Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Exciting News!

I proposed! Even better: he said yes!!!
Also, we are moving out! We were approved for an apartment!

There have been a lot of changes in my life very quickly! I am so excited!
That being said, I have a question for you:
Do you have any idea how difficult it is to plan an atheist wedding in December? In Michigan, you either get married in a church or outside. You can not get married outside in Michigan in December and as far as a church goes... I'm going to let you work on that. So my apocalyptic wedding on December 21 is out. Oh well, next May is good, too!

Kari

Friday, April 6, 2012

Moving Out

So...my parents are upping my rent to $400 a month. I can't blame them, I was paying $100. However, I would rather pay the extra money and have my own space. So that means that I will be moving out, but not buying my house. :(  My boyfriend and I will be getting an apartment.

More later...


Kari

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

I Wrote a Paper for My History of Rock Music Class About Reason Rally!


Reason Rally

On March 24, 2012 Reason Rally was held on the National Mall. It was a gathering of about 20,000 atheists, the largest gathering of it’s kind in the world! At this rally there were a multitude of speakers, videos, and musical artists who were amazing. All of these people had the same messages: it’s okay to not believe, there are a lot of us! I even got to meet my favourite blogger, Hemant Mehta (The Friendly Atheist)! There were many artists, but I’ve only chosen three to write about because they are the three that have stuck with me.
The first artist (as in the very first person for the day) that performed on the stage was Andy Shernoff from The Dictators. He sang “Get On Your Knees For Jesus ‘til He Comes” and “Ready to Rapture.” Both of these songs were comedy songs and they were hilarious! The crowd sang right along and got really into it. My favourite part was in “Ready to Rapture” when he said:
“…judgment day is come,
are you ready to rapture?
Our saviour, you have spurned,
he loves you forever,
but the unbelievers must burn…”
It brought back my first memories of me questioning in Sunday school why people who were good but not Christian weren’t going to Heaven. It was a great performance to kick the rally off with. I always say that the quickest way to unite a lot of people is either with food or comedy, and the organizers chose comedy.
The next musical artist that came the stage after a speaker was Shelley Segal, who is totally adorable. I had never heard of Shelley before and at first I thought that she was a complete folk singer because it was just her and her guitar, but I have since bought her album entitled “An Atheist Album,” and she is much more folk/rock. She played songs called “Saved,” “Eve,” “Apocalyptic Love Song (for Hitchens),” and a brand new song called “My Morality.” “Eve” really hit a nerve with me, since I’m a feminist, along with being an atheist. This song is about how the Bible tells women that they are not as important as men and that they need to be subservient, even there is no scientific, empirical reasoning behind it. It’s also about how just because Eve ate an apple, she and all other women are punished with painful childbirth, as though shoving something the size of a watermelon out of a hole the size of a lemon would be anything but painful.
I really think that Shelley was my favourite artist of the day. She sang with honesty and an earnestness that a lot of mainstream artists don’t really have anymore.
The final artist that I want to mention is Tim Minchin. He was someone else that I had never heard of, but I immediately fell in love with him when he walked on stage. My boyfriend says it’s because I like guys with weird hair and/or a lot of eyeliner, but I digress. From what I remember he played “Thank You God (Sam’s Mum),” “Pope Song,” “Confessions” and a 9 minute beat poem entitles “Storm.” “Thank You God” is about faith healers and how instead of getting medical treatment and praying for something useful like ending famine in Africa, getting people out of poverty, or bringing Freddie Mercury back to life, they pray for things like finding the peanut butter and fixing middle class people’s cataracts.
“Pope Song” is about the pedophile priests and it contains the word “fuck” about 80 times, which makes it one of the best songs ever.
All in all, it was a great event. I had so much fun and made a lot of new friends and discovered music that I now love and scare my grandma with. I feel as though the music really pulled the event together, because music, like comedy, is one thing that everybody loves.

-----------------------------------

I love being in a class where I can write a paper that's like a blog post!
Kari

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Terry Jones in Dearborn

So Terry Jones (you remember him, the guy who burned a Quran on the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks?) is suing the city of Dearborn because he wants to hold a rally in front of the Islamic Center of America and the city wants him to sign a liability waiver saying that the city holds no responsibility if anything happens during the rally.
I really don't know how I feel about this. They have made other people who wanted to have events in the city sign this waiver before. Jones' argument is that he would have to buy insurance for the event in case of anything happening, he can't afford the insurance, which means he won't be able to have the event.
The city claims that they are doing this because of the location of the center and how there really is not a lot of space for a rally to take place.


I guess I can see their point. If it ends up being a large rally, there really is not a lot of space for people to be without impeding traffic, parking or pedestrians. I guess he could have the event on the strip of grass between Altar Road and Ford Road, but I don't even know if that is public property.

More on this story as it progresses.

Kari

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Pro-Life Protest in Detroit

I love it when my three topics come together in union. *sigh* I just wish they wouldn't do it while I was out of town, on my birthday, no less!!!
On 23 March, there was a "pro-life" protest. You can read about it here. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Are you back? Good, I was worried that you may have at the same reaction I did, which was to ram my head into the wall of my room. Now I just have one thing to ask:

Really? Really?

In a city with 19 percent unemployment, rising crime rates, and a quarter of the population leaving the city in the last ten years, you want to complain about the insurance that I would pay for having to cover my birth control?

I seriously can't even quote parts of  the article because I would end up quoting all of it. I will only quote one bit because it is the dumbest quote in the article:
Heidi Zimmer, of Roseville, has a Baptist background. But she came to the Detroit rally today after hearing about it from a Catholic friend. Over the years, she's turned against contraception after listening to arguments from Catholics.
"When you take the pill, it screws up your hormones," she said. "A lot of people think, oh, you're a fanatic. But there's a logic. I, too, am now against the pill."
I'm really trying to stop talking like a teenager, but I'm going to lapse for just one second:
WELL DUH!!! That's why it's called "hormonal birth control!" It messes with your hormones because THAT'S HOW IT WORKS!!! There are side effects, but there are side effects with nearly all medication. And you know what screws up your hormones? Your period. You know what helps with that? Birth control. You know what else screws up your hormones? Pregnancy. You know what prevents that? Birth control.

I really need to calm down or wash my eyes to get the stupid out of them. I'm going to make some tea and do my homework for my Rock and Roll History class. I get to read about my favorite band this week.

Kari