My favorite tea party pic.

So she's....a poop? Don't tell my kids: they're at that age and will never stop laughing. Image from here.

So then I made this:



They don't need my hits, but Red State Update is definitely worth a watch today.

Fundraiser day two (of three)

One of my more generous contributors added a note to her paypal contribution:

Mommy wine money ought to be deductible on Sched A as a medical expense.

At the very least, blogger mommy coffee money should be deductible! Thanks to everyone who has five bucks and is willing to share it. (The button below only allows five dollar contributions. If you want to customize your contribution use the button on the sidebar). And thanks.

Your turn to go down on the cake, my friend.

Happy First Year (BABY) Blogiversary to one of Steve Gilliard's grandblogbabies, Rehctaw. Leave comments and well-wishes over there. xo

Bill O'Reilly know$ my $ecret $ource of ca$h!

Seriously folks, I wanted to get Blog Against Theocracy over with before I did my quarterly fundraiser. Because times are SO tough right now I'm only asking those with five bucks to give, to give it here.

This button will ONLY allow five dollar donations. (There is a button on the sidebar that will allow more, thanks, but for the fundraiser I'm only asking for five dollar donations).

I ask for contributions four times a year not because it pays for anything more than toner and coffee for a week or so, but because it gives the writer in me and the reader in you a sense of mutual appreciation and exchange for value. If you have it to give, and appreciate what I do, kick five bucks in the hat. And thanks much for being here at my corner of the internet.

Salon tonight 9 Eastern

Hope to see you next week! (We learned last week that this app works mostly on Firefox and on other browsers not so much.)

Good morning.

Kids come home from their spring break trip this afternoon. I've been happy busy this week, sewing, cleaning (yeah), knitting and visiting. Plus the fabulous Blog Against Theocracy (submit here, ends today). I want to do a lot more next year to promote that with the corporate media, and I could use some help. Brainstorm on that if you will...

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And I sometimes feel like a failure for having moved from the congressional district of Spencer "socialists are taking over Congress" Bachus to the congressional district of John "Bible will say when the world ends and I've got the 'energy' industry campaign dollars to prove it" Shimkus**. I'm le tired.

** Exelon and Ameren sound like such nice, generous, caring electric and gas utilities. BTW, Shimkus also says capping C02 emissions will "steal plant food." I'm sure he meant, COAL plants, people!

It isn't too late!

I'll be posting submissions to Blog Against Theocracy received before Monday night at 9 Eastern. Please use the submission form here to send me your post's url. I can't really keep track otherwise. Thanks to everyone who has participated!

Saturday Song - 4 ma gurls

Because when they get back from Spring Break, we're gonna dance to this one fo' sho.

A memo to non-believers about Blog Against Theocracy

[image above from Tengrain, and the post below revised from 2007.]


Dear non-believers, athiests, and others participating in Blog Against Theocracy from a position different from my own:

Thank you.

Thank you for participating, and for your open-mindedness and love toward this little Christian lady.

Here's something paraphrased from some earlier posts, but which really say what I want to say.

So often I talk or email with fellow lefties who have just had it with the religious right to the point that they can't stand Christianity or even religion in general. It's as if there is such a slippery slope in their minds between any admission of faith and total fundamentalism that it's just not worth it to go down that path. No religion is better than any religion, because in the end we all become Pat Robertson or Al Qaeda.

I'm actually quite sympathetic to those lefties who think they hate Christianity. Funny thing is when you engage with atheists in conversation, a great many of them think Jesus was a cool guy, and some actually revere him. Even those who reject Christianity outright are not nearly so angry as they let on.

Let me point something out here, again. Jesus of Nazareth was nailed to a tree by the political and religious CONSERVATIVES of his day because they mistakenly thought they had power and that he threatened that power. ANY Christian, myself included, who thinks they would have rescued Jesus from the cross, that certainly WE wouldn't have gone along with Pilate and Judas and abandoned him like Peter, are just kidding themselves. And those right-wingers who think they're really serving the cause of Jesus by electing Republicans, or working to make America a "Christian" nation? Little Christian ladies can say fuck off, can't they?

It's that the religious right/Republican Party has so often set the discourse that "God/Jesus equals us" that some of us lefties tend to believe that. Rejecting hate speech, intolerance, and fundamentalism becomes rejecting all religion.

But see, I love Jesus, and I'm strongly committed to making sure YOUR right NOT to believe is protected. I also believe, while we're at it, that I would be SINNING against my God to attempt to convert you. That's His provence. And if I believe (and I struggle to, at least) that God is Love and that God loves his creation, I think smart, funny, gifted non-believing bloggers have one of the better tables at Divine Love's cocktail party. You certainly do at mine.

Here's the deal about Christians, though. We're not all Pat Robertson, and I refuse to allow the Religious Right to define what Christianity is, for me, or for my readership.

Blog against Theocracy is this weekend. Everyone is welcome.

Blog Against Theocracy - MUST you do it Easter Weekend?

I had a lovely email exchange with a potential writer for Blog Against Theocracy. He is a sincere, believing Catholic and was happy to participate, but objected to the timing of the blogswarm. I completely understand his position, which from my perspective appeared to be more about the writer's own spiritual practice this weekend rather than a judgment about other participants and their piety or lack thereof.

Blog Against Theocracy has always been held Easter Weekend. That is not a slam on Jesus or a silly way to put down religion or Christians. As many of you know, I am a believing Christian myself, although a great many participants to the blogswarm are not. Belief or not has nothing to do with supporting separation of church and state.

There are two good reasons to time the blogswarm during the Easter holiday. One, I admit, is the selfish motive that Easter Weekend is one of the two times a year when the media actually cover religious issues in the United States with a broad stroke.

The other reason, speaking as a believer, is that Easter is a time when what is divinely good triumphs over human will. If you look at Pilate as a purely secular leader (a stretch) and the Pharisees who demanded Pilate kill Jesus as the self-preserving conservative church of Jesus' day (not a stretch, not at all), it is possible to see the Easter story as a perfect allegory of a power-seeking Church and a pandering State's conspiracy failing utterly to destroy Truth and Reason.

If thinking along those lines interferes with what anyone feels is their right practice of faith during this weekend, post later or earlier and I'll be sure to include you. In any event I will be posting links starting tomorrow.

Happy Spring. Two reminders....

Barney Frank is at a live chat at Crooks and Liars this afternoon at 3 Eastern/noon Pacific. I hope the blogs have a good turnout to meet with this curmudgeonly warrior for Our Side.

There was some confusion yesterday with a submitter on the correct link to use for Blog Against Theocracy. Submit your posts here. This link works.

Thanks and Happy Wednesday.

Thank you, Mister President

I still don't understand or appreciate the whole faith-based office you insist on. If you're considering walking a fine line between The Constitution and the Christian Taliban, Mister President, look for me on the side of "Congress shall make no law respecting..."

But right here you made me feel real good.



Everyone posting this to Youtube seems to be a wingnut Christianist claiming Obama is Satan. Oh, well. If you're reading this from that perspective, guess what? The blog against theocracy blogswarm is all about you.

Salon is Monday nights, 9 Eastern

See you next week!

Happy Holy Week. Blog against theocracy.

one of my favorite Post Secrets

I posted the following during an earlier blogswarm but it bears repeating:

...As a self-professed Christian, and that's really all I can lay claim to, my own sins keep me busy 24/7/365. I'm either doing 'em or repenting 'em, and hopefully the good outweighs the bad.

A significant number of religionists actually GET IT that the freedom to practice their religion comes from the glorious gift of the First Amendment to the US Constitution. And actually, separation of church and state goes back farther than that. There was this old timey Jewish preacher who said something once about render unto Caesar...

I'm so excited and supportive of this blogswarm, I can't tell you. And what is most exciting is the participation of atheist and science bloggers, who are smart and thoughtful and well, I'm just honored to be doing something with them.

I really hope this blogswarm does more than just let the world know how we feel about the separation of Church and State. I hope it improves and awakens how we feel about each other. I may be a "believer" whatever the hell that means, but I can't have too many smart, funny, and fascinating, atheists, scientists, agnostics, LGBT bloggers, etc. etc. around here. Who the hell did JESUS hang out with, anyway?

IMO, Jesus wouldn't have a beer with some "saved" politician or hypocritical preacherman today, even if they were buying. For me, God is Love, and Mind, and Truth. And this blogswarm is all about those.

Thanks for participating.


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Careful with that wand, photoshoppers.

It's just wrong to create more than is there.

Take Michelle Obama's eyes. Her right eye squints happily when she smiles. And let's face it, her face is very well-known and recognizable.



So when you, Ebony Magazine, hire someone to cut the image of her left eye and reverse-paste it onto her right, um....



It STOPS LOOKING LIKE HER.

And don't get me started about the NY Times video I sent to Shakes. Taking four fashion models and morphing them into one picture is just stupid. Not to mention the whole unreal image of femininity and beauty that image-modification promotes.

My real worry is that late at night on deadline you'll start pasting the wrong Michelle and just completely gross us all out.

An early Easter gift from GOP Chairman Michael Steele

But of course, Steele himself is just the gift that keeps on giving.

The GOP 2009 "membership survey," yeah, (h/t to the lovely LitBrit, who unless she's blogging elsewhere, needs to blog here more, just saying) has enough to keep bloggers busy all the live-long week, even if we weren't composing blog against theocracy masterpieces.

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What technology would you like to see the RNC make better use of to grow our Party? Check all that apply.

( ) More Aggressive E-mail Campaigns
( ) More Aggressive Text Messages
( ) More Aggressive use of Twitter

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A recent national poll reported that nearly 25% of Americans want the government to pass more socialism. Do you agree or disagree?


I would really love it if the GOP decided to use text messaging and Twitter to expand their message of more tax cuts for the rich, psycho-paranoia about North Korea and Messicans, and hatred of The Gay.

Thanks for the flowers, Michael, I'll put the detachable white plastic made-in-China Jesus statue smack in the middle of my front yard.

Saturday Song

For my gal pal Melissa at Shakespeare's Sister, who loves Morrissey, like, a lot. Rock on, ma hunnies.

Hitting the road

Why yes, I am drinking this morning's coffee from my "Fuck Off, I'm Knitting" mug sent to me by my friend Akabini, but it's not directed at anyone specifically, just the abstract universe in general.

The kids are being picked up after school to go vacationing with their dad for ten days. I'm off to yarn-store-explore at Sunday Knits with a good friend north of here.

Happy Friday everyone!

Proof that not all 'panties' are approved here at BG.

Bible Verse Tramp Stamp [also wrong]. Thanks Tengrain and others for keeping me in the loop about the evil that his HK.

Blog Against Theocracy - focus and planning

A reminder to everyone that weekend-after-next, April 10-12, is Blog Against Theocracy. This is a blogswarm in favor of separation of church and state. If you are not a blogger, read on for an opportunity to participate anyway.

I will be focusing my posts on Obama's Faith-Based mumbo jumbo, as well as the whole Prop 8/Gay Marriage issue. Those two issues are key this year. Blog on whatever you like (local angles are particularly appreciated) and make sure you're on topic. Athiests, agnostics, believers, all are welcome to post, but the topic is "separation of church and state," not "why I hate that non-existent God guy" or "the day Jesus came down from heaven and told me to blog for socialism." Those are great topics and might be fab, but they are not BAT posts.

Here are three other websites I recommend as a resource for your posts:

Americans United for the Separation of Church and State

The ACLU's Religion Page

Talk2Action

If you are not a blogger, let me recommend:

StreetProphets or Daily Kos, both of which allow diaries. Street Prophets (part of Kos but run by different editors) is a pro-religion website.


Everyone who is on topic will be included with a link at the main BAT website.

Submit your posts to Blog Against Theocracy here.


PS. If you write something great on any topic over the next four days, send me a link to the POST'S PERMALINK URL. I'm linking at the big blog for Mike through April 6. bluegalsblog AT gmail etc.