How someone can believe that their god wants them to hate a group of people they've never met is beyond me. But Christianity in general -- and the Roman Catholic and Mormon churches in particular -- have made anti-gay animus a primary focus of their day-to-day religious practice.

Every time we gays try to achieve equality in a country, the Roman Catholic church charges in like a feral pit dog and says dreadful things about us. But all we want to do is love the person we, you know, love. How anyone comes to think that they have a right to attack us because of this is unclear. Their statements against gay people and gay marriage are literally incoherent. There's no argument there, just animus.

So I didn't choose this fight. I'm merely defending myself against hatred and discrimination. When someone keeps punching you, you fight back. Consequently, on this blog I point out all the horrible things that churches do in the name of their nonexistent gods.

Luckily, this fits well within this blog's territory because I go after anything that's batshit crazy. And religion is one of those things (along with fighting vaccinations for kids, believing the Earth is 6,000 years old, believing in ghosts, witches and demons -- and mushy thinking in general). It all gets pilloried here.

The point is that I don't attack religion without cause. I fight religion because it attacks me and mine. Nuff said.

Ireland did it!

It's been marvelous to see Ireland, a country that's 87% Catholic, approve gay marriage by public vote. That's tellin' em! I would love to be a fly on the wall in the Vatican -- or hell, even a fly on the wall of St. Patrick's Cathedral in NYC -- to hear the gnashing of teeth up close and personal.

The Roman Catholic church fought this day with their usual psychopathic intensity but it was all for naught. Hahaha. That's the second best thing about this. (The first is that gay men and lesbians can marry in Ireland, of course.)

My favorite rundown was provided by Grania Spingies at Jerry Coyne's blog. Go read it if you want some joy.

Ireland, you did well. Very very well. I loved everything about the campaign and it was great to have Panti Bliss sprinkled on top. What a grand day this is.

(Let's laugh one more time at the Vatican: hahahahahahaha. Fun!)

If the Vatican's evil motivations intrigue you...

Paul Vallely has an interesting op-ed in the NYT today. It's about Pope Francis and the canonization of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero. To my mind, it's about the evil conservatives who run (ran?) the Vatican and the lengths to which they'd go to malign someone with a good heart.

You have to know a bit of Roman Catholic history to appreciate this fully, but the wonderful upshot is that Francis is really a sock in the head to the bad guys. That's the primary, most delicious point. If you despise the Vatican of the past two decades, you'll love the linked op-ed. If not, skip it.

Sanders shakes it up

This weekend, my nephews returned from college and they were so excited about Bernie Sanders. This is the first political peep I've heard from them. Bernie woke them up! And they say all their friends at school feel the same way. It's Bernie time -- and it's no wonder.

In an article posted yesterday at Think Progress, I found this:

Bernie Sanders (I-VT) wants to see a “revolution” in higher education funding.

The longtime Senator and newly minted presidential candidate unveiled a bill Tuesday that would completely eliminate undergraduate tuition at four-year public colleges and universities. The bill would also expand work-study programs and allow graduates who collectively hold more than a trillion dollars in student debt to refinance at a lower interest rate. At a press conference outside the US Capitol, Sanders called the current burdens on students and graduates a “national disgrace.”

“We have to make sure that every qualified American in this country who has the ability and desire to go to college is able to go to college, regardless of the income of his or her family,” he said. “It is totally unacceptable that Americans are drowning in $1.2 trillion in student loan debt. It is unacceptable that millions of college graduates cannot afford to buy their first home or their first car because of the outrageously high interest rates they are paying on student debt.” 

It's about time someone said something sensible about student debt. And Bernie's going to say lots of other sensible things. I've always said that it's insane to believe that a progressive can't win an election. It's just that no one ever lets them try. And kids could upset an election easily because: internet. They get it.

Go, Bernie!