The Management Co-Artistic Director since 2004, a downtown theater company specializing in bold new plays that explore the contemporary American experience.
God, I'm obsessed. I want every part of my body to be covered in tattoos. For next bit of ink I'm thinking of getting an illustration of a dodo bird on my forearm. Something that looks like it came out of an old book, like this:
Like seahorses, I've been obsessed with dodos since I was a little boy. Too bad I can't seem to work them into my writing in a satisfying way.
Their story is tragic and kind of beautiful. See, they were once birds that could fly until they found the beautiful island Mauritius, where they had bountiful food and no natural predators. Life was so nice on the island that the birds plumped up and lost their ability to fly. What did they have to fly away from?
Then the Dutch showed up with weapons and dogs and rats. The dodos, never having known an enemy and having no sense of danger, were so trusting that they would walk right up to the Dutch and their dogs, making them easy prey. No more dodo.
The dodo weren't dumb at all. Just trusting. I think there's a metaphor in that somewhere.
Maybe I'll make this a regular, weekly column. Really it could fill a whole blog. Anyway, this week in crazy brokedown bitches, Janet Porter asked God to give Christians control of the media.
Bitch, no. Just... no.
It's nice that she asks God to help her understand what He wants and then promptly gives him a laundry list of things that she wants.
This week i received a comment on a post from a year ago about Protest the Pill Day, which is meant to protest the morning after pill, which pro-lifers seem to see as nothing less than infanticide. Usually, I would let it slide, but being that a hero of women's reproductive rights was savagely murdered by a so-called "pro-lifer", I thought I would use it as an example of the kind illogical thinking we're up against.
The comment:
"In response to May 07, 2008 entry, The Pill Kills.
The consensus is that the 5 requirements for life are:
The ability to reproduce.
The ability to respond to stimuli.
To be composed of at least 1 cell.
The ability to adapt.
And the ability to grow.
From the moment of conception, the embryo is genetically capable of all of this, and more.
Furthermore, birth control and abortion combined create a sense that
children are unnecessary side effects of sex. This could not be more
false. Biologically, the only purpose of sex is to create life, much in
the same biological sense that digestion is the only purpose of eating.
In both cases the feeling of resulting pleasure are simply stimuli to
encourage us to do it more often.
This sense of children being a "side effect" promotes anger towards
children in the forms of child abuse, since they are not seen as
something precious, but instead as something similar to an ingrown
toenail, something unpleasant to get rid of.
Long story short, what is being said in the above article is both irrational and morally perverted.
Get the facts straight next time."
I'm getting called morally perverted again. It must be Wednesday.
Wow. Your definition of what constitutes a life is super simplistic and literal, but does nothing to separate what is "life" and what is a "human baby". I mean, yeast is alive by these standards too. Anyway, I would argue that it doesn't really matter. Late term abortions are one thing. I still support them, but to argue that a group of cells during the first 48 hours after conception is a baby? I don't buy it.
Like I said in an earlier post, I get why people are pro-life. Sincerely, I do. What disturbs me more is the author's view of sexuality. I'll address the first paragraph first. I mean, I suppose she's right, biologically speaking. But being human is more than biology. To ignore the "pleasure" aspect of sex is to relegate humanity to baser animal status. Should couples who are infertile cease humping? I won't bother to ask about gay sex, since I can make a pretty safe bet where the author's opinion lies. We are not just biology and, even if we are, our biology has evolved to be much more complicated than that.
More disturbing is the author's next paragraph about children being a "side effect". I don't have a kind way of saying this: children are an unnecessary side effect of sex. Again, we have evolved into a species that has control over its own reproduction. Your view that this is always a negative side effect is cynical. It is a side effect, plain and simple: sometimes wanted, sometimes not.
Promotes anger toward children? Say WHAT? I guess I kind of agree with you. I mean, I'd be sort of pissed off if I was forced to have a child I couldn't provide for (because of archaic religious dogma, natch)and then forced to live in systemic poverty I could never escape from too. All the more reason to support birth control and reproductive options for women.
I've claimed to be an atheist for years now, but it turns out I was wrong. I'm now an admitted Raelian. Yes, I believe that we were created by human beings from outer space. It turns out Mormonism and Scientology aren't the only Sci-Fi religions.
From the website: "On the 13th of December 1973, French journalist Rael was contacted by a visitor from another planet, and asked to establish an Embassy to welcome these people back to Earth.
The extra-terrestrial human being was a little over four feet tall, had long dark hair, almond shaped eyes, olive skin, and exuded harmony and humor. Rael recently described him by saying quite simply, "If he were to walk down a street in Japan, he would not even be noticed." In other words, they look like us, and we look like them. In fact, we were created "in their image" as explained in the Bible.
He told Rael that:
"We were the ones who designed all life on earth"
"You mistook us for gods"
"We were at the origin of your main religions"
"Now that you are mature enough to understand this,we would like to enter official contact through an embassy"
THE MESSAGES
The messages dictated to Rael explain that life on Earth is not the result of random evolution, nor the work of a supernatural 'God'. It is a deliberate creation, using DNA, by a scientifically advanced people who made human beings literally "in their image" -- what one can call "scientific creationism." References to these scientists and their work, as well as to their symbol of infinity, can be found in the ancient texts of many cultures. For example, in Genesis, the Biblical account of Creation, the word "Elohim" has been mistranslated as the singular word "God", but it is actually a plural word which means "those who came from the sky", and the singular is "Eloha" (also known as "Allah"). Indigenous cultures all over the world remember these "gods" who came from the sky, including natives of Africa (Dogon, Twa, etc.), America, Asia, Australia, and Europe.
Leaving our humanity to progress by itself, the Elohim nevertheless maintained contact with us via prophets including Buddha, Moses, Mohammed, etc., all specially chosen and educated by them. The role of the prophets was to progressively educate humanity through the Messages they taught, each adapted to the culture and level of understanding at the time. They were also to leave traces of the Elohim so that we would be able to recognize them as our Creators and fellow human beings when we had advanced enough scientifically to understand them. Jesus, whose father was an Eloha, was given the task of spreading these messages throughout the world in preparation for this crucial time in which we are now privileged to live: the predicted Age Of Revelation. "
