Uno? That's a gateway game to pinochle!

[vovat]

In last night's Simpsons episode, I liked the stuff involving Marge and the Flanders family. It's always funny to see the activities in which Rod and Todd participate, like Christian Clue ("The secular humanist did it, in the schoolhouse, with misinformation!" [1]); as well as Marge's clueless attempts to reference pop culture ("I'm a Star Wars!"). What wasn't so great was the subplot about Bart being kidnapped by a chimpanzee. Is there some plaque on the wall of the writers' room saying, "When in doubt, bring in a wild animal"? It's annoyingly common for a largely character-driven plot to be resolved using a conflict with an animal. Also, I think there was a little too much of Homer getting hurt.

I had several crazy dreams last night. In the first one I can remember, my car engine fell out on the highway, and someone took it. I think I somehow got contact information for the thieves, and tried to arranged a meeting with them, but they wouldn't show up. Two other people DID show up, but I don't remember how they fit into the whole thing. I think I owed THEM something, maybe. Anyway, after that, I was contacting a bunch of government officials and news people. 3x1minus1 might be interested to know that the one person I distinctly remember trying to contact was Anderson Cooper, who apparently had a missing piece of the puzzle. How there was a "puzzle" involved with a missing car engine is beyond me, but hey, it was a dream.

The puzzle theme apparently continued, because the next dream I remember included what I guess was a scavenger hunt in a museum. The only thing I actually remember finding was a key inside a box, a few of which were hidden in the building. There were also parts to that dream about walking home from work and my sister complaining to my mom that I'm lazy, but I don't remember the details.

In the final dream (that I can recall, anyway), I was watching a movie or something, and a discussion with some other audience member led to a question about how I would draw an elephant falling on a monkey. I mentioned how I couldn't draw, but if I HAD to, I'd show the monkey opening a little umbrella. This led to a discussion of cartoon clichés, and then of magic potions that required ingredidents like laughter and hen's teeth. (I must have been thinking of The Magical Monarch of Mo, in which the Wicked Wizard uses hen's teeth in a magical formula. It's also pretty similar to how the chain used in Norse mythology to bind Fenris was made up of such things as women's beards and the footfall of a cat.) Anyway, during this discussion, I was eating some kind of pancakes, or something similar to pancakes, and they actually tasted pretty good. That's pretty odd, as food in my dreams usually tastes dry and bland. Later, the dream morphed into some sitcom or something, where some supposedly cute little girl wanted to go out in the middle of the night, because she thought she had school.

[1] Incidentally, is there any other show on television that mentions secular humanism as often as The Simpsons?

Comments

[countblastula.livejournal.com]

>1] Incidentally, is there any other show on television that mentions secular humanism as often as The Simpsons?

Maybe your other favorite show, "The O'Reilly Factor"?

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Hmm, maybe. I know he uses "secular" a lot, but more in conjunction with "progressive" than "humanist."

[countblastula.livejournal.com]

He's the only one I know of that constantly uses the word "secular" where I would use the word "normal".

[vovat.livejournal.com]

He's also the only person I know who uses "progress" negatively. I mean, CHANGE can be bad, but I thought "progress" pretty much necessitated that it be good change.

It's also ridiculous how he's always implying that the separation of church and state is some kind of wacky "progessive" idea cooked up by secular atheist far-left loonies, despite the fact that the grounds for it were quite clearly laid in the Constitution over 200 years ago. But I'm sure I've complained enough about O'Reilly and his ilk enough in recent entries to last all of us a lifetime.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

As a religious person, I've always appreciated the separation of church and state as a GOOD thing meant to PROTECT my beliefs, meaning that the government can't tell me what to believe or how to worship. But I've seen people on both sides who just can't seem to get this concept. There's the people like O'Reilly who think the government needs to preach the Ten Commandments to people, and then there's people who won't let teachers wear cross necklaces or head scarves or anything else that may show their religion because obviously that means the government is forcing their religion on the people! They're both wrong-- separation of church and state means everyone should be free to worship how they choose and the government needs to stay out of it! Unless it involves, you know, human sacrifice or the like.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yes, one problem I've noticed in regards to this issue is that some people seem to think you can divide everyone into the religious and the non-religious, without taking into account that there are a lot of different religions (as well as a lot of non-religious philosophies of life). Take something like mandatory prayer in public schools. To atheists, this would simply be a nuisance. To followers of other religions, though, it could be downright blasphemous.

Unless it involves, you know, human sacrifice or the like.

I think the line should generally be drawn when one person's beliefs involve causing harm to others. I recall hearing recently about a story where some kid wanted to bring a knife with religious significance to school, and the school had a problem with this, even though these knives were never actually used to hurt anyone. I can sort of see both sides to this.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

Of course, in that case, having been a teacher and knowing the excuses kids come up with, my next question would be, "That may very well be, but why do you NEED to bring the knife to SCHOOL?"

[3x1minus1.livejournal.com]

lol!