I was going to blog about Elizabeth of York, since today is her birthday and the date of her death. However, the news about the murders of three young Muslims in North Carolina has changed my plans inasmuch I feel compelled to address their deaths. The three murder victims were 23-year-old Deah Shaddy Barakat, (a… Read more Radical Atheist Murders Three Young Muslims in North Carolina
Every religion has a history of violence carried out by its fringe and/or power-players. Every religion. Let’s just look at the “Big Four” though, for examples. Hinduism has a violent history. It was the 17th century Hindu warrior king Shivaji Bhonsle who first invented and used guerrilla warfare methods (Shiva sutra or ganimi kava), which… Read more The Truth For Truth’s Sake
Let me start off by pointing out that I am not one to follow the “party line” vis-à-vis healthy and safety. I was trained as a medical anthropologist and I know plenty about paradigm shifting, assumptions, and authoritative knowledge. I don’t eat GMO foods because no one has proved they are safe and several European… Read more The vaccination debate
Two of the rapists in the Vanderbilt rape case that I blogged about on Monday have been found guilty in a court of law. Brandon Vandenburg and Corey Batey were each convicted on four counts of aggravated rape, two counts of aggravated sexual battery, and one count of attempted aggravated rape. Two other men, Brandon… Read more Guilty of Cultural Violations
A recent study found that 1/3 of college aged men admitted they would commit rape …. provided the questionnaire didn’t CALL it rape. Almost 33% of the men questioned said that “they would be willing to “use force to obtain intercourse” as long as nobody would find out and there would be no consequences. But… Read more What They Don’t Know May Hurt You
Doctors were expensive and hard to come by for the average person in the Tudor era. Most of the nitty-gritty healthcare and healing came from women. Armed only with herbs and folklore, women – especially older married women — acted as de facto nurse practioners for their communities. These skills were taught via informal apprenticeship… Read more Ollie Petite Morgan Blakely, Wise Woman
One of the hardest thing about studying the life of Henry VIII is the enormous amount of infant/child deaths I have had to read about. It is a horrible thing to contemplate. Contrary to what some people believe, people in eras of high child mortality grieved with the same intensity as modern parents. Just as… Read more The Human Continuum
Roger Ver, a billionaire libertarian who is called “Bitcoin Jesus” in investment circles, renounced his US citizenship in March. He was apparently incensed by the idea that he should have to pay taxes in the country that has sheltered him since birth. What has the US ever done for him? You know, besides providing schools… Read more Roger Ver Should Get No Free Lunch
As someone with Asperger’s syndrome, I am frequently baffled when facts are contested by denial ( “I don’t believe that” instead of “I want to see if the methodology is flawed”) rather than potentially countering facts and even more confused when facts are greeted with an angry response. Why do facts, things that are theoretically… Read more Cognitive Dissonance versus Cognitive Flexibility
*Okay, this turns out to have been a hoax on a satirical website. I swallowed the bait, hook, line, and sinker. Mea Culpa. Many of you may have already seen reports on this, but a team of archaeologists affiliated with the University College Dublin have discovered a trio of skeletons from a previously unknown humanoid… Read more The Wee Folk *updated*