I found love on Agnostic.

DharmaBum50 comments on May 26, 2018:

Congratulations, y'all. @EllenDale has told you our story, and I'm looking forward to advancing our relationship. I wish y'all continued love and happiness as well!

Road Food: Taco Bell crunchy tacos must be one of the worst eating-while-driving foods, with the ...

DharmaBum50 comments on May 25, 2018:

I see people ordering Cincinnati chili (Gold Star and Skyline brands with spaghetti, mounds of shredded cheese, and beans and/or onions) at drive-thrus. I'd like to think they're just picking it up and taking it home to eat, but considering some of the driving I see in these parts, I fear the worst.

Talking Grievance And Health Care, An Outsider Kentucky Dem Found The Inside Track | HuffPost

DharmaBum50 comments on May 23, 2018:

For me, it was a toss-up between her and Jim Gray. I voted for the latter yesterday, but it looks to me like she will make an equally fine candidate to oppose that Neanderthal Andy Barr.

Minnesota is fairly progressive state and this billboard went up a few years back.

DharmaBum50 comments on May 21, 2018:

In 2012, I remember seeing a Bluegrass Coalition of Reason-sponsored billboard in Lexington, KY, that read "Don't Believe in God? Join the Club." It ruffled some Thumper feathers for a while and eventually came down after the Kentucky Freethought Convention it was promoting concluded. On the other hand, in 2016, $10,000 was raised to erect a billboard protesting the Ark Encounter (since our atheist tax dollars were being used towards funding its construction), but no billboard company would agree to putting it up.

What's in your coffee?

DharmaBum50 comments on May 21, 2018:

Nothing but coffee--lots of it.

Folgers is full of crap. The best part of waking up is being able to roll over and go back to sleep.

DharmaBum50 comments on May 20, 2018:

As an insomniac, I heartily agree!

My choice is Barracuda by Heart. I also have it as the ring tone on my cell.

DharmaBum50 comments on May 20, 2018:

"Eraser"--Nine Inch Nails https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5KlwGB9A5I

Today is my birthday.

DharmaBum50 comments on May 19, 2018:

Happy Birthday! (B) (B) (B)

Trump's Swamp Is Not THE Swamp: " Trump's base: the swamp is the president's enemies.

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 27, 2018:

David Horsey is such a great cartoonist! He nailed it again!

Hi, I'm Stewart from the foothills of North Carolina.

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 27, 2018:

Welcome, bro!

Freaking President PISSFACE, I can't even listen to this to completion.

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 27, 2018:

I got slightly more than two minutes into it before my bullshitometer was going off the charts, not to mention my blood pressure. In the interest of the latter, I cut it off.

What’s your favorite euphemism for ?

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 26, 2018:

Spanky McBone-Spurs--Spanky for short. (But if I just happen to mention "that dickhead," everyone knows who I'm referring to.)

Gotta love this. This meat market next to my house has THE best filet mignon I’ve ever had.

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 23, 2018:

I just ate, and I'm hungry again.

We all survived another rapture? What? Lmfao.

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 23, 2018:

Yes, but....

Do you believe in karma or not? These are some of my thoughts: [truefactread.wordpress.com]

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 21, 2018:

My wife is dead, and Dick Cheney is still alive. 'Nuff said.

Atheism and mortality.

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 20, 2018:

First off, my condolences on the loss of your father. As for your question, when my wife died in 2010, I was finding that Buddhism--a religion I've flirted with after having lived in Asia for a while--wasn't helping me much with the grief because the loss I was feeling was related to my feelings of attachment. I asked in a Buddhist blog how it was possible to love someone for 22 years and remain in a state of nonattachment. The reply was something on the order of "Honor the love, experience the grief, and acknowledge that impermanence is an integral part of our lives." That didn't really answer my question, didn't even come close, but in the long run, it helped me a lot in dealing with the grief.

What kind of rationale can come out of this one.

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 18, 2018:

And then in Genesis 4:16: "And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden." So where the fuck did the Land of Nod come from, in which Cain somehow found a woman to bear him a son in the very next verse? LOL

Is the schism in the Republican party a political death sentence for the gop?

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 18, 2018:

I'd like to think you're right, but I'm always leery of pronouncements of doom for the Republican Party. That's what was being said when Spanky McBone Spurs was a candidate. Democrats have a history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

What are you eating?

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 17, 2018:

I'm good--chili.

I see the new Trump action figures are in.

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 17, 2018:

GAAAWD, hard to unsee that. LOL +o(

If the "Blue Wave" comes to fruition, and the Democrats take back the House and Senate, what will ...

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 17, 2018:

You forgot the option *Absolutely nothing, because Democrats lack spines and cojones* That's what I would have checked.

Always live in the present.

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 15, 2018:

Wham?? Doors, Janis, and Hendrix for me!

Berlin New Hampshire She had grown up in a tenement in Berlin with the smell of sulfur from the...

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 15, 2018:

What fine work!

My French Onion soup.

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 14, 2018:

Hope it tasted as good as it looks.

Has anybody changed careers mid-life?

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 13, 2018:

A couple of times. I went from a decade of dead-end jobs with a useless degree in German literature to English language/literature instructor overseas to freelance indexer.

Here's to my first post in this lovely community! Greetings! Ironically, my real name is ...

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 13, 2018:

Welcome from another leftwing Kentucky atheist.

What books do you keep coming back to?

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 9, 2018:

*Look Homeward Angel* and *You Can't Go Home Again* by Thomas Wolfe, *The Sea of Fertility* tetralogy of Yukio Mishima, and Richard Ford's short story collection *Rock Springs* are what come to mind right now. I'm sure there are more.

A part of a giant storm system that came through

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 9, 2018:

Dramatic!

What do you look forward to getting out of bed for every morning?

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 8, 2018:

At my age, I'm happy I wake up at all. But once I realize that I've lived to see another day, I fix a French press full of coffee, and weather permitting, sit out on the back porch and enjoy the view into the woods. Then I go chat with my newfound girlfriend on Facebook.

Trump tower on fire. [cbsnews.com]

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 8, 2018:

And then there was this take on it last time there was a fire there:

Thoughts on Unitarian Universalist Chuch?

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 7, 2018:

I did very briefly attend the UU church in Richmond, KY. I live in the very Christian/very earth-hippie-spiritual-but-not-religious town to the south of it, and was seeking like-minded sorts, and I'd been told that I might find them at UU. I did meet a few nonbelievers and Buddhists there but nobody I really clicked with. But I kept giving it a shot. I'd been told repeatedly by folks there that it wasn't a church but rather a "fellowship." But with the responsive readings, the hymns, the whole physical setup, I figured if it walked like a duck, etc. etc. Sure, you got to discuss the sermon afterwards, but it was still a sermon. And then I wondered about what they really believe if there were hardcore atheists, Buddhists, and Christians of different stripes there. In the end, I had to ask myself what the fuck an atheist was doing in a church (even if they call it something different) anyway, and so I stopped going as suddenly as I started.

I have 2 pictures from Alaska.

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 6, 2018:

Homo sapiens is truly the most invasive species on the planet. These pictures make me so sad and so angry at the same time.

What is you favorite Beatles song?

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 6, 2018:

I've always been more of a Stones person, but I did like some Beatles tunes. "Helter Skelter" and "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" come to mind.

Money, money, money.

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 6, 2018:

Says it all about AmeriKKKa's sense of priorities.

How do you do on this test?

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 5, 2018:

$110--but if I got extra cash for the number of times I've been drunk or stoned, plus extra cash for *living* outside the US for fifteen years, I could retire.

Out of the eide-open mouth of babes! [facebook.com]

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 4, 2018:

Too bad more voters didn't react that way. Oh wait--they did, by three million.... LOL

Do you still have CDs, or is all your music on an MP3 player/cell phone?

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 4, 2018:

I'm old-fashioned. I don't trust "the cloud" and like to be able to handle the things I own, so I always buy the CDs. I've toyed with the idea of ripping them and then putting them on to a thumbdrive so I don't have to take all those boxes along when I travel, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. The technological process is kinda daunting to a Luddite like myself. LOL

This is always a special day for me.

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 4, 2018:

I lived in Louisville from 1979 until 1985. You could still see the damage along Eastern Parkway.

Hello, anyone from kentucky?

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 4, 2018:

I live in Berea. Welcome!

What part of the Bible Belt is everyone from?

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 3, 2018:

Berea, KY, a weird mix of fundamentalist Christian and earth hippie spirituality, neither of which is receptive to nonbelievers.

HIgh tech devIces InhIbIt communIcatIon

DharmaBum50 comments on Apr 2, 2018:

Kinda how I feel sitting at bars these days. The bar is packed, and nobody's there.

What's YOUR warning label?

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 31, 2018:

WARNING: Addictive.

Ok, fellow community members—please share your response to the following question I was asked in a...

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 26, 2018:

1) Yes. 2) Define "sexually active."

Are Some Men Reluctant to Talk on the Phone?

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 26, 2018:

I can't speak for others, but with the right person, I love talking on the phone--especially since I have never sent a text in my life.

I found this post a while back on another board.

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 26, 2018:

I'd say my favorite stories are pretty grim.

This kind of illustrates the tone of religiosity at my parent's house.

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 24, 2018:

I'll never think of my alma mater in quite the same way again. LOL

Loony Tunes talks to trumpty dumpty

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 24, 2018:

OMG ROFL. That's going to be appropriated in my lingo....

Hello all.

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 24, 2018:

I'm from NC, so I hear you, brother. Welcome!

What would the kid look like if trump and Ann coulter were to have an affair?

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 23, 2018:

This is a *seriously* perverted thought, you know....

Ricky G.

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 23, 2018:

Can't forget Bill Maher!

Technology - coffee drInkers Is thIs you?

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 22, 2018:

That be me. The only one of the three I even own is an old laptop, and that's not connected to the Internet. For my job only.

All I can say is... wow..

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 21, 2018:

Corruption R Us, the new GOP motto.

I dreamt I got a new job last night.

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 21, 2018:

You're all set for that dream job as Ark Encounter guide when you head to Kentucky. :-D

Describe your love life in one word.

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 21, 2018:

Promising.

Going back to Kentucky for a visit.

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 20, 2018:

Enjoy your trip! Yeah, go drive by the Ark Encounter embarrassment--but make sure you keep on truckin'....

He needs a us hIstory class-Ignorant trump

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 19, 2018:

A US history class is just one of many classes this fool needs. What an embarrassment!

Solar and Wind Power

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 19, 2018:

I have a dryer that came with the house when we bought it fourteen years ago. I use it to store big bags of rice and such in and hang my laundry out on the line.

Hi I Live in NH Which Trumpty Dumpty Just Called a Drug Infested Den

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 19, 2018:

Well, look at it this way. That comment might piss off some of the 345,789 people who voted for him in 2016....

Porn star vs. President [scontent.ffcm1-2.fna.fbcdn.net]

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 19, 2018:

Unfortunately, they're also allowed to vote.

ENOUGH! [scontent.ffcm1-2.fna.fbcdn.net]

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 19, 2018:

Just another bunch of True Believers.

Question: How many of you follow recipes?

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 18, 2018:

I always follow recipes exactly the first time I make them. I have to laugh when I see people online bitching about recipes they've tried, and they've made so many changes to them, they're hardly recognizable. If I like a recipe enough to make it multiple times, I start fooling with it. My current chili recipe, for example, has evolved over the course of forty years.

Don the Con as he is.

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 17, 2018:

The New Yorker cover cartoonist is brilliant!

CNN headline quoted the minority-elected one as saying, "I like conflict.

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 17, 2018:

But when conflict involves resistance to his fascist agenda, maybe not so much.

I look forward to my next blessing

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 16, 2018:

Nice reply. I'll have to try that out the next time I'm blessed. Since I'm here in rural Kentucky, that shouldn't be long.

Tennessee folks-nothIng personal

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 16, 2018:

Ouch. That's a little too close to home. LOL

I thought some of you might find this interesting.

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 16, 2018:

Reminds me of something we did while teaching in Japan. We took the train into Kyoto and spent the day at the Yamamoto Roketsu Indigo Dyeing Studio, learning how to use a traditional Japanese batik technique to make a noren door curtain. I chose a dragon design, like the one on the right in the top picture in the link below. I still have that thing in the doorway to my office. https://www.veltra.com/en/asia/japan/kyoto/a/127054

Good morning everyone!....or good evening!...I call this painting "under one moon"...cheers

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 15, 2018:

Love it! Kind of like Chagall.

Amok! Amok, amok, amok, amok, amok.

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 15, 2018:

Funny, there's a new woman in my life even as we speak. What a coincidence!

I call it Pink Lemonade.

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 13, 2018:

My late wife was also a book artist, so I can appreciate the work that went into that. Nice.

Would You Partake?

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 10, 2018:

In the course of my travels, I have eaten far worse things. LOL

This is interesting when other countries are affected by Nowhere Man's "Love!" ...

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 7, 2018:

Yeah, that's what the country needs--to be run like a business. ROFL

This is apt.

DharmaBum50 comments on Mar 3, 2018:

If I end up becoming an expat again, it would be because the latter have started putting on uniforms.

Million Dollar Idea: A smoke detector with a "Just Burning Food" setting.

DharmaBum50 comments on Feb 27, 2018:

Excellent idea! I like to cook blackened catfish and have to disable the alarm every time.

Trump's State of "Affairs", The Late Show... [youtube.com]

DharmaBum50 comments on Feb 26, 2018:

OMG, this is hilarious!!!

This is so well put

DharmaBum50 comments on Feb 25, 2018:

Well put! It's a succinct verbalization of this picture, which is one of the saddest and at the same time most bizarre scenes I've ever seen portrayed. The only good part is that the lion seems not to be one of Don Jr.'s hunting trophies.

I know this has been passed around a few times but it fits soooooo well right now with the shit for ...

DharmaBum50 comments on Feb 24, 2018:

Sooooo apropos!

For those who may not have seen this a couple of years back, CBS's Sunday Morning show featured Neil...

DharmaBum50 comments on Feb 24, 2018:

Thanks for posting this. It sheds a lot of light on my ostracism in what can otherwise be a fairly liberal community (in a bluegrass sea of Biblethumpers). Even the hippies here in this town are squeaky clean, and if they're not Christian, they are "spiritual but not religious." But atheism is viewed as negatively as it is by the Christians.

Isn't that the truth!

DharmaBum50 comments on Feb 23, 2018:

Certainly true in my case!

Life is too short to take everything so seriously.

DharmaBum50 comments on Feb 23, 2018:

I didn't think you needed inspiration to be naughty. LOL

If you had to get a song lyric tattooed on your body, what would you choose?

DharmaBum50 comments on Feb 19, 2018:

And I'm the world's forgotten boy The one who's searchin', searchin' to destroy (Iggy Pop)

Hey! I'm Evelyn! I'm originally from Oklahoma and currently reside in Kansas -- attending graduate ...

DharmaBum50 comments on Feb 18, 2018:

But can you compete with Ark Encounter? Just kidding--welcome!

What do you write about?

DharmaBum50 comments on Feb 17, 2018:

Darkness mostly. My wife's death is just starting to come out in poetry. I also write about travel, which can often be somewhat more upbeat. But not always.

I'm presently working on my 7th book - a non-fiction work meant for people in grief and, just as ...

DharmaBum50 comments on Feb 17, 2018:

That book sounds wonderful. I really could have used it seven years ago when my wife died, but even now, I suppose I would still find it useful.

When I got to adulthood, this was my idea about to meet people to date: do the things I enjoy doing,...

DharmaBum50 comments on Feb 15, 2018:

I never expected to have to date again in my life, and it doesn't matter whether it's online or in person, it's *all* exhausting.

Where's your god now?

DharmaBum50 comments on Feb 15, 2018:

"Thoughts and prayers" comments are a way for congresspeople to appear like they're concerned and doing something when they don't give a shit and are doing nothing because they're bought and paid for.

One of my favorites on this lovely day..

DharmaBum50 comments on Feb 14, 2018:

Even while married, I never celebrated it.

Nailed em!

DharmaBum50 comments on Feb 14, 2018:

My sentiments exactly!

I haven't written anything in a long time.

DharmaBum50 comments on Feb 14, 2018:

Sometimes it takes a while. I've been thinking about my wife's death and my reaction to it and the hospice stay and the ash spreading for over seven years, and the poetry is just beginning to happen.

Yeee have little faith.. in finger painting. ;)

DharmaBum50 comments on Feb 13, 2018:

Little Faith is my middle name.

I can't do Facebook any more without my blood pressure rising 20 points. I love you heathens.

DharmaBum50 comments on Feb 13, 2018:

Back atcha. :)

@BikerDude50 -- Somehow, I knew you'd show up. Welcome.

DharmaBum50 comments on Feb 12, 2018:

Thanks, man. How'd you know that?

I began writing professionally in 1956 but took a break when I entered a new career as a naval ...

DharmaBum50 comments on Feb 12, 2018:

That promo is a hoot!

Changing Your Mind

DharmaBum50 comments on Feb 9, 2018:

It wasn't so much an argument or evidence presented by someone else that changed my political beliefs, but rather my own experience and observations. Believe it or not, I used to be a conservative Ayn Rand-y type. I grew up in a privileged upper middle-class household and went off to a college that catered to folks like that. When I got back home with a masters degree I couldn't use, I drove taxi for two years in Durham, NC. I saw every inch of that town while I was driving, the rich parts and the poor parts sometimes right next to each other. Most of my passengers were poor whites and poor blacks who couldn't afford their own set of wheels. Some were on welfare, but most of them had jobs--often multiple jobs--but were barely scraping by. I saw how little the capitalist system I used to glorify was benefiting them, and that began my journey leftwards.

What do you consider "better than sex?"

DharmaBum50 comments on Feb 9, 2018:

As an insomniac, I'd kill for an eight-hour sleep.

I think what surprises me most is the look of confusion on people's face when you say that you don't...

DharmaBum50 comments on Feb 9, 2018:

I occasionally house-sit at this 125-year-old log cabin that's on the side of a hill in Rockcastle County, Kentucky. It's safe to say that this is "the boonies," but that doesn't make it safe territory from the door-to-door thumpers, as I soon found out. One day, I look out the door, and there's two women out there, and it's obvious why they're there. I cut them off at the pass by saying, "Sorry, not interested, I'm an atheist." One of them screws her face up in the most cartoonish display of confusion I think I've ever seen and asks in total disbelief, "You mean we're just WORM FOOD??" I just said, "They gotta eat, too," and closed the door in their faces. Later on, I was sitting on the porch with a cold beer contemplating the sunset and that interchange and got to thinking that it's human arrogance lurking behind much of people's religious beliefs around here. They don't accept evolution because then we'd be descended from apes. There is an afterlife involving us sitting around on clouds being some sky daddy's sycophants into eternity because otherwise we'd be "worm food."

Happy Birthday to my old friend Dan Seals.

DharmaBum50 comments on Feb 9, 2018:

Lovely song, dude!

More from Neil... [youtube.com]

DharmaBum50 comments on Feb 8, 2018:

Tell it, Neil!

I want to retire abroad someday. Any advice?

DharmaBum50 comments on Feb 8, 2018:

I've been looking at Ecuador, Chile, Uruguay, and Portugal--from the standpoint of both a retiree and a political refugee. I'd like to include New Zealand in that list, but there's a whole 'nother income level involved there.

Any opinions about Trump's idea of a big military parade?

DharmaBum50 comments on Feb 7, 2018:

He needs the right outfit. Something like this.

A lot of truth here.

DharmaBum50 comments on Feb 7, 2018:

Bertrand Russell--spot on, as always.