Bob Blaskiewicz is a Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow at Georgia Tech’s School of Literature, Communication and Culture. He also writes for the Committee For Skeptical Inquiry and blogs at Skeptical Humanities. We talk about conspiracy theories and his recent article on the Denver International Airport.
His misspelled sign burned in the fire before the photo was taken.
A group of religious fundamentalists were protesting the expansion of a mosque in their area. They said it was being built on land that was sacred to them and they did not approve. They said they would destroy it unless the construction site were moved. When they found that a worship site of yet another religion was already in the area, they then demanded that that site be moved as well.
This all sounds pretty familiar, but this isn’t about a few ignorant Christian yahoos holding their noses and using their vacation time at their shitty jobs to freak out about a Muslim cultural center which would immediately become a center for terrorism and Victory Mosquing in Midtown Manhattan. This is about ignorant Buddhist yahoos doing pretty much the same thing in Sri Lanka.
Daphne Eviatar is an lawyer, journalist, and senior associate at Human Rights First. We talk about the Obama administration’s policy on due process and her recent article on Section 1024 of the National Defense Authorization Act.
So I’m back to doing a series of short news stories in this space. You should all just get used to there being no real consistent structure here. The best you can hope for is a focus on people doing and saying crazy things. So let’s get to it.
Sanal Edamaruku is the founder-president of Rationalist International and our first repeat guest. We talk about how he recently debunked a Catholic miracle claim in Mumbai and the blasphemy charges against him that ensued. You can donate to the Sanal Edamaruku Defence Fund and support free expression in India here.
World Homeopathy Awareness Week started this past Tuesday, probably because Tuesday is an infinitely diluted Monday. It’s kind of like Breast Cancer Awareness Week in that the thing we’re supposed to be more aware of suffers a major PR blow from all that awareness. But they’re different in that homeopaths are perversely proud of their special week while cancerous cells tend to not promote theirs.
Greta Christina is a blogger, speaker and activist focusing on secular, sexual, and LGBT issues. We talk about atheism, religion, and her new book Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things that Piss Off the Godless.
Jesus is the Most Dangerous Game
OK, here’s the deal. I’m off celebrating Easter by hunting down the returned Jesus. Beyonce’ and Jay-Z’s demon baby is paying me to kill him so that Christianity will die and our Illuminati Secret Religion can once again rule the world. Since Jesus supposedly spent a lot of time hanging out with prostitutes back in the day, hunting him now involves spending a lot of time in adult entertainment stores. Especially the kind that have private booths you pay for in quarters every 15 minutes.
So long story short, there’s no real column this week. Instead, you get a short list of updates of stories I’ve covered in this space over the past few months.
Christopher Lombardo (right) is a co-author with Noel Boivins of The Man Who Scared a Shark to Death and Other True Tales of Drunken Debauchery and their new book is called Tastes Like Human. Their website is The Shark Guys. Chris has been published in the Globe & Mail, the Toronto Star, the National Post and Cracked. We talk about writing, the future of publishing, and their new book.
Atheist Hobos 