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.
We’ve had to do without Maurice Sendak for a year and half now. The famous author died in May of last year, at 83. Hemant commemorated him here. Sendak is, as the phrase goes, gone, but not forgotten. This weekend marks the 50th anniversary of his Where the Wild Things Are — the dark masterpiece of children’s literature, not least because of its remarkable economy with words (the whole book contains only 338 of them, plus plenty of Sendak’s magical illustrations). Read more
Sioux Falls school board member Kent Alberty has had quite the week, what with the death threats and all. From across the country, he and the four other board members received messages from upset Fox News viewers. Some of the missives were respectful in their criticism, but many more were nasty, even threatening. One anonymous correspondent proposed that the board be lined up against a wall and shot. In an effort to restore some normalcy, The Sioux Falls School District has removed the board members’ personal information from its web site for now, to discourage any more misdirected feedback. What did Alberty and his colleagues do to deserve all that bile? That’s the crazy part. They decided to honor the proposal of a local war veteran to make elementary and middle-school students recite the Pledge of Allegiance. In fact, the board then went further, voting to make the same requirement of students at high school assemblies. A local news outlet published a clumsy or erroneous headline that implied the Pledge had been dropped. The Fox team got wind of it, and next thing the Sioux Falls board knew, Megyn Kelly was on the air, sneering at the godless school authorities, essentially leading the braying Fox Nation into the inevitable two minutes hate. Read more
Sylvia Browne just died, as Hemant noted. I hope she went in peace, without any of the pain and anguish that she habitually caused in the hearts of bereaved parents whom she fed unadulterated bullshit about their disappeared, dead, sometimes murdered children. Here are Browne’s 14 final predictions. Are they any good? You be the judge. (via Illuminutti) Read more
My kids are 8 and 11 years old. You’d better believe that neither of them would be allowed to scream at me like the boy in this video (whose name, interestingly enough, is Christian) does when he confronts his atheist mom. Then again, being a parent is sailing in largely uncharted waters. I certainly don’t have all the answers, either. Read more
Up to 22,000 survivors of Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda are finally receiving some international assistance: Donations of more than 12,000 rosaries and 10,000 scapulars. (Quick, someone notify Joe Klein!) A CBCP [Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines] News report said the religious articles came from Jocelyn Bernina, a staff member of John Aboitiz Carcovich through God the Father Foundation, Inc. and a friend of CBCP Media Office director Msgr. Pedro Quitorio III. But there’s even more good news: Last week, the pro-life prayer support group ‘Rosary for Life’ donated to CBCP an initial 3,000 rosaries followed by another 10,000. Very generous. I’ve made a little infographic to help you understand what’s going on here. Read more
