Crazy people everywhere

Check out this nut.

The FBI recently paid a visit to 27 year-old Erlyndon Joseph Lo at his Plano, TX, home. Why, you might ask? Why, for threatening a women's clinic. But it gets better. (Of course, it does!)

On Friday morning, Lo went to the Plano federal courthouse and filed a court document saying that at noon that day, he was planning to go to the Southwestern Women's Surgery Center in the 8600 block of Greenville Avenue in Dallas and "use deadly force to defend the innocent life of another human being," according to court documents.

You know, I almost wanted to play the vagina card and ask why you don't see any women pulling these types of crazy stunts... Until I remembered Shelly Shannon, who attempted to kill Dr. George Tiller in 1993.

For a double dose of crazy, check out Lo's own web site.

Abortion is WRONG in EVERY case, even when a woman is raped and she did not want to have a child, EVEN WHEN SHE WILL DIE IF SHE HAS THE CHILD, AND EVEN IF THE WOMAN WILL SURVIVE ONLY IF SHE KILLS THE BABY. That is the OBJECTIVE AND ABSOLUTE TRUTH. THAT IS THE ONLY CORRECT ANSWER.

Now, you know somebody is an extremist when they say something like that, especially in caps-lock.

If you visit that page, be warned: It contains massive, barely coherent blocks of poorly written text. It is completely beyond me how this guy could have finished law school when he can barely write a comprehensible paragraph.

Oh, just imagine if he and Orly Taitz got together! The fun that could be had!

My reaction to the Scott Roeder guilty verdict

As I sit here in front of my laptop, tap-tap-tapping away and defrosting after a subzero morning spent in the parking lot of Planned Parenthood, I have to feel especially grateful for yesterday's guilty verdict in the trial of Scott Roeder.

If you don't know already, Scott Roeder is the anti-abortion extremist who walked into the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kansas, on May 31, put a gun to Dr. George Tiller's head, and pulled the trigger, before threatening witnesses and then fleeing the scene. Roeder was fortunately apprehended only three hours after the shooting, and on Friday, a jury of his peers found him guilty of first-degree murder.

The jury made the right decision. There was some concern by pro-choice groups that Roeder might be convicted on a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter, but Judge Warren Wilbert rightly ruled that the jury could not consider that lesser charge in their deliberations. They deliberated for only 37 minutes, which shouldn't have been as surprising as it was to me. Still, I couldn't help but feel a huge wave of relief.

I firmly believe that if Roeder had been convicted on a lesser charge - or dog forbid, acquitted - not only would that have bolstered the convictions of those extremists who believe any measure of force is necessary to stop abortion, but he would have committed further acts of violence against abortion providers and clinic employees and volunteers. The possibility that he could face anything less than life in prison after openly admitting to murdering Tiller in his place of worship (something that even this "hardened atheist" thinks is a supremely dick move) frightened me. And it should have frightened you, too.

CNN's article on the story features some highlights of Roeder's testimony, and I'd recommend that you watch it. It's clear that he is a mentally unstable lunatic who truly believed that murder was justified to achieve his social and political ends. He is a threat to society, and thankfully, he will be removed from society now.

Now to be fair, most anti-abortion activists and organizations have condemned Roeder's actions, as well they should have. A few select voices refused to either condemn or condone what he did, and that's a bit unsettling, but I'll grant that most abortion opponents do want to work within the system to outlaw abortion. I still fundamentally disagree with them, but that's mildly respectable nonetheless. No abortion opponent should want this guy on their side, and I don't blame you few rational pro-lifers for disassociating yourselves with Roeder, though I have to wonder to what extent the inflammatory rhetoric used by many otherwise non-violent right-wingers could inspire similar actions in the future. It's something to be wary of, I believe.

Scott Roeder is not a martyr. He is a menace, and I'm glad to see that justice was dealt swiftly in this case. I can only hope now that he serves the rest of his life behind bars.

"It's 'Merry Christmas,' mothertrucker!"

With the onset of the last month of the year comes the onset of "The War on Christmas" season. Or did that begin on Black Friday? Or earlier? I don't keep track of these things, but it seems like Christmas shopping season starts earlier every year, so I must be about two weeks behind in reporting on the beginning of this year's "War on Christmas" season.

Whatever. The "War on Christmas" is bullshit anyway. Is there any quicker way to suck the fun out of something than by making that something into a political football? I don't think so.

Quite frankly, I think the people baw-ing every time a cashier wishes them "Happy Holidays" are hypocrites. "Holiday" is too generic, they complain."You're taking CHRIST out of Christmas!" they bleat.

Actually, if you want to get technical about it, there's very little "Christ" in Christmas already, at least the way we celebrate it here in America. Dust up on some history. Many of the symbols we associate with Christmas actually derive from non-Christian pagan traditions predating the birth of Jesus Christ. For example, mistletoe, yule logs, holly wreaths, even the beloved Christmas tree are all non-Christian in origin. Early Christians incorporated many pagan symbols into their own holiday to make Christianity more palatable to pagans (and thus, win over more converts). There's a word for this practice, too: syncretism. And if you want to get really technical about it, astronomers actually believe the birth of Christ happened a lot closer to the summer than to Dec. 25.

So a "good Christian" who wants to "keep Christ in Christmas" should probably be celebrating the birth of their savior in June - and shouldn't get a Christmas tree.

And if you want to throw another monkey wrench into the equation here, the word "holiday" literally means "holy day," so Fox News aficionados should be happy when retailers acknowledge their upcoming winter gift-giving day as holy.

We should all realize by this point that the "War on Christmas" is kind of an imaginary phenomenon that conservative commentators use to stir up white, middle-class Christian rage around this time of the year. It's convenient. The American Family Association needs something to be mad about, and lord knows you can't be angry about gays in the military and women in the workforce year-round. You've got to mix it up a little! It also helps their case that Christians in America are oppressed. (Hint: You're using the wrong suffix.)

If you want proof the AFA is just a bunch of whiny little ninnies with nothing better to spend their time on, click here to read their latest press release condemning Gap's holiday ad campaign. Remember they initially got their panties in a twist because (they claimed) Gap left the word "Christmas" out of this year's ad campaign, when the clothing retailer, in fact, included it in a very in-your-face kind of way. The bottom line is the same anyway: "Happy Holidays! Rah, rah, rah! Buy our shit!"

As for me personally, well, this time of the year gets very stressful, and I do tend to turn into a bit of a Grinch. I'm just trying not to stress out too much and to just kick back and enjoy spending time with my friends and family. Gift giving can be fun if you don't go overboard, and everyone loves an excuse to eat, drink, and be merry. Plus, if Richard Dawkins can do Christmas, then I think I can feel pretty OK about doing Christmas as an atheist.

If you take the politics out of it, then it's kind of a neat cultural phenomenon. It's interesting to see the way we've combined various religious and cultural practices over several centuries to create this one big amalgamation of food, shopping, pine trees, and peppermint. And boy, do I love peppermint mocha lattes!

One more thing before I go, though: I will not hesitate to tease and heckle these "Merry Christmas" warriors. If you force pamphlets into my hands or chide me that "Jesus is the reason for the season," then I will probably get in your face and tell you I celebrate solstice or Festivus or that I worship the sun god or a can of Spam or something equally ridiculous. Just because it's fun to make them sputter.

Happy Holidays, friends! :)

"War on Christmas" season has officially begun!

The L.A. Times has an excellent piece on the American Family Association's recent call for Christians to boycott Gap. Their offense? Failing to mention the word "Christmas" in their holiday advertising. Except that they actually do mention Christmas, so maybe the real offense is mentioning Christmas in the same breath as Hannukah, Kwanzaa, and solstice.

But as Dan Neil points out, their injunction against Gap may not matter at all anyway.

If you look at the history of the organization's boycotts -- often involving punitive actions against companies that support gay rights -- you'll see that they have no commercial impact. Actually, these boycotts seem to be good for business: In the decade of the AFA's boycott against Disney, which ended in 2006, the world's largest entertainment conglomerate's revenue roughly doubled to $34 billion. Likewise for Ford, which just posted a billion-dollar profit in the third quarter of 2009.

Personally, I don't particularly care whether someone wants to wish me a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, or a Happy Kwanzaa. Whatever. Do what you want, but don't bleat on about how a cashier wishing you "Happy Holidays" is "taking the Christ out of Christmas," especially if you're indulging in the consumerist pseudo-holiday madness that is known as Black Friday. After all, nothing says "Happy Birthday, Jesus!" like two soccer moms assailing each other with their shopping carts to get the last $40 mechanical hamster.

On another note, I did go out this morning, on Black Friday. Not because I wanted to, but because I was assigned the duty of interviewing shoppers for our annual Black Friday shopping story. The chore was not as horrible as I imagined it to be, although I parked at the mall and hoofed it to Wal-Mart and Best Buy. My soaking wet shoes and socks are now parked on top of my desk in the newsroom. I just hope I don't forget to bring them home with me.

I am terrible at updating this blog on a regular basis. Please forgive me, Internets.