Ancient values, modern mismatch.

Today, I want to talk about values.  Values and social practices in modern economic times.

Like it or not, we live in a modern, 21st century America.  Technology has changed the way people live, mostly for the better, although one does see some downsides regarding pollution, chemicals in our food, etc.  But largely, we can do more work faster and that gives us a huge amount of free leisure time that past generations never enjoyed - unless one was one of the elite classes with armies of servants to do the scut work.  (We won't touch on the current armies of lower classes that still do the scut work, that's another post, or a series of them, completely.)

In the last half century, the economic realities of America have changed.  The rich have gotten much richer, the middle class has lost ground and the poor have just gotten poorer.  The main upshot of that for my purposes today is that most of America needs both partners of a married couple to go out into the working world and bring in a paycheck in order to pay the bills and maintain a family's economic position in society.  In the poorer classes, that often means two or three jobs for each partner!

As a result of the change in marriage laws, allowing divorce and separation, not to mention marriages broken apart by the death of the main traditional breadwinner due to auto accidents and war, heart attack and cancer, there are more women who are now the main breadwinners of their families.  A recent Pew Research Center analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau has shown that as many as 40% of American families have women as the main breadwinner, an increase from 11% in 1960.

These “breadwinner moms” are made up of two very different groups: 5.1 million (37%) are married mothers who have a higher income than their husbands, and 8.6 million (63%) are single mothers. 

The income gap between the two groups is quite large. The median total family income of married mothers who earn more than their husbands was nearly $80,000 in 2011, well above the national median of $57,100 for all families with children, and nearly four times the $23,000 median for families led by a single mother.

Obviously, the trend towards women having a firmly established position in the workforce has allowed a lot of women to make good careers for themselves, bettering their families' place in a higher economic stratum, while making it easier for single women to even keep their families heads above the economic surface.

Quite a change from past generations when women could only hold certain poorly paid jobs when the tragedy of their husbands' death struck, putting their surviving children into dire economic straits, often driving them into poverty and ruin.

Apparently, though, some people still yearn for the "good ole' days", when women had to beg on the streets or take in washing and clothes mending to make ends even come close.

Bryan Fisher noted on his radio show yesterday that the 40% figure is a violation of god's will and how he "set things up" in the "beginning".

“That’s the way God set it up, that’s the way he designed it,” he continued. “Husbands are to use their stamina and their strength and their brainpower — not that they’re smarter than women, I’m not saying that — but God has given them a brain and the purpose for using their mental ability is to provide for their families.”

Women, on the other hand, were designed to focus on “making a home for her children and for her husband.”

Fisher also warned that men’s self-esteem was dependent upon their success as breadwiners. A wife that earned more money than her husband was a recipe for marital turmoil, he warned.

Strength?  Stamina?  What planet does Fisher live on?  Tons of American jobs are sedentary, allowing even the disabled to work just as well as the physically healthy can, making it perfectly simple for women to work alongside men - even allowing them work BETTER than men, thus the numbers of women who make more than hubby.

As a matter of fact, many women have much more stamina than men - I damn sure don't see myself as putting up with the physical strain and pain of childbirth for more than ten minutes!  My dear wife did it three times, almost all of them lasting over 24 hours.  Each time, she was back at work within three working days!  No, thank you.  As far as I am concerned, women are just as capable of working at a vast majority of jobs in this country as men are - and in most jobs, they do it every doggone day.

Besides being insulting to the hardworking women of the human race, his remarks are simply ignorant and stupid sounding, betraying the outdated, patriarchal source of his "wisdom".

As for those poor men whose wives make more then they do, give me a break!  I would be delighted to have my wife make more than I do, because I am so damn good at spending it!  Threatened?  Not in the least.  Any man who feels threatened by a wife making more money has worse problems than money on his mind, and seriously needs counseling.

As noted in the beginning, this is the 21st century.  Society is quite different from the late bronze age, early iron age beginnings of the biblical stories that make up the old testament.  Technology has changed society so dramatically that it is hard to understate the ways in which people's lives have changed - for the better for the most part.

Bryan Fisher needs to get his head out of that yellowed, ancient cobwebby book he holds so highly and look around.  He might be surprised by what he sees!

An Ethical Conundrum

I have always prided myself on being an ethical person.  I do try.  I have no doubt that I often fail, at times, unknown to myself even.

But, I do try.  I constantly ask myself of something I am about to do is right, if it has the capacity to hurt someone or if it will, on balance, be beneficial.

But sometimes, there comes something that defeats my ability to decide.

In recent months, I have seen, over and over, christian luminaries, preachers, clerics, priests and Cardinals, say and urge things that I feel are not only wrong, but actively damaging to people, society, and humanity in general.

There was the time Pat Robertson told women that they should ignore their husbands' philandering and just respond by making a happier better home.

There was the post today about a young woman who was locked into an examining room with her Optometrist and his two techs and forced to pray to Jesus.

A new children’s book by author Amber Dee Parker and illustrator Hannah Sequra takes gay bashing to a whole new level by adding a warm fuzzy feeling to teaching very young children to hate homosexuals and their families.

Then there's this:

Families who attend Faith Tabernacle Congregation in North Philadelphia and First Century Gospel Church in Juniata Park have lost more than two dozen children to illness since 1971, according to non-profit Children’s Healthcare Is a Legal Duty, Inc. (CHILD, Inc.). Both churches believe in the power of prayer over modern medicine.

I would also put this photo into evidence:

I agree with the caption, by the way.

All of these examples show how people from large organizations to your everyday businessman feel it is their duty to force their illogical, unevidenced and oftentimes outright false beliefs on the rest of us, disguised as some form of truth.

On one hand, there is no doubt that all of these examples show people exercising their constitutional rights in talking about their religion.  I am a FIRM support of the First Amendment, and I cannot be clear enough on this point.

ALL Americans have the right to speak their minds on what they believe regarding religion.  Absolutely, positively, correct!

However, there is a point often claimed by the right wing that is somewhat applicable here:

The Constitution is NOT a suicide pact.

You may believe to the depths of your heart and with all your strength that what you say is right.  But if what you believe is wrong, and is able to be proven to be harmful (like the idiots who believe in the power of prayer over modern medicine), then why do we allow these very harmful and hurtful things to be taught and practiced?

It is a well known constitutional exception (SCOTUS ruled on this) that religious practices which violate the law (as it applies to everybody, not just religions - like the laws against murder) do not enjoy Constitutional protections like the First Amendment.  For instance you cannot practice a religion which either advocates or practices human sacrifice, because human sacrifice requires the unlawful killing of a human being.

Are there Christian beliefs and practices which would fall under this exception?  Can we prevent christian clerics from preaching hatred towards others, particularly when it is able to be proven to cause harmful activities such as violence towards members of the hated group?

Clearly, we can pass laws which require parents to take their children to doctors even when it violates their religious beliefs, based on society's obligation to preserve and protect both the public's and children's' health.

Why can't we stop these morons from preaching such harmful, false and misleading drivel?

Better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

I don't remember who that quote is attributed to (I could look it up - this IS the Internet - but it doesn't really matter - if the shoe fits...)

I am referring to Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), who made a statement today likening Obama's statement on Gitmo and drones as a victory for Al Qaeda (as if they are still active enough for it to matter):

The President’s speech today will be viewed by terrorists as a victory. Rather than continuing successful counterterrorism activities, we are changing course with no clear operational benefit. We knew five years ago that closing Guantanamo was a bad idea and would not work. Yet, today’s speech sends the message to Guantanamo detainees that if they harass the dedicated military personnel there enough, we will give in and send them home, even to Yemen. With the recidivism rate now at 28% and the increased threat from al Qaeda and its affiliates, including in Yemen, GITMO must stay open for business.

 This is a deliberate ignorance of the primary value Gitmo has to muslim terrorists all over the world (not just AQ), which is as a recruitment vehicle.

This is bad.  Not because we are moving towards closing Gitmo, but because it has remained in operation for so long!

There are two reasons:

First, it is just plain wrong.  Gitmo was opened in the first place on the premise that the Constitution applies only within the Continental United States - that the Government can violate that document the Republicans supposedly hold sacred with impunity IF it does so either outside the borders or against a foreign national.  There are no such limitations on the Constitution's safeguards.

The Constitution is a document which outlines the powers allowed the government, and those powers are not allowed to expand beyond those safeguards if it is acting overseas.  They remain the basic law governing how the government may act - ANYWHERE, and in regards to ANYONE.  It does not say, "King's X, only within US borders and this is only protection for citizens".  Its language is generic in regards to whom those protections apply, and are absolute as to wherever the government may be acting.

These are foundational principles we have based our government on - that it may NOT hold people without trial indefinitely.  Even international law limits such imprisonment.  Violation of those principles not only lowers our actions to the level of our enemies', but gives them the perfect excuse to charge us - with good reason - with that violation.  It places us in the very awkward position of being blazing hypocrites!

Second, because it has placed the government in a position where it may be difficult to successfully prosecute those prisoners because of the illegal manner in which they were imprisoned and interrogated, forever tainting the evidence - "poisoned fruit" in legal parlance.

This does NOT represent "successful counterterrorism activities", it represents a very egregious violation of the law - probably several, including international law, I would imagine.

To top it off, many of those men are now known to have been completely innocent of any crimes against the United States when they were detained and transferred to Gitmo.  Something like half, if not more, in fact.

The Senator ignores that his government has illegally held dozens, if not over a hundred perfectly innocent men in indefinite detention, still without charges and without a firm release date or trial date FOR YEARS!!

What part of violating their human rights does this Senator not understand?  How does this man not understand that this places us firmly into the same camp along side such human rights violating luminaries as the USSR, China, North Korea and yes, (Godwin alert) Nazi Germany.  Oh, there may be a matter of a difference in scale, but the principle has been trampled and ignored as completely and as blatantly as if there were no difference at all.

Hence the usage of Gitmo as a tremendously valuable recruitment tool for terrorists the world over, not just AQ.

President Obama promised in his first election campaign to close Gitmo.

It is beyond time to make good that promise.

When will the tipping point arrive?

In every kind of situation where people have a choice between two or more socially visible things, whether they are movies, celebrities, ideas, political parties or even religion, sooner or later in the marketplace of the public mind, there comes a tipping point.  Whatever it is that has struggled to gain acceptance, will reach a place in the public mind where its rivals lose enough steam that people begin to see it as a viable alternative to the other thing that is losing popularity.  Then people who would never have given that new thing a thought suddenly see it not as new and fresh, but as something to have, something popular that can easily replace that old loser.

Now, I don't want to get ahead of myself, and I am not suggesting that we've gotten to that place yet.  But look at some recent stories that may just make you take some second looks.

First, look at the article about the Mexican Archbishop who claimed that abortion is worse than child rape.  May 8th, I posted it on my Facebook page.

Next, note that Minnesota was the thirteenth State to approve marriage equality.  Thirteen, most of them just in the last year, I think.

Or the Christian singer who hired a killer to dispose of his wife.

The increased attention the Religious Right has begun to pay to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), and the lies and the hysteria accompanying those stories, because of its success in recent months in stymying their attempts to continue dominating the US Military, illegally proselytizing American soldiers and forcing their religious ceremonies onto unwilling soldiers, many of whom are christian themselves.

Or the high school principle in Louisville, Ky who is encouraging his teachers to teach - illegally - creationism and christianity to students in their classrooms.

How about Pat Robertson telling his listeners to forgive their cheating hubbies because, well, they're men and that's just what men do?

Or perhaps the increasingly beleaguered state of the right wing pertaining to background checks - even in so called red states?

Look at the way the Republican Party has maintained their grandstanding by voting 37 times to overturn the Affordable Care Act - without a prayer of it passing the Senate or being signed by the President.

I might also point out the female candidate for office down south who claimed to be endorsed by Jesus - and lost by a significant margin!

The nullification movement - states who pass laws attempting to nullify various Federal laws they disagree with - or laws that directly allow things like teaching creationism when SCOTUS has made rulings against them.

There is a common thread passing through all of these things.  It is a thread of desperation, illuminated by the increasingly obvious lack of enthusiasm for religion, particularly the evangelical version of christianity within the US population, especially the under 30 crowd.  Republicans are popularly portrayed by liberals on Facebook as pretty stupid, and a lot of state and local politicians try hard to make it look like they follow that mold, but really, they aren't.  They are as capable of reading the statistical tea leaves as the democrats and know full well that f they do not gain power NOW, while they still have an outsized political influence, in a few years, it will be far too late.

Hence the desperation to incite their real base to get involved, get mad and go to the polls.  Hence their attempts in various swing states to hinder the ability of minorities to go to the polls and vote.  They know that if they can pass many laws that put their program of right wing insanity in place now, they can successfully fight its repeal for years before the democrats can overturn it and return sanity to this country.  They know that they can sabotage the educational system and provide for future conservatives by preventing as many people as possible from getting a real education, so they can be successfully wooed by the religious right as future voters.

But more and more, Americans are rebelling against this insanity.  More and more, the media is letting these stories about the right wing insanity gain traction.  And the more insane they get, the more Americans are likely to notice.

It's time for the general public to let our politicians know how they feel.  It is time to stand up and be counted in opposing the insanity.  Call, write or email your Congresscritter!  Let them know it is time to show the insane ones to the door and to introduce sanity, credibility and integrity back into government.

Let them know - NOW!

More Harm from Religion - Patriarchy, Rape Culture and Sexual Slavery.

Well, today I saw a post on Facebook that chilled me to the bone.

Apparently, the cops found a letter that the kidnapper (slaver?) in Cleveland wrote some years ago in a suicidal funk.  Somebody tweeted some excerpts of it, but the one that gave me goosebumps was where he said something to the affect of, "I don't know why I pursued a third, I already had two in my possession..."

Listen to the relevant part again:  "I already had two in my possession."

Emphasis mine.

Bad enough that he had to kidnap three girls to hold as sex slaves, but this one phrase exposes the whole reason why he thought he could.  They were merely "things" he could own.  Forget his admission that he was raped and molested at home as a child.  That doesn't begin to explain sexual slavery.

They weren't people, but objects.  Things.  Somehow, he had the idea in his head that women were not people at all, but own-able objects.  Where does that come from?  What could possibly give this man the idea that these three girls, total strangers off the streets, minors all, were things he could own?

and seest among the captives a woman of goodly form, and thou hast a desire unto her, and wouldest take her to thee to wife;
then thou shalt bring her home to thy house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails;
and she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thy house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month; and after that thou mayest go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife.

Deuteronomy 21, 11-13.

This is among the worst, but all three Judaic religions put women into a second class, below men.  They cannot own property, they ARE property.  They traditionally had no rights to decide who to marry.  They could not have jobs.  (although the latter could be relaxed for widows.)

Churches were admonished to not allow women to teach men, could not speak in church and are also directed to obey their husbands, who as Christ is the head of the church, are also the head of the household.

All of this is taught in all three religions, and in both Judaism and Islam it is worse.  Women are often separated from men and in Islam, cannot inherit as much and their testimony in court is worth half that of a man.  In both they are considered unclean during their periods, and men must undergo strict rituals if they become "contaminated" by them during that time.

Today, we have taken those scriptural admonitions and have added to them in ways that make our culture one which glorifies rape, prevents women from often even reporting it, and in some States, the rapist can even claim parental rights!

Add to this the current Republican "War on Women", where they are attempting to take the clock back to before the 20th century and deny women not only contraceptive rights, but basic health care as well, and it is no wonder men like Castro can think its ok to kidnap three young women and hold them as sex slaves.

Just as we thought that it was safe for women to start thinking about the more advanced ideals of equal pay for equal work, we find that even their basic rights to decent health care is at risk.

This is unconscionable.  This is horrible, worse than mere discrimination, it is the institutionalized objectification and enslavement of half of the human race!

Until we stop the harm that religions do to our human social structures, these crimes will not go away.  We will never end the degradation and the humiliation of women all over the globe as long as religions exist which present them as objects and things without rights or any form of personhood.

Patriarchy is not a social custom.  It is not a cultural phenomenon.  It is directly taught by religions as dogma and as theology.  Religion teaches us that women are less than men and thus less than human.

Yes, your religion does that.  Yours.  Stop cherry picking and go read Deuteronomy, it will open your eyes and shake your world.

Let this be a tipping point - Please?

The news this week that three young women had been held basically as sex slaves for over a decade in Cleveland this week burst on the national scene like a water balloon.  As if a cold eruption of icy water, it shocked the nation's attention while the very colorful character of the next door neighbor turned hero told his chilling story.  The entire nation was happy for the three and their families as they begin a long and torturous journey for them all in coming to terms with this very devastating epic of horror, sex, and violence.

Right in the middle of the tale, and a particularly nasty part of it, we find that a nationally known psychic, Sylvia Browne, had told the mother of Amanda Berry on "The Montel Williams Show" that her daughter was dead.  Barely a year after her daughter's disappearance, too.  One year later, Louwanna Miller was dead of a broken heart - literally.

As one might imagine, the psychic has said nothing - no apology, no sorrowful admission of failure, nothing.  The entire country seems to be outraged - and for good reason.  Psychics have existed for centuries, and probably longer than that, doing what they do best - take the money of the gullible and the credulous for what is essentially made up pablum.

I mean, come on, people, Google says there are about 1,890,000 results (0.54 seconds) for the search "how to be a psychic medium".  Notice it took less than a second to return that number, too!

This is called supernaturalism.  The supernatural is basically defined as anything our 5 senses cannot detect, and the last two hundred years of frantic attempts by the scientifically challenged to find something - anything - that can be even vaguely construed as scientific evidence for the existence of things in that "realm" have turned up nothing but junk science.

It took even less time to find about 593,000 results (0.38 seconds) for the search "how to expose a psychic medium".

It is fake, folks.  There is nothing to it, so called psychics are criminal confidence "persons", to be gender neutral.  They gain your confidence, take your money and then feed you like a mushroom, in the dark so you can't see the shit they're feeding you!

This so called psychic has denied a young woman her mother at a time in her life when she needs one the  most.  She denied that mother the hope that her daughter might one day be found alive - which she was.

Can this please be a tipping point?  When American begins to end this stupid love affair we seem to have with supernatural bullshit?  Is it possible that this event where the utter bankruptcy of the psychic industry is revealed for what it is can begin to lead us back into a better frame of mind where we can see bullshit for what it is?

I'd like to think so, but the election of that politician who-shall-not-be-named to the Congress on Tuesday in spite of his lies, embezzlement of State funds for personal travel and how he has treated his wife doesn't exactly give me the warm fuzzies, folks.

We CAN do better.

I love Republicans - they provide so much amusement.

Yet, somehow, I wish I were a comedian.  Republicans do provide so much fodder for us bloggers, but damn, the amount of ripe, juicy material just sitting there, waiting for some comedian to take it up and use it is simply astonishing.

Take these two items for instance, that Rachael Maddow has on her blog:

'That's absurd beyond the word absurd'

Perhaps the most controversial of the gun-related items, HB 1076 would ban state agencies from enforcing any new federal gun laws, including background checks. The bill passed the Republican-led House on a largely party line vote Monday, but legal experts say the attempt to "nullify" possible future federal laws likely wouldn't pass the scrutiny of the U.S. Supreme Court.

and:

When Reagan worship goes awry

President Reagan would insist that all illegal immigrants return to their native countries and get in line to be legally admitted into the country if faced with the issue today, according to Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.).
"President Reagan would insist that those who are here illegally must repent and atone for their illegal conduct by returning to their country of origin and getting in line with everyone else," Brooks said on the House floor.

Let's back up and look at the historical record. In 1986, then-President Reagan signed a bipartisan immigration reform package that extended amnesty to any immigrant who entered the country illegally before 1982. This was, of course, before Republicans were told to perceive "amnesty" as the moral equivalent of a crime against humanity.
And by all accounts, Reagan supported the policy and its goals. 

Reagan "knew that it was not right for people to be abused," [former Wyoming Sen. Alan K. Simpson] says. "Anybody who's here illegally is going to be abused in some way, either financially [or] physically. They have no rights."
Peter Robinson, a former Reagan speechwriter, agrees. "It was in Ronald Reagan's bones -- it was part of his understanding of America -- that the country was fundamentally open to those who wanted to join us here."
Reagan said as much himself in a televised debate with Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale in 1984. "I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and lived here, even though sometime back they may have entered illegally," he said. 

Now, I see three possible reasons for this idiocy.

First, they are stupid.  Tempting, I know.

Second, they are purely politically grandstanding on the theory that their constituents are stupid.  Also tempting!

Third, they think we all are.

I think the last one is really the case.  In my experience, people who want to run roughshod over others are of the opinion that they are right, everybody else is wrong, and furthermore, they'll get away with it because everybody else is too stupid to notice. Or, in this case, god is going to somehow wave a magic wand and make them win.

I can hear Bob Hope now, he would have loved this, it has so much potential.  And when I think of what George Carlin would have done with this material, I could almost laugh and cry even without hearing it.

It's a shame neither man is with us to put these morons to shame.

More Pictures! Spring is here...

No time to type today, so as a consolation prize, here are some spring pictures!

Time to talk about goals.

Labels.

There was a movement a few years ago to denigrate the use of labels to describe people, because folks tended (and still do) to just put a label on someone and leave it at that. Single labels are just wrong, because every human is a varied and complex being. All of us have the ability to change our demeanor and our behavior, depending on where we are and what we are responding to.

Take me. (Please!)

I'm a dad, a husband, a blogger, an IT tech, an IT supervisor, a neighbor, a friend, an atheist, a male, an American, a Nissan Altima owner, a Mac user, and I could go on and on. Each of these things describes a different aspect of who I am and what I do with my life.

Right now, the label that counts is New Atheist. Also blogger!

As one of those, I have a number of goals.

I want to educate people so they know and understand atheists better.
I want to help other atheists in their search for what that is supposed to mean.
I want to be part of the atheist movement that will enlarge the political influence of that demographic.
I want to encourage other atheists to "come out" so our families and friends, coworkers and neighbors can get to know us as atheists so the stigma of that label is erased.
I want to erase the influence of religion in human affairs.
I want to encourage better moral choices by others based on human well being instead of Bronze Age values from a religious book.

Big goals. Obviously, I can't do these things myself, and many of them probably won't be completed in my lifetime, even were I a younger man. But I can be open and verbal and as literarily verbose and prolific as possible in spreading the word and encouraging others to work towards these goals.

This blog is to help others see the world from an atheistic viewpoint. I want you to see things from an atheistic colored pair of glasses. I want to help you remove the religious blinders so you can see just how wonderful this world can be and how the restrictions of religious dogma limits your life choices.

A large part of my atheist "ministry", if I may hijack that word, is to open people's eyes to the very real harm that religion can and does do every day around the world. Especially in our back yard. I want to examine the way that religious values tilt and distort reality and human relations so that our actions are not only harmful to others, but to ourselves, even as we think we are saving up points to get into heaven.

I want to open people's eyes to the way that religion contributes to violence, especially nation to nation violence, which contributes so much to the lowering of the standards of living of the entire human race.

In short, I want, in some small way, to make a difference.

The best way I have is through three kinds of activities.

First, through this blog and on Facebook. I've tied the two together, so that this blog is shared there, and the page is named the same as this blog. So, I can educate people through the written word, on one of the most powerful mediums ever invented by the hand of man, the Internet.

Second, by simple human interactions. I am largely out as an atheist. In some venues, like at work, I don't advertise it, but I don't hide it if it comes up in conversation. Family and friends know. By simple example and living my life as best I can, I "witness", to hijack another Christian term, so that others can see just how an atheist can be just like the regular Joe that I am.

Third, by being active in my area in humanist and atheist groups. I host a meetup discussion group every first Friday at my home, and have for over three years. We meet and discuss current events, view videos and other literature relevant to the interests of the group. This enables more people to be able to meet in an atmosphere of like minded and opinioned people where they don't have to watch their words to avoid offending the wrong people.

All of us can do at least the second two. Not everybody is good at writing. Not everybody is good at public speaking or has a large enough space to allow meetings. We all, however, can show the world that atheists are just like regular folks, and aren't the monstrous baby-eaters the religious fanatics would have them think.

So, lets get out there, show the world who we are, and emulate the gay movement, so we can gain the influence to shut the religious right down and reduce their political influence to what their numbers really deserve.

We are the New Atheists! We should be and can be more militant in our approach to our opponents, and make no mistake, the ultra religious ARE our opponents, if not out and out enemies.

So lets act like it.

Sorry about the slow!

I know I've been a bit tardy with the posts and I am sorry.  Various things have taken my attention lately, including the death of an online friend, the aftermath of which has been...interesting... in that old Chinese curse kind of way.

So, I will try to pick up the pace by tomorrow, so be sure that I am quite flattered that some of you keep coming back to look for new stuff.

Picture of kittens!