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.
Back in January, I bookmarked an interview with well-known charlatan Susan Miller (pictured, center) that was published in the U.K. Observer — but the paper didn’t call her that. Her fans never do, of course, and journalist Aaron Hicklin is a fanboy for sure. He declared himself bewitched by “America’s most popular astrologer,” and gushed that she is … garrulous, warm and utterly unpretentious. She is also, according to her many, many fans, uncannily accurate. Well then, by all means, let’s… Read more
When the notorious uber-Christian Roy Moore, who was re-elected Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court in 2012, gets together with a fawning audience in Jackson, Mississippi, the results don’t disappoint. Or maybe they do, depending on how strong your stomach is for Moore’s preacherly delivery and his infamously blinkered views. A newly-released video, apparently taken in January during a ‘Pastor for Life” luncheon but uploaded to YouTube just a few days ago, shows the judge as he displays an amazing lack of knowledge of non-Christian faiths by erroneously calling Buddha a god and stating that Muslims think that Mohammed, not Allah, is their Creator. Read more
Of all the groups qualifying for the title “scum of the earth,” Nigeria-based Boko Haram gets my vote. I’ve written about these cruelest of child killers and rapists before. Their strategy and focus is markedly different from their Islamist brethren. You see, Boko Haram — a name that means “Western education is sinful” — consists of violent fundies who love targeting schools, teachers, and students, in a series of loathsome acts not seen since Muslim terrorists killed almost 400 pupils and teachers in Beslan, Russia. Education is no accidental target, the Guardian’s Jill Filipovic reminds us: [Boko Haram] correctly understand that education sets girls on a path to economic independence and self-reliance. Education also makes girls (and women) less dependent on men, less subservient to authority and less acquiescent to the social and religious strictures that don’t serve girls’ overall interests — educated women are more likely to refuse practices like female genital cutting, for instance, better able to resist domestic violence, and less tolerant of discrimination. The group has been back in the news thanks to the monstrous April 14 kidnapping of 276 girls. Read more
These subtly desaturated images are the work of Swedish photographer David Magnusson, who worked on his U.S. Purity Balls project on and off for a year. The photos will culminate in a book, scheduled to be released in August. My (agnostic) friend Kristi, who spotted the portraits at Flavorwire, wrote me a message today saying she was nauseated and observed that “the dads’ hands/arms are wrapped around these girls like prison bars.” But Magnusson may disagree: Read more
