A recent meta-study showed that strong religious belief is positively correlated with racism. Of course, correlation does not imply causation. So it’s not clear whether religious belief causes people to become racist, racism causes people to become religious, or some third factor causes both (poor critical thinking skills, for example).

In any case, it’s yet another nail in the coffin of the idea that religion is a source of morality. In fact, the two seem increasingly to be in conflict.

That’s right, suck it, James

The Hurt Locker wins Best Picture, with director Kathryn Bigelow picking up Best Director (the first woman to earn the prize, ever). Avatar gets Art Direction, Visual Effects, and Cinematography. I completely agree.

Avatar was a special effects extravaganza, and James Cameron deserves props for pulling off another mega-successful blockbuster. But the movie was entirely about the visuals. The story was cookie-cutter: predictable and trite. The characters were one-dimensional; the acting was mediocre. It was like these elements were after-thoughts, like Cameron needed something to wrap around his (admittedly impressive) new technology. An extremely accurate and ridiculous review here.

You know what makes me totally incensed? A good movie playing on cable TV, in which they replace the “bad” words with baby talk (I’ve been watching 25th Hour on FX). It ruins the experience, and for no good reason.

I completely reject the idea that we should infantilize and sanitize everything that kids might be exposed to. For one, that’s impossible. You can’t insulate them from everything. There is still HBO and DVD and the internet and the real world. Censoring the dialog on FX is hardly going to do the job; it’s just a meaningless and ineffectual gesture.

Furthermore, I think we seriously underestimate what kids can be safely be exposed to. At the very least, our priorities are misaligned. I am not at all convinced that so-called course language is harmful to children. But even if we assume it is, so is violence on TV (a minor, but documented effect). Tonight, the commercials alone were packed with dead, bloody bodies advertising World War II miniseries The Pacific. And yet, I didn’t see any guns replaced by their Nerf equivalents.

I’m not arguing that fictional violence is something to worry about, either. The whole issue is just a distraction from what really makes a difference in raising healthy, well-adjusted people: parents that take responsibility for their offspring, that are aware of what they’re exposed to, and that help them clearly delineate fantasy from reality. That interaction is way more essential than papering over “offensive” content and pretending it doesn’t exist. But maybe that would be asking too much.

Recently, I have been getting irritated a lot, mostly at the behavior of other human beings. It’s really not a very hard thing to do. But instead of dwelling on that, I’d rather focus on those who elicit the opposite effect. And so, thank you:

• People who work to advance science and engineering, to the benefit of everyone
• People who seek to add a bit of whimsy to the world, while also adding value
• People who practice or study (modern, Western, non-alternative) medicine, even though it can be extremely challenging and underappreciated
• People who fight for equal rights
• People who make jokes about topics I can appreciate
• People who put up with me on a regular basis, particularly those with a knack for making baked goods

New Hampshire state representative Nancy Elliott just realized something. Gay marriage is bad, and needs to be repealed in NH right away:

This is why I can’t take gay marriage opponents the least bit seriously: they assume everyone else is a homophobic moron too. Let’s just examine the tip of the iceberg that is Nancy Elliott’s ignorance:

1. Can anyone point out the part in the gay marriage bill that mentions mandatory anal sex? I didn’t think so.
2. Surely Nancy would realize, if she had spent as much time thinking about it as she did thinking about penises in rectums, that there are way more heterosexuals having anal sex than homosexuals. Should we ban all buttfuckers from marriage, or just the gay ones?
3. I assume this means Nancy has no issue with two women getting married. They are, after all, completely innocent of this abomination Nancy is concerned about.

Oh and Nancy? Just FYI: if there is wiggling and excrement involved in your anal sex, you are doing it wrong.

I am reading, among other things, Christopher Moore’s Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal. I am pretty early in, but already I am impressed with its ability to take one of the more horrible stories in the Bible and a fairly obvious joke and totally amuse me.

And so it went. I’m not sure I took to playing villains as easily as Joshua took to being the heroes. Sometimes we recruited our little brothers to play the more loathsome parts. Joshua’s little brothers Judah and James played whole populations, like the Sodomites outside Lot’s door.

“Send out those two angels so that we can know them.”

“I won’t do that,” I said, playing Lot (a good guy only because Joshua wanted to play the angels), “but I have two daughters who don’t know anyone, you can meet them.”

“Okay,” said Judah.

I threw open the door and led my imaginary daughters outside so they could know the Sodomites…

“Pleased to meet you.”

“Charmed, I’m sure.”

I saw some strange things.

And some pretty things.

It was nice.

Dear people guilty of the following behavior,

Stop doing this.

Scenario: You and I are next to each other in a packed subway that’s making its way down the tracks. You’re standing somewhere not directly in front of the doors and need to get off at the next stop. You’re extremely concerned about not being able to make your way past people in time to get out (even though I have yet to see this actually happen to anyone). At this point, you feel the need to say “excuse me” or otherwise point out that you’d like me to move before the train stops moving.

That last point is essential. Once the doors are open and I’m in your way, feel free to ask me to move, or tap my shoulder, or shove me to the side; I’ll understand.

What I don’t understand is what you expect me to do about your imminent departure while the train is in motion. The goddamn car is full of people! Where do you want me to move to? Not only that, but half the time when you do this to me, I’m also getting out at the next stop. Dare to imagine a world where you’re not the only person who has to maneuver their way out of the car soon. I know it looks like it’s impossible for you to get out, but that’s because it is. The doors are closed. The train is moving. Try to understand that when those conditions change, people will get out, and you can be one of them.

I’m not ignoring you because I don’t see your premature gesturing towards the door. I’m ignoring you because you’re stupid.

It’s worth remembering from time to time that things are not as bad as they seem. In fact, things are great. Things are so great, that we have to get upset about what are relatively tiny inconveniences and minor setbacks.

It’s impossible not to feel disappointed or angry sometimes; it is a necessary part of the human condition. Sometimes these feelings are even completely justified. But it’s important from time to time to step back and consider all the truly terrible things that can happen to people, today and throughout history, and compare them to your current set of troubles. Odds are things aren’t as bad as they might be.

The brilliant Louis CK on this topic:

Also, I’m pretty sure gaining this kind of perspective is exactly why we have reality shows.

Duane Reade recently introduced a new reward points system, and since I’m pretty certain that I am the only one who pays attention to this kind of thing, I feel the need to explore this topic a bit.

The old system was based on a 5+% reimbursement rate. Each dollar spent was a point, and 100 points was a $5 coupon, plus they round your cents up to the next dollar when computing points earned on a purchase (hence the +). However, given that coupons expired after two weeks, could not be used on the day they were earned, and were printed at the end of your receipt (making them especially likely to become lost or forgotten), it’s understood that the impact of rewards on DR’s bottom line was, in practice, way less than 5%.

Now, customers were not terribly happy with this scheme, in that they were constantly failing to redeem their hard-earned $5 coupons. So last week DR replaced their old rewards system with FlexRewards, which appeases customers by eliminating paper rebates and expiration dates^*. Furthermore, they doubled the amount of points earned on purchases; two points per dollar spent is the new rate, plus the same rounding rule for change. On its face, that seems like a very pro-consumer move, and is certainly being promoted by DR as such. Not so much when you take into account another less well-advertised change: it now takes 500 points to earn a $5 coupon. So your new base reimbursement rate is 2+%, or just 2/5ths of the previous rate^†.

So, unless you were failing to use 3 or more out of every 5 coupons you earned previously, you are probably making out worse under the new FlexRewards system. Duane Reade is keeping more of your money and acting like you’re getting the better end of the deal. But at least you don’t have to carry around little receipt tear-offs anymore.

^*Technically you have to buy something every 6 months to keep your points from expiring.
^†They also now award bonus (SuperSaver) points for accumulating rewards without exchanging them, but even at the highest bonus tier the reimbursement rate works out to something like 2.6+%.