Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
Let's all join hands and sing around the pile of burning books . . .
Ah, nothing like a good ol' "ban & burn them EVIL books" news item to get the blood flowing in the morning. From CNN:
Library fight riles up city, leads to book-burning demand
(CNN) -- A fight over books depicting sex and homosexuality has riled up a small Wisconsin city, cost some library board members their positions and prompted a call for a public book burning.
The battle has stirred much of West Bend, a city of roughly 30,000 people about 35 miles north of Milwaukee. Residents have sparred for months on blogs, airwaves and at meetings, including one where a man told the city's library director he should be tarred and feathered.
It's a classic tale of Christian love & understanding, where one couple decided that no one under 18 should be exposed to any of that 'sex stuff' in a book, and have compiled a list of over 80 books which should be removed from the "Young Adult" section of the library. Others in the town objected, saying basically that if these people don't want their kids from reading these books, then they should take up the matter with their own kids, rather than attempting to tell other parents what books their children should have access to.
And of course, it didn't stop there. From the same article:
Outside West Bend, the fight caught the attention of Robert Braun, who, with three other Milwaukee-area men, filed a claim against West Bend calling for one of the library's books to be publicly burned, along with financial damages.
The four plaintiffs -- who describe themselves as "elderly" in their complaint --- claim their "mental and emotional well-being was damaged by [the] book at the library."
The claim, unconnected to the Maziarkas, says the book "Baby Be-bop" -- a fictional piece about a homosexual teenager -- is "explicitly vulgar, racial and anti-Christian."
Braun, who says he is president of a Milwaukee group called the Christian Civil Liberties Union, said he singled out the book because it "goes way over the line" with offensive language and descriptions of sex acts.
The call for burning the book showed his passion, Braun, 74, said. "I don't sit on the fence when I do these things. When I make a decision to speak up on something, I go for it."
And because he has passion for Christ, it's OK for him to tell everyone else how to run their lives.
Typical.
Jim Downey
(Via MeFi.)
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Another book to thrown on the fire
This isn't a terribly creative idea but it would be fun to show up with some bibles and argue that they too should be burned for the homosexuality and other sexual language, not to mention countless acts of violence.
1 Samuel 18: 1- 4 clearly two men in love.
Ezekiel 23: 19-20 a whore fondly rembering the days of her youth when men were like horses, and her bruised teats
and to think that some pervs actually want children to read this filth.
Snowed-in in Library / burning books
Some months ago, someone posited a scenario where you were stuck in a library, without power, in winter, and had to begin burning books for heat. The question: With which books would you start? The almost unanimous answer: the romance novels.
Stuck in the Library
What if a bunch of fundies were stuck in a church with the power out during a blizzard, and the only flammable stuff was Bibles, hymnals and carved wooden statues of Jesus? Would they freeze to death, or start a fire?
THAT is the question I'd like to see answered.
Longest burning fire wins.
They'd get a fire going for sure, Hank. Survival imperative and all that.
I'd guess the protocol would indicate using the hymnals for tinder. They are usually made of a thicker and longer burning paper than bibles. Besides they have the hymns memorized.
The holy book is better suited to establishing a hot fire and bed of coals that is necessary for a long lasting blaze. Therefore the wooden Jesi would go in one by one atop the base of glowing scriptures. It would not be unexpected that the last Jesi would be spared the flames and instead propped up in a frosty niche as witness to the witless slowly freezing.
'Course, some parishioners may have basic construction or carpentry skills enabling them to take the pews and naves and altars apart to make more firewood. That might just last until technologically superior and deeply compassionate people come to their rescue.
In Darwin's Time
I love telling this story, despite the fact that I can never remember the exact details. I read it in the book "Darwin's Captain," which was about Fitzroy and the Beagle, but also about the surrounding history of the era.
Missionaries to Tierra del Fuego were dropped off from their ship in three boats, one with most of the people, the other two with all of their supplies. The two supply boats were lost in heavy weather, but the missionaries made it to shore. They thought God was testing their faith, so they sat on the beach and prayed, recorded by one of their number in a journal, until they all died of hunger and exposure. They actually talked each other out of building shelters because they felt that would show a lack of faith in God.
About the same time, a shipload of sailors was wrecked on a nearby island. Given the time, they probably did a bit of praying, but mainly they hustled about building shelters, getting fires going, finding food. A year later, when they were finally rescued, they were healthier than the sailors on the rescue ship.
So, anyway, you can never tell. The Christians in my test scenario might talk each other out of starting fires with the Holy Bible, or the blessed image of Jesus. It might all be Satan's doing, in order to force them to damn themselves to eternal flames.
But it wouldn't all be bad news, if they were to freeze to death.
After all, they'd all win Darwin Awards.
Great Opening LIne.
Sure got a good chuckle out of,
I'm doing that all the time, launching into a tale either knowing that parts are made up and evolve with the telling or knowing that I didn't have all the details even when the events took place. But the core of the tale is true! I was there, I tell ya!
I've heard the castaway missionary story before but the addition of the stranded sailors is a new twist.
Thanks for the story. I enjoy your telling of it.
Now that's funny
I chuckled when I read the name of their group, the "Christian Civil Liberties Union". Exactly what liberties do christians need to fight for? It sounds like they're fighting for the right to tell others what to do. What a stellar example of wingnut liberty.
Well of course,
it's obvious that we are suppressing their civil rights by denying them full authority over our reading material. How dare we!
Jim Downey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like Science Fiction? Read *or listen to* my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
Do the libraries work differently in West Bend, WI?
At my library, I typically have to go to the card catalog to find the book I'm looking for, check it out using my library card, take it home and read it before it assaults me.
The Power of the Printed Word is Not to be Trifled With!
Except that I have walked literally miles of library shelves past books of all level of authority and depth concerning all of the subjects concerning man and his way on the earth and have remained, alas, untouched by those many pages.
Oh! the books I have not read. They have left me unmarked, unchanged and uninformed. Worse, unmoved.
How 'bout we burn them too?
Didn't that fall out of fashion when the Nazis did?
You do wonder where those old guys got their idea. Weird that theu only decided that their "mental and emotional well-being was damaged" not when they were confronted with the book, or even learned about it in the library - but when they read a news report about its existence.
Kinda like the town manager who is suddenly incapable of doing his job after the town council learned that his wife is a porn star. One wonders exactly howthey learned of her side profession...........