The Ground Zero Mosque Thing, or, "Wait, No, Really?"

"I don't mind being the smartest man in the world. I just wish it wasn't this one."
- Adrian Veidt

Okay. So let me make sure I understand this now. I'm a little slow on the uptake and I try not to pay attention to the news because it's a bit like being trapped in the primate house at the zoo. So bear with me as I recreate the facts here. Apparently, like ten years ago, certain elements, certain people who proclaimed to follow a specific religion, committed a devastating terrorist attack in New York City. I think maybe it happened in October or something? September? I'm a little hazy on the details. Now today, or recently rather, or whatever, some people that follow that same specific religion want to set up a place of worship two blocks away from where this attack happened. And there's some sort of controversy about this. Do I have the facts right? Good. So now we leave the world of facts and enter the world of opinions. And in my opinion this whole thing is ridiculous. No, I take that back. An elephant fucking a dachshund is ridiculous. I don't know what the fuck this is.

When I sat down to write this I was going to get all eloquent and explain in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington Jimmy Stewart style why this is the dumbest fucking controversy EVARRRR but the fact is I don't have the patience or the attention span, so instead here is another classic numbered list of bullet points.

1. "Muslim" does not equal "terrorist."
   Follow me through this cipher, folks. Same way "Christian" does not equal "Inquisitioner."Same way "American" does not equal "Stupid fat fuck." Yes, there have been Muslim terrorists. Bad scene. Don't approve. There have also been non-Muslim terrorists. Which brings us to number two...
   

2. Timothy McVeigh was a Catholic
   But if they were putting a cathedral a block away from the Alfred P. Murrah building, these same assholes talking about how "insensitive" and "bad taste" this mosque is wouldn't be making one fucking peep. Almost like the whole thing is a smokescreen for some stupid American fat fucks to display their racism and xenophobia without overtly branding themselves as stupid fat racist fucks.
   

3. The First Amendment
   Guarantees the right to worship. There is no asterisk after "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" that says "unless it's the same religion some terrorists claimed to follow." And do you know who wrote the First Amendment? The Founding Fathers. It is central to American values, so central to American values that you really can't have the one without the other. It'd be like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with no bread. If you do not like the First Amendment, GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY COUNTRY. If you want to live somewhere where there's no state-protected freedom of worship, maybe move to Iran, you unAmerican piece of shit.
   

4. George W Bush said that the terrorists hate our freedoms.
   So if you hate our freedoms, you're a terrorist. Q.E.D.
   

5. I don't even understand why we have to waste our time on this.
   I don't. Seriously. There are people dying out there. There are people starving, people suffering from illnesses that haven't been cured yet, people suffering from illnesses that could be cured but they can't afford it. People are in prison unjustly. People are being raped. People are being robbed. ACTUAL shit that ACTUALLY causes people to ACTUALLY suffer ACTUAL loss. And we're worried about whether or not a mosque is going to be "sensitive" or not?
   

6. History is going to mock us for this shit.
   Remember when we studied the Salem witch trials, or "Irish Need Not Apply," or the internment of the Japanese-Americans during World War II? We look back at that kind of stuff and we shake our heads. It's hard to believe people back then could be so narrow-minded, so trapped in their own tiny flatland world-views, so constrained by their own petty prejudices and biases. THIS IS EXACTLY HOW FUTURE GENERATIONS WILL LOOK AT THIS. Me, always unfashionably ahead of my time, I already look at it that way now.
   

7. Wait, no... seriously?
   What the fuck does a mosque have to do with 9-11? Even if it IS insensitive, which I dispute, so the fuck what? Who gave you the right to go through life without having your feelings hurt or your sensibilities offended? Because believe me, if we were going to suspend Constitutional rights based on what I find offensive or insensitive, most of you would be spending the rest of your life in prison. But in a sane and just society, it takes a lot more than personal whim, even the personal whim of the majority, to upset the basic rule of law. So basically if you disagree fuck off and die.
   

8. Newt Gingrich is a fucking moron.
   I find it amazing that I should even have to point that out in this day and age. I find it amazing that Newt Gingrich is even still around or that people pay him any mind at all. But Newt Gingrich is a fucking moron. I know dude was like a college professor and he wrote some really awful novels so maybe he's not a retard but he is definitely a moron. I have an article here where he says that building a mosque by Ground Zero "would be like putting a Nazi sign next to the Holocaust Museum.” Except that it's actually nothing like that at all. You fucking moron. See, the Nazis were a specific group of people that specifically brought about the Holocaust. Muslims are a wide group of people, of all kinds, around the world -- some of whom specifically brought about the World Trade Center attacks. (I will avoid any Loose Change style debate on this point for the time being.) So really the proper analogy, Newt -- and seriously, what the fuck kind of name is Newt anyway? It's a lizard! -- would be like opening up a bratwurst stand next to the Holocaust Museum. Get it? You fucking moron? Because not all Germans are Nazis, and not all Muslims are terrorists. Note that I avoid the "You automatically lose the debate when you bring up the Nazis" argument, because....
   

9. I'm Bringing Up The Nazis
   Know who else didn't approve of free religious worship? I'm just saying.
   

10. The Other Mosque
    Did you know there's another mosque within spitting distance of Ground Zero? Been there since the seventies. Been there since before the World Trade Center was even put up in the first place, let alone knocked down. Now that's neither here nor there, the point is, there's been a mosque real close to the World Trade Center this whole time, and not one of you stupid fat fucks noticed or cared or worried about its "sensitivity" or whatever. So even if the argument made any sense (which it doesn't) it still wouldn't make any sense because THERE'S BEEN A MOSQUE IN THE AREA THE WHOLE TIME and no one made a big deal about it. Know why the rest of the world stereotypes Americans as a bunch of rude and ignorant fat-asses? BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT WE ARE. Or rather, what you are. I barely even consider myself an American at this point.
    

11. Stop the world, I want to get off
    Instead of building a mosque next to Ground Zero, let's build a big space ship instead. Actually, it doesn't need to be that big. It really only needs to carry me. I am willing to concede this world to the rest of you stupid fat fucks. I can roam around the galaxy in search of higher intelligence, and you guys can call me when the Dark Ages are over. I'll be with Bill Hicks, waiting at the finish line. Chirp, chirp.

Next time: The Dr. Laura Controversy... you mean Dr. Laura's still alive?

Parents lie, teachers lie, but Uncle Noelie will never lie to you.

Kids:

Adults will tell you that lying is wrong. They will probably even chastise and/or punish you for lying if you are dumb enough to get caught at it. But, as you may already know, adults lie to you all the time. Ever hear the one about the fat man in the red suit at the North Pole? Or the giant bunny with the basket of chocolate eggs? Odds are, yes. So you might be feeling a bit confused when you realize that adults are lying all the time. You might think that they are awful hypocrites who aren't fit to be the authority figures they have imposed themselves as. The truth is, you'd be right. The truth is, lying isn't wrong. Lying is a crucial part of adult life. They lie to others and they lie to themselves. All the time. The only reason adults don't want you to lie is because allowing that would threaten their monopoly on falsehood.

The Saga Of Forgotten Space Baby

Forgotten Space-Baby was once a baby named Alex. One day his mother took him the Baby Trade Shop and traded him for another baby that was eight feet tall. This baby was also named Alex. His mom liked him because he was eight feet tall and could reach things for her. She forgot all about her original son. The now nameless baby cried and cried and cried, and nobody else wanted to trade him, so finally the Baby Trade Shop launched him into outer space. Up there he gained incredible space powers and became Forgotten Space-Baby, legend of five galaxies. Now he is on a quest to return to Earth, to get back to his family. But first he must defeat nefarious space villains such as the Skeleton Family, or the evil Dr. Trap. Will he ever make it back to Earth? Will he be able to replace the eight-foot baby Alex and regain his mother's love? Will he get assistance along the way from his long lost father, Forgotten Space-Dad?

Independent Of The Facts

Here's something you might not know: In terms of our independence, July 4th is an almost completely meaningless date. It wasn't the day the Declaration of Independence was ratified -- that was July 2nd. It wasn't the day the Declaration of Independence was signed -- that was in August. It certainly wasn't the day this country actually became independent -- we still had to win a war to achieve that. As near as I can tell, the only thing special about July 4th is that it's the day the text of the Declaration was finalized -- which might make it a memorable day for proofreaders and editors but otherwise has little to no bearing on our actual independence.

So.. what's so special about the fourth of July? Why do we celebrate this basically meaningless day? Um. Because we always have? Geez Noel, did you need a better reason than that?

Meditations On A Wound

I recently cut myself. Not in the goth emo teenager way. It was an accident. With a razor blade. An inch-long incision on the side of my thumb in an almost straight line. Oops.

Anyway. I cut myself. It was like a week ago. Since then I have watched it slowly heal, felt the skin itch as it re-knits itself together. And it made me remember something I don't often think about -- that my body is actually an intelligent colony of organic nanotechnology.

Presumably, so is yours -- except for the "intelligent" part.

The Human-Created World

In the beginning we did not live in a world of our own creation. Oh, sure, we were already the masters that made the grass green: we always lived in the world created by our own nervous systems, but the external world was not yet of human creation but the world we inherited from geological and biological development. This seems like it should be obvious but it is worth keeping in mind because today we live in a world that is almost entirely of human creation. This ranges from the obvious, like technology and infrastructure and money and domesticated animals; to the subtler such as the languages that constrain and control our thought processes. And sure, I know that there's still a lot we don't control, like the weather and microbes; and much of the ocean remains a mystery and... uh, that's basically it. For better or worse, we inhabit the world we made for ourselves.

The Realest Shit I Ever Wrote

But I don't mean to play the blues
not complaining
just explaining
how it is I paid my dues
all the years I was in pain, confused
in tears, ashamed
that life's a game
and I'm afraid to lose
so I don't need respect or sympathy
they don't mean shit to me
I'm only here to stay amused...

Divining The Future: The Patron Saint Of Nanomachines?

The hard part of being a futurist is in seeing angles to the future that have not already been explored. For instance, take nanomachines. Everyone by now basically knows about nanomachines. There's been all sorts of uses and mentions in popular culture, in speculative fiction, and so forth. At this point, just about every angle of nanomachines has been covered. Possible beneficial uses. Possible harmful or detrimental uses. Use in space travel. Use in medicine. Use in warfare. Use in sex. The ever-looming possibility of the Gray Goo Apocalypse. Every angle is covered.

Except... who will be the patron saint of nanomachines? Think about it. The Catholic Church has a patron saint for EVERYTHING. Not just the obvious stuff like lovers and doctors and lost causes and children and so forth, but crazy modern-era stuff as well. There's a patron saint of the automobile. A patron saint of the Internet. A patron saint of environmentalism. No, I didn't make that up. There's even a patron saint of astronauts. Seems like every time some new thing comes along, before long those kooky Catholics are making some poor dead bastard the patron saint of it. So who will be the patron saint of nanomachines? Inquiring minds want to know. Here's a few possibilities I've narrowed it down to:

1. Saint Albertus Magnus
   Albertus Magnus, or Albert The Great for those who fell asleep in Latin class, is the patron saint of science, which makes him a fairly plausible contender for patron saint of the future science of nanotechnology. He is also the patron saint of philosophers, schoolchildren, and apparently, Cincinnati, Ohio. I wish I could have rewritten that last sentence with less commas.
2. Saint Isidore of Seville
   Isidore is the patron saint of the Internet, which is a pretty neat trick as he only died about 1300 years before Al Gore invented it. But I suppose it's just that kind of transcendent and miraculous behavior that gets you made a saint in the first place. More to the point, he is also the patron saint of technology, which is definitely the last four syllables of "nanotechnology."
3. Saint Thomas the Apostle
   Also known as Thomas Didymus or Doubting Thomas, St. Thomas is the patron saint of building and architecture, which definitely describes the actions of nanomachines. They build stuff, on a molecular scale. It's a plausible argument, but feel free to doubt it.
4. Saint Patrick
   Seems I can't write a piece about Catholicism without mentioning Saint Patrick. This time it's because he's the patron saint of engineers, not because of his lame holiday. Moving on...
5. Rebekah
   This is super sketchy. First, Rebekah is one of those Old Testament characters that was ret-conned into being a saint ex post facto by the Catholic Church. Second, while Wikipedia mentions her as the patron saint of physicists, I can find absolutely zero confirmation of this. She's just on here so the list isn't another sausage fest.
6. Saint Luke the Evangelist
   Only the second guy on this list to have a gospel named after him, Luke is the patron saint of sculptors and surgeons. Somewhere in between those two is nanotech. Also, it says here he's the patron saint of artists, bookbinders, and unmarried men as well. That has no bearing on anything, but I feel better now that I know it.
7. Saint Pantaleone
   Pantaleone is the patron saint of physicians. I just like his name.
8. A saint to be announced at a later date
   Obviously, nanomachines are still something that people are talking about, something that's supposed to happen some day, but not something that has happened yet. Could be the person who will eventually be made the patron saint of nanotechnology hasn't been canonized, beatified or even born yet.

Of course, I suppose there is also an outside chance that by the time we are advanced enough to have invented nanotechnology, we would also be advanced enough that we would no longer rely on organized religions as a structure to keep society together and people would no longer be so irrationally accepting of ancient superstitions. Hahaha, cough cough spit, but seriously folks.

Hypocrisy Is A Necessary Step

In the beginning... well, in the beginning there was no morality, of course. Right and wrong are judgments of a conscious and aware mind, and without any of those around there was no morality. But skip past that. It's not the point.

The point is, that in the beginning there was the path of right action and the path of wrong action. Right is more difficult and less immediately rewarding. Wrong has clear advantages, but it is wrong. In the beginning though we clearly didn't care about the morality of wrong action. Study human history and you will see that it is drenched in blood. Ours, mostly.

Somewhere along the way the predominance of wrong action gives way to the predominance of right action. A necessary step in this transition, this raising of hell into heaven, is the trait where one proclaims the value of right behavior while in fact engaging in wrong behavior. This is hypocrisy. That's another word for this behavior.

And I, for one, have denounced hypocrisy all my life. In me, of course, most of all, because to be a human is to be a hypocrite, so to be a hypocrite who hypocritically denounces hypocrisy is, typical of me, one meta too many. Woe unto ye hypocrites, I would often say as I got my inner Jesus on. Then I realized what I outlined in the paragraphs above. If the evils of the past world are to give way to the utopian paradise of the future, a necessary transitional phase is for most everyone to be the most shameless and awful hypocrites imaginable. Which is kinda where we are now, if you look around you'll see what I mean.

So enjoy it while you can, fuckers. The wheel turns slowly but it does turn.

A Riff On Nostradamus

They say Nostradamus was such a great seer because he predicted Hitler and some other shit like that. Yeah, a warlord is going to conquer some shit... THAT's a risky prediction to make. If Nostradamus was really seeing the future he should have predicted the iPod. But he didn't. That's okay, I didn't predict the iPod either and it happened in my lifetime. I'm just saying.