The "Crazy Axe Murderer" is in the backseat of Byard Duncan's car...

Really, he is. And when Byard gets out of the car, he is going to find a hook on the side mirror from the Crazy Hook Murderer who was trying to get in while Byard and his date were necking. Urban legends are so much fun! I really love Byard's twist on that theme with his laf-a-minute article, My First Abortion Party. Take a minute, and check it out. Really absorb it. When you have wiped the laugh-tears from your eyes, we'll talk.

OK? Have you composed yourself? It took me a minute, too. The whole thing was so incredibly maudlin, so reality show unreal, I had to read it twice. I was looking for the "psych! Had you going!" line where the author reveals this was all a joke. I never found it. So, what does this article want us to believe?

1. Byard's girlfriend has a friend who needed an abortion.
2. This abortion-needing friend hosted a a house party to solicit donations to help her pay for the abortion.
3. The party was a joy riot, and everyone was diggin' it, 'cept Byard and the baby daddy, who for some unknown reason, was dressed as a clown.
4. All of the abortion-needing momma's friends were eevul harpies who just wanted to bag on the baby daddy.
5. This "party" reveals some larger, dark truth about abortion.

I'm OK with 1. #2 might sound a little sketch, but it really doesn't stretch credibility if you take away the shock title "abortion party". The fact of the matter is that people host benefits to take up collections for health-care related issues all the time. Kid needs an operation? Husband has $20,000 in doctor bills after an accident? Host a benefit. So, this was less a party, and more a benefit for the woman who needed an abortion. Put in that light, it makes sense.

#3, however, is a little less believable. Yes, the people at the benefit were dancing and mingling. Does that mean everyone was just having a hootin' hollerin' good time, wishing in their heart-of-hearts they could have an abortion too? Not hardly.

Walking in, we were bludgeoned with a blast of hot air, followed by the tangy stink of dance floor revelry. Someone had taken a red bed sheet and hung it below a light fixture to resemble a giant womb. Every so often, a dancer’s head or arm or dreadlock would brush against one of its smooth folds, creating a rippling effect. "Let’s Go Crazy" by Prince was playing.

This is the tone the author sets. A regular bacchanal in progress. The "Womb-sheet" is a nice touch. It would be better, of course, if a naked man in a goat-head mask was dancing lewdly under it, and readying to thrust a dagger into a crying virgin, but the Womb-sheet alone is plenty declasse and chilling. Only, I bet it wasn't really a "Womb-sheet" at all. I bet it was someone's attempt at mood lighting. How many parties have you been to with a sheet or scarf draped around a lamp?

Even if it was meant to look like a uterus (how I HATE that dogwhistle word 'womb'), wouldn't you kind of expect that to be a little tounge-in-cheek humor, like a cake that looks like a leg cast for the above-mentioned accident bennefit? Byard acts like he is a friend, like he is here in good will, but the tone of the article suggests otherwise. The problem isn't that people are dancing, or that someone may have a ribald sense of humor. The problem is Byard disapproves of this whole affair, because he is squeamish about abortion. He is trying hard to paint a scene of debauchery and fuzzy-headed liberal excess. Who is at this party? A bunch of crazies (Prince's "Let's go Crazy" is even playing) and other "bad elements" (notice the dreadlock reference? I did. That's dogwhistle number two).

But wait! There's more! In order to prove, once and for all, that these are very bad people, and abortion kills baybees, Byard introduces us to "Andrew".

As Ali went off to find Maggie, I sat down and struck up a conversation with Andrew (name changed), the three-year-old son of one of the partygoers...

Even though I thought the presence of a young child at an abortion party was a little bizarre, nobody else seemed to acknowledge (or care about) this contradiction...

"Do you feel welcome here?" I eventually asked him, fully expecting a ‘grown-up’-type answer. He glanced around, chewed on his sleeve and went to look for some babes to hang out with. "Too cool for me," I thought, shaking my head and cramming a pastry into my mouth. I was bewildered.

To Byard, a child at a benefit to fund an abortion is like a lot like Dave Chapelle's "Black White Supremacist" skits, or the old SNL "Cluckin' Chicken" commercial parodies. Obviously, the poor boy doesn't realize that this "party" is funding the killing of an innocent child just like him!! And what kind of parents would let a child go to such a sin-a-rama, anyway?

The piece de resistance, however, is the caracture of the baby daddy. He is literally made into a tragic clown, replete with rainbow suspenders and a sad 1,000 yard stare.

I saw Maggie’s boyfriend, sitting near the kitchen, wearing rainbow suspenders and looking uncomfortably alone... When we talked, his sentences spilled out in quick little jumbles, like scattered puzzle pieces. His eyes stayed focused on a point behind me. He looked as if he’d like to be somewhere else.

Ooh! The real victim of the evening! The Good Boy who got lured into this whole satanic nightmare. Byard obviously sees him as an object of pity.

In all, it seems like Byard is trying just a little too hard to prove #3. Every sentance, every word is designed to make this party resemble the orgy scene from Eyes Wide Shut. Why? See #4 and #5 above.

Byard really wants us to believe that this whole nightmare is courtesey of the coven group of female friends who strongarmed convinced the baby momma and daddy in question that abortion was the right choice.

Let's go back to the encounter with the baby daddy. Why was he so glum?

As it turns out, he had been the object of a lot of vitriol from Maggie’s friends -- women who thought that he should not have had anything to do with the abortion. Both he and Maggie had been saddened about this reaction because they had made the decision together.

Byard continues to set up the problem when he turns his attention to the baby momma:

Maggie, too, looked less than excited. A few days beforehand, one of her friends had asked her to have the abortion in Ohio. When Maggie insisted on bringing her boyfriend along, the friend told her not to bother coming. Maggie was being shown a great deal of respect, certainly. But she told me she couldn’t help but feel as though her pregnancy had been "hijacked" by women who felt like her inclusion of a man in the decision was weak or wrong. This was a surprise to me, but I didn’t exactly know how to weigh in.

Ahh. Now we are really exposing the raw nerves behind Byard's disapproval of this whole scene. Women Are Uppity Bitches! Even To Other Women! Byard is SOOO liberal and in-touch, but the Uppity Women just won't fall to their knees in fawning acceptance of his Obviously Superior Intellect, and listen to what he thinks about the Subject of Abortion.

Byard goes on to do a fair amount of navel-gazing about the "proper" place of men in abortion, and pays lip service to the "justifiable anger" women feel when men try to strip away their agency, but his position is clear: Abortion is "icky" and wrong, something those "bad" people do, and women use it as an excuse to wield illegitimate power over men. He couches it in the urban-myth narrative that Slutty Sluts Like Abortion, and even throw "parties" because their abortion-having is so much fun. No, Byard doesn't want to take the choice of abortion away from women, he just wants them to suffer their shame privately, and feel eternally guilty for their choices. Oh, and he wants them to think about The Men &trade first and foremost when making such a decision.

So, #5 is just Byard's way of whinging about how being confronted with abortion squicked him out and how if his girlfriend questioned the authority of his penis got an abortion, he wouldn't be no man-clown and take it up the ass while the whole world watched.

Really. That was the whole point of the exercise. Just like all other urban legends, it was designed as a cautionary tale for those who might defy society's norms and dare to engage in a taboo act. Apparently Byard felt the need to remind all of his gentle readers that he's a man in the know, and no one better try to slice his kidney out in a hotel room... or make him the guest of honor at an "abortion party".

The Economy Has Come Home To Roost

My husband lost his job last week. It sucks. Such is life.

A Consistent Ethic of Life

I've been engaged in some interesting discussions on a site for atheists- Why Wont God Heal Amputees. There was a discussion about abortion, and amazingly enough, I was seeing many of the same woo-based arguments against abortion there that I hear from people heavily invested in religion. It set me to thinking- why haven't I set down my exact beliefs on the value and hierarchy of life? So here it is- my (hopefully) logical and consistent ethic of life.

Life is important to me, because it is the only state of being I know. Non-being is frightening to me because it will deprive me of relationships with other living beings and I will cease to be an agent of action. I assume other people feel the same as I do, as they seem to fear the finality of death, too. I imagine other beings share some of these feelings to some extent as well. Therefore:

I reject killing anything that I do not have to kill. For beings that I am reasonably sure are non-sentient (insects, etc),my threshold for killing is convenience. I will not kill a thing that I am reasonably sure is non-sentient unless it inconveniences me. Example: Spider crawls down the wall. If possible, I catch it and put it outside. If it won't go, or I can't catch it, I kill it. I will preemptively kill non-sentient things if I suspect they may cause me or someone/something I care about harm or major discomfort. Example: I put flea treatment on my dog and cats.

For things that have very limited sentience, my threshold for killing is extreme inconvenience or suspicion of harm or discomfort. Example: a mouse gets in my house. I would try non-lethal traps first, but if I found they were hard to operate or weren't effective, I would call in an exterminator. If I felt there was an infestation, or that the presence of a mouse might compromise my family's health, I would skip to the exterminator.

For things that have some level of sentience, my threshold for killing would be immediate danger. Example: A strange dog comes into the yard, growls, corners my son- I grab first available weapon, and use whatever force is necessary to secure my son's safety. If the dog dies in the process, I have no regrets. I would not kill an "unrurly" or misbehaving house pet unless it became an immediate threat.

Probably fully sentient non-human beings such as great apes or some cetations- I would not kill unless I feared that they were going to imminently attack me with the intent to kill. I would first aim to incapacitate the animal, reserving lethal force as a last resort.

I would not attack a sentient human being with the intent to kill unless it attacked me first, or I feared such an attack was imminent. I would only use lethal force if I felt I had no other resort.

Special circumstances: With regard to abortion, I classify embryos/fetuses as non-sentient beings, and would use that standard. People in a perpetually comatose state or vegetative state, or otherwise totally impaired, would fall under the some level of sentience guidelines. As they would be unlikely to present imminent danger to me or mine, I wouldn't personally kill them, but I would support termination if it was shown the chances for them regaining sentience were minimal, and their continued maintainance was a possible detriment to other people. I would not actively kill or have an animal killed for food above fish, possibly fowl level unless I felt it was necessary, though I will eat food products from higher animals(beef, pork, etc.) that were all ready killed for consumption.

Aw, C'mon! Slut Jokes Are Just SO Funny!

Well, David Letterman apologized for his joke about Sarah Palin's daughter getting "knocked up" at a baseball game by Yankee Alex Rodriguez. Cut the poor guy some slack, though- he didn't know at the time it was a rape joke about a minor- he just thought it was a slutty-slut joke aimed at an 18 year old! See! Doesn't that make all the difference...

I, by no means am a Palin supporter/ apologist. I think the woman's politics are wack, and everything I've heard from the people I know in Alaska would suggest she isn't much of a Governor, either. To an extent, her very own actions made Bristol a media target when she acted like a good politician and a lousy mother, and made Bristol's pregnancy a political issue. That's what wackaloon right wing intolerance will get you- spend long enough harping on the eeevuls of sex and contraception and abortion,and when your minor child turns up pregnant, you can't just "dissapear" the problem like most moneyed and influential people. Oh, no. You've got to sacrifice your daughter and the child she'll eventually have, not to mention your own holier-than-thou facade, on the Altar of Family Values Hypocrisy for the whole world to see. That's how True Believerism works, don't you know? Never mind that it proves all the abstinence stuff to be shit, is narrowing the horizons of a young woman, and consigning a child to the "horrors" of the single parent household railed against so frequently in fundie circles. Those are really small prices to pay for sticking to your guns, right?

No, I don't like Sarah Palin, and I think she has a lot to answer for when it comes to her own actions. But none of that justifies making rape/slut jokes about her kids. Or her, for that matter.

I am so sick of women being nothing more than their place on the Fuckability&trade scale. Everything revolves around how attractive you are to men, or the implication that you aren't attractive to men, and are then only fit for the "lesbos". If you are conventionally pretty and you know it, you are a slutty-slut. If you are conventionally pretty and you don't flaunt it, you are some librarian-prude, or perhaps a cryptolesbian. If you aren't conventionally pretty, you are some "bull dyke", or humorless feminazi, or pathetic Cat Lady, or worse yet- invisible. And whatever you are, you just need to "lighten up" if you find being called any of these things offensive.

Bitchez just can't take a joke.

Can You Really Be A Rational Pro-Lifer?

The short answer to this is "no". Not any more than you can be a rational believer in Christ, or Kali, or Rael. Faith is, by its very nature, irrational. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, mind you. We all have irrational beliefs. However, on issues of public policy which affect the bodily integrity of half the human population of this country, irrational beliefs should not be relied upon.

First, let's look at some definitions (All from Merriam Webster Online).

Reason: a sufficient ground of explanation or of logical defense ; especially : something (as a principle or law) that supports a conclusion or explains a fact d: the thing that makes some fact intelligible : cause

Rational: having reason or understanding b: relating to, based on, or agreeable to reason

Irrational: not governed by or according to reason .

So, when I say something is irrational, I'm not necessarily saying it is stupid. (Though in this situation, I think there is a case to be made that "pro-life" beliefs, are in fact, based on a rather stupid premise). Rather, I am saying it is not backed up by reason.

There is no proof of an embryo or fetus being equivalent to a sentient, born person. As a matter of fact,all scientific proof points to the opposite, with the necessary structures/ brain patterns needed for sentience not being formed until the 24th week. Which, ironically enough, is the standard for viability recognized by Roe v. Wade. Even since the early 70's, that threshold has not advanced appreciably, due to the fact that the structures necessary for independent life just haven't been formed until then. And of course, let's not forget that even at the 24th week, most fetuses will not survive without extensive medical intervention, and even with medical intervention, survival rates are fairly grim.

It is also important to point out that one being involved with the pregnancy is a fully sentient, human person from start to finish- the mother. Of that, there can be no doubt. If the real pro life argument is that all animal life should be valued equally, sentient or otherwise, the killing apes, dogs, flies, or amoebas would carry the same weight and penalty as killing a human. However, I have never seen a "pro-life" support of this particular viewpoint. The only consistent application of this principle I have noted is within Jainism, which does not enjoy a wide following here in the US. As a matter of fact, many "pro-lifers" believe the death penalty is just. Most believe participation in this country's armed forces is honorable and appropriate. Almost all believe killing in self defense is justifiable. And mind you, all of these acts could kill a sentient person, not just a "life" in the generic sense.

So where, exactly, does the "pro-life" movement come from? A recent net phenomenon can be used to explain the "genesis" of the movement. A woman in Chicago blogged about her supposedly doomed pregnancy, gaining support from the pro-life community as they urged her to see the pregnancy on through to the bitter end. The blog and the pregnancy were a hoax, as it turns out, but the emotional outpouring from the faithful was real.

I believe the pro-life movement stems from a clinging to an outmoded model of human development- Preformationism, or the belief in a homonuclus, or fully formed miniature human, residing in the uterus from the moment of conception. That preformationism coincides nicely with the Christian concept of creation is no accident. Quite simply, the pro-life movement seeks to keep alive the fairytale of faith that modern science has threatened to disrupt.

Let's go back to "April's Mom", the hoax blog. When the people reading that blog were urging the supposed mother to continue on with her pregnancy, it is highly doubtful that they were envisioning a developing embryo or fetus at whatever stage of development the pregnancy would indicate. Nor, I am sure, were they envisioning an anencephalic infant, (anencephaly is what the hoax-fetus supposedly suffered from). Instead, they were envisioning the perfect homunculus, a thinking, feeling being trapped in it's mother's womb, wanting only a "chance" at life, a chance to fulfill the God- given purpose it had been patiently waiting to live out since the beginning of time.

Since preformationism posits that conception is merely the setting in motion of a pre-ordaned, pre-made human life, the mother is nothing more than a carrier of this life, tasked to be the intermediary between this world and the next- nothing more. Also, since preformationism is explicitly non scientific, it would look at a diagnosis of anencephaly by the medical establishment with a jaundiced eye. Undoubtedly, there were readers of the "April's Mom" blog who believed the force of their prayers might "cure" the anencephaly, or that the doctors might have been wrong from the start. After all, it is difficult to reconcile the belief that a thinking, feeling entity is just waiting to be born into this world with the reality of a severely deformed fetus missing most of its brain. As a matter of fact, the old preformationist line often held that congenital defect was the fault of some "wickedness" on the part of the mother, or some intervention by the Devil or one of his minions. In the preformationist worldview, perfection is the default mode of all homonuculi- defect is caused by external forces, and is reversible, by acts of the faithful, or God himself.

So, as we can see, there is no rational support for the pro-life position. Scientific evidence conclusively shows that first and second trimester embryos and even some early third trimester fetuses do not possess the structures necessary for independent life, let alone sentience. Christian theology does not call for the absolute respect for and preservation of all life, and US Christians do not practice such across-the-board reverence. While other religions do embrace a wider respect for life, they are not at the center of the US pro-life movement. Absent certain religious convictions that center on the embro/fetus being a pre-formed, pre- ordained human person from the moment of the creation of this world,there is no possible reason for the virulent anti-abortion rhetoric prevalent in this country. I would go further, and say that while a portion of the pro-life movement sees the preformationist belief as reason in itself to reject abortion, there exists a sizable portion of the movement that uses preformationist dogma to enforce a cynical and misogynist worldview that seeks to reestablish firm patriarchal control over women and their bodies as either an end unto itself, or as a way of re-establishing an order of domination thought to be preferable to the Christian God.

Is that really what you want public policy to be informed by?

Who Goes to a Creationist Museum?

You always find the funniest things over at PZ's Place! Yesterday, he was critical of this BBC article about the infamous "Creationist Museum" in Kentucky. While I normally agree with PZ on matters of creationist wackaloonery, I've got to admit that I found this article very funny. It didn't need to be explicitly critical of the museum to thoroughly skewer it, and the kind of people who would go to such a place.

So, who does go to a creation museum?

Dan Schoonmaker, 26, drove 11 hours from Alabama with his family after his wife Kristy heard about the museum in a Bible class. The Army helicopter pilot (who as a member of the military gets in free) described himself as a "creationist in training", admitting it needed "a lot of faith". "I personally don't know, but natural selection seems to be the only thing people go on. It should be more open," he says. "There are sometimes better explanations for things, I mean people thought the earth was flat." Theories other than evolutionary science should be given more prominence and there should be an option to study creationism in schools, with parents given the choice, he believes. "I'm a creationist in training, I don't really go to church but I'm curious about Genesis."


Robert Mailloux
Robert Mailloux, 68, flew 1,200 miles from his home in Colorado Springs just to visit the museum. The retired businessman dismisses Darwin's theory as "not even a low grade hypothesis" and said it had "no substantial science" in it. "The Bible says God created the Earth in six days and we flat believe that. There are over 100 ways science is able to look at the Earth and 90 say it is thousands of years old - only 10 say it's real old." He adds: "The way liberals and evolutionists win an argument is to outlaw freedom of speech... they won't let us in. Why is Darwin buried with kings at Westminster Abbey? He's not a king. He's the king of the atheists' movement, of people who don't want to deal with the guilt that's put on them by sin... it's a weight and a bondage, they become their own God."

Laurie Geesey
Laurie Geesey, 57, made the 560-mile trip from Wisconsin the night before with her husband Richard. The former high school teacher, who says she believes God created "everything visible and invisible", feels people look down on her views "especially under the current [White House] administration". "It interferes with their lifestyle, you know 'If it feels good go ahead and do it' - the Bible doesn't teach that," she says. In fact, she's not sure Darwin believed his own theory. Husband Richard Geesey, 67, a retired university professor, says he was "very impressed" by the museum and liked the fact that scriptures backed up the exhibits. "I believe in a lot of this and wanted to see how accurate it was," he says. "I believe the Earth is around 5,500 years old. If you don't believe in Genesis, you don't believe in anything else."


Scott Rubin
Scott Rubin, 42, says he turned to God late in life. The father-of-three, from Chicago, was a business consultant when he "had an encounter with Jesus" and became a youth pastor. "Evolution is a good theory, I don't believe in it, but parts of it are sensible and parts of creationism are sensible," he says. "When it comes down to it, how can you know for sure? What I do know is God's changed my life. I believe God created the world in six days, I do believe that." Mr Rubin, who is visiting the museum ahead of a baseball game in his home town of Cincinnati, says he grew up in the church but did not pay much attention to it. "I never intended to be the church guy. It makes sense why people believe in evolution, especially if they've not had the encounter with Jesus I've had."

This stuff is priceless. Really. As I said in comments at Pharyngula, this could be an Onion article, only these people, sadly enough, are real. I actually feel bad for these folks. They are obviously searching for meaning, and instead, they are having to settle for a $27 million dollar pseudoscientific fantasyland complete with "tail wagging dinosaurs".

Ironically, Mush and Peanut squared off over this very Creation Museum.

Top Ten Movies

If anyone is out there, I would love to hear what your top 10 movies are in your Netflix queue. A lot of people do this with music on their blogs, and I find it a great way to discover new and exciting songs, so I'm trying it with movies.

The movies at the top of my queue currently ( I count series disks as one place on the list):

1. Ranma 1/2 Outta Control
2. Ju-Rei: The Uncanny
3. Shutter
4. Mahoromatic: Automatic Maiden
5. Rocket Science
6. Please Teacher!
7. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring
8. Kamichu!
9. Carved: The Slit Mouthed Woman
10. City of God

A lot of the stuff on there is anime (Ranma, Mahoromatic, Please Teacher!, Kamichu!). I'm also a big J-horror fan, so that accounts for Ju-Rei, Shutter, and Carved. Rocket Science and City of God were recommended to me by friends who though the movies were "me". Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring is a Korean movie that has been praised for its lush cinematography and profound message.

Stuff that I've watched lately that I liked: The Wrestler, The Amazing Screw-on Head, The Spirit, The Quiet American, Moon Child, Death Note II: The Last Name, L: Save The World.

Like I said, please share your list if you read this! I'm always looking for interesting new movies to watch.