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.
Nicolly Pereira, a toddler from Brazil, can see now. But thanks to whom? The two-year-old was born with pediatric glaucoma and couldn’t even distinguish dark from light. After seven surgeries in her hometown were unsuccessful, Nicolly’s plight filtered out onto Facebook, prompting a few kind people to raise enough money for an operation at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami. You can imagine the joy felt by all involved, and the happy tears shed by many, including Nicolly’s mother, when the little girl began recognizing shapes and faces. But you know what comes next… Read more
More than 40 people of prominence have written letters to a judge, requesting mercy for Dennis Hastert, the former Speaker of the House who is awaiting sentencing in a bank fraud and perjury case. Formally, Hastert is merely facing the music for illegally-structured cash withdrawals, and for lying to federal authorities about what the cash was for. But it’s Hastert’s sexual abuse of at least four boys under his care that has most people a lot more upset. The cash was hush money that Hastert paid to someone who knew his secret. The statute of limitations has run out on the child abuse, so Hastert faces at most six month in jail — for skirting banking regulations, and for his fibs to the FBI. But even that measly sentence is inhumane, believes Tom DeLay, the former U.S. House Majority Leader, and no stranger to financial shenanigans himself. Read more
You may have seen Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård at work in flicks like Good Will Hunting, Dancer in the Dark, and David Fincher’s version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. He’s always interesting to watch, and that’s no different in this TV appearance. Not all interviewers are created equal, and Fredrik Skavlan, who got Skarsgård to join him in the studio, is probably more vapid than most. In a conversation about religion, he erroneously asks why Skarsgård, an atheist and humanist, has “attacked God,” and then wants to know if the actor has honestly never thought that there must be a Creator “out there.” Through it all, you can see Skarsgård struggling, and succeeding, to stay polite in the midst of his host’s perplexity. All the same, he doesn’t beat around the bush. Read more
Can we trust National Geographic to take a truthful, fact-based look at atheism? I was, honestly, a little skeptical. The publication has a 2,000-word piece about atheism under the somewhat taunting headline “The World’s Newest Major Religion: No Religion.” So we’re not off to a good start. Read more