A conservative friend of mine posted an Islamophobic anti-refugee Meme on Facebook the other day. The text on the image claims that the Prophet Muhammad, the Jesus of Islam, was taken in by the Jewish city of Medina and within five years he had driven out, killed, or enslaved all the Jews. The accusation sounded so ridiculous I had to try and verify it. Of course the ‘facts’ in the meme were very wrong.
A copy of the meme is to the right of this article (and a full size version is at the end of this post) but if you can’t see the image below is the full quote used:
The Time For Columbus Day Is Over
Today, in my part of the world, is Columbus Day. It’s suppose to honor Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the Americas in 1492. Like alot of holidays observed in this country Columbus Day is full of myths and missing history. In Columbus’ case the history that tends to be overlooked should not be overlooked. I think it’s time to stop with Columbus Day and replace it with a holiday that honors the people who were in the New World first – the Native Americans.
Christopher Columbus was known as the Donald Trump of his era – a tireless self-promoter who used sometimes unethical methods to advance himself. Columbus was also ignorant of the Indigenous people he met and started the systematic subjugation and genocide of the native population of the islands he visited.
As Some Dismiss Feminism In The Atheist Movement, They Fail To Know Their History
As much as I get frustrated about the unnecessary backlash against atheist feminists, it makes me even more upset to see some well meaning opponents of feminism in the movement who fail to learn from history. Tom Flynn, the editor of Free Inquiry and the executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism, points out the work of women on the front lines in the struggle of freethought in the last 40 years of the 20th century. Women have led the major atheist groups from the 1960’s to the present.
New And Fresh: Famous Findlayians Page
I wanted to do something to celebrate the bicentennial of my hometown Findlay, Ohio. I decided to totally redo my Famous Findlayian web page. I gutted it and rebuilt it with fresh css, a splash of color, replacing some images with better ones, a new masthead image, and a couple of new additions to the list. Check it out.
Here is an example of a new person added to my cyber hall-of-fame:
The Real Story of Thanksgiving and Socialism
A friend of mine posted a story of the “A Lost Thanksgiving Lesson” told by FOX “news” talking head John Stossel. He claims that because the colony tried to operate as a commune there was a famine and so to save the colony the Pilgrims ditched socialism. Like most Libertarian fantasies, Stossel’s story is 99.9999999% made up.
Every year around this time, schoolchildren are taught about that wonderful day when Pilgrims and Native Americans shared the fruits of the harvest. But the first Thanksgiving in 1623 almost didn’t happen.
Long before the failure of modern socialism, the earliest European settlers gave us a dramatic demonstration of the fatal flaws of collectivism. Unfortunately, few Americans today know it.
The Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony organized their farm economy along communal lines. The goal was to share the work and produce equally.
That’s why they nearly all starved.
When people can get the same return with less effort, most people make less effort. Plymouth settlers faked illness rather than working the common property. Some even stole, despite their Puritan convictions. Total production was too meager to support the population, and famine resulted. This went on for two years.
The real history tells a different tale:
Historians say that the settlers in Plymouth, and their supporters in England, did indeed agree to hold their property in common — William Bradford, the governor, referred to it in his writings as the “common course.” But the plan was in the interest of realizing a profit sooner, and was only intended for the short term; historians say the Pilgrims were more like shareholders in an early corporation than subjects of socialism.
“It was directed ultimately to private profit,” said Richard Pickering, a historian of early America and the deputy director of Plimoth Plantation, a museum devoted to keeping the Pilgrims’ story alive.
The arrangement did not produce famine. If it had, Bradford would not have declared the three days of sport and feasting in 1621 that became known as the first Thanksgiving. “The celebration would never have happened if the harvest was going to be less than enough to get them by,” Mr. Pickering said. “They would have saved it and rationed it to get by.”
The first Thanksgiving or harvest feast was held in 1621 not 1623. The Native Americans were invited because they helped support the colony with food and teaching them how to grow their crops in New England during their first year when half the colonists died.
So socialism did save the colony and the Libertarians/Tea Party/Conservatives are full of stuffing – and not the good kind.