Rational Crank

It just so happens that the Space Shuttle’s return trajectory takes it directly over my home, here in Orlando.   Each time, it passes overhead, early in the morning, I am suddenly jolted awake by two loud bangs.   The sonic booms rattle the windows of my old house and scare the cat.   On every one of those occasions I smile briefly, roll over in bed and fall back to sleep, content.   I am content not only in knowing that a group of fellow human beings is now once again safe   on mother earth but also content in the knowledge that there is another group of brave people still in space.   Like most Americans, I find immense inspiration in manned space flight.   I believe that the trip to the moon was, hands down, humanities greatest achievement.   I am sorry to see the Shuttle program come to an end, which is why it is hard for me to admit that I also believe that the decision to end the shuttle program was the right thing to do.   Because of th...

I just saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows part deuce . Loved it. It was much better than the last movie, Harry Potter and the Wandering Aimlessly for Two Hours . I’m going to talk specifics about the movie, so if you haven’t seen it yet put your fingers in your ears and sing “La, la la,” for a few minutes. I just want to make a quick statement about a minor controversy going around concerning Potter and religion. No, I’m not going to address the fear some Christians express that J.K. Rollins books are bad because they contain magic. I’m going to brush that aside as quickly as if I had a flying broom. CS Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia is full of magic and Christians don’t have a problem with that. So I’m calling poppycock on that controversy. I’m talking about the other popular opinion going around: that Harry Potter himself is a Christ figure because he is willing to sacrifice himself for humanity (or at least for all of Wizard-dum.) On that observation, I’m going to have to sa...

Check out the the magazine The Humanist for July/August.  They were kind enough to publish two, count them TWO , of my articles.  I wrote Real to Reel , which is a list of my favorite Humanist films.  I also interviewed Andrea Steele, Founder and Executive Director of the Freethought Film Festival , held last month in Tampa.  I hope you enjoy the read.

Will I get a raise? Is my boyfriend cheating on me? Should I take that job in Poughkeepsie? I am amused that psychics who claim to talk to the dead seem to restrict their inquiries to such mundane questions. It seems to me that “mediums,” such as John Edward, who supposedly possess the incredible skills of being able to converse with people beyond the grave, are doing humanity a enormous disservice by not asking more significant questions. I’ve been thinking about this and have come up with a few questions (if given the opportunity) I would  ask a dead person. What’s the temperature there? I know that sounds like a dumb question, but consider the implications for science if it were established that there really was an afterlife. Physics alone would progress by leaps and bounds if given just a little information about the physical properties of another dimension. Are there atoms or is there magnetism in heaven? Is there any matter at all? Is there...

The Internet Abuse Recovery Course is an eight step program, designed to get you off the wireless I.V. cold turkey. It is run by Reverend Julius K Tanly, a former social worker and Best Buy computer repair technician. It was a muggy evening in August and the meeting was being held in the basement of the 127th street Community Center. I was there to satisfy a court order in connection with a chat room etiquette infraction. As I waited for the meeting to get started I surveyed the other social defects around me. I’ve seen all these types before. Sure, there were the hackers and the scam artists (those are just common criminals) but there were also the real deviants - the cretins whose pictures you see in the center square of the Wal-Mart Bingo, websites. Hovering next to the doughnuts, was a guy who can’t stop posting LOL cat photos. I spotted him first, because he had maine coon hair stuck to his 5 o’clock shadow and his clothes smelled heavily of urine. Like all the people of his i...

NPR, Washington Post, CBS News, Time Magazine, this guy is getting a lot of press. If I were Harold Camping, let me tell you what I would do. (If you don’t know, Harold Camping is the guy behind all those billboards that say the world will be ending on May 21st.) If I were Harold, I would disappear on the 21st, lay low, check into a hotel under another name or go sleep in an RV someplace where I would not be identified. Then about two weeks later, I would just pop up on my Family Radio show and say I’ve been to heaven. That’s right, I would say, I have seen the almighty himself, and he has sent me back to deliver wisdom and knowledge to you, the unworthy and smelly masses. If Camping did that, he would be an instant messiah. It wouldn’t matter if most people wouldn’t believe him. He would still increase his following by about a thousand percent. He wouldn’t even have to be careful about his disappearance. If later, let’s say, some investigative reporter where to figure out where he ...