On Bidding goodbye to ‘Emberglow, reading, books and random musings May 30, 2007

Picture: Save electricity: Switch off the fucking light bulb and get the Fluorescent glow stick.

Lol. This is what everyone seems to be saying about the Ember light bulbs now, they’re definitely being put out after putting out for us so long. It makes sense too, they emit ugly urine colored yellow light at a great expense. As a kid I always found it distressing to read under a light bulb. I found it dizzying to stare at a page tinged with urine colored glow. So, I always found refugee under a white tube light. Ahh Heaven.

But guess what.. I will miss these ember things once they’re gone. They looked lovely in a way. The way their web of filament lit up and you could see it through thin transparent glass. I think it was kinda romantic and Christmas Like… Once as a kid I looked at a glowing light bulb and it seemed like a little burning sun. Doing weird things has always been my forte. Don’t ask me why but I brought a mug full of water from bathroom and gently sprinkled some water on it. The godamn thing exploded with a loud bang, my mother spanked me and made me cry.

But hmmm… coming to subject number 2. For me, next few days are kinda like vacuum days. Wait and watch sort of time. So, I have devoted this week (from last Weekend actually) to reading and learning. I have been watching travel Dvds, listening to News/Talk radio stations on the internet (YEP! I do that. I am weird, remember?) BBC is always my favorite stop: World Service or Radio4. Sometimes, I think I would move to UK and live on the moors and listen to BBC all the time. Hmmm.. maybe when I am 50 or 60 and retired and a world famous reclusive writer who writes best selling porn for Chinese business elite.

Don’t be surprised by my flighty brain, those stimulating readings, radio programmes are rubbing off on me. Hopefully, I would finish two books by the end of this weekend: Kite Runner and Clockwork Orange (yeah!! I never read it!) And I don’t know what am I supposed to do with Vagina Monologues. I got it today from the library. I have definitely mentioned my ”counter problems” before. I make anyone behind the counter nervous and jittery. People always give me wrong change, their scanners stop working for some reasons and all kind of things go awry.

Today, about 2 hours back, I made that old counter lady in the library nervous. I guess I was sleep deprived, squinting and IMPATIENT as always. She picked up a little stamp to mark a promotional card and it literally flew out of her hands and landed couple of feet to her side. lol. Later I wondered, was it because me borrowing Vagina Monologues made her nervous. More I thought of it, more it made me laugh with this absurd possibility. But hmmm.. weird subjects attract me.

It is AMAZING how movies, DVDs etc. get rated adults only and banned but nobody seems to care about books. I mean IDEAS are POWERFUL. But I suppose, people and Libraries think that very few people READ and those who read weird subjects know how to handle them. From my local libraries you can get beautifully hardbound Mein Kemph, its not well known sequel and also audio recordings of Nazi words and music. Kewl.

The only book censorship I have come across was American Psycho. In order to borrow that book you gotta be 18. In other words, if you’re contemplating murdering women (using butcher knives, razors, nail guns etc.)necrophilia, cannibalism and other things like dismembering their body parts, organs and keep them in your refrigerator as trophies, you ought to be 18. But if you are wishing to found your local Neo Nazi club on solid Nazi ideology so that you could someday possibly unite all those cells for international holocaust of Jews, homosexuals, mentally sick and other disabled folks, you better start learning while you’re really young cuz life is short and you’re running out of time.

Funny Fag News May 29, 2007

Picture : Homoerotic Animation (lol) I bemoan that lately this blog has been very inactive and TAME. I say ”tame” because the one very strong premises of my blog has always been that it will bring ODD things to your attention: to provoke, inspire, tickle or simply to leave a bad taste on your tongue. Now… I cannot really go too far like posting porn or graphic images like Rotten.com. , simply because it is not my taste or profession.

I love queer news and personally am a strong supporter of gay rights. This is because I believe that if you give freedom to the Universally hated folks, you can guarantee it for everybody. Ok, this is the excerpt form the news story from Australian Broadcasting Corporation that tickled me immensely and I would like to scare (share) it with you. Let me know what you think of it: Do you find it queer? funny? disgusting ? unfair? or you think that it was very fair of the hotel management to protect the privacy and convenience of their happy customers:

‘‘TONY JONES: In Melbourne, a hotel has won the right to refuse entry to anyone who’s not a gay man. The Peel Hotel in inner city Collingwood sought an exemption from the Equal Opportunity Act because its gay patrons are being abused by other drinkers. More from Anthony Howard. ” ( CLICK to Read or Listen fully story)

FLAMING question : I have a burning question though. Using the same logic, would that be fair to say that gay men should be barred from exclusively Heterosexual hotels or establishments ( Let’s say it’s sorta high class semi brothel of a hotel where proud heterosexual men, married or otherwise, go to seek or buy sex with professional women) Do heterosexuals have the right to keep gay men away from such places because they have the right to stop homosexuals perving them? LOL

Funny comment update:

Just saw this comment on the story at Netscape: SOMEONE : This is pure discrimination. However’ who in their right mind would want to stay in a hotel where all you would see is men kissing, hugging and yuck!

SO I had to post a reply: Seems like you would have no problem being in a Lesbian only hotel where you could see women ”kissing, hugging and yuck!” ?

Bruno and Christie May 20, 2007

Bruno, the dog and Christie, the cat were great pals. One day Christie said to Bruno, ” Would you please do something for me? With all the integrity and honesty that you got, let me know, all my faults. Mention all the things you or others don’t like or even hate about me. Tell me about all the mistakes I’ve made and people I’ve hurt. I really want to hear it from someone so that I may know. No one would do it for me, BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE POLITE. But I know as my best friend I can always depend on you to be honest with me.”

Bruno was taken aback! He said, ”I can never do that! You’re my best friend for God’s sake. I will never speak ill of you.”

Christie made a real sad face and insisted, ”I beg you Bruno tell me all with brutal honesty. Mince no words. I will die without knowing it all just because no one would ever tell me. It makes me depressed to think I would never know my faults in this life. I beg you, please say it all in a single breath.”

Bruno agreed. He thought and reflected for long while Christie looked at him. Then Bruno took a long breath and passionately spoke out:

Bruno: Woof…! Woof woooooffff woofff…!

Bruno: Boww!! Woww!! Boowww Woowww Woow>>>>!!!!!

Christie: Who the hell he thinks he is?? Sonuva Bitch!……

PS- These pictures are taken from Michael Palin’s travel DVD, ”Full Circle”. These two folks lurked about the courtyard of a house in the countryside of Chile.

Psalm 89 (Selected verses) May 16, 2007

Picture: Eerie display of Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) as seen from Yellowknife, Canada.

Today has been a very introspective day for me. I chose today to be still, relax and reflect on things for all day. I also spent time writing a blog and catching up with my 360 pals, their blogs etc. Not to mention I did some random pleasure reading. But as it is 9pm and I must stay ready for two more days before the weekend, I came across this Psalm 89. Actually, just on a whim I pulled out my little KJV Bible out of the drawer. I don’t read KJV but keep it for comparative readings. Hmmm… I opened it on random and the latter part of psalm 89 was in front of me. It instantly struck some chords within me. And here it is: I am sending it out into the cyber world before I go to bed.

Psalm 89 is a long psalm of David. What is beautiful about this psalm is that it is almost broken into two parts. In part one David praises God and remembers his great promises to him:

”Forever I will keep my steadfast love for him, and my covenant with him will stand firm…Once and for all I have sworn by my holiness; I will not lie to David.”

But in the latter part David expresses his utter anguish as he feels left out and forgotten by God. Now, you don’t have to be a religious person to appreciate the beauty of these verses. The Psalm encapsulates, the emotional honesty, the pain of alienation, rejection, dejection, the feeling of impending doom and no way out. But eventually and fortunately for David, God is his refuge and savior; but only if He would listen to his heart cries….:

Psalm 89 (verses 38-52)

But now you have spurned and rejected him;
you are full of wrath against your anointed.

You have renounced the covenant with your servant;
you have defiled his crown in the dust.

You have broken through all his walls;
you have laid his strongholds in ruins.

All who pass by plunder him;
he has become the scorn of his neighbors.

You have exalted the right hand of his foes;
you have made all his enemies rejoice.

Moreover, you have turned back the edge of his sword,
and you have not support him in battle.

You have removed the scepter from his hand,
and hurled his stone to the ground.

You have cut short the days of his youth;
you have covered him with shame.

How Long, O LORD? Will you
hide yourself forever?
How long will your wrath burn like fire?

Remember how short my time is—-
for what vanity you have created all mortals!

Who can live and never see death?
Who can escape the power of Sheol?

Lord, where is your steadfast love of old,
which by your faithfulness you swore to David?

Remember, O Lord, how your servant is taunted;
how I bear in my bosom the insults of the peoples,
with which your enemies taunt, O Lord,
with which they taunted the footsteps of
your anointed.

Blessed be the LORD forever.
Amen and Amen.

Jerry Falwell finally lands in his own ”Heaven” May 15, 2007

erry Falwell finally lands in his own ”Heaven”.

Picture: Jerry Falwell… Do you see that little box way up in the heavens? One day I wish to spend eternity up there and I want all of you to follow me.

Death will get ya in the end all ye poor and rich, black n white, sinners and saints. Yeah, one recurrent bunch of themes of my blogs is about religion, politics, ethics, freedom of thought and conscience. Anything significant that happens in these spheres gets my attention. Also, I am surprised to find how some folks have done great satirical comedy on religious dogmas. I recently watched Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. The genre is classic Python absurdist comedy. At times it is hilarious and outrageous (young kids, male and female, singing chorus about condoms, God and sperm) but it conveys its central message in a much better way than Richard Dawkins etc.

Now, I just got news that Jerry Falwell has finally gone to his heaven, at least theoretically. I am not going to do a little biography of him. Can’t be bothered or even interested. He was one fundamentalist Christian preacher and proponent with all the hellfire and judgment talk. Indeed many Christians must hold him in angelic bright light but the likes of him make me puke. I find this breed- sort of Western Christian Taleban- very distasteful, corrupt, sleazy, selfish, malicious and evil people who prey upon the weak and resort to demagoguery of the cheapest sort to advance their holy careers.

What is most unpleasant about them is that they use their own personal agenda and promote their own careers by using ‘God’. Prominent part of this unpleasantness is their own reeking hypocrisy. Take Ted Haggard’s example. He was the head of the 30-million strong National Association of Evangelicals and strongly held on to fundamentalist Christianity, inerrancy of Bible and condemnation of homosexuality. But alas, in his own life he enjoyed gay sex, drugs and used to employ the services of male prostitutes. Hmmmm.. I cannot say, because of his personal choices, he was an evil man (he certainly did have some ideals and was a good leader in other ways) but his hypocrisy makes him a baddie. But how did Christians treat him? Did they show any FORGIVENESS ? Nope, they kicked him out of all leadership positions. He is too dirty for them now (though he is genuinely repentant) and cannot be made clean with either the water or the blood.. Haaaa.. Too Sad.

Another local example (Christchurch, New Zealand) was of one Graham Capill, the former leader of the New Zealand Christian Heritage party. He was a strong moral crusader and spat fire when talking about sexual morals and homosexuality (sure, the classic fag bashing is always the easiest thing to score plenty of moral points.) But alas, Capill had libido problems. But it was not that bad… he may still go to heaven because he did not take part in sodomy like that Ted American bastard mentioned in the above paragraph. He only made love to several young women, between the ages of 8 to 12. Interestingly, he maintained that at least one girl had sex with him with her own consent…. Hmmmmmm…

Anyhow, Coming back to Jerry Falwell.

Here are his holy remarks as published in Wikipedia:

Falwell was a controversial subject for his theological, political and social beliefs. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Falwell said on the 700 Club, “I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.’” (a sentiment with which Pat Robertson concurred). ^[28] After heavy criticism, Falwell apologized. ^[29]. As for homosexuality, Falwell remarked, “AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals.” Falwell’s ghostwriter, Mel White, said Falwell remarked about gay protesters, “Thank God for these gay demonstrators. If I didn’t have them, I’d have to invent them. They give me all the publicity I need.”^[30]

During the Civil Rights Movement Falwell was a supporter of racial segregation. He said this about Martin Luther King: “I do question the sincerity of people like the Reverend Martin Luther King…”^{[citation needed]}

Falwell has also said, “Labor unions should study and read the Bible instead of asking for more money. When people get right with God, they are better workers.”^[31] Regarding public schools, “I hope to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we don’t have public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them.” (America Can Be Saved!, Sword of the Lord Publishers, Murfreesboro, Tenn. 1979, p. 52-53.)^[32]

I am so thankful to God that Jerry Falwell was airlifted by the angels to be carried to his own heaven. Good riddance.

The God Delusion? Richard Dawkins pulls a Dan Brown. (Part 2) May 11, 2007

Picture: Get thee behind me, Satan; and leave that Donut ALONE!!!

So I can call myself A Christian Agnostic or a Progressive Christian or a Liberal Christian or a Christian Humanist (depending on the perspective)

Of course I will have many Christians jumping at my throat and say you can’t make your own God!!! The truth is everyone does. We can’t help it. We’re individuals: no matter how much we deny it or try to mold our brains into different creeds, The Church, Our Church, a cult etc. etc. People are too ashamed of their own individuality or individual view points that they repress it or are scared by it. We all do it to a certain degree but most overdo it and conform to all things good and cool and social. (Blah, sorry for digressing, there are parts of me that can’t help butting in)

But the beauty of modern Christianity is: it is the MOST democratic religion: from Catholic, Southern Baptist, Amish, Mormon to Quakers, liberal presbyterian, Anglican (aka. Episcopalian), Methodists. Then there is also something called Unitarian Universalists. Say it again 5 times and you will feel you’re being bapized. lol. To make the long story longer, people have molded Christianity to suit their own way of living (can be ok to horrible, depending on what ‘way of living’) or their own conscience (this one sounds right to me because I think there is something divine about the human conscience, if we patiently and HONESTLY listen to it, and we rarely do) As for making your own religion not only everyone does that but I see nothing wrong with that. I think this freedom of thought and conscience is very democratic. It is because of this freedom and democracy that Dawkins gets to be an Atheist and publish his book.

SO! Coming back to Dawkins, he has written a book that has become a wild best seller. It is very coherently written. There is NOTHING new in it (except the fact it was published in 2006), but he has organized the usual atheistic material in a very interesting, convincing manner. He condemns all forms of religion. I highly enjoyed his book and it is a great read. Actually, I am reading it again and again, because it is so interesting. The audio version is a treat too (the voices are of Dawkins’s himself and a female reader, beautifully done)

I totally agree with Dawkins that The God of the Old Testament, at times, does seem like a tyrant in the clouds, an old ‘ogre’ (I can’t help laughing at this one as it does sound accurate to ME). He adorns ‘Jehovah’ with many colorful adjectives and accuses him of being someone who happily stirs up or even commands infanticide, fratricide, rape, torture, massacre, homophobia, misogyny, sadism, looting, ethnic cleansing, other crimes against humanity and a lot more. Nothing inaccurate, if you read your Bible carefully. I see Christian folks (the literalists and fundamentalists or sentimentalists) fuming, but hey Muslims (or any other religion for that matter) feel the same way when you talk about their God in bad light because (you say) it is right there in THEIR book too. But somehow you refuse to see it in YOUR BOOK.

But here comes the bad part of Dawkins, typical of many Atheists. He HIGHLIGHTS bad Bible bits, he mentions them over and over again. He omits all the good things (What possible objection he could have to The Ten Commandmensts??? which he completely ignores) He does blast The New Testament too, accusing that it is preoccupied with Sin and its main purpose is to make people afraid and guilty (he is not wrong, if you notice how some Christian leaders are scaring people with hell- fire and telling them not to THINK otherwise)

The book is also full of the typical Atheistic confusion. He praises the ethical/ moral stances of Jesus who he says could possibly only be a fictional character. He proudly says he wrote an article ‘Atheists for Jesus’. He also says that Bible along with all classical Greek myths has a premium place in classic human literature and it must remain so because of the beauty of English Bible that has magnificent works of literature such as the book of Ecclesiastes.

Dawkins loses all his ground towards the end of the book and enters blurry confusion and his own dreamscapes. He cites the wonders, mysteries and magic of science and Universe. He says, for example we can’t even see the whole spectrum of light with our human eye. Insects (also some birds, reptiles, animals) are capable of seeing the ultra violet rays. Dawkins stresses that there are infinite things beyond even our human imagination, for example, Quantum Mechanics (aka quantum physics). He cites someone else on quantum mechanics saying it is so beyond human imagination that if someone says he understands quantum mechanics it simply means he DOES NOT understand it.

Here is my point. Richard Dawkins is blown away by the mysteries, complexities of the universe and admits he does not understand anything about it because infinite things are beyond his human imagination, mental reasoning and human perceptions. Then, how can he rule out the existence of God ? (He mentions God ”almost certainly” does not exist, what the hell does that mean????) Before the believers might applause, I reiterate that PERSONALLY I do not believe in the literal interpretation of Bible. But I can see it crystal clear that the hatred for God that Dawkins and all other Atheists and rationalists or scientists feel is the same I felt as a teenager. It is the God of people’s minds that they hate. For example, when most Americans hate Islam they hate the Islamic God of Osama Bin Laden and the ‘terrorists’. They hate the domestic abuse and captivity that many Muslim women live with. Just like they would hate the repression of women and puritanism and backwardness, censorship, absence of the freedom of thought and conscience of Victorian England)

More often than not, the likes of Dawkins ARE RIGHT and justified in their hatred but in the process they are blind to all the good and noble in religion. They refuse to see that ideas and philosophies of God do provide great inspiration, encouragement, comfort and refuge to huge number of people. At times, Dawkins sounds ridiculously pointless in his anti God mania. He says when Jesus said love your neighbor he only meant love your Jewish neighbor. Totally, unjustified raving. Jesus not only loved the whole world but also commissioned his disciples to spread his message to the ends of the world (to every corner of the planet).

But in the end, it amazes me, how religious themes seem to benefit the atheists, con men and entertainers so much in commercial success. To name a few: Erich von Däniken, Dan Brown, Pat Robertson, Benny Hinn and Mel Gibson They raked in so much of Greenbacks and Benjamins that I start to burn with jealousy. That’s my sin of the minute.

The God Delusion? Richard Dawkins pulls a Dan Brown. (Part 1) May 11, 2007

Picture: Yeeeah… Let’s kill all the religions we don’t like and promote our own.

Ok… Ember can’t sit still now, having read (and listened to the audio book) of Richard Dawkins’s , The God Delusion. I am shooting this off into the cyberverse and may come back to edit or blog more. But in any case, do comment and do point out what you think about the God/religion/Belief issues, where you agree or disagree, where you stand or maybe choose to ignore it all. I will not go into the hardcore philosophical or scientific details but will only stick to the general discussion and common sense. Also, I cannot cover everything in the book. If you personally want to go deep, get the book and draw your own conclusions.

BUT first things first…. WHICH side of the fence do I sit on? What are my personal beliefs? It is important to disclose this so that you do not feel cheated or misled. I was a VERY secular child and a teenager who respected all peace loving religions (It’s funny though; no religion itself says it is not for peace). During one phase, in my mid and late-teens I did support Atheism for a while and strongly hated any God or gods. But that was mostly because of the ugliness of religion that I noticed in the world and read over and over again in my history books of the horrible crusades, massacres, civil wars, oppression of women, the weak by religious people.

I hated God because that seemed like the product of man’s criminal mind to justify his own crimes. I have seen ”priests” of different religions command a godly respect in public and in their private lives act like a corrupt, rotten low life with DEAD CONSCIENCE. Boy I hated God, whose name they invoked all the time. But I outgrew that phase and the reality is: whenever people do fight, loot, kill, rape, oppress, exploit in the name of God, they are only doing it for themselves. God to me is an EVER SILENT BEING because he never talks to me (Though he talks to the American President Hon. George W. Bush and tells him, ”Go Georgie, get em’ Iraqis”) .

However, we do have conscience, and that’s an enormously mystical thing to me. Where do we get compassion, unconditional love, guilt etc. ? Richard Dawkins gives some odd wild guesses like they are some sort of misfired emotions or impulses of our Selfish Darwinian being. I am not only NOT CONVINCED but I think that was a pulp theory and even a dishonest guess proposed in order to steer clear of this big question.

Like many people I was (am) convinced that the Universe is so complex and beautiful, scary. absolutely awe inspiring that it is incredible it even exists the way it does (only as much as we can know anyway, and I’m sure we don’t even know an iota of it!) And again coming back to the point of above paragraph, we the humans: Who the hell are we???? No doubt we evolve..but like many Intelligent design folks would say, there is something like micro-evolution.

We as human race do evolve but we did not evolve over zillions of years from bactria, apes etc. THIS is what I believe or choose to believe in the face of known facts using my own reasoning. Again I totally reject the religious (read political) wing Intelligent Design people who want to teach children in school that hmmm… our planet may be a few thousand years old and we descended from Adam and Eve so ummm so hey kids, maybe we should think twice before we eat when we’re naked. (a spin on the joke I picked from an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, Ray Romano said it in his hilarious dry way, it was terrific!)

So, they there ought to be a creator or the Prime Mover (or creators and movers if you throw the angels in.. LOL). My opinion. Now we come down to the specific point of religion. About 6 years back I took serious interest in Christianity and studied Bible and my own conscience strongly resonated with the Judeo- Christian ethics. There was a phase when I believed in almost literal interpretation of Bible. But I do not now. It has nothing to do with my bad experiences with God (He never talks to me as I said before) or disillusionment or anything like that, but my own reasoning. Of course, Bible is literature but parts of it, in my opinion, are divinely inspired (in the same sense as the most classical and exquisite pieces of art, music or literature and even engineering!) Personally, I believe in the progress, peace and well being of human race. I am also very selfishly interested in my own well being, ambitions and dreams because I consider myself as a human being. But at the same time, I totally recognize the same rights, ambitions and dignity of ALL human beings.

So I can call myself A Christian Agnostic or a Progressive Christian or a Liberal Christian or a Christian Humanist (depending on the perspective)

Wisdom from Above May 3, 2007

Wisdom from Above delivered by Homer, The Philosopher.

”Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.” — Bertrand Russel.