Twelve years of 9/11

It is the 11th of September again. This year, I barely noticed it. Ironic, as the day was fittingly commemorative: cold and gloomy. I wrote my most important posts about it in 2008 and in 2009 already. I will commemorate it briefly tonight, by uploading first this drawing from webcomic Atheist Eve by Tracie Harris. I hope she doesn't mind. I deeply admire her work, this specific strip especially, how intelligent and compassionate it is. How eloquent too. Then I have decided to upload The End by The Doors. It was not meant to be a song about the end of times, but one cannot help feeling this association, especially with its use in Apocalypse Now, fittingly re-released back in 2001. Of course, 9/11 was not the end of times. There is no such thing, not by human standards anyway. Nevertheless, this reminds me of that day, of a certain state of mind that the world is in since that day. So here it is.

Atheist Eve on hiatus?

I have just read this update from the Atheist Eve strip. I love the monthly web comic, I love how Tracie Harris defends an argument so efficiently in such a restricted format, with intelligence and genuine humour. Among my favourite strips are Real Christians, Witnesses, Happy Eostre, Who Wrote the Bible?, Was it Offensive? and of course Remember (Why it matters). They are among my monthly internet treats, Tracie Harris is also always a pleasure to listen to on The Atheist Experience and Godless Bitches (which I don't listen to enough). I can understand that she has been very busy and that the comics had to be momentarily sacrificed. Still, I have been missing it for a while now.

I once suggested to her in a comment on The Atheist Experience blog that she writes a book, maybe a whole comic book, something like "Atheism made plain" or something like that, where she would explain how someone comes to disbelief and why. She has the intelligence and the skills to do it. If she was writing one right now, I would forgive her for putting Atheist Eve on ice.

Ten years of darkness

Well, it is this day again. I blogged about 9/11 a lot and when I started thinking about this new post, I wondered if I could write something I haven't said. This year again, it is Tracie Harris in her webcomic Atheist Eve who sums it up for me. Otherwise, I have little more to say about the event that I already did here, here and here. I still have the same feeling now.That this terrorist attack was an acto fo devout worship.

Sure, there are some reasons to be fairly optimistic. Al Qaeda is just a shadow of itself, Bin Laden was killed, and apparently New York is thriving. But we also integrated fear, religious fanatics still get a free pass because they are men of faith (regardless of the label of this faith), the sharia is still being applied here in the UK... From the rubbles of the World Trade Center on this day ten years ago grew a great cloud of smoke. I wonder if we haven't been covered by it, covered by the darkness since then.

Female role models (from Texas)

I don't have enough in a week, let alone a day, to read, listen and watch all the stuff I want on the internet. And I am not talking about the many books that keep piling up here and that I am reading at a snail's place. And now I have something else, one more thing to listen to. I need days longer than 24 hours. Anyway, I learned from the Atheist Experience's blog that there is a new atheist/humanist/feminist podcast aired, called Godless Bitches. Not the best name I think, I don't mind rude words, especially used ironically like in this case, but I think it should have been called Godless Chicks. Tracie Harris (author of Atheist Eve) is one of the "bitches" and it is always interesting to listen to her. You can also find Jen Peeples, another from the Atheist Experience that I like quite a lot.

I decided to blog about the podcast before I often mention here male role models, usually writers: Anthony Burgess, Elmore Leonard, Oscar Wilde, George Pelecanos, etc. I rarely mention women role models. Well, Tracie Harris and the others are women I deeply admire and look up to. Because they fight for secular humanism in a state that has been plagued, rotten by religious fundamentalism. In a place where feminism is still often a dirty words, their work is essential. So I thought it was just that I plug their podcast. Please find time to listen to it.

Musing on Easter

It is Easter Sunday today! So have a happy Easter everyone! I love Easter, for various reasons, and like Christmas I celebrate it for its Pagan roots. I am a primitive man, but at least I am conscious of my primitive nature. For more on Easter's Pagan significance, I recommend this Atheist Eve strip by Tracie Harris. Always interesting to read her. You can also have a look at this article in the Guardian. Mixed with celebration of fertility and return to life, Easter, like many holidays we love (Halloween, Christmas, etc.) is also an excuse for eating excesses, taking as much as we can of nature's goodness. A chocolate Easter bunny, a Cadbury's egg, it is simply a sugar coated (literally!) Pagan symbol. I remember of a birthday I had around Easter (I believe it was in 1987, when Easter Sunday was on the 19th of April), we celebrated both the same day that year. We had a brunch in a restaurant my godfather owned at that time. On the center table there was a Horn of Plenty made of croissant dough, filled with fruits. Years later, I still wonder who thought about it, but I am still amazed at how powerful those symbols live in our psyche.

This picture was taken last Easter in Québec, in a sugar cabin. It was a dreadful sugar cabin, but they had rabbits. I thought that I would put one on the blog that is not in chocolate, for a change. I will not eat rabbit (or lamb) this year, but I might have an omelette for tonight's dinner, which is just as appropriate. I already had plenty of chocolate.

Yesterday's Apocalypse

It is this day again. I already blogged about it, extensively, so will refrain from writing a long post this time. I think I pretty much said all I wanted to say. Well, most of it anyway, and I do not want to be repetitive. You can read my thought and memories of the day here and here. Feel free to comment on any of them, or this one. I am very proud of those posts, maybe more than any other one I have blogged in the last three years and a half. But maybe the most moving and eloquent piece on 9/11 I ever read was the Atheist Eve comic strip of September 2009 by Tracie Harris.

I will live this September the 11th the same way I did nine years ago: through the TV screen. In 2001, it was like watching the Apocalypse live. Now it seems more like yesterday's Apocalypse, but we still have to deal with the aftermaths.