Meanwhile, also in the local paper…the chimes still burn Ted Storck

Long time readers will recall my long battle with Ted Storck, the guy who donated a carillon to the local cemetery two blocks from my home, and played hymns and patriotic songs every goddamned quarter-hour all day long every day to the neighborhood. I wrote multiple times about those fucking bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, until someone finally took an axe to the wires (not me! Multiple residents were annoyed by the incessant noise), and finally, Storck removed the satanic gadget and moved the curse to some town in Arizona, I think.

Storck still writes in to the local paper to complain, though. He is very bitter about how little we appreciated his gift, so when he finds a place with a carillon he has to tell us about it.

The next time you motor south of Minneapolis on I-35 about 55 miles south of the Minnesota-Iowa border, take Highway 3 east about nine miles to Hampton, Iowa.

Miles before you get there, you’ll see the Franklin County courthouse looming about nine stories above the Iowa prairie. It was constructed in the 1880s, and was refurnished a few years ago. First, note the statue of the Lady of Liberty on the very top of the cupola; then see the other four statues surrounding the cupola. Then, go inside to see what a great job the county did restoring the courthouse.

And, then stand outside and wait for the bells to chime the hour, quarter hour, and half hour, followed by a church Carillion bell system answering with a hymn.

When I recently visited my friend in Hampton, he introduced me to a county official who was asked (knowing what happened in Morris) if there were ever any complaints? The official said, “no, the town loves to hear the chiming starting at 7 a.m. and ending with the bells sounding at 10 p.m. ” He added, looking at me, “We are Iowans; why would anyone complain; we are Iowa-nice.”

Wow. So Iowa-nice throws even more shade than Minnesota-nice? I’m impressed.

I’m glad we got rid of those horrors. If we hadn’t, they’d be gone now, because one change in town is that a large apartment complex, East Point Village, was built across the street from the cemetery, even closer to the site of those damnable bells than we are right now. In case you’re wondering, here’s a map: I’m the squiddly thing at Third & College, the bells are the skull, and the new apartment complex is directly across College Avenue from Hell’s Bells former location, on the left edge of the map.

I would hope the apartment residents would appreciate our heroic efforts, but nay, our valor shall be unsung…and also not chimed every quarter hour at them.

Let’s distort history!

That seems to be a right-wing theme. You may recall that a few weeks ago I posted a letter to the editor by Michael Lackey, who is actually an authority on German cultural history in the 20th century — he has published a book on Nazi propaganda of the time, and one of the things he emphasized is how the Nazis fully embraced Christianity, used Christian imagery in their propaganda, and established the legitimacy of their regime by relating it to the dominant Catholic and Lutheran faiths of the people. He compared that to the current Republican adoration of evangelical Christianity, which has been a remarkable enabler of fascism.

Of course, he has gotten pushback in the local paper. The latest is a letter from Evelyn A. Guggisberg, who is appalled that anyone would think Nazis were Christian.

It is unconscionable for Lackey to say what he is saying. When one sees tho that one of his sources is the Washington Post, a noted fake news outlet, it does become understandable why he thinks such folly.

So what is a conservative Christian anyway? A Christian is one who follows Christ. Either you follow Him, or you don’t. For Lackey to say that the Nazis or Hitler were Christian is ludicrous beyond belief! Christ was once accused of being of the devil. It is not uncommon for true followers of Christ to be accused of all kinds of things which are not only not true, but quite opposite.

She doesn’t actually refute his claim with any evidence, because she doesn’t have any. She’s reduced to an argument by definition, rather than any facts. Nazis couldn’t have been Christians, because Christians by definition are all about love and tolerance, and wouldn’t ever be associated with anti-immigration policies, homophobia, racism, discrimination, or police-state violence.

I guess America isn’t Christian then, either.

I kind of stopped reading her letter at this point:

I happen to be an avid Trump supporter. I wasn’t always. It was my faith which brought me around. I happen to abhor perpetual lying. I have come to learn that is what democrats and fake news reporters excel in. How mournful that Lackey still believes such lies apparently. I don’t believe that there ever has been a president in our nation’s history who has been more belittled or lied about than Donald Trump.

This historical denialism seems to be a major strategy on the American Right — in particular, the demonization of the American Left by claiming that they are indistinguishable from Nazis in all of their views and policies, which requires some pretty serious lying about the positions of the Nazis in order to pretend that Bernie Sanders and Adolf Hitler are identical. The video below by Three Arrows is an excellent antidote to that, and also exposes Steven Crowder, Ben Shapiro, and Dinesh D’Souza as the dishonest buffoons they are.

You know, I’m not going to stop making these spider videos, because they’re awesome

I’ve got these spider babies that I now know are exactly 8 days old after they were laid in their mamma’s egg sac, and we’re seeing the transition from spherical egg to lightly sculpted leggy thing wrapped around a spherical ball. So I took some pictures. I also tried putting them on my compound scope and seeing if I could visualize cells in the tissue — it didn’t work. The spider embryos are thick and round and opaque, and further, I was just looking at them dry — I’ve got to work on getting them in a better medium and improving the optics.

Also, the more bloodthirsty of my followers have asked me to catch the babies in the act of feeding, so just to appease them (please don’t hurt me!), I’ve also included a short clip of what happens when I dump a bunch of flies into a tube of baby spiders.

[Read more…]

In which I disagree with xkcd

This is not a perspective I share.

This has not been my experience at all. I plod forward with reasonable expectations of humanity, and am constantly horrified by the worst opinions that I never imagined anyone would hold, flung at me in surprise.

Seriously, did anyone ever anticipate incels? Did you go looking for them? Did you imagine they could exist?

Have our senators read their Bible?

The reading for today is Genesis 18, in which Abraham bargains with God to save the city of Sodom.

22And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the LORD. 23And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? 24Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? 25That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? 26And the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes. 27And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes: 28Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous: wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five? And he said, If I find there forty and five, I will not destroy it. 29And he spake unto him yet again, and said, Peradventure there shall be forty found there. And he said, I will not do it for forty’s sake. 30And he said unto him, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak: Peradventure there shall thirty be found there. And he said, I will not do it, if I find thirty there. 31And he said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord: Peradventure there shall be twenty found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for twenty’s sake. 32And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten’s sake. 33And the LORD went his way, as soon as he had left communing with Abraham: and Abraham returned unto his place.

And we look upon the Republican party today, as they gather to decide whether to elevate a drunkard who abuses women to the Supreme Court. Peradventure there will be one or two found there who will be among the righteous? Trust not in Susan Collins, who will play with the media as one does with a cat toy. Do not let your faith rest in Jeff Flake, who can speak piously while acting as a loyal servant of Satan. Face the day with equanimity, for either one Republican will find reason and justice in their soul, or the people shall rain upon the Republican party brimstone and fire, and overthrow that party, and all the electorate that grew upon the ground. Justice will be had one way or another.

Also remember the end of that story: the LORD only found one righteous man in Sodom, and he was the kind of guy who’d send out his daughters to be raped by a mob. The LORD destroyed his city. The “righteous” man ends up hiding in a cave near Zoar, drinking himself into oblivion, and fucking his own daughters.

Who says there are no good stories and no lessons to be learned from your Bible?

Bad memories

I had to look high and low to find a copy of that old debate I had with Geoffrey Simmons, because I wanted to reference something he said, so once I found a copy, I put it where I’d more easily find it in the future, on YouTube. Some of you old-timers will remember that debate — I blogged about it at the time, and there was a follow-up, too.

It was disillusioning for me at the time. I knew that creationists misrepresent the facts all the time, but this guy was just right there in my face, pretending he was an authority on the fossil evidence when he wasn’t, and also flat out lying about that evidence. He claimed that the entirety of the whale fossil evidence consisted of five bones — “five or so fossil pieces from dog-size animals”! Debate really doesn’t work as a tool to get at the truth when one side’s sole tactic is to lie brazenly, as we’ve also learned from Republican politics.

It’s also frustrating when the debate format doesn’t allow you to bring out the evidence and rub your opponents face in it, and if you point out that he’s lying he gets all indignant and smarmily whines about tone, and the moderators are both grossly biased and using your appearance as a gimmick to sell tours to the Creation “Museum”.

We’ve all known that guy

The latest accuser speaking up about Kavanaugh has a horrific tale to tell, but the most horrific thing about it is that it seems entirely plausible.

Swetnick, in the affidavit posted on Twitter by Avenatti, claims that she saw Kavanaugh, as a high school student in Maryland in the early 1980s, and others spike the drinks of girls at house parties with grain alcohol and/or drugs to “cause girls to lose inhibitions and their ability to say ‘No.’ ”

Swetnick said these efforts by Kavanaugh and his buddy Mark Judge were done so the girls “could then be ‘gang raped’ in a side room or bedroom by a ‘train’ of numerous boys.”

“I have a firm recollection of seeing boys lined up outside rooms at many of these parties waiting for their ‘turn’ with a girl inside the room. These boys included Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh,” Swetnick said.

She also said in her affidavit sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee that in approximately 1982 “I became the victim of one of these ‘gang’ or ‘train’ rapes where Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh were present.”

I’ve mentioned that I was ‘rushed’ by a fraternity once upon a time. It was a whole house packed full of these guys, so I can believe it.