Phil Plait’s Bad Universe

How badass does that sound? Well, the trailer lives up to the badassery:

Geekgasm! So glad Discovery is adding another scientific/skeptical show to its lineup – something other than logging, fishing, or ghosts. Especially since astronomy was my first scientific love, so I have a soft spot for it in my heart. And even better that it features Phil Plait, who after meeting at TAM, I know I could definitely sit down and watch for hours.

…Because he’s entertaining. Man, why does everything I say sound so creepy? Anyway, yay for his top secret project being revealed!

(Via Skepchick)

Secular Student Alliance Conference starts tomorrow, woo!

Wanted to give you guys a heads up that I’ll be heading to the Secular Student Alliance conference in Columbus, OH tomorrow and be there until late Monday. If you’re going too, say hello! Don’t forget that Greta Christina’s keynote is free and open to the public. And for the rest of you, I’ll try to set up some autoposts for then so you don’t get too blog deprived.

Can’t stay up too late tonight, since Hemant is picking me and Mark up bright and early tomorrow for our ~6 hour drive to the zoo. If any of the religious signs in rural Indiana and Ohio ignite his road rage, I’ll be sure to livetweet as he drives us into a ditch. Look at the brightside: At least PZ’s strike is over. That way our untimely demise won’t completely implode the atheist blogosphere!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to finish putting some last minute lolcats into my Very Serious Presentation.

lol modern art

Yesterday I went to the Art Institute of Chicago with my parents, aunt, and uncle. I love the Art Institute. Between many art class field trips and my mom being an art teacher, I’ve been there so many times that I no longer need a map to navigate it. Definitely in the double digits. But they had built a whole new modern art wing since the last time I visited, so I was excited to check that out.

Oh boy.

Now, I probably have more of an appreciation for modern art than your average person. Up until my senior year of high school, I thought I was going to be an artist, not a scientist. I’ve taken many advanced classes, won art awards, yadda yadda. There is plenty of modern art I really enjoy, including some crazy abstract/weird/symbolic stuff.

But man, I just don’t get some modern art. Seriously, what the hell?That is an old oversized car mat someone bent and pinned. And it is now hanging in the Art Institute of Chicago. WTF. And this wasn’t the weirdest stuff. There was a black canvas, a pile of rocks, a painting of a date, a video of an electric guitar being drug through grass…

I’m sorry, but just because you were the first person to think to do something doesn’t make it good art. Nor does writing up some flowery bullshit post-hoc explanation of what deep symbolism your piece has. Gah, artist pet peeve.

Some of the stuff there looked comparable or even worse than stuff I did as a toddler. For example, The First Part of the Return from Parnassus by Cy Twombly:

“Cy Twombly’s famously inimitable art is tensely balanced between expressively abstract and suggestively pictorial impulses. His work originated under the auspices of Abstract Expressionism in the late 1940s and early 1950s and advanced uniquely along lines afforded by its freedoms. Twombly’s entire enterprise is characterized by unruly marks—stammering, energetic, and raw—that merge drawing, painting, writing, and symbolic glyphs. Scrawled, overwritten, erased, or willfully misspelled, words cite people, places, events, and stories nominally derived from Greco-Roman culture and history, especially literature, poetry, and myth.”

…And here’s the watercolor hanging in my bathroom that I did at age 3:Let’s have a contest.

Write the best summary you can of my piece that would make it worthy of an art museum. “Best” can either be most humorous, most deep, most similar to the BS descriptions we’re used to hearing. This is art, I’m not going to make strict rules!

The one I like the most will get a quick sketch by me of something of their choice. I’ll post my favorites in a couple of days.

The rumors aren’t true!

Of course I’m not replacing PZ at ScienceBlogs! It’s like the person writing this article completely fabricated the whole thing. Journalism today, sheesh.

I mean, just think of the logistics. What would I post photos of every Friday, types of kangaroo rats? An army of adorable rodents doesn’t have the same power as an army of cephalopods. And would I have to grow a beard? See, it just doesn’t make sense.

Well, except for the last paragraph. That’s totally true.

Blogathon 2010

It’s time for this blogger to go mad from sleep deprivation for charity! Again!

Those of you who have been here for a while (the “I read Blag Hag before boobquake” hipsters) may remember Blogathon from last year. Blogathon is just what it sounds like – a blogging marathon. Starting on Saturday, July 31st at 8am EST, I will make a new blog post every half hour until Sunday, August 1st at 8am EST. None of these posts will be made ahead of time or set to autopost at a certain time – I’ll be up blogging new material for the whole 24 hours.

But the purpose isn’t to spam your Google Reader; it’s to raise money for charity. You pledge on my behalf, just like you would for someone running a marathon. Except instead of showing my physical prowess, I’ll be sitting on my ass in front of a computer frantically typing away while consuming caffeine – an equally impressive display, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Like last year, my charity of choice is the Secular Student Alliance. I’ve gushed about them before, but let me reiterate what a fabulous organization the SSA is. The SSA aids secular, atheist, humanist, and freethinker student organizations across the US and the world. They help students start new groups at universities and high schools, provide information and event ideas to current groups, send great speakers to campuses, and encourage networking between the next generation of outspoken secular voices. If you’re reading my blog, I probably don’t have to explain why having these resources for young people is so important. For the sake of full disclosure, I am now a board member of the SSA. But that has just shown me how much hard work is going on behind the scenes at this organization.

Last year Blogathon was a great success. Not only did some of my readers have fun staying up with me during my increasing level of madness, but we raised $531.17 for the SSA! My readership has increased greatly since then, so I hope we can top that this year.

So what can you do to help?

1. Donate through this ChipIn widget, which goes to the SSA’s PayPal account. You can pledge a lump sum, or be more creative if you wish. Donate a sum of money based on my total word count, for every post you really liked, for every time you laugh, or for every time I say a particular word I overuse. Surprise me!

Oh, and $3,000 is kind of an arbitrary amount. I just think it’s fulfilling seeing that progress bar fill up, haha.

2. Spread the word! Post this on your blog, tweet it, tell a friend. And remind people to “tune in” on the 31st!

3. Inspire me! If I haven’t been answering your emails or questions on formspring.me, it’s because I’ve been saving up (sorry!). But I can never have too many blogging prompts. Ask me a question anonymously, or email me an idea at blaghagblog(at)gmail(dot)com.

4. Keep me company on the 31st. It helps knowing people are actually reading the posts I’m pumping out. And I try to keep them the same quality of my normal posts – I won’t throw up stupid filler just to meet my quota. It should be entertaining for everyone involved, especially since you can literally watch me get more delirious as the night goes on. And hey, it can get lonely at 5am. It’s good to know there’s another night owl out there.

So, help out a good cause and (hopefully) be entertained for a day!

I’m so proud of my dad!

My dad is one of the major reasons I’m an atheist. Ever since I was little, he instilled a healthy skepticism of religion in me. For one, he thought it was very important not to indoctrinate me in any particular faith. We never went to church and I was never taught about Christianity, unlike him or my half brothers (whose mom won out on that argument). I was left to my own devices. And when you’re gobbling up Greek mythology and fantasy novels, modern religions just didn’t seem too different in my head.

He also had his nuggets of wisdom. “No man is killed for any reason more than in the name of God,” was a frequent saying of his. And when a younger me asked why we didn’t go to church, he responded “You don’t have to go to church to be a good person. Plenty of people who go to church and are praying the loudest have also done the worst things.”

Despite this, I never heard him call himself an atheist. I’m not sure if he even knew it was an appropriate label for himself until I started the Society of Non-Theists at Purdue. I had noticed that now that I was more vocal about my atheism, he was also becoming more vocal in his criticisms of religion. Not long ago he saw I had a copy of Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, and I mentioned it was a really good read. Armed with a Kindle, he read it and loved it. The criticism of religion has definitely increased even more (Dawkins has that effect on people).

I just saw him, and he said I would be proud of him. He was grocery shopping and a man in a suit came up to him. He said he recognized him from when he coached high school basketball, so my dad stopped to talk. He then asked if he could have a minute of his time and tried to give him a pamphlet about Christianity.

Dad: Sorry, but you’ll just be wasting your time on me.
Guy: Why’s that?
Dad: Because I’m an atheist.

The guy was flustered and wanted to debate, but my dad just went along with his grocery shopping.

This is the first time I’ve heard him used the dreaded “a” word, and to practically a stranger no less. One way to increase acceptance of the non-religious in our society is to let people know that every day, good people are atheists. We’re fathers, we’re basketball coaches, and we do our grocery shopping at the same place as you. It may have taken him 64 years to do it (yesterday was his birthday!), but it’s never too late.

And yes, I am very proud of him.

Bus driver refuses to take woman to Planned Parenthood

Why? Religious reasons, of course:

A former bus driver has sued the Capital Area Rural Transportation System, charging that the nine-county transit service discriminated against him based on his religion when he was fired for refusing to drive women to a Planned Parenthood clinic in January.

Edwin Graning, who was hired as a driver on April 1, 2009, was “concerned that he might be transporting a client to undergo an abortion” when he was assigned to take two women to Planned Parenthood, according to his lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Austin.

Graning is seeking reinstatement, back pay and undisclosed damages for pain, suffering and emotion distress. He is represented by lawyers from the American Center for Law & Justice, founded by evangelical Christian leader Pat Robertson.

Joanna Salinas, an Austin lawyer who represents the Capital Area Rural Transportation System, said, “CARTS denies that it discriminated against Mr. Graning because of his religion, and we are looking forward to responding to the lawsuit in court.”

The system, operated under an agreement among participating counties, offers bus service on fixed routes and through requested pickup for residents in the nonurban areas of Travis and Williamson counties and in all of Bastrop, Burnet, Blanco, Caldwell, Fayette, Hays and Lee counties.

After he was dispatched to take the women to Planned Parenthood in January, Graning called his supervisor “and told her that, in good conscience, he could not take someone to have an abortion,” his lawsuit said. The women’s names, their location and the clinic location were not included in the lawsuit. Planned Parenthood also provides health care services unrelated to abortion.

Graning, a Kyle resident, is “an ordained Christian minister who is opposed to abortion,” the lawsuit said.

His supervisor, who is not named, responded by saying, “Then you are resigning,” the suit said.

Graning denied he was resigning and was later told to drive his bus back to the yard and then was fired, the lawsuit said.

It is not religious discrimination if you are refusing to do your job. If you were a Muslim bus driver you would be required to take people to a bar, and if you were a Jewish bus driver you would be required to take people to a butcher that sells pork. If you don’t want to perform your duties, don’t pick a job that’s going to require you to act against your religious beliefs. The same goes for pharmacists who don’t want to provide birth control because of their own moral convictions – don’t become a pharmacist if you can’t be a pharmacist because of your ethics.

Why can’t some religious people understand the concept that their religious rights end where my rights begin? You can feel free to believe in whatever you want. You cannot, however, force me to believe the same thing or follow the same rules. And that’s exactly what’s happening in situations like this – religious people are denying services to people so those people don’t do something “immoral.” It’s not the bus driver who’s getting an abortion, or the pharmacist who’s taking the birth control. They’re policing what you do with their religious standards.

Not to mention that only 3% of Planned Parenthood services are abortion services. From pure statistical likelihood, it’s more probably that this man has stopped these women from getting Pap smears, breast examinations, STD tests, or birth control. Good job, sir.

(Via Religion Clause)

I like to harp on Indiana, but…

…it’s one of five states where human evolution is mentioned directly in the state curriculum for school. I want to be proud that Hoosiers didn’t manage to mess this up, but I’m too overwhelmed by the fact that thirty-two states don’t mention human evolution in their curriculum at all. How can the US expect to produce competent biologists and doctors when children aren’t learning the most fundamental and important biological principle?

It’s even more depressing when I think about what my evolution education was like. Pretty much one or two days out of a whole year of AP Biology. I don’t remember discussing it at all in freshman biology, which is the class everyone is required to take. That’s enough to make us green? No wonder Americans don’t accept evolution.

(Via Why Evolution is True)