The Atheist News site is now looking for full time bloggers!
This is the home of the Atheist News podcast, but that’s not all it is. It has always been my intention to turn this sucker into a full blown atheist news blogging site and the time has finally come to cut the ribbon. As of now, I have three gentlemen who will be blogging here on current events topics of interest to the more secular minded among us (formal introductions to follow,) but three is not enough. Over the next few months, I’ll be adding more writers to the staff and you could be one of them!
So here’s the skinny: we’re holding something of an essay contest to help us pick who our next staff member will be. In order to enter, you need only write a single news blog post on the subject of your choice (details below) and submit it to us. We will read through all of the submissions and pick a winner on September 30th.
The winner of the contest will have their own news blog on the Atheist News website! They will undoubtedly be turned into overnight celebrities and be buried in fame and groupies nigh instantaneously.
The deadline for submissions is September 26th, so get to writing!
–moJoe
Executive Editor
Contest Details:
Pick any story published within the last year that you think will interest our atheist readership and write an article about it in 500 words or less.
You can include links to multiple articles and pictures if you’d like, but please; no posts based on videos.
Write as you would write for the site.
The post can be objective or humorous or an opinion piece, but it should remain consistent in tone through-out.
If you are going to quote an article, please cite your sources.
Sign the article using the name that you will be posting under on the site.
Applicant requirements (or, what happens when you win)
- Contestants must be over 18 years of age to apply and must be willing to write an average of 5 posts per week.
- The majority of posts will center around current events and news that are of particular interest to atheists, although it is also expected that a number of posts will be focused on the “specialty” of the writer and matters of interest to them.
- Posts focusing on news stories should be current and vetted thorougly.
- All posts should be spell checked and of a high quality.
Application Format
Name: Your Name
Handle: Name that you intend to post under
Email Address: you@whatever.com
Title: The title of your piece
Follow this header with the body of your work.
The winner will be selected anonymously and democratically by a panel comprised of the staff of this website. If you have any questions, you can leave them here on this post.
Email submissions to:
editor |at| atheistnews.org
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Solution to Health Care Was Right in Front of Us All Along
Orthodox Atheist
South Dakota passed a law that would force every woman who wanted to obtain an abortion to be “counseled” first. This counseling would be a lecture about the alternatives to her terrible choice to terminate her pregnancy, in other words, a state-mandated sermon. This law was recently upheld by a Federal judge.
It’s called “informed consent”, but informed consent is what you get anytime you get a procedure, where they tell you the risks, the possible side effects, and the fact that there’s a very small chance that you may not ever wake up from the anesthetic, or that your newly sculpted ass may fall off one day. But members of the South Dakota legislature, in an effort to gain better seats in heaven, thought that it would be good thing to advise already distraught mothers-to-be that they would be ending a life – at least life as defined by state legislature.
And they should know. In a state where 70% of its counties are still classified as “frontier”, medical achievements are of those injuries sustained by leather-clad tourists on their yearly drunken pilgrimage through the state to Sturgis where bikers come to show off Harley logos emblazoned on their bikes, trikes, tatts, tits, and tees. They will drink, smoke, snort, huff, and inject illegal drugs cut with rat poison. They will give themselves vodka enemas by-passing the liver (or what’s left of one) and sustain alcohol poisoning. Then, they will fight with fists, belts, beer bottles, blades, and bullets They will fall off their bikes and get become the cheese in an asphalt cheese grater. And ironically, despite all the drinking, many will suffer from dehydration.
“The Aristocrats” punch-lines aside, such are the medical problems seen in South Dakota during their “high tourist season”. These are hardly the types of problems that can be solved with stem-cell research. There is no doubt that the hospitals in South Dakota are on the forefront of dealing with those types of injuries. And so, SD must believe that it is on the forefront of socio-political change when it mandates that the informed consent carry the message about ending a life that never started. SD must also believe that women actually want abortions - as if that’s why women they got pregnant in the first place, and that it is not a last resort.
The dangerous part is may be that a patient may in anticipation of getting a lecture, ignore the informed consent, and miss some of thereal problems that disclosed, but never mind that… that advice is way too practical for the likes of the SD legislature.
What occurred to me was that this was not a public service announcement, but a sermon, on a victim who was in a captive situation, i.e., wanting healthcare. It further dawned on me that the government of SD was missing unrealized potential: here was a captive audience, and since they’re in need of health care, that means they’re in a weakened state.
But here’s the genius: why stop at just the sermon? One could use this captive audience to peddle cars, cigarettes, razor blades, window shades, shampoo, champagne, sham-wows, wonder bread, roach motels, saving bonds, jail bonds, Bond - James Bond DVDs, bongs, bangs, bingo, beer, bras, bikinis, burkinis, Olive Garden linguini, garden supplies, office supplies, art supplies, shaving cream, crème de menthe, single-malt whiskeys, double-mint gum, credit cards, trust funds, Thomas Kincaid paint-by-number paintings, fly-by-night law firms, firmware, software, hardware, underwear, warehouses, funeral homes, cat houses, pet food, Chia Pets, public land, private encounters, mutual funds, submachine guns, submarine sandwiches, sub-prime loans, Chevy Suburbans, bourbons, bonbons, and tampons. Etc. Hell, you could even hawk birth control pills – how’s that for a target market? (Wow! Genius squared!). And we could get some really really annoying Billy-Mays-type to come in and give the misguided patient the pitch at 110 decibels until the patient-victim-customer is nothing but a blubbering blob promising not only to keep the baby, but to buy a set of Ginsu knives as well.
This method could probably be extended into other areas of health care as well.
As I write this, I’m betting that Michael Moore will be kicking himself in the ass for not having thought of this himself. It’s the answer to our public health care problems - but you still have to get the sermon about what a shit you are for having even considered terminating your pregnancy.
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well.. it’s like I said!