Yankee Tag Blog

I’ve been keeping busy in my off hours by consulting with a local Search Engine Optimization specialty firm.  AuraDev, a web design and web marketing company, has been helping local clients in the Portland, Oregon metro area by building and growing their web presences, and ultimately growing their clients’ bottom lines.  I’ve been helping with a few of my special super-marketer talents: keyword building, dynamic content generation, and web marketing strategizing.

This has been keeping me busy.  That’s not an excuse; just an explanation.  If you miss me, you can always hire me through AuraDev.

I’m back at the airport for my third flight of the month. I’m starting to recognize airport personnel and other frequent travelers. This probably indicates that my flights are delayed too often, at least more so than it indicates that I’m observant by nature.

Passing through security this morning I learned two things: 1) it’s ok to bring CPAP machines through the security checkpoint, but you have to take it out of your bag just like you would a laptop, and 2) apparently there is some doubt among TSA employees as to whether X-rays can pass through neoprene (wet suit material).

Perhaps I’m just being rude (it’s been known to happen), but at 5:00 am, I would prefer as little discussion and commotion as possible as I proceed through the understaffed security checkpoint. The overly awake “greeter” (a new feature I’ve noticed at the security point at PDX) loudly gives the same instructions as the monitor placed directly overhead. (Remember 3-1-1 to speed my screening process.) One of her instructions is to please take out any laptops, video recorders, or CPAP machines out and place them in a bin for security screening. CPAP Machines? Is it really that common to travel with CPAP machines that we need to announce this? I’m a reasonably intelligent guy, and I had no idea what this was until I looked it up on Wikipedia. So they can’t be that common. And at 5:00 in the morning, we probably don’t need to announce this in our “outside voices”.

So I’m undressing into the grey plastic bins to be run through the X-ray machine. My normal routine is to pull my laptop out of its neoprene case (more like a sleeve, really) and place the laptop on top of the case in the bin. It’s a new laptop, and I’d really hate to get it scratched up as bad as my old laptop. I’ve been going through this exact same routine on every flight since March, when I bought my fancy new laptop. Today an overzealous and underinformed (the worst possible combination) TSA agent stops me and says that the computer must go through by itself. These guys don’t have the easiest job (although that’s mostly their fault, IMO), but nevertheless, I feel obliged to point out that I’d really rather not have my new laptop resting directly on the rickety old grey plastic bin, and would prefer, instead, to have it resting on my case. I have, as I patiently pointed out, complied with instructions by removing it from my baggage and by passing it through in its own bin. At this point, the gentleman (if he can be called that) argues that the the X-ray machine might have trouble passing through the case, and that they need to get a good look.

Ok, so I’m no radiological technician, but it seems pretty clear to me that X-rays can pass through neoprene. Especially if they can pass through cheap grey plastic bins. And especially considering that unless I miss my guess, the X-rays don’t pass through from the bottom of the machine, through the conveyor belt, but rather from the top or sides. You know, the part where the big tunnel is… Hey, I could be wrong, I’ll admit that. But it seems like a pretty stupid way to design the machine. Which would make sense if the TSA agent designed it. But I’m guessing he didn’t. I started to point this out, but I thought to myself, “Fuck it, it’s just a Dell.”

On a side note, I find myself getting frustrated with a lot of people. Usually it’s at their place of employment, when I’m forced to interface with them. Call me a terrible person, because you’re right, but I always take solace in one thing: They have reached the absolute pinnacle of their career. And here they are: bagging groceries, waving traffic signs, or in this case, repeating the phrase “please remove your shoes and place them in a grey plastic bin to run through the X-ray machine.” (It’s a good thing I don’t wear neoprene shoes…)

My brother reminded me that I haven’t posted in far too long. It’s not that I’ve had something better to do, I’ve just been working like crazy. So, I’m sitting at the airport at 5 in the morning and find myself with an abundance of free time (25 minutes = abundance) and I thought, “what the heck, I’ll post to my blog that nobody reads.”

I don’t really have anything creative or important to write about. So I’m going to tell you two things that I always think of, and that my girlfriend is sick of hearing me say.

1) If your job is to hold a sign, you are worthless. You’re replacing a stick. In fact, whoever hired you thought it was easier to pay you your tiny salary, than to buy a stick. This goes for the sign twirlers in front of the new condominiums everywhere you go, the guys working the mall during the holiday rush, and the (always overly dirty) people holding the “slow” signs in front of construction work on the road. I can’t possibly imagine how terrible it would feel to know that your job could be replaced by something that cavemen invented.

2) Regarding pizza boxes: the instructions should be on every side. I’ve never once pulled out a box of frozen pizza from the freezer and thought to myself, “hmmm, I sure would like to read about the history of the Totino’s brand,” or, “Gosh, I wonder what makes DiGiorno taste so good, is it their ingredients?” Never. Every single time, I’m looking for the instructions. Just the instructions. Because I want to eat some fucking pizza. So put the instructions on every side of the box. Mark my words, whichever brand figures this out first, I will only buy their pizza from now on. Imagine a perfect world where you pull a pizza out of the freezer, and right there staring back at you are baking instructions. Imagine if they weren’t hidden in tiny-ass font on the side of the box, but rather, in GIANT BOLD WRITING on every side: BAKE AT 350° FOR 12-15 MINUTES. That would rock my world.  And probably my BMI.

Also, on a total sidenote: I voted today.  For Ron Paul.  It’s sad that the exact same thing would happen whether I mail my ballot in or throw it away in the nearest trash can (actually, recycle bin, I don’t throw away paper…).  But it’s principle.  And it’s important.  I also am reading the best book ever, and I encourage you to check it out.  The Revolution: A Manifesto

Today is “Earth Day,” which I’ve only just now found out. What a ridiculous holiday. The idea is that we celebrate the Earth and worry about all of the terrible things we’re doing it it (more on that later). What kind of a holiday is that? It isn’t enough that I feel guilty every day? Now we’re setting aside days to feel especially guilty.

So today I’m thinking about global warming, overpopulation, pollution, fossil fuel depletion, and other myths. You know how I know these are myths? I’ve compiled my entire list of reasons:

1. President Bush says these are myths and won’t allow federal funds to be used to research these lies.

And let me just play devil’s advocate for a minute and pretend that these things actually exist. Who cares? The Rapture will be any day now, and we don’t need the earth anymore anyway.

Oh boy, it has been a whirlwind week! On Thursday I left town to do a little camping with my friends. It was my buddy Chris’ bachelor party and we decided that it would be fun to spend three days shooting at things in the forest. We brought like 20 guns and over $1500 of ammo. So, needless to say, we had a good time.

Day one: we drove up to some BLM land in the middle of BFE. We brought lots, and lots of guns. And tons of alcohol (always a good combination). And tents, and manly stuff, like steak and bacon and jerky. We went shooting in a couple of places. It was pretty rad. The highlight: practicing drive-by shooting with Chris’ illegally modified short-barreled 9mm rifle. With Gangsta Rap on. Like OGs. White and Asian OGs. When we got back to camp, after chopping some firewood, we played a fun game that I like to call: “Try to start a fire with sopping wet wood.” We lost the game. I really don’t understand how forest fires happen, I can’t light a fire to save my life. So Rob, J, and Colin drove into town to get dry firewood and some DuraFlame logs, while Chris and I stayed back to practice catching hypothermia. Once we finally got the fire going we ate sausages roasted over an open flame, like real men. Then we smoked pipes and toasted Chris while taking turns taking swigs from a bottle of moonshine. J took a massive pull off the bottle to finish it off.  We drank the bottle down in about fifteen minutes, which is better than it sounds considering it tasted like rubbing alcohol mixed with sorghum.  J was pretty drunk, which led to the quote of the evening, “I got invited to the bad kind of threesome, two dudes and a guy”.

Day two: went back into town for more supplies. It was my goal to make something blow up. I bought a can of propane, a can of aerosol starter fluid, a flare, and something called “Fire Paste”. First I lit the Fire Paste and set the propane can in front of it. I sniped it from about 100 yards with a 30-06 that Rob brought. The can flew 60 yards. Towards us. The Fire Paste wasn’t able to withstand the explosion. Next I set up a lit road flare. I tried shooting the can of lighter fluid from 100 yards, but was having trouble hitting it, so Chris took a shot. It blew way the fuck up. The rocks around where it had been sitting continued to burn for ten minutes. I walked over and shot the can with a 12 gauge just to make sure it was dead. Then we played some fun and completely unsafe games involving skeet. (The kind you shoot. With guns. Like the orange clay things, shit, get your mind out of the gutter…) It was fun, cause we got to do all of the things that we normally get kicked off of the shooting range for trying.  We went back to camp and grilled up some steaks over the fire before packing up.

Day two point five: We drove back home to see a movie with Alex. We saw “Street Kings”. Worst. Movie. Ever. I promise. It’s 109 minutes of my life that I’ll never have back. So, of course, Chris loved it. Which is all that really mattered. We kicked my girlfriend out of our condo, and crashed there. And then I got up four hours later and got ready for my flight to New Orleans.

New Orleans was interesting, I’ll give it that. I’m not sure what was so “new” about it. It was a giant tourist trap, and really overpriced. Nevertheless, I got to see live jazz, got drunk off my ass, and bought souvenirs. So I can’t really complain. They had a bunch of cool art galleries that never seemed to be open. The one thing I was disappointed about: there is only one kind of food in New Orleans. Creole. If you don’t want a bowl of all of the primary foodgroups stirred together into some type of mushy stew, too bad, that’s what you get. And, I know somebody is going to hate me for this, but I just have to say: I totally understand why the city hasn’t really been rebuilt, three years post Katrina. The people there seem quite comfortable living in slums and abandoned buildings. Don’t get me wrong, they were nice. And also lazy, trashy, and gross. Good to see the money I donated helped so much.

My very favorite artist, Richard St. Ofle is always up for a good prank. On somebody else. And this year he promised to actually fool me (which is notoriously hard to do) on April Fools. And he didn’t. So I decided to April Fools him back, albeit seven days late. I called him through the Hard of Hearing Relay Chat Operator. I told him I wanted to interview him for my blog site. Below is the transcript:

Disclaimer: Because Richard is a good friend of mine, I would like to preface this with a brief note. Richard is an extremely talented artist, whose work you can find at saintofle.com and conco-disco.com. He is the first artist to inspire me to be interested in art. I’ve always thought of art as something nice, which I didn’t really need, and which didn’t add any value to life other than, “oh, look at that, that’s nice.” Now, with two pieces in my collection, I view art quite differently, and consider myself an amateur art collector, who’s well on his way to owning an impressive collection. And Richard, at the very least, this is good for SEO.

yankeetag (7:10:51 PM): call

My IP Relay (7:10:51 PM): Please hold for the next available operator.

My IP Relay (7:10:51 PM): PLS ENTER THE NBR U WANT TO DIAL GA

yankeetag (7:10:54 PM): XXX-XXX-XXXX

My IP Relay (7:11:18 PM): IP RELAY RO 80063M

My IP Relay (7:11:18 PM): PLS HD DIALING

My IP Relay (7:11:22 PM): XXX XXX XXXX

My IP Relay (7:11:28 PM): RING 1

My IP Relay (7:11:30 PM): 2…

My IP Relay (7:11:32 PM): 3…

My IP Relay (7:11:36 PM): 4…

My IP Relay (7:11:38 PM): 5…

My IP Relay (7:11:44 PM): (F)

My IP Relay (7:11:58 PM): xxx

My IP Relay (7:12:02 PM): (M)

My IP Relay (7:12:04 PM): (EXPLAINING RELAY)

My IP Relay (7:12:41 PM): hello i’m sorry qq yeah GA

My IP Relay (7:13:41 PM): …

My IP Relay (7:13:45 PM): (side conversation speaking in other language)

yankeetag (7:13:54 PM): is this Richard?

yankeetag (7:14:20 PM): Richard St. Ofle?

My IP Relay (7:14:31 PM): aah who is this qq GA

yankeetag (7:14:40 PM): this is nick

My IP Relay (7:14:43 PM): who is this qq GA

yankeetag (7:14:55 PM): I’m from seattle, a friend showed me your art and i wanted to call

yankeetag (7:15:23 PM): I’m curious, do you have a website?

My IP Relay (7:15:52 PM): (side conversation) i yes

yankeetag (7:15:57 PM): I have an art blog, and I would like to feature you. May I interview you?

My IP Relay (7:16:06 PM): this is richard st.

My IP Relay (7:16:16 PM): ofle hello nick thank you for

My IP Relay (7:16:26 PM): calling and yes i do

My IP Relay (7:16:36 PM): have a website it saintofle.com

My IP Relay (7:16:50 PM): but the saint is spelled out it’s s

yankeetag (7:17:08 PM): i’m sure you are probably busy, do you have time for a quick interview? I could call back if not

My IP Relay (7:17:10 PM): a

My IP Relay (7:17:12 PM): i

My IP Relay (7:17:14 PM): n

My IP Relay (7:17:19 PM): t

My IP Relay (7:17:27 PM): yes that would be great! GA

yankeetag (7:17:41 PM): thank you

yankeetag (7:17:48 PM): what inspired you to be an artist?

My IP Relay (7:17:50 PM): no, right now is fine GA

My IP Relay (7:18:18 PM): aah well there are 2 different

My IP Relay (7:18:25 PM): answers that

My IP Relay (7:18:29 PM): i

My IP Relay (7:18:39 PM): could give the first is literal

My IP Relay (7:18:49 PM): and the second

My IP Relay (7:19:15 PM): is more figurative the first answer would

My IP Relay (7:19:23 PM): be is that i had an art teacher when

My IP Relay (7:19:31 PM): i was a kid that i didn’t get

My IP Relay (7:19:39 PM): along with and to spite her (laugh

My IP Relay (7:19:49 PM): ) i thought i’d be an artist a better artist

My IP Relay (7:19:58 PM): than her the figurative answer

My IP Relay (7:20:06 PM): is that

My IP Relay (7:20:22 PM): i

My IP Relay (7:20:28 PM): was always an artist and that i

My IP Relay (7:20:32 PM): was born to be one GA

yankeetag (7:20:48 PM): haha, well it looks like you turned out to be better than your teacher!

yankeetag (7:21:14 PM): Many of my readers

yankeetag (7:21:20 PM): are hard of hearing, like me.

My IP Relay (7:21:24 PM): (laughing) i dont know man my teacher

My IP Relay (7:21:28 PM): was really good haha! GA

yankeetag (7:21:38 PM): how do you think the world of sound influences current art trends?

My IP Relay (7:22:11 PM): well, i think that perhaps not sound literally

My IP Relay (7:22:23 PM): but i think all artists are influenced by

My IP Relay (7:22:32 PM): pop culture so thought

My IP Relay (7:23:04 PM): not music specifically yeah perhaps

My IP Relay (7:23:16 PM): the music movements or musical

My IP Relay (7:23:42 PM): ideas influenced me heavilyi’m

My IP Relay (7:23:48 PM): not talking about specific sounds

My IP Relay (7:24:02 PM): but the ideas behind those sounds sound

My IP Relay (7:24:10 PM): for example, is the way you can

My IP Relay (7:24:21 PM): understand punk rock but may be

My IP Relay (7:24:35 PM): you can understand it by looking at a

My IP Relay (7:24:49 PM): (confirming spelling)

My IP Relay (7:25:15 PM): it’s a j e a n - m i c h a e l

My IP Relay (7:25:21 PM): and then the last name is b a s

My IP Relay (7:25:23 PM): q

My IP Relay (7:25:37 PM): u i a t so it’s the same whether

My IP Relay (7:25:48 PM): the medium is sound via music

My IP Relay (7:25:58 PM): or film or art its the ideas that interests me GA

yankeetag (7:26:13 PM): Do you have specific art influences?

My IP Relay (7:26:41 PM): specific art influences uhm

My IP Relay (7:26:47 PM): i do yes but the art influences

My IP Relay (7:26:59 PM): that i have are also more idea

My IP Relay (7:27:12 PM): oriented for example, i

My IP Relay (7:27:28 PM): like it when people emotionally

My IP Relay (7:27:36 PM): loose it when people freak out

My IP Relay (7:27:46 PM): out of love or out of hate or whatever emotion

My IP Relay (7:27:56 PM): i think i really try

My IP Relay (7:28:09 PM): to i’m

My IP Relay (7:28:20 PM): sorry i think i’m really influenced

My IP Relay (7:28:31 PM): by that breaking

My IP Relay (7:28:41 PM): point type of emotionif you’d

My IP Relay (7:28:53 PM): like specific artists names i

My IP Relay (7:28:59 PM): love marcell dushont, manray,

My IP Relay (7:29:19 PM): john kale, deluc class, david

My IP Relay (7:29:28 PM): it’s

My IP Relay (7:29:41 PM): spelled like s a l e something on

My IP Relay (7:29:50 PM): sale s a l

My IP Relay (7:29:54 PM): e and aah (confirming spelling)

My IP Relay (7:30:14 PM): you know it’s aah darn it its not

My IP Relay (7:30:22 PM): philip close it’s chuck close

My IP Relay (7:30:28 PM): like c

My IP Relay (7:30:36 PM): l o s e GA

yankeetag (7:30:48 PM): thank you. one last question:

yankeetag (7:30:55 PM): many of my readers are trying to understand the “world of sound” through other senses, especially through visual art. If you don’t mind my interpretation: your art seems visually “noisy”. Is that the sense you try to create, or is it a misinterpretation?

My IP Relay (7:31:50 PM): i’d say yes that that is a very

My IP Relay (7:31:54 PM): flattering interpretation uhm

My IP Relay (7:32:06 PM): going back to my influences i

My IP Relay (7:32:21 PM): think that sonically someone loosing

My IP Relay (7:32:31 PM): control would sound very noisy

My IP Relay (7:32:37 PM): so obviously

My IP Relay (7:32:43 PM): visually

My IP Relay (7:33:01 PM): loosing control

My IP Relay (7:33:07 PM): would be noisy too GA

yankeetag (7:33:19 PM): Mr. St. Ofle, I really appreciate your time

yankeetag (7:33:35 PM): With your permission, I’ll be sharing this interview on my blog.

yankeetag (7:33:57 PM): If you don’t mind, I will contact you through your website and send you information about the article, including a link to read it yourself.

My IP Relay (7:34:10 PM): uhm that would make

My IP Relay (7:34:38 PM): me very happy, aah that would be great

My IP Relay (7:34:48 PM): it would make me very happy my

My IP Relay (7:34:54 PM): email address in case it’s not

My IP Relay (7:35:01 PM): on

My IP Relay (7:35:17 PM): there

My IP Relay (7:35:31 PM): is richard@saintofle.com aah what is

My IP Relay (7:35:35 PM): url to your blog qq GA

yankeetag (7:35:56 PM): it’s soundlessart.com

yankeetag (7:36:16 PM): thank you again, have a good evening.

My IP Relay (7:36:47 PM): thank you again

My IP Relay (7:36:53 PM): and i look forward to reading your blog GA

About a month ago I started noticing some new airline check-in questions. They used to ask fairly intuitive questions: Are these your bags? Have you had them with you at all times? Have you been asked to carry packages from unknown individuals? Now they ask new, dumb questions. The most absurd to me is: Are you carrying any explosives?

Am I carrying explosives? Seriously?

Why don’t we just ask: Are you a terrorist? I’ll tell you why we don’t ask that; it would be dumb. Nobody would answer honestly. This of course begs the questions, who would honestly answer that, yes, they do in fact have explosives in their bags. Nobody. Obviously. So, to give them the benefit of the doubt, I’ve come up with a list of other possible reasons they may be asking if you packed explosives in your luggage this morning:

• You may have accidentally packed a pipe bomb. Hey, it happens, and not as rarely as you think. You’re tired, maybe it’s early in the morning, or you’re rushed, and you think to yourself: Toothbrush, check, belt, check, ticket, check, underwear, check (better bring a spare pair, just in case), and pipe bomb, check. When you go to check in, oooops! You’re right, I did accidentally bring a pipe bomb. Here, why don’t you just throw this away for me. And while you’re at it, here is the nail file I accidentally brought, which you’re bound to confiscate from me anyway, lest I manicure the pilots to death.
• As a courtesy to our travelers: Did you remember to bring a pipe bomb? We have spares here, which we give as a courtesy along with 1 quart plastic Ziplock bags.
• To catch you off guard. You know the routine, you’re a terrorist, you’ve been practicing answering the questions all morning: “yes, these are my bags, no I haven’t accepted a package from an unknown individual… yes, these are my bags, no I haven’t accepted a package from unknown individuals.” “Hello Mr. Al-Qaida, are you bringing any explosives with you today?” “Yes these are my bags… oh, uh… yeah, I have a bomb. Oh shit! I mean, no! No, I don’t have a bomb!”
• To reassure our passengers. Don’t worry Mr. Smith, you’ll be safe flying with us. We ask every passenger if they’re bringing explosives, and every passenger on your flight has said “no” so far.  Thanks for flying the Friendly Skies!
• Conspiracy theory: because the government doesn’t think we’re smart enough to realize what a ridiculous attempt this is to create paranoia and put enough fear into the public to continue to pump billions and billions of dollars a year into illegal wire-tapping programs on innocent sovereign citizens by insisting against all evidence that there is an imminent threat against our Multi-Trillion-Dollar-Per-Year Military by a group of cave-dwelling camel jockeys.

So, um, no. I don’t have any explosives in my luggage. I’m glad we could clear this up.

I got a new laptop a small, which are thrilled with. I got a new laptop this month, which I’m thrilled with. Everything about it has been great so far. Everything about it has been great so far. I’m running as the business on it, in His windows speech recognition built into it. I’m running Vista Business on it, and it has Windows Speech Recognition built into it. Apparently also as a built in microphone. Apparently it also has a built-in microphone. About this on a pretty cool sorcerer looking into it. I thought this sounded pretty cool so I started looking into it. The way it’s supposed to work, is a just talked, it’ll take dictations, we can give commands and it will open or close windows, forcible actions parentheses but SEM e-mails) call and basically remove the need to manually a track with. The way it’s supposed to work, is that you just talk, and it will take dictations, or you can give commands and it will open or close windows, perform simple actions (like sending e-mails), and basically remove the need to manually interact with it. It sounds a little works. It sounds a lot better than it works. I spent two days trying to ‘train” Into my voice, but apparently opposed the computerese. I’ve spent two days trying to “train” it to my voice, but apparently I don’t speak computerese. Which, I guess, is actually not so surprising. Which, I guess, is actually not so surprising. At first I sing the problem was with me. At first I assumed the problem was with me. AVI mobile, ATF for Nancy Xiong. Maybe I mumble, maybe I have poor enunciation. Maybe I need to speak more loudly cynical or maybe less lovely. Maybe I need to speak more loudly; or maybe less loudly. But, I think I figured out. But, I think I’ve figured it out. But computerese retarded. My computer is retarded.

It seems strange to me that we had yet been able to create computers which can speed was selected human. It seems strange to me that we haven’t yet been able to create computers which can speak and listen like a human. It seems like a 040 can do it, we should be able to make a Computer Data. It seems like if a four-year-old can do it, we should be able to make a computer do it. I mean, we have computers parallel parking cars these days, and flying planes, and doing other complicated things. I mean, we have computers parallel parking cars these days, and flying planes, and doing other complicated things. Why don’t teach them to listen? Why can’t we teach them to listen?

I envision the Star-Trekish future, Oregon and the computer to get me a brief summary of news articles of interest to me. I envision this Star-Trekish future, where I demand the computer to give me a brief summary of news articles of interest to me. Aparently of all bring while much shorter attention span, I imagine. My highly evolved brain will have a much shorter attention span, I imagine. It seems to be the way we’re going. It seems to be the way we’re going. Ultimately, though, I vote for this whole speech recognition thing to work, just like to be Lazier. Ultimately, though, I’d love for this whole speech recognition thing to work, just so I could be lazier. Sitting in for a lot of computer typing has become too typical, too strenuous. Sitting in front of a computer typing has become too difficult, too strenuous. I want a Welsh. I want to lounge. I want my spoken word to controlling every attraction. I want my spoken word to control my every interaction. I want to conquer the world of sound of my voice! I want to conquer the world with the sound of my voice!

Unfortunately, for now, it looks like we’ll just have to keep typing. Unfortunately, for now, it looks like I’ll just have to keep typing.

No, I don’t mean with my gun, I mean I wasn’t home when one stopped by. Which is disappointing, because I almost didn’t get this pamphlet:

Answer: No, I’ve learned quite enough, thank you.

The only reason I even got the pamphlet was because the particular Jehovah’s Witness missionary who stopped by (to try to convert me and tell me that everything I believe is wrong and that I am going to rot and burn in hell) happened to mail me a letter. Which got me thinking… so: below you will find my letter to her. Which I’ve just finished stuffing and addressing. I put in a few pamphlets of my own which I purchased last week from the Freedom From Religion Foundation. (Specifically, the Dear Christian, Dear Believer, Ten Common Myths About Atheists, What They Said About Religion, Confused? Bible Contradictions, Why Women Need Freedom From Religion, and Why Jesus? ones.)

Dear Neighbor,

I received a letter and pamphlet from you in the mail. I’m sorry to have missed your visit, as I would have welcomed the opportunity to discuss religion with you. I hope you will take a moment to read my letter.

The bible teaches many things which are confusing to me, and which I’d love to learn more about. For example, what was Jesus’ lineage? His (earthly) father Joseph, is said to have been the son of Jacob (Matthew 1:16) and yet later, (in Luke 3:23) I read that Joseph was the son of Heli. I also have read that Jesus and his father are one and the same (John 10:30), however — only four chapters — later Jesus says that his father (God) is greater than him (John 14:28).

In fact, the bible is positively riddled with direct contradictions. God himself is described as both unmerciful and without pity (Jeremiah 13:14), and also merciful and pitiful (James 5:11). I’m told that the bible is the inspired work of a perfect God. I don’t find perfection here; I find confusion, which is odd since 1 Corinthians 14:33 says that “God is not the author of confusion.”

There is another way. We don’t need to rely on first century folklore anymore. Each day science uncovers new and wonderful mysteries and answers about the world we live in. We don’t need to hide behind magic! There are millions of moral, law abiding atheists contributing to society. These people are unhindered with archaic rules and need not answer to a God who “ordered” the murder and destruction of millions and millions of innocent lives.

If you are serious about your faith, you must seriously question it. I imagine that you don’t take your beliefs lightly, and that they are in fact quite important to you in your daily life. Shouldn’t you then challenge yourself to explore these ideas and research the ideas of those who have found happiness and peace through other means? After all, if you’re wrong, you’re spreading your misbeliefs and folly.

There are some fantastic sources of information for critical thinking believers. I highly recommend the book, Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist, by Dan Barker. There are other people who have been believers, just like you, who found that the truth they followed, wasn’t quite as true as they thought. If you are open-minded, and willing to challenge your blind faith, I invite you to read the enclosed pamphlets which I purchased personally to share with you. These short, informative handouts are designed to offer insight into Christianity and dispel some common myths. I hope that you find them to be as valuable as I have.

If nothing else, take comfort in this: whether or not you choose to be an Atheist, when you die you most assuredly won’t rot or burn in hell. The only thing you miss out on is the truth, and a better understanding of the world around you.

Best Regards,

Yankee Tag

Something tells me I won’t hear back. (If I do, you’ll be the first to read about it here!)

I’m currently stranded at the Sacramento Airport and am waiting for Alaska Airlines to “get paperwork from command” before our flight can be boarded. Great. This is exactly how I was hoping to spend my evening. While waiting, I took the opportunity to use the restroom. While washing my hands, I noticed something unusual. The motion-activated sink runs for exactly seven seconds if it doesn’t detect vigorous enough (in its own subjective opinion) motion. Which seems odd to me. Because a seven second handwash can’t possibly be healthy.

In fact, it’s not. In this page about proper handwashing technique, the CDC recommends the following strategy:

How to wash your hands:

• 1. Wet your hands with warm water.
• 2. Apply a generous amount of soap.
• 3. Rub your hands together for 20 seconds.
• 4. Rinse your hands.
• 5. Dry your hands with a paper towel.
• 6. Use the paper towel to turn off the faucet and open the door.

It seems that this process would require the water to run for at least 30-40 seconds.

Also, in an informal survey, I witnessed 13 people enter and exit the bathroom. Three washed their hands. None did so for more than 10 seconds. I really need to get out of this airport.