New at Rosetta Stones: Sparkly Gems and Magnificent Dinosaurs at the Burke Museum

Suzanne and I spent last Tuesday at the Burke Museum. Want to take a virtual tour with us? See gorgeous gemstones, lotsa fossils, and super cool dinosaurs at Rosetta Stones!

Image shows Suzanne, an older lady in a brown blouse with a brown patterned peasant skirt, standing beside a sauropod thigh bone almost as tall as she is.
Suzanne and the Sauropod. Image credit: Dana Hunter
New at Rosetta Stones: Sparkly Gems and Magnificent Dinosaurs at the Burke Museum
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SPN Analysis – S1E10 – “Asylum” – Oral Traditions and Horror Cinema

Okay, everybody, it’s time to head over to Zeroth’s blog and read this most excellent analysis! It’s one of my favorites so far.

There are certain tropes common to horror cinema, ones that have been rightfully criticized.

  • If a character has sex, they’re going to die.
  • The black guy dies first.
  • The survivor will be the white blonde virgin.

These tropes were established back in the heyday of horror movies, and they’re criticized because they communicate specific, poisonous social norms. The killer is often presented as an unstoppable force of nature, killing seemingly indiscriminately, and yet somehow, fitting these tropes much of the time.

There are consequences, delivered by a force of nature, for breaking specific norms, such as “don’t be black” and “don’t have sex”.

Seems fairly arbitrary, eh?

But horror cinema is simply an extension of a much older phenomenon: oral traditions.

Read the rest!

And I promise I’ll catch up on my backlog of SPN analyses soon.

SPN Analysis – S1E10 – “Asylum” – Oral Traditions and Horror Cinema

New at Rosetta Stones: Find Out Which Rock I Am, Plus Pluto!

I’ve got a couple of lovely posts for your perusing pleasure at Rosetta Stones.

Firstly: our first Geo Q&A! Find out what sort of rock I am.

Secondly: 6 Reasons New Horizons Rocks. Get your Plutonic geology on!

You’ll soon see a bit on the Burke Museum, since Suzanne and I did a thorough job of the place. To tide you over, here are a few candid shots. Continue reading “New at Rosetta Stones: Find Out Which Rock I Am, Plus Pluto!”

New at Rosetta Stones: Find Out Which Rock I Am, Plus Pluto!

(Repost) Adventures in ACE IV: When Creationists Drill the Ocean

I’m assured by Jonny that Science PACE 1086 is something special in the bizarreness department. I can see this is true by all the crosses on the cover. The impression given is that they’re so threatened by the implications of a man standing on the moon that they have to spray the scene with god symbols, sort of like a dog dehydrating itself in order to advise other dogs that this is definitely its territory. So there!

The Table of Contents doesn’t give much away. We’re going to learn about “The Foundations of the World,” which seem to be the basics of geology: the crust-mantle-core stuff, rock types, and topography. One wonders how they’re going to spray god everywhere. I’m confident they’ll find a way.

We’re also going to learn to be dependable, and our verse is I Timothy 6:20: Continue reading “(Repost) Adventures in ACE IV: When Creationists Drill the Ocean”

(Repost) Adventures in ACE IV: When Creationists Drill the Ocean

(Tier 1) Adventures in ACE XXIII: An Atmosphere of Fail

The ballooning McMercys have just had their hot air balloon adventure cut short by God, who loves to ruin people’s fun. As if forcing them out of the sky isn’t bad enough, he waits for them to land, them BA-BAM! hits a tree right beside them with a lightning bolt. Dad McMercy doesn’t see that as God’s “And stay down!” message, though.

“However, the lightning that made [Becky] jump is actually a benefit God designed to help plants grow.”

Image shows a man wearing a maroon jacket and blue jeans standing with one hand holding his tan Aussie-style hat in consternation. He's standing in the wreckage of an enormous eucalyptus tree that is now a splintered stump and scattered limbs. The stump is taller than he is and too big around for him to be able to hug.
Eucalyptus tree that was blown apart by a lightning strike, Walcha, NSW. Public domain image and caption courtesy Cgoodwin.

Yes. Very helpful.

“Although air is mostly nitrogen, plants cannot use nitrogen directly from the air.”

And whose fault is that, from your point of view? Dude, your God is the shittiest designer. What a Rube Goldberg way to fix nitrogen! Continue reading “(Tier 1) Adventures in ACE XXIII: An Atmosphere of Fail”

(Tier 1) Adventures in ACE XXIII: An Atmosphere of Fail

RTBS Excerpts, Atheists Talk Links, and Sundry Announcements

My first ever Atheists Talk radio appearance didn’t end in disaster! In fact, it seems to have gone pretty well. Hello and welcome to anyone visiting ETEV for the first time due to hearing my dulcet tones and enjoying my winning radio personality. I’ve got helpful links for ye!

I’ve updated the Really Terrible Bible Stories page. You can find all the excerpts for all three books, and links to where you can purchase, all in one handy location.

For those who didn’t want to get their asses out of bed at the asscrack of dawn on a Sunday morning, I’ve got links to Atheists Talk #365, where you can hear me and Brianne discuss geology, blogging, and one of the worst books in the Bible.

Soundcloud (autoplay at link)

iTunes

Give us a listen!

New to ETEV? Here are some handy links to get you caught up on happenings: Continue reading “RTBS Excerpts, Atheists Talk Links, and Sundry Announcements”

RTBS Excerpts, Atheists Talk Links, and Sundry Announcements

Catch me on Atheists Talk Radio Tomorrow Morning!

Holy schinoozles, people, it’s official! I’m gonna be on Atheists Talk in the ay-em! It’s tomorrow! You should totally listen!

Dana Hunter is a science blogger at Scientific American and a blogger at The Orbit network. On her Rosetta Stones blog she is known for her writing about Mount St. Helens, her travel blogs about her geological adventures, women in science, and other gneiss schist. At her blog En Tequila es Verdad she writes about atheism, religious extremism, the implicationas and effects of religion on women, and many topics relating to social justice.

Dana joins us this Sunday to discuss her recently published book, Really Terrible Bible Stories – Volume 3: Leviticus….

Join us this Sunday as we discuss God’s instructions for BBQs, holy laundry, nutritional dictates, slavery and other instances of horrifying divine micromanagement.

It’s going to be awesome. And you don’t even have to get up early on a Sunday morning to do it! Instructions for getting the podcast or listening online are here.

Talk to you soon!

Image is Really Terrible Bible Stories vol. 3: Leviticus cover. The background is black. Really Terrible is in slasher-style red font, Bible Stories in a white gothic script beneath. The painting beneath it is Tissot's "The Dead Bodies Carried Away," which shows two men in white robes carrying bodies over their shoulders out of the Israelite camp. Below is vol. 3: Leviticus in the same gothic script.

Really Terrible Bible Stories vol. 3: Leviticus is now available worldwide at Amazon:

United States  ♦  Canada  ♦  Mexico  ♦  Brazil  ♦  United Kingdom  ♦  Germany  ♦  France  ♦  Spain ♦  Italy  ♦  Netherlands  ♦  India  ♦  Japan  ♦  Australia

Pick up your copies today!

Catch me on Atheists Talk Radio Tomorrow Morning!

Really Terrible Bible Stories vol. 3: Leviticus is Now Available!

At long last, my darlings, and with an assist from our own Benny Vimes, Really Terrible Bible Stories vol. 3: Leviticus is now available for your reading pleasure!

What’s in a biblical book of laws that’s worth your time, you ask? Why, murder! Mayhem! Human sacrifice! Scapegoats! In this volume, you’ll find out what God hates more than gays. You’ll learn how to handle leprous houses, leaking wangs, and menstruating women. You’ll master fucking the God-approved way. And you’ll discover the real value of human beings (including infants)!

Get your very own copy today for the low, low price of $2.99USD.

And join me on Atheists Talk on Sunday, where I’ll be talking about the series, atheism, and sundry other things.

Image is Really Terrible Bible Stories vol. 3: Leviticus cover. The background is black. Really Terrible is in slasher-style red font, Bible Stories in a white gothic script beneath. The painting beneath it is Tissot's "The Dead Bodies Carried Away," which shows two men in white robes carrying bodies over their shoulders out of the Israelite camp. Below is vol. 3: Leviticus in the same gothic script.

But wait! There’s more! Continue reading “Really Terrible Bible Stories vol. 3: Leviticus is Now Available!”

Really Terrible Bible Stories vol. 3: Leviticus is Now Available!

Summer Cold Forces Tough Choices

Well, my darlings, it’s happened: I finally succumbed to a virus. I’d been dodging the silly buggers for two years, but of course almost the instant I get a day job, I get a cold to go with it. And I got sick on the weekend when I was supposed to be finishing Really Terrible Bible Stories volume 3: Leviticus, which is due out at the end of the week. I can’t delay publication because reasons. Namely: I’m going to be on Atheists Talk Radio on Sunday talking about life, the universe, and my really terrible book series. This is the first time I’ve had an opportunity to do anything like a formal book release with publicity, and I ain’t letting no damn head cold stop me!

(HUGE thank-you to the Atheists Talk folks for deciding I’m an atheist worth talking to!)

On top of being sick, they’re cutting down an enormous and dangerous tree on the property and have set up the woodchipper right outside my window, where it serenades me all day long. This has not been helping me sleep off sickness.

I’m now past the ZOMG-I’m-dying phase and into the hmm-food-apparently-does-have-flavor phase, but I have limited energy. So I’m afraid that blogging will have to take a backseat to editing and formatting this week. I’ll try to get our Escape post up, at least, and probably there will be another RTBS vol. 3 excerpt for Tier 2 members. Continue reading “Summer Cold Forces Tough Choices”

Summer Cold Forces Tough Choices

Why Kill For Honor?

Qandeel Baloch, a fiercely independent woman who dared to defy the stringent modesty rules of her culture, is dead, murdered by her own family.

Image shows Qandeel Baloch, a young woman with long dark hair, wearing sunglasses and looking down. She is buckling herself into what looks like a carnival ride. There are black bars over her shoulders like one sees on roller coasters.
The last photo from Qandeel Baloch’s Facebook mobile upload folder.

The kind of violence she suffered is called an honor killing, and we here in the West too often don’t realize what’s meant by that. We’re given to trite, pithy comments about how there’s nothing honorable about killing your sister or your daughter or your wife. If we understood what honor meant in those cultures, we wouldn’t say such things.

Hiba Krisht has a heartbroken post up that explores many facets of Qandeel’s death and its impact on those who live with the threat of the same thing happening to them. She also explains what honor is. We need to listen. We must understand why these murders happen if we want to help prevent them.

It’s a funny thing to think about, this question of honor.

And what kind of person do you have to be, for your honor to depend on your family members conforming to a restrictive standard of behavior?
This question of honor. And individuals. And anger and and shame and fear. What kind of human do you have to be?

Perhaps, the kind of human who lives in a society where the standing and reputation of your family– its honor– dictates just about every measure of accessibility and livelihood.

Continue reading “Why Kill For Honor?”

Why Kill For Honor?