Terry Firma, though born and Journalism-school-educated in Europe, has lived in the U.S. for the past 20-odd years. Stateside, his feature articles have been published in the New York Times, Reason, Rolling Stone, Playboy, and Wired. Terry was the founder and Main Mischief Maker of Moral Compass, a now-dormant site that pokes fun at the delusional claim by people of faith that a belief in God equips them with superior moral standards. He was the Editor-in-Chief of two Manhattan-based magazines until he decided to give up commercial publishing for professional photography... with a lot of blogging on the side. These days, he lives in an old seaside farmhouse in Maine with his wife, three kids, and two big dogs.
At least once or twice a decade, a new, manufactured drug panic breaks out. In the late eighties and early nineties, it was crack, the form of cocaine that national media like Time wrongly blamed for all kinds of uniquely horrible outcomes. Then came jenkem, a substance that yellow journalists and gullible authorities claimed was an inhalable hallucinogen made from human waste. The idea that this was actually a thing was mostly made up; and when too many people started looking like idiots for having propagated the nonsense, they moved on to the next panic du jour. Enter bath salts (users gnaw people’s faces off!), Meow Meow (kills scores of unsuspecting young people!), Krokodil (partakers become rotting zombies!), and, finally, Flakka (induces uncontrollable rage and screaming!). Read more
Earlier today, with my post about Maverick Dean Bryan, we visited the familiar outcome that can occur when Christianity intersects with mental illness. While we’re on that topic, let’s spare a thought for the Thompson family’s formerly white poodle. Dad Patrick Zane Thompson, of Goodyear, Arizona, was so upset over a “satanic” shirt his daughter had allegedly worn that even after he burned the garment, he became convinced that he needed something more to appease the Lord. A male sacrifice was just the ticket. Read more
When an Arkansas Christian named Maverick Dean Bryan, 55, tried to get the Bible onto the state’s public school curriculum, he sent threatening letters to the mayors of seven towns, telling them that unless they replaced the Common Core curriculum with the Good Book, they were going to be hanged from one of the local “mighty oaks.” And that was just the beginning of a Christian revolution that would cause the deaths of hundreds or even thousands. Read more
Via the National Post: The new Brazilian president’s first pick for science minister was a creationist. He [also] chose a soybean tycoon who has deforested large tracts of the Amazon rain forest to be his agriculture minister. And he is the first leader in decades to have no women in his Cabinet. Read more
On Friday, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas gave the 2016 commencement address at Hillsdale College in Michigan. It was an uneven performance. The supposedly brilliant jurist didn’t know the difference between demure and demur (8:52), struggled to get the Latin phrase ab initium out of his mouth (14:29), botched a Lincoln quotation (16:43), and was even reduced to pronouncing the word defy three times before he hit pay dirt (20:00). Read more
