Is it summer yet?

All I’ve been able to do lately is fantasize about the summer. I have three more weeks of class, then a week of final exams. The weather has officially turned beautiful, and there are lovely flowers everywhere. I won’t be taking classes or doing research, and I have an extra month of summer since UW starts much later than Purdue. Long story short, I’m afflicted with horrible senioritis and I’m ready to go frolic outside, travel, and play video games until my brain oozes out.

Since I cannot yet do any of these things, I’m doing the next best thing: blogging about what I’m goign to do. Here are my summer plans so far:

  • May 7, 5:00 pm: Finish last final exam.
  • May 7, 5:01 pm: Senior week! Aka, constant state of partying, drunkeness, and debauchery until the 15th
  • May 16: Graduation! I’ll be all grown up! *sentimental tears*
  • Late May: Trip to DISNEY WORLD, YEEEAAAHHHH! Seriously, I’m way too excited about this. The only time I’ve been to Disney World was in 5th grade, which was the perfect age to not really enjoy it – too old to love the people in suits, too young to love the rides. I’m psyched to go with my close friends and not just my parents. We really wanted to go to the Harry Potter theme park, but it’s not going to be open in time. So disappointed.
  • June 5: Friend’s wedding!
  • June 25 – 29: Evolution Conference in Portland, Oregon! I’ll be (hopefully, not official yet) presenting a talk on my most recent research project. Which means I’ll be shitting my pants, since it’s a huge conference. My whole lab is going, along with other grad students we know from other labs, so it should be a ton of fun.
  • July 13: Play “How Can I Fit All My Belongings into My Car” Tetris (aka, moving out of West Lafayette).
  • July 23 – 25: Secular Student Alliance Conference in Columbus, Ohio! This was a blast last year. I hope I can take the new set of officers along with me. And even better, I hope I’ll be a new SSA board member by then, but that depends on how the elections go (vote for me!).
  • July 31: BLOGATHON! Oh hell yes I’m doing this again. Except this time I’ll be living in my parents’ house, and they’ll witness my insane displays of sleep deprivation. Hopefully I can break the $500 mark this time.
  • August: Uh, have fun. I have nothing planned, weeee.
  • Early to mid September: Make the 34 hour drive across the country to Seattle, Washington. This…will be interesting.

This may seem like a lot to a sane human being, but as someone who’s stressed out when she’s not overbooked, it’s a relaxing summer. I also have a lot of unscheduled things I’d like to accomplish:

  • Finish up my current research projects and get them submitted to nice journals. I’d preferably like to do this before I give my advisor a heart attack.
  • Lose at least ten pounds, maybe fifteen. Before anyone yells at me about how I shouldn’t care about my weight and that I look fine, know that I’m doing this for me. I’ve gained weight throughout undergrad, and I’d like to thin back down. I want to be able to look at photos of me without lamenting over how fat my face looks. More importantly, trying to lose weight will encourage me to start exercising and eating better, which are definitely good habits to have. I guess I see it that if I don’t get healthy at this point in my life, I’m doomed for the future. Of course, with my luck, I’ll probably lose all the weight from my boobs first (let’s hope not).
  • Read a lot. I still have books I bought two years ago that I haven’t touched.
  • Frantically catch up on modern research in human population genetics so I don’t feel like a complete dumbass when I go to grad school. Feeling like somewhat of dumbass is unavoidable.
  • Finish writing a book. I have three books in progress: one is a quarter done, one needs seriously revamping but I don’t want to throw it away, and one is just an idea but a timely one. I’m notoriously bad for starting a writing project and not finishing it, mainly because I used to feel no one would want to read it. Now that I’ve been blogging and realize people do like what I write, I’ve been finding a lot more motivation. I will get a book published, goddamnit!
  • Play video games I’ve been neglecting. Hey, I need to enjoy the simple things in life too.

Alright, after writing that up, I just wish it was summer even more! Four more weeks…must…survive…

My professor’s Holocaust story

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. On Friday our newspaper ran a piece about the upcoming Greater Lafayette Holocaust Remembrance Conference, which featured the story of one of my former professors here at Purdue. As a former student, her story was especially touching to me, but I thought all of you would enjoy it. I’ve added some more information in sparse parts, taken from here.

Anna Berkovitz had a normal childhood until 1944. Now, years later, she still has nightmares of her family being taken from their home by the Nazis.

“I was 13 years old at the time when I was taken with my family to Auschwitz, just before D-Day,” said Berkovitz, Purdue Professor Emerita of biology.

At the concentration camp, Berkovitz and her family faced grim odds of survival. Six hundred thousand Hungarian Jews entered the camp between May and September of 1944. In just three months, 500,000 were killed.

“The killing machine was so effective that names were not even taken when we arrived.”

Berkovitz’s grandparents, aunts, uncle, cousin and probably her father were among the victims of the genocide conducted by the Nazis.

Her survival, as Berkovitz says, can only be accounted for by a series of miracles. …

Anna and Elizabeth were taken to Camp-C in Birkenau. To this day Anna ponders how she survived six months of brutal treatment, harsh conditions, starvation and disease there.

In November 1944, Anna and Elizabeth were transferred to a slave labor camp near Magdeburg, Germany, where they were put to work in an underground ammunition factory. Ten days prior to the end of World War II, they were liberated by the Swedish Red Cross and taken to Sweden, where they spent three months in a sanatorium recovering from malnutrition and physical and emotional traumas. …

This year, Berkovitz will be attending the conference, but participating in these events brings personal pain.

“It’s very difficult for me … to me it’s just like it happened yesterday, so I don’t need a conference to remember.”

Still, Berkovitz recognizes and even asserts the necessity of the conference and sees participating as a duty.

“I think I owe it to the people who died to be remembered.”

Berkovitz’s story does not end in Sweden; rather, her rescue from tyranny marks the start of a new journey that defies the unthinkable trauma of the Holocaust.

In Sweden, Berkovitz maintains that she suffered from no depression or bitterness and looked forward to the future.

“I could have lived my life as a victim, but I did not,” she said. …

In April 1946, Anna and Elizabeth emigrated to the United States. They arrived in Los Angeles pennyless and not speaking English. In order to resume her schooling, Anna worked as an au-pair for several years. During this time she completed four years of high school and four years of college, graduating from U.C.L.A. in January 1952 with a B.S. degree in bacteriology and with Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude honors. While working as a laboratory technician, Anna met Leonard Berkovitz, who was then a post-doctoral fellow at Caltech. They were married in June 1953, and their sons Dan and Kenneth were born in 1956 and 1960, respectively. During this period Anna worked part time in various cancer research laboratories.

In 1962 Leonard accepted a position at Purdue University, and the family moved to West Lafayette, Indiana. When Kenneth was in kindergarten, Anna decided to continue her formal education. She was accepted as a graduate student in the biology department at Purdue University. She was working on her Ph.D. thesis when, in 1967, she was asked to take a temporary teaching position to fill an unexpected vacancy in the department. This temporary position turned into a lifetime career of teaching, and while Anna never obtained her Ph.D., she earned a tenured position from which she retired in 2003 as Professor Emerita in Biology.

Anna’s efforts as a teacher, her dedication to her students and to the discipline were amply recognized by her students, colleagues and the administration. She was selected by the students as one of the Top Ten Outstanding Teachers in the School of Science 14 times, she received the Murphy Award, the top recognition of teaching excellence by the University, and was given the Chiscon Award for outstanding teaching performance by the Biology department. Anna was elected to the Teaching Academy at Purdue and her name is in the Purdue Book of Great Teachers.

In her retirement Anna has more time to travel, attend theater, to be active in her Temple, and to winter in California. But, what she most enjoys is still interacting with young people, be it her own five grandchildren or students at the University. She currently participates in the University Honors Program, where she developed a new course, “The New Genetics – New Perspectives, New Dilemmas,” which she teaches in the Fall semesters. …

Marveling at her accomplishments for the time – raising a family while entering a competitive career field as woman when it was rare – Berkovitz attributes much of her drive to a belief that humanity was good. Only a small group of evil was responsible for her painful experiences.

“Unfortunately, now I see that there are still evil groups of people in the world killing or wanting to kill innocent people just because they are different from what they are,” she said. …

Though Berkovitz’s story is one of inspiration, she still bears emotional scars.

“I have recurring nightmares that I’m told that I have to pack up and leave home … that’s part of me; that’s part of my existence.”

Preventing scars such as these in others is a duty for Berkovitz; an obligation driving her to participate in programs such as the Holocaust Remembrance Conference.

“It’s very relevant to what’s going on in the world today.”

I had Dr. Berkovitz for the Honors Genetics course (mentioned in the article) and for Human Genetics, and she was one of my favorite professors here at Purdue. You could tell she was passionate about the subject, and she did a great job of explaining genetics. In class she would encourage stimulating discussions on eugenics, genetic testing, gene patenting, and abortion.

When she overheard me telling another student about the Society of Non-Theists, she asked to be put on the mailing list and has attended all of our pro-evolution events (including my talk about the Creation Museum). From our class discussions, I could tell she shared my liberal views. She even once showed us a clip of Stephen Colbert talking about DNA, and we were the only two to giggle when he talked about Jesus burying the dinosaurs.

But in addition to being a great professor and skeptic, she was a wonderful person. She would always take time to talk to me about random articles in the news she thought I would be interested in. She encouraged me to shoot for the stars when it came to genetics. When I was still considering becoming a genetic counselor, she encouraged me to get a PhD, saying someone with my skills in genetics should be doing research or running the clinic. And when I had asked her to write me a letter of recommendation for grad school, I discovered that her husband had passed away just a week before. Seeing someone I looked up to so much distraught and crying was horrible. I quickly told her I could easily find someone else to do it, but she insisted – even when overwhelmed with grief, she wanted to help her students.

I always said that this is exactly how I want to be when I was 80 – compassionate, skeptical, witty, and still excited
about science. That was before I knew her history as a Holocaust survivor. To think that she became such a strong woman and wonderful scientist even through that tragedy is amazing. She’s a role model to everyone, but especially to female scientists. I can only hope to be half the woman she is when I’m 80.

My professor's Holocaust story

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. On Friday our newspaper ran a piece about the upcoming Greater Lafayette Holocaust Remembrance Conference, which featured the story of one of my former professors here at Purdue. As a former student, her story was especially touching to me, but I thought all of you would enjoy it. I’ve added some more information in sparse parts, taken from here.

Anna Berkovitz had a normal childhood until 1944. Now, years later, she still has nightmares of her family being taken from their home by the Nazis.

“I was 13 years old at the time when I was taken with my family to Auschwitz, just before D-Day,” said Berkovitz, Purdue Professor Emerita of biology.

At the concentration camp, Berkovitz and her family faced grim odds of survival. Six hundred thousand Hungarian Jews entered the camp between May and September of 1944. In just three months, 500,000 were killed.

“The killing machine was so effective that names were not even taken when we arrived.”

Berkovitz’s grandparents, aunts, uncle, cousin and probably her father were among the victims of the genocide conducted by the Nazis.

Her survival, as Berkovitz says, can only be accounted for by a series of miracles. …

Anna and Elizabeth were taken to Camp-C in Birkenau. To this day Anna ponders how she survived six months of brutal treatment, harsh conditions, starvation and disease there.

In November 1944, Anna and Elizabeth were transferred to a slave labor camp near Magdeburg, Germany, where they were put to work in an underground ammunition factory. Ten days prior to the end of World War II, they were liberated by the Swedish Red Cross and taken to Sweden, where they spent three months in a sanatorium recovering from malnutrition and physical and emotional traumas. …

This year, Berkovitz will be attending the conference, but participating in these events brings personal pain.

“It’s very difficult for me … to me it’s just like it happened yesterday, so I don’t need a conference to remember.”

Still, Berkovitz recognizes and even asserts the necessity of the conference and sees participating as a duty.

“I think I owe it to the people who died to be remembered.”

Berkovitz’s story does not end in Sweden; rather, her rescue from tyranny marks the start of a new journey that defies the unthinkable trauma of the Holocaust.

In Sweden, Berkovitz maintains that she suffered from no depression or bitterness and looked forward to the future.

“I could have lived my life as a victim, but I did not,” she said. …

In April 1946, Anna and Elizabeth emigrated to the United States. They arrived in Los Angeles pennyless and not speaking English. In order to resume her schooling, Anna worked as an au-pair for several years. During this time she completed four years of high school and four years of college, graduating from U.C.L.A. in January 1952 with a B.S. degree in bacteriology and with Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude honors. While working as a laboratory technician, Anna met Leonard Berkovitz, who was then a post-doctoral fellow at Caltech. They were married in June 1953, and their sons Dan and Kenneth were born in 1956 and 1960, respectively. During this period Anna worked part time in various cancer research laboratories.

In 1962 Leonard accepted a position at Purdue University, and the family moved to West Lafayette, Indiana. When Kenneth was in kindergarten, Anna decided to continue her formal education. She was accepted as a graduate student in the biology department at Purdue University. She was working on her Ph.D. thesis when, in 1967, she was asked to take a temporary teaching position to fill an unexpected vacancy in the department. This temporary position turned into a lifetime career of teaching, and while Anna never obtained her Ph.D., she earned a tenured position from which she retired in 2003 as Professor Emerita in Biology.

Anna’s efforts as a teacher, her dedication to her students and to the discipline were amply recognized by her students, colleagues and the administration. She was selected by the students as one of the Top Ten Outstanding Teachers in the School of Science 14 times, she received the Murphy Award, the top recognition of teaching excellence by the University, and was given the Chiscon Award for outstanding teaching performance by the Biology department. Anna was elected to the Teaching Academy at Purdue and her name is in the Purdue Book of Great Teachers.

In her retirement Anna has more time to travel, attend theater, to be active in her Temple, and to winter in California. But, what she most enjoys is still interacting with young people, be it her own five grandchildren or students at the University. She currently participates in the University Honors Program, where she developed a new course, “The New Genetics – New Perspectives, New Dilemmas,” which she teaches in the Fall semesters. …

Marveling at her accomplishments for the time – raising a family while entering a competitive career field as woman when it was rare – Berkovitz attributes much of her drive to a belief that humanity was good. Only a small group of evil was responsible for her painful experiences.

“Unfortunately, now I see that there are still evil groups of people in the world killing or wanting to kill innocent people just because they are different from what they are,” she said. …

Though Berkovitz’s story is one of inspiration, she still bears emotional scars.

“I have recurring nightmares that I’m told that I have to pack up and leave home … that’s part of me; that’s part of my existence.”

Preventing scars such as these in others is a duty for Berkovitz; an obligation driving her to participate in programs such as the Holocaust Remembrance Conference.

“It’s very relevant to what’s going on in the world today.”

I had Dr. Berkovitz for the Honors Genetics course (mentioned in the article) and for Human Genetics, and she was one of my favorite professors here at Purdue. You could tell she was passionate about the subject, and she did a great job of explaining genetics. In class she would encourage stimulating discussions on eugenics, genetic testing, gene patenting, and abortion.

When she overheard me telling another student about the Society of Non-Theists, she asked to be put on the mailing list and has attended all of our pro-evolution events (including my talk about the Creation Museum). From our class discussions, I could tell she shared my liberal views. She even once showed us a clip of Stephen Colbert talking about DNA, and we were the only two to giggle when he talked about Jesus burying the dinosaurs.

But in addition to being a great professor and skeptic, she was a wonderful person. She would always take time to talk to me about random articles in the news she thought I would be interested in. She encouraged me to shoot for the stars when it came to genetics. When I was still considering becoming a genetic counselor, she encouraged me to get a PhD, saying someone with my skills in genetics should be doing research or running the clinic. And when I had asked her to write me a letter of recommendation for grad school, I discovered that her husband had passed away just a week before. Seeing someone I looked up to so much distraught and crying was horrible. I quickly told her I could easily find someone else to do it, but she insisted – even when overwhelmed with grief, she wanted to help her students.

I always said that this is exactly how I want to be when I was 80 – compassionate, skeptica
l, witty, and still excited
about science. That was before I knew her history as a Holocaust survivor. To think that she became such a strong woman and wonderful scientist even through that tragedy is amazing. She’s a role model to everyone, but especially to female scientists. I can only hope to be half the woman she is when I’m 80.

Dawkins & Hitchens plan a legal ambush to have Pope arrested

Yep, you heard right. Dawkins and Hitchens are planning on getting the Pope arrested when he visits England in September:

“Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, the atheist author, have asked human rights lawyers to produce a case for charging Pope Benedict XVI over his alleged cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic church.

The pair believe they can exploit the same legal principle used to arrest Augusto Pinochet, the late Chilean dictator, when he visited Britain in 1998.

The Pope was embroiled in new controversy this weekend over a letter he signed arguing that the “good of the universal church” should be considered against the defrocking of an American priest who committed sex offences against two boys. It was dated 1985, when he was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which deals with sex abuse cases.

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Benedict will be in Britain between September 16 and 19, visiting London, Glasgow and Coventry, where he will beatify Cardinal John Henry Newman, the 19th-century theologian.

Dawkins and Hitchens believe the Pope would be unable to claim diplomatic immunity from arrest because, although his tour is categorised as a state visit, he is not the head of a state recognised by the United Nations.”

(Side note: Could the Times have possibly found a more evil looking photo of Dawkins? Sheesh)

I find this quite interesting. I’m not well versed in international or British law, so the fact that this is plausible is intriguing. And I have to say, I agree with Dawkins’ and Hitchens’ sentiment. The Pope and the Catholic Church have systematically covered up hundreds of cases of child rape. They shouldn’t receive immunity because they’re a religious organization – thinking you have an imaginary friend isn’t exactly a good reason to commit such horrible crimes.

At the same time, I’m a little worried. There are still many people out there that are sympathetic to the Pope, and to have two figureheads for atheism going after him isn’t going to be too great for our image. I really hope that other religious figures will join in and support Dawkins and Hitchens. We need to show that this isn’t some atheist agenda to bring down the Catholic church – it’s a human agenda to protect our children and deliver justice.

(Hat tip to Miranda)

EDIT: It seems the Times has overblown the story a bit. For more of an explanation, check out this post.

I now have my official atheist chick bling

I’m not typically into jewelry, but when I saw Surly-Ramics, I knew I needed one. Surly Amy (who’s also a Skepchick) is a wonderful artist who produces awesome skeptical, atheist, and science themed jewelry (amongst other things). I had been lurking on Etsy, waiting for the perfect color, but I finally found exactly what I was looking for:Yep, that’s Darwin’s sketch of the tree of life. As a female evolutionary biologist, I’m pretty much required to get this due to overwhelming awesomeness (plus, I loved the color). I’ll definitely be wearing this to my evolution class and lab!
Thanks, Amy!

Fiction for Fiction next week

For those of my readers who are at Purdue, don’t miss out the Society of Non-Theists‘ Fiction for Fiction event next week. As I’ve blogged before, it’s an event where people can trade in religious texts for great fiction novels.

When: Thursday, April 15th, 9 am to 4:30 pm
Where: Outside of CL50 at Purdue University
How: Bring a religious text! (pocket versions accepted)
Why: To encourage people to question what they read (and to stir up a little controversy, like always)

I’ll do a full write-up of the event next week. Oh, and if you want the good fiction books, come early – pretty sure Hitchhiker’s Guide will be snatched up quickly!

Atheist Barbie

I’ve never been a fan of Barbie (shocker, I know). My family always tried to buy them for me, but I wanted nothing more than to play with Legoes all day. But it looks like Barbie has a interesting new profession:
She’s been a princess, a firefighter, a Marine and a ballerina. After years of soul-searching, Barbie has finally found her true vocation. Meet Rev. Barbie, a plastic Episcopal Priest.

Rev. Barbie, the creation of Rev. Julie Blake Fisher, an Episcopal priest in Kent, Ohio, has her own Facebook page and comes dressed in the latest trends in clergy-wear.

Fisher created Rev. Barbie for use in her own youth ministry: “I thought the children would like to practice playing with the vestments and learning what they are,” she told Religion News Service. Over the years, Barbie’s many vocations have served as inspiration for young girls. And although Mattel has not endorsed Fisher’s improvised Reverend Barbie, the plastic priestess has emerged at a critical moment in Christian history, especially for women.

Man, why should religious people get to have all the fun? I want an atheist Barbie! (click for slightly larger image)Finally, a Barbie doll that represents my every day life…

A Christian, a Muslim, and an atheist walk into an classroom…

Today I took part in a religious diversity panel for an agriculture class at Purdue, Communicating Across Cultures. I was on the same panel representing atheists last year, which was a giant debacle that left a bad taste in my mouth. I decided to try again this year and hope for the best.

I have to say, it went much better. This time I was actually told that I was supposed to have a presentation prepared, and I was told the accurate topic (yes, last year was bad). I had limited time for my presentation, but here’s a brief outline of what I talked about.

– Definition for atheism and agnosticism
– Demographics of atheists in US
– Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, I can be convinced
– Secular humanism and general ideals some atheist have (search for truth, reason, evidence, concern for this life, ethics)
– Why atheism is not a religion
– Not all atheists hate religion (though some do), and we don’t hate religious people. In fact, most atheists were at one point religious.
– Atheists are not depressed, angry, hopeless people

The Muslim speaker (a recently graduated student) did an excellent job at explaining exactly what Muslims believe and some of their traditions. The Christian speaker (a pastor for Alpha Chi, the group with the zombie event), while very nice, was one giant facepalm. I really shouldn’t be allowed to be on panels or do debates, because I make a very obvious “What you’re saying is stupid and annoys me but I have to look polite” grimace, like so:It wasn’t her description of her belief that annoyed me. I disagreed with her just as much about there being proof of Jesus rising from the dead (uh, care to share that with us atheists?) and Intelligent design being proof for God’s existence (No) as I did with the Muslim talking about Mohammed being a prophet. I’ve heard the arguments before and I don’t agree with them, but the whole point of the panel was diversity, so they were totally appropriate.

What annoyed me is that she felt the need to comment on people other than Christians. Namely, atheists. To summarize her argument:

You know how when you were a little kid, and your parents forced you to go to bed at a certain time and eat your vegetables? And at the time you hated them and whined and resisted, but now looking back you thank them for being good parents? That’s God. Atheists don’t like that God’s a meanie and makes them do things they don’t like, so they rebel and go to the extreme and say he doesn’t exist. Atheists need to realize that God is all loving, and he makes rules in our best interest.

…

First off, when I was a little kid I went to bed at my curfew and ate whatever my parents told me to ate and never threw tantrums.

*ahem*

Really? Did she even listen to the talk I gave? I had just got done saying how atheists usually come to that conclusion after many many years of thought and introspection. That we weighed the evidence, and it wasn’t even enough to jiggle the scale. That we live by many of the same moral rules as religious people. That if given sufficient evidence, we would totally not hesitate in believing in God.

But no, atheists are just rebellious, selfish people who don’t want to conform to God’s rules. It’s just so fucking condescending, which is highly ironic considering it’s always the atheists who get labeled as the pompous jerks. I don’t think she was saying this to be mean, or even consciously aware of how bad it sounded – she really seemed like a legitimately nice woman. I didn’t go up and say how only atheists use reason and logic, and that theists are dumbasses. Blaaarrgghh.

One of the questions during the Q&A for me was what sort of evidence it would take to convince me that God exists. I gave my standard quip, that “If God is all knowing, he’ll know what will convince me,” which the pastor actually liked and agreed with. Then I added “Or he could make a trout materialize in front of me right now.” I paused, but no trout. Sadness. That was your chance, God!

Most of the other questions for me were pretty standard – Do you believe in a soul? (No) Where do you think you’ll go when you die? (In the ground) What do you think the purpose of life is? (There isn’t a preordained purpose, but we chose to give our lives purpose). How do you get along with religious people? (Just like someone with different political beliefs, you try to put it aside and find other things you have in common). I wish we had more time in the Q&A, because there were good questions we ran out of time for (exactly where do you get your morals, and how can morality evolve?). But since the class seemed so interested, the professor is going to email me the questions and let me answer them, and then she’s going to give my answers to the students.

I also really would have liked to address all the arguments the pastor was making. When she feels down, she asks God for strength and it makes her feel better (feeling better doesn’t mean he exists). When she looks at nature, she knows it couldn’t have come about by chance (it’s evolution, not chance). She hears the voice of God speaking to her, therefore she exists (you might want to get that hearing voices thing checked out).

But more importantly, atheists aren’t just some rebellious cranky kids who want to be able to run around having promiscuous sex and drunken parties! The ironic part is that she agreed that we have similar morals and care about the well being of others and want to live happy lives…so what exactly are we rejecting? An all loving God? Heaven? Yeah, I would just hate to have those things.

All in all, I still think the panel was a success. At the beginning of the talk, one girl said she didn’t know what the word “atheism” meant – hopefully now she does. And while I probably didn’t make any converts, I think it helped for them to see that an atheist is just a normal, happy person. They might think I’m wrong, but hopefully they won’t hate me.

Bigotry is even better when it’s hypocritical

Okay, I’m trying not to make every post about this Constance McMillen story, but I keep finding new stuff that makes me want to bang my head into my desk. Like all of the ridiculous, hateful comments Constance’s classmates have been making about her on Facebook. But that’s not even the best part. Some students were stupid enough to post photos from the secret prom on public Facebook accounts, where some ingenious person stuck them on Flickr to preserve forever. I want to point out two things:Notice the two girls wearing jeans. Now, I’m not pointing this out to illustrate how tacky it is to come to prom in jeans (hell, some of those dresses were fugly enough fashion nightmares all on their own). I’m pointing it out because the school and community were against Constance wearing a tux. You know, an outfit that has pants, because the dress code required that girls all be feminine little ladies and wear dresses. Apparently Jesus makes exceptions for straight girls.

But okay, I’ll let the pants slide. The real issue at hand was keeping the gay away right? We were told repeatedly that seeing two girls dancing together would just be too distracting for the other students. Good thing the kids at the alternative prom didn’t have to see any of that. Wait a second…OH GOD. GIRL IN THE SEAWEED DRESS IS DANCING WITH ANOTHER GIRL! AND AND AND…nobody seems to notice. Because it’s totally normal and okay for two girls to dance together, as long as they’re straight. Heck, it’s encouraged. Bump and grind away, ladies, because the guys will pay so much more attention to you! Except if you were actually lesbians, in which case that’s just wrong and you’re making baby Jesus cry.

Though, I can’t be sure. Maybe Constance has been successful in recruiting more innocents to her cause. Damn those wily lesbians!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go weep for our future.