I’m healthy and wealthy; I’ve outgrown my past;
When I need to lose weight, I can diet or fast;
Starvation is not in the lot I’ve been cast—
My perspective is clearly not skewed.
I can buy the best produce they’ve managed to breed,
Have it shipped to my doorstep with mind-boggling speed;
In a world of such plenty, I don’t see the need
For genetically modified food

We can learn about foods from the Frankenstein myth
And distill what we know into substance and pith:
It’s much safer, our going without food than with
If the food isn’t natural, like mine
Some time in the future, we might pay the price
For life-saving products like GMO rice
(Of course the poor love it, but we can think twice—
Our neglect will be purely benign!)

Concerned about pesticides used to grow cotton?
The GE varieties best be forgotten;
We want, after all, to show people how rotten
Such produce can be for the Earth
The civilized buyer will treat as pariah,
The virus-resistant new strains of papaya,
A slap in the face of our dear Mother Gaia,
Despite how the poor see its worth

Of course, there’s a view, if you’re willing to learn,
Where the rest of humanity’s still our concern—
Even those who don’t make what us comfy folk earn,
But who still do the best they are able—
If you’re part of the planet (it seems so to me)
And look all around you, and find you agree
With John Donne, when he noted the bell tolls for thee…
There’s a seat here, for you, at the table.

I have noticed a pattern. You may have seen, our historically incredibly good health has allowed the fortunate members of our culture, the beneficiaries of decades of vaccination, sanitation, medication, and other ations, to wax eloquent of the virtues of a romanticized past, and to forego vaccines or other procedures that our grandparents would have viewed as miraculous. Our affluence, essentially, has allowed us to forget our very recent past, and to make stupid decisions without the consequences those same decisions would have led to not long ago.

Similarly, our affluence with regard to diet has similarly allowed us the privilege of choosing options which are simply impossible for most of the world. The problem is, we are forcing our blinkered views on others who are not so privileged as we are. The unvaccinated child is victim of a privileged parent’s ignorance (as are the child’s friends). The poor consumers may be victim of the privileged consumers’ natural food fetish, if the latter can bend regulations to their will. Myths of frankenfoods don’t match the actual safety record, but may be enough to hinder their development in a world where food is not nearly so easy to come by as it is for, well, me.

Scary graphics and bullet points make compelling viewing; “GM foods shown to be safe–film at eleven!” will have people asleep by 10:59. Unless. Unless you are one of those who needs drought-resistant crops. Or cares about pesticide and fertilizer runoff killing the fish you need to eat. Or whose life is changed by biofortified Golden rice. But those people are not watching TV, so they can be safely ignored. And we all know, a problem that isn’t in your own back yard, isn’t really a problem at all.

Just how wonderful is Oprah?
We may never know for sure;
Any scientific answer
Is, at this point, premature–
Oprah borders on angelic;
She’s a miracle, it’s true!
She’s beyond the realm of science
Or what scientists can view.

Just how awesome is her intellect?
How sensitive her soul?
How delicate her energies,
Which no one can control–
Can her viewers’ admiration
Make the world a better place?
Is her heart so big it really can
Be seen from outer space?

Does she really know The Secret
Is the cure for all your ills?
Will she tell you modern medicine’s
The one that really kills?
Will she take responsibility
For those who die of cancer?
Is there any depth she will not go?
We’ll never know the answer.

Context: Here, here, and especially here.

The new book, and the gorgeous mug from CafePress.

Reader Joan comments here:

Move over Dawkins..

Missed the book sale by one day
But I love it anyway
It would certainly be gold at any price.
Boxed shrink packaging is great.
This book will not meet the fate
Of poor handling here. You need not roll the dice

Three hundred forty poems plus one
This book promises much fun
And the content has included added spice.
There are illustrations, ten
(Cephalopodic, never men)
And the photo plates are way more than nice.

There’s no space here to reveal
The great depth of its appeal,
Humor, irony, a palatable screed.
But it passed my final litmus
I don’t have to wait for Xmas
To open up this truly perfect read.

Wow! This is just an amazing magnum opus. The volume, variety and quality of the poems stun me and I’m astounded at what a great job LuLu did with it. No ratty newprintish stock. The cover, the layout, and the quality of the paper are indistinguishable from expensive college texts. And, oh yes, It’s just as funny as hell. ( Should one believe that it exists and that there is anything to laugh about down there.)

*blush*

One small correction–it’s actually not 341 poems; it’s 244 (if I counted correctly), but well over 300 pages of actual content (plus the foreword and table of contents and that sort of thing). Still, that’s less than a dime a poem–try and get that sort of deal with any other cephalopod!

Joan is right, though–I just got my own copies yesterday, and it really looks great. It shocked me to see just how much there is here (and yeah, I wrote it and put it together, so if anyone should have known better…). It’s considerably more substantial than I was anticipating, and I had honestly forgotten just how good some of this stuff is. I’ve had a great time putting this collection together and revisiting some of the old verses, but it is soooo much nicer to have in a book than to scroll back through pages on this blog.

Thank you, Joan! Enjoy it in good health!

It’s Donohue’s proclivity
To protest progressivity
He’ll make a scene (nativity)
Predictably, each year—
The atheists’ activity
Regarding his festivity
Is pure insensitivity—
Just let him bend your ear.

A war on Christianity
By atheist humanity—
The harshest of profanity,
The godless at their worst!
His writing, though, is vanity
That borders on insanity
So silly, its inanity
Is what we notice first.

Oh, my. According to CNN’s “belief blog“, Bill Donohue has taken it upon himself (read: pleaded for donations from gullible and fearful combatants in the War FOR Christmas) to take the high road:

This supposedly peaceful time of year has the capacity to create tension – Christmas light rivalries and fights over whether religious decorations should adorn government spaces.

But the conservative Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights says it is just trying to spread holiday cheer by sending nativity scenes to governors in all 50 states.

In a letter last month, the Catholic League told governors and their chiefs of staff that the nativities were on their way and suggested they be displayed in capitol rotundas.

Just trying to spread holiday cheer. That’s all. Nothing paranoid about that. Oops, their slip is showing:

The Catholic League says its campaign is meant to counter what it calls “militant atheists.” The group is erecting a life-sized nativity scene in Central Park on December 16. The world’s largest menorah is currently on display there.

“We’re taking the moral high road,” says a statement on the group’s website. “The atheists are out in force this year trying to neuter Christmas. While a few of their efforts are benign… most are predictably hostile.”

The “militant” and “hostile” atheists have committed such atrocities as… erect billboards. Clearly, the pendulum has swung far enough that Donohue’s plea for the demolition of the first amendment. It’s only fair.

Our day at the park
Having fun on the ark
Will begin as we stroll up the ramp
With the mammals and dino’s
And strange hellifino’s
And all of it, gaudy and camp

There are creatures in twos
Like the grandest of zoos
Some in cages for people to see
Some are plastic, of course,
Like the odd “Jesus horse”
You can ride on (just children!) for free

With the tour guide explaining
It soon will start raining—
It’s best that we get through the doors
And with thunder and lightning
More piped-in than frightening
The skies open up, and it pours

It isn’t surprising
The water starts rising
With rivers obscuring the ground
We’re on board! We’re the winners!
We laugh at the sinners
Outside, who are there to be drowned.

Some electrical junction
Is bound to malfunction;
The waters continue to rise—
Now it’s panic and screaming
(Please tell me we’re dreaming!)
On board, we can hear all the cries

Now the water is rushing,
The pipes are still gushing,
We realize, we’re really afloat!
Like the Genesis story
We share in the glory
And ride in the biblical boat

Though it’s ill-built and creaky,
Substantially leaky,
We ought to be fine for a while
And although we’re all stuck
We rejoice in our luck
And we look at each other and smile.

Soon the still-rising tides
Means the screaming subsides
From the folks who did not get on board
And we know that God willed
That these people be killed
So we all praise the works of Our Lord

As the day turns to night
With no rescue in sight
Our exhaustion will drive us to sleep
Though the children are wary
Cos darkness is scary
And the lions are eating the sheep

So we all sleep in shifts
As our giant bed drifts
And there’s still not a star in the sky
Soon the sun will arrive
And we’re mostly alive
And if not, then God wants us to die.

At the whim of the weather
We huddle together
As carnivores roam through the decks
And we learned within hours
The stench overpowers—
Of feces, of death, and of sex

When the rain finally ceases
We pick up the pieces
And head to the top deck, for sun,
Where the clean-smelling breezes
Sweep by (thank you Jesus!)
And we kneel down and pray, every one!

As we float, we survey
The remains of the day
From our vantage above, on the ark
Where our neighbors and friends
Met their untimely ends
With the visitors there at the park

And we bow heads, and praise
God’s mysterious ways—
Our friends’ bodies have now begun bloating
And as plump as you please
They rise up through the seas
All disfigured and blue, they are floating

All the husbands and wives,
Little children whose lives
Were destroyed by their callous Creator
While we’re safe on the ark
Cos we chose to embark
A bit sooner, and not a bit later

There was water to drink
But it’s starting to stink
And starvation’s its own form of hell
But the hunger and thirst
Isn’t even the worst—
More than that, is the horrible smell

The miasma which flows
Though you cover your nose
Overwhelms you, and just never ends
And the worst of it all
This olfactory pall
Is the smell of our neighbors and friends

We float day after day
As around us, decay
And disease take a toll on our minds;
And our bodies grow weak
As around us, unspeak-
able horrors are all that one finds

In the decks down below
Where we never dare go
There is carnage like never before;
Most the mammals are gone
But the beetles live on
As they feast on the filth and the gore

There are maggots and flies
Which is no great surprise
In the dung and the foul, rancid meat
But up top, it is grim
Cos the pickings are slim
And there’s nothing for humans to eat

If we haven’t quite died
When the waters subside
We’ll praise God, and we won’t think to sue
Sure, it’s horribly cruel
But we learned, at home school
That what’s right is what Yahweh would do

It happened again, just this morning,
As Winter took over from Fall
I find thirty-two gloves for my right hand;
For my left, I find nothing at all.

As I bike from my home to my office
Though the weather’s exceedingly nice
I arrive with my right hand all toasty
But my left, like a large block of ice.

Is it dogs? Is it mice? Is it chipmunks?
Is it vengeful and devious elves?
Are my neighbors conspiring against me?
Do my gloves walk away by themselves?

I suspect my left gloves band together
In some secret lair, hidden from sight;
In their absence I travel half-frozen,
But don’t worry—I’m clearly all right.

It doesn’t seem quite fair to me, but it appears that Lulu (where my book is available) is having a CyberMonday sale–today only, 25% off any purchase (30% off purchases of $750 or more, for anyone who wants to buy 38 copies of my book). To those people who already have their copies on the way–I’m sorry; I honestly didn’t know they were going to do this.

My question is, are they lowering the price by cutting authors’ commissions? Or is that sheer paranoia on my part?

Anyway… they say the code for today is CYBER25 to get the discount. You should all try it out, and get your shopping out of the way early.

The Cyber Monday shoppers
Could find savings on some whoppers
If they buy a giant flat-screen, or a Kindle or a Nook
They could click away at clothing
Or computer gear with loathing
Or could see their worries melt away, by ordering my book.
They could feel the calm erasing
The anxieties they’re facing–
Sure, they could use medication, but I’ve got a better way
If your gift-list has you crying
And you want to stop the buying
Might I recommend the Cuttle-Book–but order it today!

Looking back over the years, I find that I have written quite a bit for christmastime. Of course, I post them as the day draws near, and typically far too late for anyone to send them out as cards, or (more likely) as a response to somebody’s chain-letter, spam, facebook rant, or Fox news story. So I thought I’d collect some of them here, on the off chance that they might come in handy a bit earlier in the season.

First, An Atheist Christmas, from 3 years ago (have I really been writing this blog that long?):

We’ll all open presents, and cook a big dinner,
And share in traditions we learned long ago
But Christmas is different for this humble sinner,
No “birth of the saviour”, just people we know.
.
.
.

I always liked that one.

Then, the war on christmas reared its ugly head, and had to be explained:

So it’s Christmas—my Christmas—my secular day;
The Supreme Court decided it must be that way.
As a secular holiday, Christmas can stay,
With department-store Santa Claus, there on display,
Or with Rudolph, or some other TV cliché,
And your photograph taken in front of the sleigh.
.
.
.

A bit clunkier than the first, but war does that.

“The war on christmas” has been a frequent theme; my proposal on how to fight it was… to celebrate it in all the ways the puritanical enemy finds abhorrent:

From the Cape of Good Hope to the Newfoundland islands,
The sands of Iran to the Panama isthmus;
From Outback Australia to Inverness Highlands
It’s time to take arms in the War Against Christmas!

My weapons are mistletoe, Christmas trees, holly,
A yule-log, and caroling out in the snow;
Sleigh-rides and snowball-fights, eggnog and Jolly
Old Santa Claus, laughing his loud “Ho! Ho! Ho!”

We’ll make them forget all the Truth of the season—
The sacrifice planned by a god up above—
And have them believing some bastardized reason
Like giving, or kindness, or caring or love!
.
.
.

I’m devious, I am.

If I had the slightest artistic talent, I’d have produced my own atheist christmas cards. But I don’t so I didn’t:

.
.
.

[front]
As we battle our way through the line at the store
And think to ourselves “there has got to be more”
And wonder where “Christmas of long ago” went,
When the meaning of Christmas was what it first meant…

[inside]
It was stolen by Christians from heathens, of course—
From Greeks and from Romans, from Celtics and Norse—
Why, Christmas is pagan, from yule-log to tree
To mistletoe waiting for you and for me
.
.
.

And lastly, from just a few weeks ago, the night before (the war on) christmas:

‘Twas the night before Christmas; the Christians all hunkered
In basements of buildings they’d armored and bunkered.
They huddled in silence; they huddled in fear,
With thoughts that the atheists soon would draw near
.
.
.

Actually, there is even more back in the archives, but this is enough.

Oh, and every one of these is included in the new book!

It’s the latest in technology, delivered to your door
Like the internet, but portable—why, who could ask for more?
All that Cuttlefishy goodness, but in one convenient book
What a marvelous invention; don’t you want to take a look?

You can take it to the mountains; you can take it to the park;
With a flashlight or a candle, you can read it in the dark!
It’s much lighter than a laptop, so transporting it’s a breeze
There’s no silicon or plastic—nope, it’s all recycled trees!

It’s the omnibus edition! It’s the Cuttlefish, condensed;
If your dog is acting funny, it’s because he must have sensed!
So you’d better buy an extra, when you’re buying one for you,
Cos the animals all know, it’s all the verse that’s fit to chew!

You could buy one for your Mother; you could buy one for your Pop
You could buy one for your Pastor just to hear him holler “stop!”
You could buy a bunch, and swap out all the hymnals in a church
So they never find “Amazing Grace” no matter where they search!

You could pull one on the Gideons, and place them in hotels
You could slip one to a Wiccan while she’s murmuring her spells
It’s the perfect gift for enemies—the perfect gift for friends!
It’s the gift that keeps on giving—oh, the messages it sends!

You can take one on an airplane; you can take one to the beach;
You could buy them by the dozen, so there’s always one in reach
It’s a conversation starter, if you bring it on a date,
And you’ll know if you’re compatible before it gets too late!

Be the first one on your block to place your order—click today,
And the elf and fairy printers will get on it right away!

So I was driving along last night, listening to the radio, and the local NPR station was playing a rerun of a program on Robert Putnam’s book “American Grace: How religion divides and unites us“. “Religion, in general, is a positive contribution, I think, to civic life”, begins Putnam. He notes that America is very religious (more so than, say, Iran), and notes that religion can be, “when taken in large doses… toxic to civic life”. But americans are both very religious and very tolerant. He says.

The first caller (about 10 minutes in), though, is an atheist, who has experienced the intolerance of religious believers herself. Putnam is clearly uncomfortable. The research showing that americans are so tolerant… did not use the term “atheist” when asking about tolerance of those who hold no religious beliefs. He really does not like the word “atheist” (“a very bad word in american life”), and has to resort to some serious verbal gymnastics to avoid using it at times.

It’s an interesting listen (found it!), and I found myself drawing very different conclusions from the same findings Putnam was reporting (not always–some were quite straightforward). It was exceedingly frustrating whenever Putnam was asked about atheists–the host does press him about not using the word “atheist” (“Doesn’t the fact that you have to use a different word show a degree of intolerance?”); the host knew about recent polls indicating that an atheist would not be electable, and asks Putnam about that. It really seems he wanted to find tolerance. He does find intolerance toward non-believers, but the word atheist (“Most americans don’t use the word atheist, even describing themselves”) seems to be a special case.

Yeah, I can believe many people don’t use the word “atheist” to describe themselves. This is a result of intolerance. Most people don’t walk around with a “kick me” sign on their back, if they can help it.

Anyway, I was frustrated. So I wrote this:

Americans are tolerant, despite what you have heard,
Of differing religious groups (though “mine” is still preferred),
Or even non-believers, though the story here is blurred—
They didn’t call them “atheists”, cos that’s a nasty word.

There’s many strong believers in the father, ghost, and son,
But a shift away from churches, in the 60’s, was begun,
And the fastest-growing segment in religion answers “none”
But we dare not call them “atheists”, cos that’s a word we shun.

In the 80’s, you remember, the religious culture war
Pitted Robertson and Falwell ‘gainst the heathens they deplore
And their power, to Republicans, was costly to ignore
So they railed against the “atheists”, whom good folks all abhor.

In the 90’s and two-thousands, there was yet another shift—
Youngsters cutting off religious ties and setting them adrift—
So the ranks of unbelievers got a huge percentage lift
But we didn’t call them “atheists”, in case they might be miffed.

If “Americans are tolerant” is going to be your claim,
But you steer away from labels which might anger or inflame,
Then it’s mere semantic wanking, and the truth is, it’s a shame
When the tolerance researchers fear to mention us by name!

Buy my new book, buy my new book, buy my new book: