Fast forward 24 hours, and Jason Rodriguez opens fire in an office in Orlando, Fl. Much news coverage, many parallels drawn about the horror etc. etc. But not a single mention of the Mr. Rodriguez's religion. I'll go out on a limb here and assume he's a Catholic (or, as Fox News' Shepard Smith insisted in an interview with Senator Hutchinson when it was all about Hasan: "his name should tell us a lot.") So, why aren't we hearing about this horrible act committed by an American Catholic?

Yes, Hasan was a muslim, and he may have spouted all sorts of religious nonsense before, during and after his crime. But using "Muslim" as shorthand for terrorist is really shallow, and simply pushes the legitimate American Muslim community further off to the fringes of society -- which is, of course, where the Xtian evangelists and their xenophobic wingnut allies want them. Michael Yaki at SF Gate picked up on this and wrote a piece about it. Nice to see.

So I finally decided that the way to go might be one of the online outfits. Yes, I've known about Picassa and Flikr and all the others for years, but the one that leapt out at me early on was SmugMug. It seemed really friendly, somehow, professional yet unpretentious, efficient yet fun. After a recent trip to Europe, I opened up an account and starting playing around. I was blown away by the whole thing -- it's by far the best application I've seen in a long, long time. Add to that Jeffrey Friedl's totally amazing Adobe Lightroom plugin that makes it ridiculously easy to move images from your archive to the web with granular control, and you've got a winning package. No, SmugMug is not free. Nor is Jeff's widget. But, really. They are *so* worth the price of admission if you do anything even remotely serious with images. If you've just got a couple of snaps to drop on friends now and then? Don't bother, obviously. Go with Facebook or one of the big freebie sites. But for the real deal, SmugMug is the best deal. Thanks, guys.

And then there are the quirks within apps like the calendar. Hey, it's a great tool -- and it's free, so you can't really knock it. But, seriously. I enter an event and fill in the description field -- and then I discover that there's absolutely no way in hell of displaying the info in the description field anywhere? I mean, WTF? Apparently, that field can only be printed out on an agenda or something irrelevant like that. But, c'mon, this is pathetic, Google. And what's really pathetic is the fact that users have been begging for this obvious feature for well over a year now, with no -- absolutely no -- response from the Google developers. Posting after posting on the official Google calendar help forum with no response at all.

At this point, I'm tempted to find a workaround, but it's really irritating -- and a discredit to the Google reputation as a provider of near flawless services -- that the calendar app is out there with such an obvious shortcoming. At very best a C+ for this effort, Google. Next time, show your work and do it right.

Take the question: "It’s OK to copy content from the Internet for your own personal use." The answer, according to the Business Software Alliance, is FALSE:

It is illegal to copy any part of a copyrighted work without the copyright holder’s permission, whether you plan to keep the copy to yourself or distribute it to others. The only exception is “fair use,” which permits copying a limited amount of a copyrighted work without the copyright holder’s permission for purposes such as scholarship and research. U.S. copyright law also contains specific provisions regarding archival copies of copyrighted works that you have purchased and temporary copies of copyrighted works that have been broadcast.

Have they never heard of public domain content -- like Project Gutenberg or the millions of pages of content posted with a Creative Commons designation? I know, I know: to the lawyers at the BSA, the whole concept of Open Source and public domain is like Kryptonite: scary, dangerous stuff that undermines their very reason for being. The only exeception is "fair use"? Really: get your facts straight before you wag your big finger in our faces, will you?

Oh, or this gem: "It’s OK to trade copies of music, films, and software through a file-sharing network?" Guess what? According to the BSA the answer is FALSE. But, really now, doesn't it very much depend on the explicit copyright status of the item shared? I mean, even though these bastards would like to get a cut every time we breathe, sharing per se isn't illegal yet, is it now?

My local school has decided that a link to this crap is warranted; at least they also provide a link to the much more useful Creative Commons.

Update (11/5/09): seriously, the lawyers, lobbyists and other idiots (but I repeat myself) who are working on this stuff are completely delusional. Apparently, I can  now be sent to jail for ripping a CD to my computer so I don't have to schlep around the damn thing to hear the songs I bought?!? Meanwhile, Sir Change-a-Lot and his administration have refused to publicize their plans for overhaul of copyright legislation on the basis of "national security" -- what, the North Koreans are going to flood us with counterfeit DVDs if they find out what our goons are planning?

Unfortunately, the judge hearing the case seems to have a rather novel interpretation of the core issue, because in his decision he states:

"The Pledge of Allegiance is not a religious prayer, nor is it a 'nonsectarian prayer,'" McAuliffe wrote. ". . . and its recitation in schools does not constitute a 'religious exercise.' The Pledge does not thank God. It does not ask God for a blessing, or for guidance. It does not address God in any way. . . . Rather, the Pledge in content and function, is a civic patriotic statement -- an affirmation of adherence to the principles to which the nation stands."

How he can claim that the phrase "One Nation, Under God" does not address God in any way is beyond me. And given the rather pathetic history of the insertion of that particularly offensive phrase in an already torrid bit of jingoistic, patriotic propaganda, it's all the more disappointing.

Elaborating, the decision declares:

“While the First Amendment affords atheists complete freedom to disbelieve, it does not compel the federal judiciary to redact religious references in every area of public life in order to suit atheistic sensibilities.”

Freedom to disbelieve? Atheistic sensibilities? Redaction? I'm sorry, but that's pretty offensive. This is not just any old "area of public life" -- the pledge is imposed upon impressionable kids in the context of what is supposed to be a learning environment, committed first and foremost to the teaching of facts and knowledge. But given that God remains pure conjecture -- a fantasy shared by many but proven by none -- isn't it just a tad embarrassing to be promote that kind of ignorance and cluelessness as the gold standard from which you are permitted to deviate if you dare? Moreover, that sordid little God clause was inserted into the original pledge to further a Bible-thumping agenda at the height of the Cold War, in an attempt to emphasize how much more enlightened and superior "we" Xtians were, compared to those heathen, atheist Communists. Challenging the clause would seem to be, then, not so much a request for redaction as a much-overdue correction. Or does the New Hampshire Board of Ed still harbor the belief that Xtians really are superior to atheists? Repeated daily, it is the singlemost prominent thing in their curriculum, and since -- to my knowledge at least -- a discussion of 1st Amendment rights won't happen until high school, it must be assumed to stand unchallenged as a fact, given how it is presented to the kids by the same teachers who provide them with all their other facts. Perhaps, as Robert Scheer pointed out in 2002:

Instead of a blind loyalty oath to God and country--as defined by Congress and the President--the schools should be encouraging study of the complex relationship between religion, in all its forms, and civic society.

Now, New Hampshire does have a statute that requires schools to facilitate the Pledge of Allegiance daily. Sucky rule, arguably unconstitutional (perhaps to be proven so, if and when a case comes before a judge that actually, you know, gets the 1st Amendment), but the law nonetheless. While the NH court in its opinion goes to great lengths to defend the supposedly secular purpose of the NH pledge statute, it's quite striking how that statute gets away with forcing rote patriotism on school kids (already a questionable activity) while at the same time infusing said patriotism with the notion that God and submission to God is somehow part of being a patriot (a much more questionable activity). The implication seems to be that atheists and agnostics are somehow less patriotic because they refuse to see God as part of the patriotic "package." That this should form part of the guidelines for a secular education makes one wonder if there's a radically different interpretation of education at play here, one that smacks more of indoctrination.

Vermont, on the other hand, does not mandate either way -- there's no requirement of the pledge to be recited in public schools, but no ban on it, either. 'Twould seem to me, then, to be up to the individual school district to decide. This, of course, was what lead to the heated and largely fabricated controversy in Woodbury, Vt. last year, when a particularly rabid wingnut tried more-or-less successfully to force the pledge back into his local school.

Which brings me back to my local school. My son says his 4th grade teacher last year did not make the kids recite the pledge, and, apparently, one of the 6th grade classes do fun stuff like counting to ten in Italian to get the day started. If there is an official school position (and I'm still trying to track one down) it appears to be "do whatever" -- which is pretty lame, given how controversial the subject can get. It's hard to imagine that a school board or administrator would simply say to the teachers: "sure, it's not like we're under pressure to make sure they get the curriculum or anything, so if you want to waste a chunk of the kids' time reciting the Pledge every day, you go right ahead." At the very least, I'd like to think that a board or administrator has a good explanation for taking that stance and is prepared to defend it from criticism.

Because here's the thing: study after study shows that American kids are already woefully behind the curve on history and facts and whatnot. So, how about, instead of coercing them into repeating a mindless, pointless, and quite embarrassingly archaic bit of trivia every day, the teachers picked a new quote from history every day, put it in context and had the kids reflect on that for a minute? That would teach them something new, keep things interesting, and avoid the whole sappy patriotism and "Under God" business entirely... heck, in that particular context, I'd argue that it would be perfectly reasonable for the kids to hear a heavily religious quote now and then.

Thankfully, the Freedom from Religion Foundation has vowed to appeal the decision and continue their struggle to right this wrong. All the best to them.

"The Bible is a manual of bad morals (which) has a powerful influence on our culture and even our way of life. Without the Bible, we would be different, and probably better people."

Amen, Mr. Saramago, amen.

(Lusa news agency, quoted in The Independent UK)

Just down the road, however, there's an entirely different creature: Israel, our bestest friend in spite of everything, recipient of billions of our tax-payer dollars in subsidies for their never-ending violations of basic human rights and common decency, recipient of all the arms they can eat, including nasty shit like white phosphorous and cluster bombs, which is used uncritically against civilians again and again with no apparent criticism or repercussions. Oh, and they have nukes, too, but Obama just sat down and promised them that they could continue to keep them secret and uninspected -- oh, and that whole non-proliferation nonsense? That's for all the other countries with a penchant for killing their neighbors, but not for Israel.

Double standards? Check. Hypocrisy? Check. USA -- we've got it all. And nukes, too.

Or: it's only Ephebophilia if you say it is. Because according to Silvano Toscani, the Vatican's permanent oberserver to the UN (does that make him a voyeur?):

"available research" showed that only 1.5%-5% of Catholic clergy were involved in child sex abuse.

Wow, that's so negligible, then. I mean, there are only about 400,000 Catholic priests worldwide. If we split the difference and take at face value the Catholic Church's confession that about 2.5 percent of them are abusing children then that's exactly ten thousand sanctified paedophiles. If I were a sick pervert I could keep the mental experiment going and figure out how many kids' lives those ten thousand sickos might manage to destroy over a lifetime (since the Church never actually deals with their, ahem, problem, but usually just shuffles them around to water down the scandal -- or provide them with fresh victims, depending on how you look at it), but I'll stop right here before it gets too painfully embarrassing.

How morally tone deaf and arrogant must you be if you think this absolves your Church and buries the issue?

But it gets better. Because what the Vatican is really trying to argue is that every other religion has the same problem, so why are we picking on them? Now, for an atheist it's very tempting to simply argue that all clergy regardless of their flavor of superstition should be made to spend lots of time in a very small padded cell with an unusually well-endowed black man called Bubba who will teach them to squeal proudly in latin, but that's probably not helpful or fair. But as Kevin Drum points out, how lame is a religion that feels compelled to resort to 2^nd grader nyah-nyah-nyah tactics in an attempt at spreading the blame around?

Oh, and it gets better still. Silvano wants us all to be really clear about one thing: Catholic priests aren't at all into little boys as we all seem to insist. No, not at all. No, they're into mid-to-late adolescents -- they're ephebophiles -- which changes everything, right? Right? Seriously. Who knew there was a name for the particular age of kids you like to molest? Certainly convenient for Silvano; this way he gets to describe with a single word what's not at all wrong with the Catholic Church.

Silvio's closing line was epic:

"As the Catholic church has been busy cleaning its own house, it would be good if other institutions and authorities, where the major part of abuses are reported, could do the same and inform the media about it."

Or, in other words: "While we Catholics finally start mopping the cum stains off our rug, do the rest of you have any good photos you'd care to share?"

(Graphic from here)

It is a little hard to get behind the notion that "real" news will somehow shift online in the guise of bloggers and large "virtual" publishing coops like firedoglake and huffpo. After all, those writers and editors need to eat too. All the same, it's exciting to see vtblogger.org appear on the stage here in Vermont as a true investigative journalism site, committed to true ideals of old-fashioned news reporting, but in an exclusively online format. I for one wish them all the best, and will be checking and supporting the site on a regular basis.