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.
I thought I’d share a warm and fuzzy update in the renewed legislative fight of seven Democratic and three Republican lawmakers to have kids “enjoy” a daily prayer — sorry, I mean “a moment of silence” — in South Carolina public schools. As I noted in my previous post about the initiative, there can be no mistake about what this forced daily silence is intended to do. One of the bill’s sponsors, Rep. Wendell Gilliard, stated that The essential part of the bill, the important part, is putting prayer back in school.” Read more
This post is a twofer. First, I’m happy to share the news that the American wannabe jihadist Colleen LaRose has been given a ten-year prison term for conspiring to murder the Swedish artist Lars Vilk. Via the BBC: Colleen LaRose, 50, who dubbed herself Jihad Jane, admitted in 2011 she sought to kill [Swedish artist] Lars Vilks and recruited others to the cause. She faced up to a life term but a judge reduced her sentence in part because she co-operated with investigators. “I don’t want to be into jihad no more,” LaRose said at the hearing. Mr Vilks was targeted after he drew a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a dog. Here’s that artwork again: Read more
We know that too many soldiers suffer horrible mental scars. Hundreds of thousands of American troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan have been diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. (For a deeply affecting photo essay of one PTSD sufferer, click here.) They live, as the popular phrase goes, “battling demons.” Army machine-gunner Caleb Daniels is one of them. His best friend and seven other members of his unit died when their helicopter crashed in Afghanistan. Daniels was supposed to have been on it. The 2005 tragedy haunted him when he returned to his home in Savannah, Ga. At night, a tall, shadowy figure crept into his room. Sometimes the Black Thing would threaten to kill him; other times it would choke his dead best friend. Read more
When, in the Democratic primary of this past fall, Gwen Goodwin decisively lost her race for a New York City Council position, she decided that her defeat was perhaps the result of supernatural forces. Now Goodwin has filed a million-dollar lawsuit against her winning rival, Melissa Mark-Viverito, alleging the infliction of “emotional distress.” Goodwin charges that under Mark-Viverito’s direction, a mural of a blue rooster’s head balancing on wooden slats was painted on the side of her building. Mark-Viverito was the head of an urban-art campaign launched last summer called Los Muros Hablan (“the walls speak”). The effort celebrates Latino culture by painting murals on walls across the five boroughs. … “According to neighbors of Puerto Rican and other backgrounds, in the Caribbean culture, [the rooster image] constituted a curse and a death threat, as a swastika or a noose would symbolize typically to many Jews or African-Americans,” Goodwin alleges in a Manhattan Supreme Court suit she filed Friday. This is the mural in question. It’s plenty attractive, except maybe for followers of voodoo or Santeria. Read more
