What I’m Reading 5/30/11: Firefox & EDMD Edition

Hmmm. I haven’t spent much time around the old blog of late. It has been a weird time in my life. April marked the passing of a dear friend and his memorial services were held in mid-May. Consequently, I haven’t felt all that energetic about writing. To my friends on other blogs that I visit regularly: my apologies. I’ve been more than scarce.

Today, I want to relate my recent wanderings into two areas: drawing pictures of religious figures and toying around with web browsers. Er… They go together perfectly well, no?

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day came and went. If you’ve spent anytime reading my blog, you can probably guess that I’m not a fan of EDMD. The big, well populated atheist blogs were outwardly supportive of EDMD and they actively promoted the day once again.   Shortly after reading of their support, I spent a bit of time poking around, looking for alternative voices on this issue. I found several. I’ve linked to those voices bellow.

Draw Muhammad Day is a farce
Draw Muhammad Day Predictably Descends into Hate Fest
“Draw Mohammed Day” draws ire at SFU
Draw Muhammad Day Repost: If they mocked caricatures of the Virgin Mary in Arizona…
A Muslim Cartoonist on “Draw Muhammad Day”
Defending Free Speech Against Fundamentalist Islam?
“Draw Muhammad Day” is a stupid and destructive stunt
Draw Muhammad Day: Collectively Punishing Muslim Americans
Talk the Talk, Don’t Chalk the Chalk: Drawing a Divide With the “Draw Muhammad” Campaign

This issue has set my blood to boiling, by the way… Enough so, that I was rather uncivil with a bunch of folks on one of the larger atheist blogs. For me, this issue marks a permanent split with much of online atheism. I am done. Really done. I’ll be talking about this in greater detail during my next blog post.

Now, on to web browsers.  OK, maybe the title of this blog post should be What I’m Reading and Installing. I’ve been playing around with the newest version of Firefox a bit.  It’s version 4.  I rather like the new aesthetics and it’s also a bit faster than the previous version. As with any new version of Firefox, I always play around with new add-ons.  In case you don’t know, Firefox add-ons (or extensions) are small applications that you install within Firefox that enhance or add on to the web browser’s abilities. After a month or so of playing around, I think I’ve finally settled on my favorite add-ons:

Adblock Plus: removes ads on most webpages; particularly useful if you find that ads which blink and move are too distracting
Instant Fox: normally, Firefox lets a person type internet search terms directly into the address bar and then searches for these terms via the default search engine for your browser; this add-on enables a person to type searches directly into the address bar and use search engines other than the default search engine; typing a code letter before the search terms determines the search engine that is used
newTabURL: with this add-on, you can instruct Firefox to open new tabs to either a particular website (such as your homepage) or to the most recently copied web address
Sage: an RSS reader whose appearance is configurable via a CSS file; RSS links to your favorite blogs can be organized on the fly, via folders in your bookmarks; uses Firefox’s Live Bookmarks
Speed Dial: creates a “webpage” within Firefox that shows thumbnails/pictures for your favorite websites; the pictures can be grouped under separate categories by assigning each category to its own tab; just select the category by clicking on a tab, click on the thumbnail for the desired website, and off you go!
Status 4Evar: brings back the traditional status bar for Firefox 4 (which, for some reason, was retired when version 4 was released); allows one to configure the behavior of the status bar and the address bar
Statusbar Date: displays a highly configurable time and date display that appears on the status bar
Weather Watcher Live: displays current, daily, and hourly weather icons and a weather map within Firefox; highly configurable, including the option to use a weather map of your own choice (by supplying in the appropriate web address)
WikiLook: the most awesome dictionary definition look-up that I’ve ever encountered for Firefox; to retrieve a definition, just highlight the word in question and then hover your mouse pointer over the word; great aesthetics, too
Yet Another Smooth Scrolling: allows one to adjust the speed and movement of scrolling via the mouse wheel or arrow keys

(Some of these links take you directly to the programmer’s personal website.  You can also download each of these add-ons directly from Mozilla via this website.  Be aware that Mozilla’s website does not always have the most recent versions of add-ons.)

Happy motoring on the information super highway. Until next time…

Holy Tornado, Batman!

OK, here’s a little known fact about me: I am completely fascinated by tornadoes. I’ve dreamt about tornadoes since I was a kid. They are among my favorite kinds of dreams.  Nightmare or not, I always wake up amazed and in good spirits.  I even feel an odd kind of mysticism about tornadoes. There’s something about lethal forms of weather that finds a special place in my heart.  If it can kill me, I love it: hurricanes, tornadoes, lightening, floods… you name it. Yes, I know that this is completely weird. What can I say?

I also love the movie Twister. I know it’s pure cheese, but a movie with Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton, and growling tornadoes? Could that possibly be any sexier? Plus, the special effects are waaaaay cool—especially for a movie from the 90s.  Since moving to the Twin Cities, I’ve satisfied my love of dangerous weather by watching Twister every spring. The start of tornado season isn’t complete without it.  A bowl full of popcorn, sexy costars, and angry weather patterns: could a girl ask for more?  I think not.

My love of violent weather also extends to my reading habits.  One of my favorite series of fantasy/sci-fi novels is The Weather Warden Series by Rachel Caine.  The series tells the story of a woman who is a member of a quasi-governmental agency composed of human beings who control the weather and other natural processes with their minds.  OK, so maybe that sounds a little cheesy, too, but it has angry weather (quite literally) and the main character is a hoot.

Now that I live in the Midwest, tornadoes form a far more prominent feature of my awareness during the warmer months. (Yay/crap!) I’ve always wanted to see a tornado and it seems that my new home may make my dreams come true, for better or for worse. Honestly, tornadoes actually frighten me—probably more so than the average Minnesotan—but I still would love to catch a glimpse of one.

Anyway, these past few paragraphs are my segue into presenting y’all with some really nifty tornado footage.   Before you ask, no, it didn’t happen in Minnesota.  I’m still all in one piece… physically, at least.  Anyway, two different groups of people caught video footage of a tornado that swept through Clinton, Mississippi this past Friday. The first video is shot quite a distance from the ensuing destruction but the second video is shot in such close proximity, that it makes you worry for the photographers’ lives.

Now that we’ve just watched some scarey weather footage, I would be remiss if I didn’t encourage people to brush up on tornado safety. NOAA has some excellent, detailed guidelines on how to respond in the event of a tornado. Please read that link. It may save your life some day.

Pay particularly close attention to the advisory that people not hide under highway bridges during tornadoes. First, if everyone decides to run for a highway bridge, accumulated parked cars will block the highway, thus stopping traffic flow and stranding motorists behind you. Second, hiding under a bridge is similar to hiding in a wind tunnel. That is, the structure of the bridge guides and concentrates the effects of the tornado’s wind.  To make maters worse, many people choose to hide near the underside of the bridge, near or between the bridge’s steel/cement girders.  This is the worst possible approach since the wind speed increases the further you are from the ground.  Since the wind effects are far more severe under a bridge, your chances of being impaled or maimed by flying debris are much greater. Get out of your car and hide in a ditch, instead. I’m not joking. Because the air speed is much closer to zero near the ground, you’ll be far safer.

This is Crazed Tornado Girl, signing off.  

What I’m Reading 3/2/11

A lot of blog authors post links to interesting articles that they’re reading on the internet.  This marks my first endeavor to dip my toe into the waters of sharing my internet wanderings with my readers (all three or four of you).

I just discovered a blog called A Hmong Woman.  It is written by a woman who immigrated from Thailand to the US with her family when she was a young girl.  The blog grabbed my attention because there is a sizable populace of Hmong people here in the Twin Cities and I know little about this particular ethnic group.   For those who are unfamiliar with the Hmong, they are:

…an Asian ethnic group from the mountainous regions of China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. Hmong are also one of the sub-groups of the Miao ethnicity (苗族) in southern China. Hmong groups began a gradual southward migration in the 18th century due to political unrest and to find more arable land.

A number of Hmong people fought against the communist-nationalist Pathet Lao during the Laotian Civil War. Hmong people were singled out for retribution when the Pathet Lao took over the Laotian government in 1975, and tens of thousands fled to Thailand seeking political asylum. Thousands of these refugees have resettled in Western countries since the late 1970s, mostly the United States but also Australia, France, French Guiana, and Canada. Others have been returned to Laos under United Nations-sponsored repatriation programs. Around 8,000 Hmong refugees remain in Thailand.

Please read the rest of the Wikipedia article for more details.

The author of A Hmong Woman just penned an article about what it’s like to be a mother who is being pressured to continue having  children until a son is born.  Hmong culture favors having sons over daughters and consequently, a fair amount of pressure is applied to Hmong parents until at least one son is in the mix.  She already has two daughters, is satisfied with two children, and refuses to bow to cultural pressures.

She also wrote an article describing tensions she has witnessed between people of the traditional Hmong religion of Shamanism and Christianity.

Someone in the comment thread of the previous article linked to a lengthy but very interesting essay on the history of the introduction of Christianity to the Hmong people.  It explores in detail the kind of cultural ferment and conflict that takes place as two religions—Animism and Christianity—blend together to form a cultural synthesis.  It’s very engaging stuff if you’re a sociology geek like me.  I’m about a quarter of the way through the article and I am looking to finishing it this evening.  (See note below.***)

And now, for the completely frivolous, Time Magazine has posted a series of photos exploring Muammar Gaddafi’s clothing.  Holy cow, does that man have a breadth of fashion taste!  Many of his outfits are quite beautiful, actually.

OK, I’m off to see the wizard.  See ya later…

***PLEASE NOTE: As I was reading more of the article on the introduction of Christianity to the Hmong, I realized that this article is posted on the website of a Christian missionary association whose goal is to spread Christianity among the Hmong.  Nevertheless, the webpage describes the essay as, “an article written by a non-Christian Hmong in the USA examining Hmong conversion to Christianity and the cultural conflicts that develop within the Hmong community.”

An Intersection of Perspectives

About a year ago, I shifted the focus of my reading and blogging to the topics of religion, atheism, and agnosticism.  Prior to that shift, I blogged almost exclusively about sex, gender, and feminism.  I decided to take a vacation from these topics for two reasons: I had simply “burned out” in exploring these topics and I had developed a weariness with the ways that feminism mishandles transgender issues.  You can read about my feelings and revelations on feminism and transgender issues here and here.

During the past year, I immersed myself in the world of internet non-believers.  Although I am hardly a newcomer in my own disbelief of deities, I had never bothered to read the words of other non-believers.  My primary focus had been sociology, sex/gender, feminism, and LGBT issues.

This past year has proven to be a learning experience.  After a year of atheist immersion, I find myself missing feminism, in spite of its flaws.  It’s amazing how much one can learn to appreciate home while traveling abroad.

Odd, that.

One of feminist theory’s strengths is that it recognizes that people’s identities are complex constructs that include influences and experiences from a whole host of demographic characteristics.  How one experiences social forces is complicated by a variety of contributing factors that extend far beyond sex and gender.  One is not merely female or male (or something beyond that dichotomy).  One’s identity also includes one’s race, class, sexual orientation, gender expression, age, geographic origin, and so on.  Out of this recognition of intersectionality flows a far more detailed understanding of how people experience discrimination and prejudice.  While feminism’s real-life implementation of this approach can leave something to be desired, I have found that it still tends to yield a far more nuanced understanding of social issues than the native perspectives of other philosophical pursuits.

An intersectional approach has been largely absent in the writings of atheists and agnostics.  While I suspect that many non-believers might roll their eyes and dismiss such concerns as “politically correct babble”, it might actually provide a deeper understanding of what non-believers experience in a culture that is dominated by theistic philosophies.

At its root, non-believers are a body of people whose perspectives on spiritual and religious matters place them in a minority position. Like any minority, they face specific kinds of discrimination and negative attitudes which are perpetrated by the majority/dominant populace.  Those who embrace the dominant spiritual and religious beliefs are accorded certain privileges that work toward the collective benefit of their group.  Those who do not share the views of the dominant populace face certain kinds of disadvantages and these disadvantages impact non-believers in ways that constrict their lives.  These disadvantages and privileges are structured into common social conventions and many social and governmental institutions.

The above paragraph is easily modified to describe virtually any minority populace who faces discrimination and oppression.  There are common classes of experiences shared by various minority populaces because those populaces all exist as outgroups in relation to a more powerful and usually more numerous ingroup.

From what I’ve witnessed, it seems as though the newest batch of atheists and agnostics are just starting to realize the scope of this reality.  There’s a lot of emphasis on lining up one’s ideological ducks to ensure proper, logical thinking regarding the existence of deities, the evolutionary origin of life, and general scientific concepts, but the discourse grows a bit thin when it comes to more sociological matters.  There’s certainly a general awareness of being a minority viewpoint, but in many respects, people seem to be “reinventing the wheel” when it comes to grappling with the social dynamics that govern non-believers’ struggles with the dominant culture.

Of Radicalism and Spiritual Fatigue: Part II

In my previous post, I wrote a preliminary review of Richard Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion. In that review I expressed my general dislike of Dawkins’ book. However, several people responded to my review by affirming that as atheists, they found his book to be quite edifying, timely, and useful.

I’m not surprised. It would have been weird to have had a slew of atheists agree that one of the most popular atheist publications ever written was a bit too snarky, shoddily written, and lacking in objectivity. I would have pinched myself to see if I was dreaming or perhaps assumed that I am actually living in The Matrix. Alas, The Matrix is a figment of Hollywood’s imagination and here in the real world, I appear to stand in the minority position.

Why is this?

I think this might be a question of timing and perhaps a touch of life experience.

I’m left thinking about my days as a budding feminist, some twenty years ago. I remember reading fiery texts written by a good number of radical authors. It was a bracing experience and spoke to my own travails as a gender variant person. These authors addressed the ways in which the social construction of gender brings forth a variety of nasty consequences that harm anyone at the wrong end of the gender hierarchy. It was quite affirming and I voraciously read these materials while taking college courses which addressed these issues. I even jumped headfirst into feminist political activism. In time, I came to refer to myself as a radical feminist and was proud to do so.

Sadly, after a number of years had passed, I began to notice a problem. While radicalism’s single-mindedness can accomplish great deeds, it can also lead to a place of hatred and ill will. When one’s radicalism is focused upon fighting prejudiced philosophies, deeds, and institutions, what does one do when radicalism brings forth its own form of prejudice? Does this not become self defeating? Does it reproduce the same patterns of social interaction that one seeks to remedy?

I wrote this a little while ago:

Radical feminism appealed to me because it placed the blame for the fucked up ways of patriarchy squarely upon men’s shoulders. No words were minced. No excuses were made. Radical feminism was a fiery, take-no-shit approach to dealing with sexist oppression. It appealed to me because its intensity reflected my own anger and hurt. Finding one’s anger and hurt reflected in a philosophy and a movement can be a beautiful thing. It can provide a space of healing. It places the blame for the crazy messed-up feelings upon the true source of your pain and it makes no apologies. It turns the pain away from your core and aims it outward. It brings relief from self-hatred. It brings relief from the craziness. It’s powerful. It’s wonderful. It allows you to simply grow.

There is a danger, though. If one fails to move forward—beyond the hurt and the brokenness—one can become mired in anger, hatred and fear.

For me, boys and men came to embody everything that was broken in society. They inherited privilege, embraced violence, and reveled in the hate and abuse that they foisted upon women and girls. They came to symbolize the essence of hatred and violence. Deep down, that’s how I felt about them.

Interestingly, this captures how I once felt about most Christians and a good number of people from other religions. As a bisexual trans woman who doesn’t believe in a god, I’ve felt my share of hatred toward the religious. There’s a heaping mound of childhood abuse that I can pin squarely on the shoulders of the religious, just as I can pin that abuse upon males’ shoulders.

Consequently, I’ve spent a fair portion of my adult life dismissing the majority of religious people as evil fucks.  So too, I’ve spent a fair portion of my adult life dismissing the majority of men and boys as evil fucks.  There’s a pattern here and it’s one I’d rather not indulge. Years of hatred and fear can lead to bad places, even when you feel that your hatred and fear are justified.