(Or anywhere on the internet really.)  People will find your images, copy them, and use them for their own purposes.

I mention this because I have just heard about  Flickr user "Lara Jade" who recently discovered that a self portrait she photographed when she was 14 years old was used as the cover for a pornographic DVD without her knowledge.  The responses she has received from the DVD company border on the bizarre and betray an extremely warped sense of morality and personal responsibility.

Sadly for Lara Jade, she cannot afford the legal fees necessary to pursue the matter, especially since she lives in the UK and the photo was misappropriated by a company operating in the USA.

Read her story here.

Those of you who post personal or family photos are advised to publish them as "private" photos -- viewable only by people you name as family or friends.  This is not something I've ever worried about on my blog, but I am now wrestling with the idea of marking some of my photo albums as private.  If that happens, anybody who wants to view those albums will need to create a reader account so I can add you as an approved reader.  I haven't decided what I am going to do.  This could be a good opportunity to just switch to Flickr.  I'll have to think on it.

The jobs don't pay a lot, and you take most of your pay in self-esteem, but somebody is always trying out for village idiot or village atheist. Often they're one and the same...

-- Wesley Pruden, Revival time with the village atheist, (Washington Times)

In a classic pot-and-kettle scenario, Wesley Pruden has done disservice to the readers of the Washington Times with an irrational screed mocking atheists for writing "irrational screeds mocking those who have the faith the authors clearly envy."  The saving grace for these unfortunate atheists is that the average Times reader is probably too smart to be taken in by such drivel.

Pruden has nothing constructive to offer in his screed.  He merely calls atheists names and cites examples of atheists saying bad things about people who deserve to have bad things said about them.  This is what his article boils down to:

• Did you know that there are atheists living among you?
• Atheists are idiots.
• Atheists hate people of faith because they don't have faith but desperately want it.
• Atheists say the darndest things.
• Atheists are getting more attention than I am and it pisses me off.

Mr. Pruden apparently doesn't concern himself with the facts regarding persons atheists have spoken ill of, or even facts about the atheists themselves.  I mean really, who among us who has actually read The God Delusion would use the word "irrational" to describe it?  I've been struggling with the book myself and have found it incredibly dense, repetitive, and belaboring of points, but irrational?  Rationality is the coin of the atheist realm.  The author has got it backwards... it is faith that is irrational.

The article is clearly calculated to incense the readership, as opposed to communicate any meaningful argument as to why atheists are idiots, or naughty, or whatever else he's trying to say.  He notes Christopher Hitchens' reference to Mother Theresa as "the ghoul of Calcutta", without bothering to say why.  He notes Pulitzer prize winner Paul Greenberg's mention of Reverend Falwell's one "decent" moment on record, without bothering to say why.  Apparently the "why" doesn't concern the unencumbered-by-a-Pulitzer-Prize-Pruden.

A rational person will find little of interest in this yawn-inspiring rant against atheism, except perhaps an appreciation of the irony by which the author reveals himself to be the shrill irrational caricature that he tries to paint atheists as.  Beyond that, there's nothing to see here.

Personally, I am sick of online cosmetics ads that show two side by side "before and after" photos of the miraculous effect of the product on wrinkles or age spots or whatever.  Usually both pictures are photoshopped, or at least the "after" photo is.  Today I saw one that at least had the decency to announce in (extremely small type) that these were "simulated images, not actual photos".

It strikes me that these annoying adverts do a better job of advertising Photoshop than they do of advertising the beauty cream or whatever.  So to that end, I made this parody of a webvertisement I saw for "BodyShape" while I was reading a news article today:

So folks, go out and get some Photoshop by Adobe, and you can have a creamy smooth ass too ... at least in your digital photo album. 

This is what I saw in my upstairs bathroom window after pulling into the driveway and getting out of my car today:

Ever get the feeling someone was waiting for you to come home?

 That's it.  I've had it.

Spaghettio's taste like shit and I am not eating them anymore.  I am never going to choke down one more wretched spoonful of these pustulent tori.

Yea and verily, Spaghettios are the work of the devil.

BTW, the "Commonplaces" album has its own feed if you want to follow it:

http://unbecominglevity.blogharbor.com/blog/Photos/Commonplaces/index.xml

So today I had a followup with my oral surgeon.  He said my gums are healing and looking better, but I still have a long way to go with the gums at the back because of the amount of work done.

After that I went to work, and I was feeling pretty strong.  Unfortunately there was no work for me today.  So I sat in my cube and ate my jello, then had my vanilla yogurt.  Later I ate a can of beefaroni (swallowing only, no chewing), and drank one of my ensure shakes.  Finally around 1:00 I said to my boss, "If there's no work for me right now, I'm going to go take a little walk."  I haven't walked in a few weeks and really wanted to.

At first it was very nice.  I spotted my first Baltimore Oriole of the year, and some other interesting sights.  I was about a half mile from the office when I heard a Scarlet Tanager singing.  Didn't manage to catch a glimpse of him because all of the sudden, I began to feel extremely weak, dizzy, and tired.  I didn't understand what the problem was.  I figured I'd better turn around and head back.

With each step it got worse, my lips became numb, I became extremely lightheaded, and started getting unsteady on my legs.  I was going to faint if I didn't sit down.  After about a quarter mile I did just that--sitting on a rotten log by the side of the road and feeling extremely close to the fuzzy edge of consciousness.  I waited about 15 minutes but it didn't seem to be getting better... I wasn't going to be able to walk the last quarter mile back.  So I called my friend John at the office who agreed to drive out and pick me up.

While I waited for John I gave my wife a call to let her know what was going on and also to warn her I might need a ride home.

As it turned out I did.  After getting back to the office I ate my little tub of applesauce and drank a half bottle of apple juice but could barely move.  My arms and legs felt like lead weights and my head felt heavy and weird.

It was at this time that it occurred to me that extensive oral surgery followed by two weeks of a liquid diet, and 3 days fighting off a sinus cold, probably didn't put one in the best condition for talking a long walk.  Especially someone who has been mostly sedentary.  (Although, in truth, a week before the surgery I had done the same walk with no problems.)

Once Patty got to my office and got me into the car I drank the rest of the applejuice and rested.  After about 20 minutes or so I began to feel a little better but still completely exhausted... utterly drained.  When I got home I went right up to bed with an ensure shake in one hand and a cup of chicken rice soup in the other.  I drank the shake, ate some of the soup and then zonked out and slept for a little over an hour.  When I woke up I felt better but EVERYTHING was sore... like I had been working out for hours.

Came downstairs to sit on the couch with Pat and watch some baseball, but I'm going back up to bed soon, newly aware of my limitations.

Someday I'll be able to eat real food again.  But until I am further along in the healing and my weight stops dropping, no more walks.

Well maybe next week. A little one.

I want to start a new photography project, mostly because I want to get better at taking pictures.  So starting today, May 22, 2007, I resolve to take one photo each day, and upload it--no set subject matter, no descriptive text.

Just a date and a title and the interpretation of you, the viewer.  Please feel free to post any comments you like on any photo.  Especially if the photo evokes any sort of emotion.

I've called the new photo album "Commonplaces" since I'll be uploading a picture every day.

Today's pic is already up.  Please have a looksee.

Those of you that enjoy the thoroughly wonderful blog Aces Full of Links (which is written by my friend James) have probably noticed it seemed to be down for most of the day today, and now although visible is not available for commenting.  James is having server issues and asks that you please bear with him while he gets things back in order.

Here's to you Aces Full.  Get well soon!

So the other day I was commenting on a blog where the authors were working on a new layout.  I spotted some strange wrapping issues and uploaded a screenshot of my browser window for them to look at.  Repeatedly, whenever the screenshot was on the screen, I caught myself trying to click the browser's back button in the screenshot.  Needless to say, each time I did this was followed by a disjointed moment of confusion where I wondered why it wasn't working.  Is my browser locked up?  What's going on?  After a second or so the realization would come.  You dummy, that's not your browser, that's a picture of your browser.

I think it served as a reminder of how much we do automatically once we've "learned" to do it.  The entire metaphor--hand to mouse, mouse to cursor, cursor to back button, click--all automatic and interpretted by the brain as "go back".

Anyway, next time I upload a screenshot of the browser, I think I'll leave the menu and toolbar out of it.

"... A growing culture of radical secularism declares that the nation cannot profess the truths on which it was founded [...] We are told that our public schools can no longer invoke the creator, nor proclaim the natural law nor profess the God-given quality of human rights. [...] In hostility to American history, the radical secularists insist that religious belief is inherently divisive and that public debate can only proceed on secular terms [...] Too often, the courts have been biased against religious believers. This anti-religious bias must end ..."

-- Newt Gingrich, speaking at Liberty University
Gingrich: Challenge 'radical secularism' (AP via Pioneer Press)

How much of our history is merely perception colored by those seeking to attain power?  This nation was not founded on Christianity, why does that simple fact continue to elude these twits?  Shall we go back to Jefferson and check... AGAIN?

"Believing... that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their Legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State." --Thomas Jefferson to Danbury Baptists, 1802. ME 16:281

"[When] the [Virginia] bill for establishing religious freedom... was finally passed,... a singular proposition proved that its protection of opinion was meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word "Jesus Christ," so that it should read "a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion." The insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend within the mantle of its protection the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo and infidel of every denomination." --Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, 1821. ME 1:67
 

(Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government -- Freedom of Religion)

The great Virginian Thomas Jefferson understood that our country must espouse no religion, in order to protect them all.  Theists who hold their religions near and dear (especially Christians) should be very wary of those who want to infuse their religion into politics.  I discussed this last October in my article Looking Into the Abyss:

...If you are a religious person, and if you believe that politics is largely despicable, then it follows that you may believe that getting your religion into politics will improve the state of politics and make it less dirty.  But, like the mixing paints, doing so will also infuse the dirt of politics into your religion.  Priests will become politicians, and politicians will become priests, each less suited to their role than they were before.  Keeping your religion away from politics is the best way to keep politics away from your religion... if you don't eventually you'll find that the power-hungry have invaded your churches and turned them into something they were not intended to be.  Mixing the two leaves you with neither...

Southern Baptists, at least the ones who cheered Newt on at Liberty University, are pushing this nation toward theocracy.  It desperately concerns me that they haven't thought this through.  For his part, Newt is considering a run for president in 2008.  And so once again, the power hungry tell the religious what they want to hear in order to win votes.  Jefferson understood this too:

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes." --Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, 1813. ME 14:21
 

(Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government -- Freedom of Religion)

Fellow citizens, we have our work cut out for us.

Here's a news story from my childhood hometown, reported by the Boston Globe.  The First American Baptist Church of Whitman, MA has just ejected its pastor.  This pastor came from a different Baptist church based in Holbrook that closed down in 2005, bringing his old congregation with him.

The problem, apparently, is that the First American Baptist Church is of the "American Baptist" sect, and the new pastor is not.  He's an independent Baptist. The two groups don't appear to be mixing well, and there is mention of the pastor changing locks on the office doors and disallowing the former church clerk entry.  And so the former clerk began a movement to oust the pastor, which has gained much support and ultimately succeeded.

...While [Reverend] Fernandez claimed the two congregations merged, Judge Frances McIntyre, in her ruling, said the two congregations remained virtually separate for the next year and a half.

"The issue here appears to be two fundamentally different religious groups competing for control of property which has historically belonged to one of the groups," McIntyre wrote...

..."He's a wonderful preacher. He's just not a believer in American Baptists," [former church clerk Jean] Porter said of Fernandez. "It's in our church constitution that this is an American Baptist Church. That's our denomination, and has been for over 100 years. He's an independent Baptist. It's as simple as that."...

I don't pretend to understand the differences between the two sects, but I think it a little sad that they can't get along well enough to share the same church.  Then again at least one of the differences would have made me want to throw out the new pastor too:

...Eric Grey, associate executive minister for administration and finance for the American Baptist Churches of Massachusetts, said there are certain differences in the tenets among the Baptist sects. "One is that we affirm women in the ministry," he said. Grey said the American Baptist Churches of Massachusetts are "standing with the First Baptist Church of Whitman" in their court case against Fernandez...

(Emphasis mine.)  Yeah, I can see where a new guy coming in and saying, "no more female ministers" might annoy people.  (Then again, I don't think the Reverend did that.)  According to the article Rev. Fernandez negotiated a move to the Whitman church on the agreement that he would become certified as an American Baptist, which he did not do.  There is also mention of money being drained from a church account--all in all not a happy affair.

Perhaps the most annoying thing are the concluding remarks from the Reverend:

...Fernandez, meanwhile, said losing the Whitman building "doesn't matter" to him. "What is disappointing is the people who showed they were willing to sacrifice all these members of the congregation for a building."...

According to those who opposed him, it wasn't about "the building".  It was about him failing to meet his end of an agreement to become certified by the American Baptist Churches of Massachusetts.  It makes him seem just a little bit... sly--thinking perhaps that he would promise the certification, but then win over the congregation during Sunday services and not bother.

I don't highlight this story out of any "atheist superiority complex"--there are definitely different schools of thought among atheists, and not all of us get along.  I mostly highlight the story because it is from my hometown, and because I'm sad these two groups couldn't work something out.

Well apparently somebody really liked my "Why I am an Atheist" post yesterday because they linked me up over on StumbleUpon.com.  The end result?  Last night my blog had over 3,700 hits on that article, and 860 hits on another article I linked to from within that article.  Total bandwidth consumed 319,389,696 bytes.  That's about 304.5 Mb, or a tenth of my monthly bandwidth.

Not that I mind!  I'm excited that my hits have temporarily tripled... always nice to have readers.  (Hopefully we'll get some new regulars here at ULev.)  But I was a little worried about my bandwidth, so I ordered up another 5 Gb from BlogHarbor just for this month, just in case.  In all likelihood I probably won't need it, but better safe than sorry.

The last time something like this happened was when I entered a submission to one of FARK's photoshop contests. That time the graphic I had linked to got so many hits I had to delete it... like 9,000 in the first hour.  Crazy!

As of a couple days ago, Unbecoming Levity has joined Planet Atheism as a contributing feed.  You might have spotted the new link in my sidebar under "Badges and Doodads".  Planet Atheism is a feed aggregator for a large number (75 at present, and counting) of atheist-themed blogs.  This makes it a very nice source for catching up on atheist bloggers and seeing what's going down in the non-believer blog-o-sphere.

ULev regulars will no doubt be thinking that people reading Planet Atheism will not want to hear about my new teeth or the funny thing my cats did the other day.  I agree.  That's why there's a new topic in my topics sidebar called "PlanetAtheism".  The Planet Atheism aggregator only subscribes to that topic, so not every article on ULev will be dumped onto Planet Atheism's feed (much to their relief I'm sure!)  This is possible because Blog Harbor offers category-driven blogs, where each category can have its own RSS feed.

Belonging to Planet Atheism has already caused an uptick in my hits, and brought new commenters to Unbecoming Levity, for which I am very grateful.  I encourage anyone who has an atheist themed blog (or a category-driven blog with occasional articles of interest to atheists) to contact the proprietor of Planet Atheism and see about inclusion.  (If you're curious, here's their FAQ.)

Even if you don't, at least drop the Planet Atheism feed into your aggregator (Google Reader, Bloglines, whatever...) and you will never run short of articles of interest to atheists.