The Atheist Librarian

Yep, pretty much

2009-04-01T23:40:00.002-04:00

I don't do St. Patrick's Day

2009-03-17T16:14:00.002-04:00

I am currently wearing blue (I'm just trying to be neutral, though blue was the national color of Ireland for centuries), and I will not be drinking today.

For the religious aspects of St. Paddy's day, I can't justify celebrating the idea of a man who drive out some snakes off an island... oh wait, that's right, they weren't actually snakes, they were the Druidic Pagans and other undersirables of Ireland including atheists, homosexuals, and probably Romani and Jews.

Even beyond that, in the modern sense anyone who wears green is really just saying they support the Catholic side of the clan wars that have been going on in Ireland for centuries. If you're Protestant, you're supposed to wear Orange today stupid.

Lastly, there are all those who say "Oh, just celebrate the secular parts." Oh, what, like drinking? Because that's "What Irish people do" Nice stereotype. Yeah, that's surely something I can get behind. Besides that, beer's gross.

At least I can find something in some of the other religious holidays (and there origianl intent) to get behind.
Christmas - Yeah, the days are finally getting longer, winter's almost over, lets exchange presents and try to be happy in the midst of this crap.
Easter - Yeah, the sun finally fucking came back, it's warm again, there's food to hunt, let's celebrate.
Valentine's Day - Even this one is okay, at least St. Valentine was trying to (supposedly) marry people who wouldn't normally be allowed to marry under pagan laws because they were Christian. Now, this was when Christians actually were a repressed minority, and good for him for standing up to it. If only Christians could think of this today and see the homosexual POV.

Anyway. I don't do St. Patrick's Day. If anyone can find something actually whorthwhile in the secular stance, let me know.

World Nut Daily update

2009-03-05T22:01:00.002-05:00

Holy flaming Christ on a Pogo-stick! The world atheist community and World Net Daily are actually in agreement on something. For completely different reasons of course, but still; someone check the themometer for Hell, is it getting drafty down there?

The UNs "ban" on blasphemy had finally caught the attention of the religious media. Now, they think this is bad because, of course, then they think they won't be able to "preach tha' gospe' and th' name o' the lawd" in them heathen countries anymore. Really, they aren't welcomed there anyway (but neither are atheists). This won't change much.

Whatever. The more people up in arms over this retarded shit the better. It just feels a little icky to be on the same side about something.

"World Builder" by Bruce Branit

2009-03-04T17:15:00.001-05:00

Filmed in one day, then took two years in post.

If it's not loading well, you can always go to the actual page here http://vimeo.com/3365942
World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.

Librarians Playing at work is, apparently, stealing from the taxpayers

2009-03-03T15:54:00.004-05:00

Ok, first, here's the "news" item.

http://www.action3news.com/Global/story.asp?S=9900719&nav=menu550_2

With the video if you really want to watch, they're just playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band or something...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I84RvK7LuE

“Action” 3 News is so stupid. And so was this guy who “turned them in.”

Oh nos, librarians were playing a video game… just like our own librarians did not too long ago in the basement here at Kent. Oh nos, they bought a game system to help bring the teens in, like hundreds of other libraries have done for years; yeah, it’s sitting in a closet. It was expensive, they’ll only bring it out for special programs.

Oh wait, there’s more.

Oh nos, they spent money on land in Second Life, you mean just like the Library of Congress and countless other government agencies have done, including the FBI, CIA, WHITEHOUSE.

And that last one is just idiotic, they spent money to go to a conference!!!! They’re complaining about that?! Really?!

Nebraska: No, we don’t want any of our state employees to learn anything new, how dare they.

When this idiot Kevin first saw this, he should have turned to his son and asked his opinion. When his son said, "Hey, that looks cool, let's go to the Library" then he would have known why it was happening. When his son actually asked, "Is that bad?" should have been the tip. His son didn't think it was bad, AND IT ISN'T.

Stupid, fucking, Nebraskians. No... that's not fair. Stupid fucking Kevin Paladino; stupid fucking State Auditor Mike Foley, and stupid fucking Liz Dorland and Action 3 News for actually thinking this is news.

New fossil found

2009-03-02T18:21:00.007-05:00

HOLY FUCKING SHIT!! IT'S AN ACTUAL CROCODUCK!!

Well, no, not really. It's a fossil of a giant toothy bird from the Pelagornithidae family. Paleontologists have known about them for decades, but they're hard to find because the bones are hollow like a bird. Look at the jaw on that thing though.

Tiktaalik

2009-02-16T22:28:00.002-05:00

This is Tiktaalik. He is an example of a true Transitional Fossil. He has both fishy and lizardy parts. I really don't know what more fundies want.

Boy Scout Oath and Law

2009-02-03T20:24:00.003-05:00

First of all, yes, I am an Eagle Scout. I was in scouting for 16 years, and just recently let my registration lapse. I have also been an atheist almost as long. How did I reconcile being an atheist and a scout? Well, it was much easier considering there were all kinds of homosexuals and atheists in my council and troop (and our scout master in general was a super reformed Jew).

Anyway, I was reading an article recently about the Scouts of England (haven't been Boy Scouts since 1992 when it became completely co-ed) and the fact that they've adopted a new Oath for Muslim scouts who are not allowed to swear an oath to a King or Queen; apparently some fundies over in England hate this idea. I'm sure there are plenty of crazies in this country who also hate the idea. But....

Doing some more digging around, apparently Baden-Powell (he's the guy who started scouting in England and spread it all over the world) didn't really care one wit about religion (he may have even been... whisper it real quiet now... GAY). The original Scout Law, from 1908, didn't mention "reverent" like it does today. And, while the original Scout Promise (Oath) did say god in it...

On my honor I promise that I will do my best:
To do my duty to God and my country;
To help other people at all times;
To obey the Scout Law

...There is also, according to tradition, an alternative oath written by Baden-Powell himself called the "Outlander's Promise" for "Scouts who could not, for reasons of conscience, recognize a duty to a King (the norm in the USA), for individuals or members of religions (such as Buddhism, Taoism, and others) that do not worship a deity, and for members of orthodox religions that do not use the name of God in secular settings." 1

The Outlander's Promise is as follows...

On my honor I promise to do my best:
To render service to my country;
To help other people at all times;
To obey the Scout Law.

Hmmmmm, I could follow that, especially since the Law it's refering to doesn't mention "Reverent."

This is what Baden-Powell originally wanted; he didn't care if you were Christian, Jewish, Buddhist or Atheist. He just wanted to help kids love and respect nature and learn to be self-sufficient and decent people.

On a side note, there was a program created in 1925 as an alternative to Scouts called "Woodcraft Folk" who don't care who or what you are, what gender you are, or where you're from. Scouts of England is pretty much like this now though, so that's probably why Woodcraft hasn't expanded outside of England, Wales and Scotland. Like I said, this whole post started because the Scouts of England are allowing Muslim Scouts to say a different Oath, even though their own Scouts (including Muslims) have been allowed to say the Outlander's Oath all along.

Maybe I should just move to England and help the Scouts there...

Trying to Ban Atwood in Canada

2009-01-21T21:17:00.004-05:00

A parent is trying to seek justification for a school using A Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood in his son's senior English class in Toronto, Canada. He doesn't want to ban books, says the father, he just wants to know how such a vulgar book can be used in a school...

Maybe because it's one of the best damn books in the English language that everyone should read... oh, and it was written by a Canadian.

This idiot objects to the same crap that lots of the "moral christians" object to. It has sex, it has violence, it denegrates christians (okay, that parts pretty funny to me), blah blah blah. It also teaches a lot of good points about what happens when a bunch of crazy fundamentalist fucks do when they get full control of a situation.

The funniest part of the whole situation to me... "After Edwards complained, his son was assigned another book, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, and will step out of class during any discussions on The Handmaid's Tale."

Really? Seriously? What the hell? BNW instead of Handmaid's? The father's going to fucking flip when he reads that one and the first scene depicts two 8 year having sex behind a bush.

All I can say is HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I think the school is just screwing with the guy by doing that.

Anyway, take a gander at the article, and if someone can tell me who the picture of the old woman is (with proof), I'll buy you a cookie. I think it's Atwood herself, but I'm not sure.

*Update: It has been confirmed that the old lady is in fact Atwood. The winner is the girlfriend. Sorry everyone else, better luck next time.

Apple iTunes and DRM free content

2009-01-13T17:44:00.002-05:00

As everyone's probably aware of by now, Apple will now be allowing their customers on iTunes to download their music without the Digital Rights Management (DRM) on them.

Basically what this means is that when you download a song from iTunes and put it on your computer, your iPod, your phone, your Zune, your other computer, your other computer, your other computer (I'm not the only person with like four computers right?)

It doesn't matter. People were stripping the DRM off the songs anyway so they could move them around. Apple finally got smart. Gee, you bought something? You should be able to do whatever the hell you want with it then? Good for Apple for finally standing up to the recording industry.

Trust me, I still hate Apple almost as much as Micro$oft, but at least they're selling music for a buck. They're at least trying to help with all the piracy instead of just complaining about it and sueing people. And they're usually the ones to realize that if something isn't working, maybe we should try something different.

Maybe Microsoft will learn something from this, or even Apple will learn from themselves and take some of the restrictive DRMs off their softwares. Yeah! Right! Well, here's hoping.

Religulous - Completely Illegal

2009-01-06T01:29:00.003-05:00

Hello anyone out there. It seems that "someone" (no, seriously, not me - do not come knocking on my door FBI) has put up, on Google Video, the entire Religulous movie . Now, I'm not saying you should download it. I'd much rather people actually support this movie by renting or buying it... now if I could find a copy of Expelled out there somewhere... but I digress.

If someone really is interested in watching the movie on your computer (in on your iPod or PSP or something since it is downloadable in MP4 format) go right ahead, but be quick about it; it'll probably be taken down once Google finds out about it.

Now, if for some reason someone has problems playing MP4s on their computer (no, I'm not saying this video, it's an illegal copy remember), but would still like to watch MP4s, there is a super player out there that plays everything... seriously, everything. It's called VLC Media Player and it's part of the VideoLAN project, a completely open source project that thinks proprietary video and audio files are stupid ideas. They're open source so they want you to download their product for free and use it, use it, use it.

Have fun.

*Update: Apparently, this is all perfectly legal to have up online. For some reason it's allowed to be circulating the internet, some big sites have it on their pages. Now, it's still illegal to download it, but with a lot of the nice computers out there, it's not too bad to watch a movie online anymore.

Opposing Viewpoints

2009-01-04T19:34:00.003-05:00

I just found a great site. It's called Opposing Views and it has discussions about everything. Then, verified experts about the subject post short articles about each side of an issue. There's a culture section, health section and best of all, a whole section devoted to religion. There are some big names on the site too, FFRF, American Atheists, etc. Some individuals, but I don't really recognize many of them, let me know if you do.

Amused

2008-12-07T19:46:00.004-05:00

*sigh* And yet they don't know why we laugh.

The (imaginary) War On Christmas

2008-12-02T18:09:00.002-05:00

Nothing to write myself other than it's a bunch of crap and if there is a War, I hope we win. Sam Ogden over at SkepChick, on the other hand, has this awesomeness to offer. Read it, love it.

2008-11-30T17:29:00.003-05:00

Christmas presents. I give them, I get them, even from my Atheist brothers and family. Nothing wrong with any of that. I'm linking to a post by the illustrius Hemant Mehta over at friendlyatheist.com with his list of books to buy for the holiday season. 10 Books about Atheism You'll Want for Christmas. If the link ever goes bad, let me know and I'll repost the article from a backup.

Coming back and a note on Prop 8

2008-11-13T17:09:00.003-05:00

Haven't been on in a while, but can anyone really blame me with the election going on? I'm trying to keep this a non-political site unless it really has to do with Atheism or libraries. Now, to almost break that rule...

California Prop 8.

I'm not going to sit here and say that all Atheists voted no on this issue (though I'd put the numbers really high for it). What I am going to say is that it's obvious that most of the people who did vote yes were religiously motivated. There has not been one reason for this ban that can't have the word "gay" replaced with "interracial" that doesn't have a religious reason. (Ahhh, I wish I could find the "yes on prop 8" video where they actually did this)

Good luck prop 8 supporters, this is all just going to get overturned in the state and circuit courts as Unconstitutional (with a big U for federal) and states are not allowed to have stuff that would be considered unconstitutional in the US constitution. Good try, but all you've done is pushed up the time for there to be a legal decision handed down by the supreme court that says gay marriage is legal. With Obama and the Dems in control, we're sure to get a liberal judge on the Supreme court. So, really, with your poor foresight, all the gays in the country should be thanking you.

Thanks Homo-phobes!!!

2008-10-03T12:00:00.002-04:00

The Guardian, a British newspaper, published an online quiz in support of Banned Books Week here in America. I'm a little embarrased to admit that I only scored a 4 out of 12, though I think I did better. It didn't show what the correct answers were, just your score. Take the quiz yourself, no cheating now, though you should be able to get the first question just based on what I've written here.

#1 Challenged and Banned Book of the year

2008-10-02T12:00:00.001-04:00

And Tango Makes Three has been the #1 Most Challenged and Banned Book for the last three years. This is the book sitting on my desk at work...

The sign sticking out of the top says "#1 Challenged and Banned Book in the country since it was published 3 years ago. Ask to read it today!"

If you are unaware of what the book is about, it is a true story about two homosexual male penguins at the New York Zoo who fall in love, build a nest together, adopt an egg that wasn't able to be cared for by its real parents and subsequently raise the chick, named Tango, for years.

But, but, homosexuality ain't natural.... Really! Tell that to the penguins!

BBW events around the country

2008-10-01T12:00:00.001-04:00

Alright, enough with the individual books. Those are the only two I've ever felt strongly about anyway. Yes, the second 451 incident happened in my own high school, and seriously, I freakin' love Harry Potter.

So, bannedbooksweek.org has, once again, put together a list of events going on around the country. See if your library is there, and if not and you know your library is going to have something, submit it. If your library isn't going to have something... ask them why not.

Harry Potter

2008-09-30T12:00:00.000-04:00

This article is kind of old, but it shows the basics of what people from the neo-conservative, fundamentalist frame of mind are thinking when it comes to Harry Potter. Basically, this crazy fundie from Loganville, Georgia thought back in 2006 that "books that promote evil - as she claims the Potter ones do - help foster the kind of culture where school shootings happen" and that "that would not happen if students instead read the Bible."

And I couldn't agree more... there weren't any guns thousands of years ago... the bible says to stone people, duh.

She also said that "teachers do not assign other religious books like the Bible as student reading."

1. How the hell is Harry Potter a religious text and
2. Yes, they do. I remember being in high school and doing two weeks on the Psalms as literature in my English class.

What a load of crap.

Seriously, read the article or just Google Harry Potter and banned to see what comes up.

Celebrate Bleeped books week

2008-09-27T12:00:00.000-04:00

This is the first day of national Banned Books week. See previous post if you missed what this is all about.

Found this video on "The Shifted Librarian." Just thought it was great.

Nothing of any great importance to post today. BBW is just getting started. I'll have more up all week.

Banned Books Week

2008-09-24T22:28:00.000-04:00

Well, Banned Books Week is just around the corner. That simple time of year when Librarians' thoughts turn to love... of profanity and sex and religion and political dissent and witchcraft and drug use and violence and LGBT issues. For those of you who don't know, Banned Books Week is celebrated once a year by librarians, English teachers, and other like minded people who believe that no book should be dis-allowed by anyone anytime. Every year the theme is thought up by the American Library Association (ALA). This years theme is "Closing Books Shuts Out Ideas." There's lots of stuff to buy from ALA, but many libraries just make up their own ways to celebrate, like this. Simple stuff, but it's enough to get people to think.

I'm going to try to post something about banned books every day in the coming week, beginning Sunday, about book banning and the like.

Introduction

2008-09-19T18:19:00.001-04:00

The title of the blog itself shows the combination of the two things in my life that really show what I am. I work at a university library at the main circulation desk. I will be putting up interesting news, photos, video, personal accounts, etc. etc. about both atheism and librarianship. How often will these two things come together? Who knows. But we'll see...