Occupy Wall Street Statement

Keith Olbermann reads the first community statement by the general assembly of Occupy Wall Street.

Certain Things are Too Expensive

Check out this slideshow. Feel free to spread this around.

Here is a breakdown of who has the money in this country; how much most of us have vs. the amount the wealthy have. These wealthy are the people the teabaggers think can't afford to create more jobs at a living wage, and should get further tax breaks.

World of Class Warfare

The Daily Show - World of Class Warfare - Warren Buffett vs. Wealthy Conservatives
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The Daily Show - World of Class Warfare - The Poor's Free Ride Is Over
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Buffett: "Stop Coddling the Super-Rich"

Warren Buffett talks with Charlie Rose about his New York Times Op-Ed "Stop Coddling the Super-Rich".

Season's Greetings!

‎"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"

--Jacob Marley, from "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens


Happy Holidays!

Anson

Spirit of Christmas from an Atheist Point of View

Ironic how Christmas is thought of by many as a Christian holiday (and that it's under "attack" by those godless pagans), even though most of the traditions associated with the holiday (gift giving, Santa Claus, decorated trees, etc.) are pre-Christian and pagan in origin. More ironic still, is that celebrating birthdays and decorating with trees is considered idolatry in some Christian traditions--i.e. celebrating Jesus' birthday with trees is breaking a commandment. The fact of the matter is that Christmas as a holiday is "Christian" in name only (it really has always been just a mixed up jumble of cultural influences).

Similarly the "holiest" of "Christian" holidays- Easter, is named after the ancient Germanic goddess of fertility, Eostre-- and to this day the symbols associated with Easter (Spring, eggs, rabbits) are all about fertility. Again, a mishmash of cultural traditions.

Halloween's wearing of masks and costumes and emphasis on the dead is also pagan in origin.

I don't believe in deities or spirits, Christian or otherwise, although I find the old traditions associated with Christmas and Halloween enjoyable and fun. I even enjoy much of the old traditional Christmas music, even with all it's Jesus-y themes in it.

The "Christian" aspect of the holidays doesn't weigh in any more or less to me than any of the ancient pagan stuff does, although the many of the entitlement claims by many modern Christians really does get up my ass sometimes.

--Anson Jew

What Happened to the Middle Class?

Elizabeth Warren:


Another good talk:

Robert Reich:
An interview on NPR.

Who are the Teabaggers?

You always hear the teabaggers or "9/12ers" talking about the "original intent" of the constitution. This country already had that argument. It was called The Civil War. If you look at the Confederate Constitution, it would be a teabagger's paradise: almost identical to the US Constitution, except it removed the part about "promoting the general welfare" and replaced it with "invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God." It also diminished federal powers relative to state's rights, and restricted the vote only to native born citizens. In spirit, the teabaggers are really just a bunch of Confederate sympathizing sore losers.




Here's a real Confederate flag waving nut at a tea party:



I would never try to characterize all tea partiers as extreme as the people in the above video, but if you look at a lot of what the tea party movement espouses (or even just the right in general) it's reallly not much different from what the Confederacy stood for.

Here's a funny video of Sam Seder interviewing some people at Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally that took place on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech:




-Anson Jew

Don't Be a Sucker

An educational short from 1947.

The Last Whitewasher

In August of 2009, a story surfaced about a Microsoft advertisement in which a photo of businesspeople of various ethnicities and genders was altered. The head of a black man was replaced with that of a white man. Microsoft later apologized for the incident.

* * * *

In August of 2009, a story came to light about Larry Whitten, a hotel owner in Taos, New Mexico, who ordered his Hispanic employees to Anglicize their first names. The name Marcos, for example, had to be changed to Mark. The employees were also forbidden from speaking Spanish in his presence.



* * * *





In June of 2010, a Prescott, Arizona principal decided to lighten the skin of black and hispanic students depicted on a mural at Miller Valley Elementary School following prodding by Prescott city councilman Steve Blair. Blair stated on his radio show that showing people of color on a mural in Prescott constituted some kind of "agenda." Some of the residents of Prescott drove by and screamed racial slurs at the mural. Fortunately the decision was reversed following an outpouring of criticism from people across the country.


* * * *



Even before filming began of his live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender, M. Night Shyamalan was informed of the racial insensitivity of casting Caucasian actors for all the lead roles, even though the source material--a popular American anime style cartoon-- clearly takes place in a fictional version of ancient Asia (everyone eats with chopsticks, the writing, costumes and architecture are authentically ancient Asian in style). Unfortunately, Shyamalan failed to rethink his his whitewashed casting (other than making one of the antagonists in the story an Indian when the originally cast white actor dropped out). On July 1, 2010, Shyamalan's The Last Airbender opened in theaters across the US. In Los Angeles and Seattle people of all ethnic backgrounds came out to protest Shyamalan's poor casting decisions.



This type of thing follows a long tradition of whitewashed casting in Hollywood in which roles that were clearly most appropriate for actors of color are given to white actors or are changed to accommodate white actors. John Wayne played Genghis Khan in 1956. Brian Dennehy played Kublai Khan in 2007. Mickey Rourke will play Genghis Khan in John Millius' upcoming film. No live action film depiction of Charlie Chan has ever featured an Asian actor in the many incarnations of the role throughout it's history. The same is true of Fu Manchu. The list for this type of thing goes on throughout film history and lasts even to this day.



Ask any actor of color or his or her agent: go for a role written for a white actor in a substantial role and more often than not, the result will be "No, thanks" but there's a role for you--"third tourist from the left."

It is sad, that in Los Angeles, a town that is about 10.4% Asian, less than 2% of roles go to Asians. In fact, Hollywood's record with people of color is pretty dismal. Paramount, for example, the studio making Airbender, is giving 89% of it's lead roles in the next decade to white actors, 94% of which will be males.

Now it's not hard to find people who will sympathize with you about the lack of good roles in Hollywood for Asians and other people of color.

The problem is, it's not true. There are plenty of good roles for people of color in this town.

Hollywood has just given those roles to white people.

Please don't allow your money to support these kind of bigoted hiring practices.


More on this topic:

Racebending.com

My brother Benton makes some very solid arguments on this subject.


And if none of this is enough to stop you from seeing the movie, watch this.


--Anson Jew

The Pope Song by Tim Minchin

New song by Tim Minchin. Video by Fraser Davidson.

Intelligent Design Throughout History

This is one of my favorite talks by Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium. It's from the 2006 Beyond Belief Conference, an annual gathering of scientists and philosophers and academics talking about matters of secular humanism and science and society.

In this funny, entertaining talk, Tyson talks about how Intelligent Design has been invoked throughout history--even by some of the greatest minds in science: Sir Isaac Newton, Ptolomy...and how that kind of thinking has historically had consequences for mankind's progress.

Robert Frank: Economic Naturalism

Darwinism as it applies to economics. But probably not in the way you'd think.

A Few Things You Can Take on Faith

God knows ahead of time the exact place and moment of every person's conception and death. Therefore, committing murder and rape is just carrying out the plan of God (You go, Scott Roeder!)

According to the Commandments, rape and slavery aren't off limits, but heaven help you if you work on a Sunday or cuss.

I've already broken nine of the Commandments many times over and am surely condemned to Hell. What difference does it ultimately make if I break the 10th?

God forgives all in His eternal benevolence even when I once again take a crowbar to my neighbor's head and steal his money. Or when I kidnap another child and make her my sex slave.

The Earth is just a pitstop to a greater, more meaningful place. Do to it what you want.

Condoms are sinful. Just ask the Pope. Even here in this AIDS stricken part of Africa.

According to my religious leaders, I will be made a martyr and clear a way to heaven for all my descendants by crashing this airplane into this building built by infidels.

Some FACTS to consider:

According to a survey of developed democracies taken by The Journal of Religion and Society, societal dysfunction correlated strongly with religious belief, i.e. the more devout the country, the more societal dysfunction. This correlation was stronger even than factors like wealth, as the US, wealthier but more devout, had more dysfunction than poorer, less devout countries.

WITHIN the US, crime and social dysfunction is higher along the Bible Belt than in less devout areas.

In the general US population, 8-16% identify themselves atheists, within US prison populations, 0.21% identify as atheists, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Republicans tend to be more devout than Democrats.


--Anson Jew

How to Spot a Libertarian

Libertarians, Laissez-Faire Capitalists and their ilk all share some common traits...the chief one being they are convinced that they are the hardest working, toughest mofos in the world, and that everyone one else in the world who isn't as bad-ass as they perceive themselves to be are just a bunch of lazy, whiney, sissy, weenies. An example of their brand of tortured logic goes something like this: I am successful, and I worked hard. You are not successful. Therefore, you did not work hard (said the millionaire Britney Spears to pauper Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart).

Usually these guys are themselves pampered little weenies who have never experienced real hardship nor acknowledge real hardship in others, but have gained a little success, and then buy into their own hype (to paraphrase Ann Richards: born on third base, act like they hit a triple). Their smug, over-inflated sense of self worth and entitlement drives a lot of their right wing political agendas, like their attitudes toward business, taxes, the poor, minorities, women, the environment ("my water doesn't make me sick, you whiner!") and even our policies on torture.

I recently found a couple of videos that clearly show some of these guys in their natural habitat.


Fox Business Channel's Stuart Varney:






WLS's Matthew Erich "Mancow" Muller:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Mancow's little experience taught him his lesson. Maybe Varney should be forced to do his broadcasts with a Chinese accent and he'll learn his.


Related Articles:

Robert Frank's original NY Times article.

More on Huffington Post


--Anson Jew

Deregulation for Dummies

How we got here in a nutshell.

Daffy for President

Someone should have shown this to George W. Bush.

44 Presidents in 4 Minutes

I'm Obama. I'm McCain.

Holy Political Debates, Batman!

No further comment needed.