January 11, 2012

I wrote a great little piece for caution Church Ahead entitled "Valerie Huber and the National Education Abstinence Association's Lies" that went live today. In it I attack a most vexing problem: why does he media insist on equating the opinions of ignorant, uninformed people with educated doctors and educators? Why does an article that starts off telling us what a consensus of the best experts in the country think about a subject end by quoting the opinions of a ignorant Christian from Ohio?

The other piece I wrote today is running over at the recently relaunched Rhode Island's Future. Written in response to Ron Paul's speech in New Hampshire last night, in which Paul gave a shout-out of sorts to Atheists, "Ron Paul no Friend to the Non-Religious" shows just how backwards the impression many people have of the man is. Buzzwords like FREEDOM and shout-outs to the fasting growing segment of the youth vote only serve to mask Paul's reactionary political views. Do we really need a president committed to destroying all the social and civil rights gains we have made over the last two hundred years?

Today I officially weigh 245 pounds. Still too much, but I've lost 22 pounds since December 1st.

I had two events tonight. First up was author John Barry speaking at 5:30pm on Roger Williams & the Origins of Church/State Separation at the John Carter Brown Library 94 George Street, Providence, RI. Barry recently wrote the book Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul: Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty which I've been enjoying immensely, but will not finish in time for tonight's talk. No problem though, because I taped it. The crowd was well over two hundred people, and Barry's talk left no doubt about the importance and historical significance of Roger Williams and church/state separation.

I was going to go to The Providence Blogosphere Post-Holidays Party from 7–10pm at The Salon, 57 Eddy Street in Providence, right behind City Hall, but while I was leaving the John Barry event I got an amazing phone call. Jessica Ahlquist, my niece, had won her lawsuit against the city of Cranston concerning the Prayer banner in her school. This was an amazing piece of news, so of course i headed right over.

Jess, and her sister Julia and brother Zack were all very excited of course. Facebook was buzzing with excitement, and we were all of us on our computers and mobile devices trying to keep up with it all. Channel 10 and 12 were clamoring for interviews, but the ACLU wanted Jess to wait until the morning press conference. We did drive out to Cranston West so that the Providence Journal could get a photo for tomorrow's paper. When we got to the high school the reporters were itching to talk to her, but ere very cool with not being able to. They understood that they would have to wait until the press conference.

Of course, the night got a little sour when reports came in that the good Christians who opposed removing the prayer from the wall started posting ugly threats on the ProJo and Cranston Patch comment sites. At one point someone posted Jess' home address, followed by a comment that hinted she should be run out of town. Really ugly stuff. But fortunately pother, better people managed to flag such comments as the inappropriate bullying it was, and many of those comments were removed. I'm both proud and saddened that my sixteen year old niece has the toughness required to weather such threats with a shrug of her shoulders. She's used to this kind of behavior, unfortunately.

I hope to make the press conference tomorrow.