Ocassional Thoughts of an Independent Progressive Atheistic Humanist
Just found out that Yahoo is shutting down Yahoo Groups on 12/15. Just a bit gutted because it hosted the first Humanist list I was on back when it was hosted by the Internet Infidels in 1996(?). It was called Human_ism. Not sure why it was written that way. I forget if I did know. We talked about Humanism all kinds of Humanism.
Continue reading “Good Bye Yahoo Groups and Human_ism”
I think I am a writer and a student of history. The other day in the mist of our self-quarantine, my 76 year old mother asked me if I was recording my experiences during this once in a lifetime pandemic (hopefully once in a lifetime). I hadn’t been actively doing it but she got me thinking about people’s stories. It was then I decided to collect as many of them as people would send me. I am most interested in the secular perspective and so that is the common thread I would like see.
Long after moments in history, such as the COVID-19 outbreak, recede into the ether of historical memories, people will want to know about how those who lived at that time experienced the event. The secular experience probably won’t be much different than a majority of the world population but the goal of The Secular COVIDStories Project is to collect and save for posterity the secular perspective on this tumultuous time in history.
‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’, written by Frank Loesser in 1944, is suppose to be a Christmas song with lyrics one couldn’t really make into a song today unless it was a rap song. People lost their minds, as social media outrage can happen, when a few radio stations removed the song from their Christmas play lists. The song isn’t even a Christmas song so the questionable lyrics is just another reason to remove it from the radio during the holiday season.
Memorial Day is for remembering those who served who didn’t make it back home alive. We honor their sacrifice.
Millions of people have just as many stories about their lost loved ones. For years I believed one story about what happened when my father was killed. Only recently I found out what I knew wasn’t the whole story.
My father, Michael John Kelly, was killed in action on February 15th 1968 in Vietnam. His platoon was on patrol when it was ambushed. My Dad was on point and was killed instantly. I was only a month and a day old at time and never met him or knew him.
I never liked being forced to do something especially if I had major moral issues about it. I had a telemarketing job where I had to sell stuff I knew people didn’t need to buy. As a kid, I hated having to recite the pledge of allegiance and as an adult I refuse to recite it and I don’t stand the for the national anthem. It isn’t because I hate my country, it’s because I love my country and want it to do better. If the pledge and anthem mean anything it’s my right to address my grievances with my government like not standing for the national anthem.