Lives of the Saints ©

Intelligent Design Might Backfire on Religious

2005-08-07T13:00:00.000-05:00

The more I think about it, research into the theory that an hypothetical "intelligence" may be involved in development of complex organisms on Earth, might not be such a bad thing after all.

And it might not turn out the way the religious Right expects. As a theory, there is something compelling about the notion that there must have been some "input" from outside the system for such incredibly specialized organs such as eyeballs to have come into being.

Before we look at this issue, let's get one thing straight: The religious extremists who want "Intelligent Design" to be taught in classrooms have no desire for the discovery of truth behind nature. They only want God to be presented as a fact to students. They don't care a whit for understanding, for clarity, or for any of the reasons scientists do what they do. The supporters of Intelligent Design just want their own religious beliefs to be validated by making them part of scientific curriculum.

Let's say, after decades of research into some hypothetical intelligence behind evolution, that we discover life on Earth to be descendant from extraterrestrial sources. Will the Creationists embrace this discovery? If it turns out that some advanced spacefaring race seeded the Earth with the beginnings of life, will the current proponents of "Intelligent Design" be satisfied? If experimental research establishes time and time again that there was no "designer" behind the march from monkey to man, will the intelligent design folks ever admit that they're wrong? Well, so far, It has...and they haven't. Ultimately, it's faith that makes someone believe that there was some intelligent, all-powerful entity behind the machinations of evolution. If not, we'd be seeing the experimental evidence otherwise. If not in publications like Nature or Science (we're told those publications are involved in a conspiracy against God), then at least in a few of the thousands of journals of varying reputation. I'm not a scientist, but I know enough about science to know that it would be pretty hard to design an experiment that would prove the hand of an Intelligent Designer behind life on Earth, if in fact that's what the I.D. folks wanted to prove. In fact, it's not. They only want to find justification for their own beliefs. It has nothing at all to do with science.

For the Intelligent Design crowd, it's got to be God or nothing. Anything besides the Judeo-Christian model of a bearded patriarch up in the clouds putting in a six-day work week beginning with "Let there be light" is not going to go down with the James Dobsons of this world.
I have enough belief in science that I accept challenges to conventional wisdom. Opposing theories are always welcome, but let's see the evidence. And let's go where the data takes us. If there are real scientists who want Intelligent Design to be examined side-by-side with the theory of evolution, they have to start by establishing some common ground with the scientific world. For example, if they were to admit that the Earth is definitely more than 6,000 years old, that fossils actually exist, and that carbon-dating techniques are in fact useful, it might go a long way toward convincing the vast majority of scientists that they really are trying to get to the truth. But first they have to convince us that they're not just mouthpieces for those who would mandate religious belief. The history of creationists trying to undermine science has created a lot of mistrust among scientists. And the burden of proof, as always, is on those who claim that everything we know is wrong. It's more than a cliche that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

Bush's Intelligent Design & Burkas Banned

2005-08-03T12:26:00.000-05:00

One can only imagine the sweaty palms that George W. Bush's aides get when the big guy gets in front of a group of journalists. Even with extensive training, in-the-ear radio prompts and beta-blocking drugs, there's just no telling when he's going to drop a bomb. To the credit of Karl Rove and Co., they've managed to make the best of some of the president's startling statements, but they've even been able to spin some of the worst of them into political gold. But there's always the possibility that he'll drop a "anyone who leaks will be fired" into the mix like a toddler peeing in the swimming pool.

Yesterday, the topic in one of these presidential press conferences turned to creationism, or, as it's been newly crafted by the endlessly creative gentlemen who use faith to govern, "intelligent design". The idea is that because human beings and the world in which they swarm is so darned complicated, and not all mechanisms for the development of such a system are fully disclosed yet (it's not on videotape, I guess), that means the whole shooting match must have been planned and implemented by some infinite, unique intelligence. And, in the stunningly chauvinistic manner of small-minded people, this intelligence just has to be human-like. In other words: some guy is behind the whole thing. Sure enough, given a little bit of rope, the president managed to craft a nifty noose for himself, claiming that of course intelligent design should be taught in science classrooms, since that's the only way our students will learn about the controversy.

In the name of full disclosure, at this point let me state that I'm inclined to believe that there is intelligence in the design of the universe. I've learned enough science, though, to realize that this belief of mine is purely in the realm of the philosophic and theologic, there being no proof of this, and probably no way to prove it either. But hey, that's why we call it "faith". Having said all this, by no means under any circumstances do I feel that this belief should get anywhere near a science classroom. It's bad enough that our children are doing so poorly in math and science compared to much less "advanced" countries, letting them graduate high school with the idea that the earth is 6,000 years old, or that evolution is "just a theory" and that creationism is some sort of equally worthy theory is nothing short of child abuse.

There's a problem with Bush's seemingly reasonable claim that our children need to learn about the "controversy" of evolution vs. intelligent design: THERE IS NO CONTROVERSY.

Now, plenty of supposedly learned people are brought before us, claiming to be scientists, who support the idea of creationism (I won't use "intelligent design" beyond this point, since it's really just the dressing-up of the old idea that Jehovah made it all). We see well-meaning, erudite-looking folks who have plenty of letters after their names. No, they haven't published any research in widely-accepted journals, but that's only because there's an evil conspiracy keeping their papers off the desks of editors. I've spent enough of my professional life working with professors at places like the University of Chicago and Northwestern to have heard every excuse for crackpots not getting published. I have seen with my own eyes some of these grease-smeared manuscripts carefully explaining how an eyeball could never have come to exist without some serious engineering help. I can tell you that these papers get the same consideration as any other crackpot idea. And make no mistake, they are ALL crackpot ideas until the research is so solid, so well-documented, and the paper so well-written that it practically jumps into the editors' hands. Does this mean that a lot of good ideas get ignored? For a while, but as imperfect as the system of peer-reviewed publications is, it's a system by which the truth does eventually rise.

Another interesting thing about the "scientists" who struggle against this conspiracy to keep God out of the realm of scientific thought: Although they have lots of letters after their names, they are almost never the right letters. Instead of biologists, anthropologists, anatomists, the creationist community is made up of mechanical engineers, communications majors, and of course, doctors of divinity. I guess it's too much to expect that those who would make such extraordinary claims actually would have some knowledge of the fields in question.

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In the last few days, there has been a lot of noise in the right-wing blogosphere and talk radio about France and Italy passing laws against some of the more onerous displays of abuse of women by the extremist Muslim communities in those countries, such as the wearing of burkas (those wrappings used by Muslim women to keep men from noticing that they are women). "Why don't we hear liberals complaining about the way Muslim women are mistreated? Is it because (da-dum dum) they are too TOLERANT??"

Even after a decade of hearing their bald-faced dissembling, the ability of the right to completely ignore facts can still astound me. I don't know which liberals the members of the Bush marching-band like Laura Ingraham and Bill Bennett (ex-Secretary of Education and degenerate gambler) have been listening too, but I've been hearing a whole lot of outrage regarding the second-class status of women in religious extremist societies, including Muslims. Since the late 50's, feminist writers have made the awful circumstances of these women a primary cause in their fight against misogynistic cultures. It's the right that has come to this issue too late and too light. And they better be careful, because when we start looking into mistreatment and discrimination against women and their rights, it's only a matter of time until our eyes light upon those extreme religious types in our own country, like those who would take a way a woman's right to sovereignty over her own reproductive system. When the surgeon-general comes out against birth control or even contraception, how far away are the burkas, really? It's sadly funny sometimes to watch one of these conservative commentators go on about liberty and a culture of freedom, and then have to carefully navigate away from the meaning of those words when it comes to women, gays, or non-Christians.

Do I believe that as a liberal I must tolerate mistreatment of women in the name of religious freedom? Of course not! Our founding fathers were so determined to keep religious considerations out of the legal structure of our country that they carefully and purposefully kept all mention of God out of our Constitution. It would have been easy for them to clearly connect the laws of the United States to a religious tradition, but they didn't. With all the talk from the right about the need for "orignalists" on our Supreme Court, we need to keep that in mind.

The SUPREME Supreme Court

2005-07-02T19:41:00.000-05:00

The news of the past few days would lead one to believe that a political showdown akin to Armageddon is coming with George W. Bush's nomination of a Supreme Court justice to replace Sandra Day O'Conner. To read the mighty bloggers and talkers on the Theocratic Right, is to see that the comparison is apt.

One fascinating thing about Right Wing talk radio and the neo-Christian blogosphere is their absolute belief that each of them has great influence in the Bush White House and the Republican party. To the extent that they are right, this country may be in big trouble.

A notable bright-light of the Christian Right is a character named Gary North. Known as a primary thinker of the New Christian Reconstruction, he's been preaching a death sentence for homosexuals and a boom in the gold market (he also runs an investing company that makes money from people investing in gold). Since about 1980, he's been predicting the collapse of the secular world and the Coming of the Kingdom of God. And every few years he pushes his prediction back by a few more years. Starting in 1997, he was one of the first non-technical writers who predicted the fall of the World due to the Y2K, or Millenium Bug. His great belief is that the only laws that matters in this country are the laws of the Old Testament. And this guy is a good buddy of President Bush, going around trading on his great influence in the Administration.

Here's one of his (always interesting) views: The public must "begin to accept the judicially binding case laws of the Old Testament." He says it's time for the Christian Right to "tear down institutions that still rely on natural law or public virtue. I have in mind the U.S. Constitution." Gary North, one of the people whispering into the ear of our president believes in no less than "Christian vengeance" (his phrase) and the overthrow of constitutional government.

If Gary North were the only lunatic giving advice on judicial candidates to George W. Bush, it would be terrifying enough. But here's a list of names that I suggest you Google, just to see what they're saying. Each one of these people has been close to the Bush II Administration or the President personally, who considers them all close friends.

Herb Titus, founding dean of Pat Robertson's Regent University Law School
Rev. Everette Sileven, a leader in the racist theology of "Christian Identity"
Dr. R.J. Rushdoony, big-time John Birch Society guy and Reconstructionist writer
Gary North, Rushdoony's son-in-law
Robert Thoburn, head of the Reconstructionist Fairfax Christian School
Rev. Joseph Morecraft, another Christian Theocratic nut

I'm not saying that Bush is going to meet with all of these guys in public, but during his political life he's kept close ties to all of them, and they ALL claim close ties to the President. This is just a short list of the kind of folks who are bending the ear of the leader of the free world regarding who to nominate to the Supreme Court. Each one of them believes that "when the authors of the U.S. Constitution spoke of law, they meant the Law of God as revealed in the Bible. " and that new justices on the High Court must "refute humanistic, relativistic law with Biblical Law." [quote by Rev. Morecraft]

It's worth noting that the President's advisors have limited him to judicial candidates no older than 55 years, which means each of his justices will be on the court an average of about twenty years. Considering two justices (Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist is certainly getting pressure from the Bush Administration to retire now) and an average of seventy votes in the average Supreme Court term, that means that it's quite possible that George W. Bush will personally influence 2800 votes on the most important legal issues in our Land.

This isn't exactly the kind of thing that makes one feel very comfortable as we celebrate our Independence. Knowing that people so close to the President of the United States (and perhaps the man himself), have such dangerous beliefs about freedom, law and religion, are chilling reminders of the dangers we face this 4th of July.

(update, August 17, 2005) Now we know the nominee is John Roberts, a man picked for his close ties to neocon leadership and his almost total lack of written opinions. We see how the Bush Administration is using this dearth of information on the man as a blank slate upon which to represent him in any way that's useful. It's a tricky tightrope to walk. His pro-bono work against sodomy laws endears him to liberals too lazy to look deeper but angers the right-wing religious. Roberts' memos against civil rights and the right to privacy make him attractive to the hardcore conservatives, but make liberals shudder. You've got to give it to the bright boys in the Administration, they've picked a guy who they can make into all things for all people. The Republican Smear Machine has started going after anyone who criticizes Roberts (or even asks questions) with a vengeance, including the alleged religious conservatives who worry about statements he's made suggesting Roe vs. Wade is "settled law".
Roberts will almost certainly be confirmed because there's nothing for opponents to grab on to, and there are suggestions that Bush may try to push him for Chief Justice. The margin with which Roberts is confirmed, and the quality and strength of questions during the hearings may have an impact on how comfortable GWB feels about nominating a real red-meat righty if and when he gets another vacancy.
We've seen a few "sure-thing" conservative justices appointed by Republican presidents turn out to be downright reasonable, as if the freedom of a lifetime appointment allows them to become more thoughtful. With John Roberts, we can only hope.

Paradise Lost

2005-06-29T10:17:00.000-05:00

Islam is fascism with scriptures, a riot with prayers. Christianity is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rich White Men, Inc., making sure the working poor keep working, and stay poor, not to mention reproducing, so that a new generation can step in once thier parents drop dead. Catholicism? Anglicanism? Worried about keeping their priesthood safe from gays, except for the ones covered by grandfather clauses.

Faith and prayer can lead men to their godly natures, but it appears that when faith becomes organized religion, especially the kind that espouse absolute certainty that it is the only way to God, the usual sicknesses of man emerge: Greed and Thirst for Power. Religion at the beginning of the 21st century has become a twisted virus that feeds on fear and hatred.

I've been hitting the libraries lately, trying to find out just what good "capital-R" Religion has brought to this world. I mean, real good for real people, not just a whore's promise of basking in God's love (or twenty virgins) in the next. I'm having some real trouble, too. Where is the benefit in absolutist superstitions that want us to say "I'm right, but more importantly, you're wrong"? Where is the nation to which Religion has brought peace? Please, if you can tell me of the instances where one of the major religions brought peace anywhere in the world, please contact me, or leave a comment to this blog. I honestly want to find such cases, and I'm hoping I just missed them.

I thought I had found something with Martin Luther King, or Ghandi, but the biographies I've read seem to indicate that it was more their nonviolent philosophies, with origins in their beliefs no doubt, that made the difference in the effectiveness of these great men. In the case of Dr. King, the "real" Christians, the ones who bless us today on talk radio, nationwide, made sure his message stopped on a Memphis balcony. Ghandi? To members of the Christian Right, he was a suspiciously shaded guy who looked a lot like a terrorist. And forget about any resemblance he might have to Jesus Christ. That Christ, that man of peace who said to help the poor has been replaced by a guy who looks suspiciously like George W. Bush. Bring it on, Satan.

Take George Prager, for example. This devout Jew and Christian apologist, purveyor of hatred on "Christian, Conservative" talk radio, often says that he speaks for God. And according to Mr. Prager, boy, is God ever mad at the Muslims. This big mouth doesn't make any bones about the fact that he believes all good Muslims are required by their faith to be terrorists. And he doesn't flinch when faced with questions about the Christian Right that he praises. Does it bother him that these righteous men believe that he and his family will rot in hell for not accepting Christ? I'm sorry, we have a bad connection. Our next caller is Clem, from Hot Springs.

Another fine member of the Theocratic Right, The Rev. James Dobson (or no, it's Dr. James Dobson. These guys love to mix up their honorifics, as if it will somehow sweeten the stink that surrounds them), recently voiced his bitter anger at the Supreme Court's recent ruling that the monument of the 10 Commandments in Texas are OK, because they are historical in nature and don't promote religion. You'd think this makes the Most Rev. Dr. Dobson happy, but no, in his words: If it doesn't promote religion, what good is it? Go read a little bit about the Most High Reverend Doctor Dobson - this guy is a pip. He's right in step with those imams who say the world must come to Allah or die. Dobson won't stop until every human is on his knees, and not just in prayer.

It surprises me that I'm so full of anger at organized religion. Until the last few years, I believed that shared faith and prayer in a community is nothing but a good thing. But I've simply heard too much hate coming from the mouths of religious men. Just as empty men with ugly motives have hijaacked our government and public life in the US, and around the world, it seems, they have also taken what could have been a great hope for humanity. We have already seen the first Christian lunatic terrorists in America. Eric Rudolph called himself a "Soldier in the Army of the Lord". The well-known "Army of God" (I can't bring myself to put a link to their website here. Go find it yourself.) each day names new martyrs who have bombed abortion clinics, threatened or killed medical providers. Members of the US Congress have publicly exhorted these killers. We have a jihad right in our backyard, and it's soldiers look just like us.

What More in the Name of Faith?

2005-06-04T09:50:00.000-05:00

The turn of the 21st century finds a world in which hatred, torture and murder are propagated in the name of religion, in the very name of God, of Yahweh, of Allah. People who believe differently send each other to concentration camps like the ones in Abu Ghraib and Guantanimo Bay, and the torture centers of Saudi Arabia. People who call themselves good Christians, Muslims, and Jews are finding new standards of ugliness, intolerance and treachery, all for the love of God.

Not since the 15th century has more damage been done by people with pious words and powerful weapons, articles of faith and bad intentions.

I'm finally coming to the conclusion that it's not religion itself that brings such misery. I don't see a lot of devout Buddhists committing atrocities, or Quakers flaying non-believers. It's the greedy, the power-hungry, the literally insane and the simply rotten-to-the-core who have become the false prophets, poisoning their faiths with the same kind of evil that's been around in one form or the other, forever.

It doesn't matter which religion they choose, or which side of the fence they're on. Randall Terry is not significantly different from Osama bin Laden, James Dobson from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. They are all here to sow hatred, to destroy lives, to make the rest of us miserable at best, at worst, slaves. They would use faith, the well of love and understanding that many humans draw on, for the ugliest of goals: to control or destroy.

The tool that all these enemies of humanity invariably use is the idea of absolute, proprietary truth. The notion that they have the real answer and all others are phonies. This absolutism is the kernel of evil that pollutes so many faiths today.

As readers may know, I listen, often with fascination, to the Salem Radio Network. This supposedly Christian company owns stations in hundreds of cities nationwide, often more than one in a market (usually one purely "Christian" and the other with national hosts like Bill Bennett and Michael Savage, pushing a Christian Conservative agenda). The level of ugliness that is delivered by these "religious" phonies is astounding. Last evening, Michael Savage was explaining how the only solution left to "real Americans, the conservatives, the faithful" is to put liberals and secularists into education camps. This was NOT said in jest, or even exaggeration. He has said many times that liberal judges, homosexuals, undocumented immigrants, or simply non-believers (Mr. Savage purports to be a Jew) should simply be dealt with by "a couple in the back of the head," referring to bullets, execution-style. Apparently, the killers of Judge Lefkow's family or the judge in Atlanta, people like Erik Rudolph and Tim McVeigh, are listening. How different are the screeds of the Islamist fanatics who behead Westerners?

Every faith on earth has sane, moderate believers--devout people who take the commandments to love, to help the poor, to heart. Unfortunately, they have lacked the courage, the faith, to let their twisted brethren know that their perversions will not be tolerated, that they may NOT call themselves good Catholics, or Jews, or Muslims, while preaching hatred. Governments that allow religions exemptions from taxes must identify those groups that call themselves "of God" while grasping for political power will no longer have the free ride. I doubt that the US administration that gets so much of its power from these false-faith players would have the courage to stand up to them, but it's past time we start letting the purveyors of misery in the name of Faith know that their time is running out.

I'm afraid of America

2005-06-02T11:51:00.000-05:00

Why have so many Americans forgotten so easily the principles upon which this republic was formed? And how has the story of the earliest settlers, who fled the theocracies of Europe to live in a land where they could be left alone to believe freely, or not believe at all, become corrupted and twisted into the false belief that America was begun as a Christian nation?

The only answer that comes to mind is that decades of insidious lies, dressed in the garments of faith but seeking only the absolute power that comes from a population of frightened "true-believers", has eroded the ability of formerly upright Americans to identify bald-faced liars and corrupt bounders when they see them.

The faces of these cynical and power-mad ideologues aren't hard to discern. I remember my Grandmother explaining to me that a person's soul can be seen in their eyes, on their faces, their sins seeping forth like Cain's sign. How can the usually sharp and decent eyes of middle-class American workers not see the truth in the faces of our leaders. You don't have to be a psychic seer to recognize the emptiness and moral cowardice in the face of George W. Bush, a lousy actor propped up by vicious puppet-masters, or the thirsty corruption in the face and dead eyes of his handlers, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and others. These are men who have traded away their souls for the chance to bend the course of history to their own petty needs.

I was talking to a neighbor, a Viet Nam vet who'd been cut loose by his users in the 70's and spent the next two decades regaining his stolen life, which had been wasted by a previous group of ugly men. This was during the 2004 election, and we were talking about the two candidates. "Any man who actually put on the uniform and served his country simply has to be better than a play-acting coward who used his father's connections to get out of the war while waving the flag and cheerleading the rest of us from the sidelines. Surely, Americans can see that." Well, they couldn't, or didn't care, because that callow coward became our president.

I used to think that the ordinary, working Americans I knew from the West side Little Italy of Chicago or the Lower East Mulberry Street neighborhood of New York, or the small ranches of Missouri were a hard bunch to fool. But fooled they were, into believing the exact opposite of the truth, into voting against their own interests and values. Last August, I stood outside an Evangelical church in central Missouri, with a decent man for whom I was doing a job. I asked him why he and his friends wanted Bush to become president. "Because he's like us," he told me. "He believes in country, in family values, in telling the truth. He'll be a decent, honest leader." Here was a man whose financial life had flourished during the Clinton administration. His salary had gone up, jobs were plentiful, and the meager investments in his retirement account were growing healthily. He didn't have to worry about losing one of his three sons to a useless war, because our country was at peace. As long as the country didn't get seriously derailed, his life would be good. But he had been convinced, by other people "like him" loudmouthed opportunists like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and the other poisonous proxies of American fascism, that George W. Bush would "turn the country around." He did that, certainly. Within a few months of his taking office, the first foreign attack on the American mainland had taken place, the US economy was about to lose a greater percentage of it's value than any other time in history, we'd be embroiled in a phony "war" on terrorism, and my friend, my friend had been laid off from his good job with a huge telecommunications firm because the new "corporate-friendly" administration had removed regulations that kept Americans working but stood in the way of the profits of a few very rich men. Today, this man, father of five in Central Missouri, is managing a fast-food outlet, making a small fraction of his past salary, using none of the technical skills he had learned to work in telecom. His second-oldest son is in Iraq, and there won't be money to send his children to a decent college. He believes George W. Bush is one of the best presidents ever.

This is why I'm afraid of Americans.

Magical Thinking and the Army of God

2005-05-20T10:04:00.000-05:00

When I saw that 16 people died when riots erupted in the Islamic world after a news item describing the desecration of the Quran in American military prisons was published, I got a really sick feeling in my stomach. It's not the idea that some uniformed interrogator would trash a supposed holy book that bothers me so much as the notion that there are people who would kill one another over the treatment of paper and ink. Even more, I fear that the corrosive mentality and pathological culture that would give supernatural powers to bound wood pulp, and kill over it, is now growing here in America.

I value the widsom, ideas and insuppressible love of life found in books as much as anyone. The words of another human, written centuries ago or yesterday, can carry truth to isolated souls and inspire dreams in weary minds. But something happens when we ascribe magic to man-made items, whether it's a volume bound in fine leather or a string of beads with a cross on the end. Sooner or later, the divine power we give to those items starts to talk to a part of us that's deep in our psyche, a primitive part that tells us that more recent human developments like compassion, tolerance and mercy just won't cut it in a world where we think we have to kill or be killed, convert or be converted.

The ideas in books, and beliefs, are critical to being human. Without the ability to believe in the ephemeral, in the unseen, we revert to dull creatures, lacking the spark that makes us special among what lives on Earth. Under stress, though, the behaviours we know as "faith in God" or "belief in the supernatural" take on the properties of obsessive compulsive disorder. Thus, a believer in the unseen unity in the Universe becomes a crackpot. This is where the Religious Right in this country are going.

It's no accident that the fear-causing events of the last decade or so have been followed by surging numbers of people calling themselves "born again" or Evangelical Christians. The old saw about "no athiests in foxholes" was never so true as in a time when people are faced with terrors and decline that are outside of our control.

Let me be clear: I am not saying that all religion is pathological in nature. It's only when artifacts start to become "holy" and beliefs are not only outside the realm of observable, scientific phenomenon but actually opposite to what we can see and hear, that believers become fanatics. So, not only did God create the universe, but he did it in six days, and only six thousand years ago, despite the geological record and fossils that we can hold in our hands. Prayer become incantation, ceremony becomes ritual.

The 20th century was hard on us little creatures. Diseases seem to represent God's wrath, wars, disasters both ecological and social seem to take on supernatural origins. Stressed-out believers want to protect themselves any way they can, which opens them up to magical thinking. Talismans, hex signs, crossing themselves when passing through a doorway. My grandmother, only a boat ride away from being a Sicilian peasant, was a devout Catholic who kept a bottle of holy water behind her bedstead, and buried a statue of St. Joseph upside-down in the front yard. You can talk to immigrants from anywhere in Christian Europe and find the same stories. Superstition is part of human history and every ethnic group. How does it differ from sacred Qurans being kept off the ground or rubbing rosary beads? Religious beliefs, like all belief in the supernatural, is a rich part of human experience. At its best, it can open up our minds and hearts to understanding beyond what we can see and touch. It can connect us to each other and important mysteries within and without. It is not diminished by being related to all superstitious beliefs. The medieval fanaticism that is exploding in the Islamic world toward which the Religious Right in America is hurtling shows what it can become at its worst.

Religious Extremists Fight Vaccinations

2005-05-15T08:03:00.000-05:00

According to some religious extremists, the greatest threat to the souls of their children is not drugs or television or even rap music. The most dangerous element of the modern world to getting their children into heaven is, um, vaccination against disease.

[Warning to educated people: The following could make you crazy.]

The latest battlefront in the religious Right's war on common sense is the assertion that many childhood vaccinations, lifesaving though they may be, were originally developed on fetal tissue and thus desecrate their children's bodies in ways that Big Macs, Coca-Cola and heroin can never do. The polio vaccine known as Poliovax, manufactured by Aventis-Pasteur, is derived, they say, from the MRC-5 fetal cell line, which comes from a 1970 abortion. Vaccines for measles, mumps, rubella, rabies, hepatitis-A and chicken pox are also "abortion-tainted" according to Debbie Vinnedge of Children of God for Life.

Sometime this year, according to the World Health Organization, we may see the world's last cases of polio. The horrible disease smallpox, once the killer of hundreds of thousands, has been eradicated since 1980 (except in bio-weapons labs, that is). When I was a kid, I remember the polio cases, those crippled or living in iron lungs, and my mother's warnings to stay away from public swimming pools due to her terrible fear of polio. Today, we are free or nearly-free of these terrors thanks to the efforts of science, medicine and education, and the effectiveness of childhood vaccinations. But the emergent class of hysterical science-phobic maniacs now threatens these advances thanks to superstition.

A friend of mine who's a mathematician, who grew up in a developing country and is not very tolerant of nonsense, reminds me that "primitive cultures always find reasons to shun vaccines." I explain to her that this is happening here, in Kansas, in Florida, in Texas. "Oh," she says quietly.

Salem Radio Declares War on America

2005-05-12T10:58:00.000-05:00

As I've written before in these pages, Salem Radio Network, the extremist Right-Wing/ultra-conservative Christian mouthpiece, carefully synchronizes the message delivered by it's national hosts throughout the day. Here are a few of the most alarming themes they have been pushing the last few days:

It's war between the Red and Blue states. When I first heard it on Bill Bennett's "Morning in America" show, I thought it was just a weak joke, but throughout the day, the intensity of the message increased. "It's time to jettison the Blue States" a carefully screened caller said. "We've got all the important stuff in the Red States, anyway." With a chuckle, Bennett (failed Secretary of Education and degenerate gambler) started a list, which subsequent callers appended. "They can keep Hollywood and Harvard, we've got Disneyworld and the Alamo." OK, funny, right? But then it got serious. "What would our immigration laws be? Would we allow guest workers from the Blue States? Since we are the states that grow all the food, we could just starve the Blue States out," the former drug czar went on. "And the Red States have all the guns, of course." One caller crossed Salem Radio's dotted line: "All the black people and Jews are in the Blue States, so we'll just have to get rid of the Mexicans." Bennett quickly mentioned that racism was a bad thing, but he let the comment ride.
Democrats must be thrown out of churches. In every SRN show and even a few editorial segments called "Behind the News" support was shown for the Waynesville, NC pastor, Rev. Chan Chandler of the East Waynesville Baptist Church who expelled nine members of his congregation for supporting Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. "They need to either repent or resign," he said of the non-Republicans from the pulpit. He later resigned when it turned out that the North Carolina Baptist Church worried that his actions might endanger their tax-exempt status. Naturally, to the Salem Radio extremists, he's a hero and a martyr. "If it's in the Bible, it should be preached," said one supporter. I forgot which verse of the Bible says that Democrats should be thrown out of the Church, so if anyone can enlighten me, please leave a comment.
Congressmen who don't support Bush are guilty of treason. Again, this theme started during the morning show. "Democrats who are holding up the Bolton nomination are giving succor to the enemy," ex-Secretary of Education Bill Bennett cried. "All along, the Hillary's, the Kennedy's, the Bidens are making it look like our country is divided, and this just puts ammunition in the guns of our enemies." "How do you think the Iranians, the Koreans feel when they hear all the criticism of Bush?" Laura Ingraham shrieked. "They must just celebrate. If there's another terrorist attack in this country, we'll have the Democrats to thank." By 6:00 pm, Democrats were guilty of a capital offense according to Michael Savage. "It's just treason, pure and simple," Savage cited. "And you know what we do to traitors, right?... It's time to bring back the firing squad." Let's hope the many gun nuts who listen to Salem Radio were eating dinner when he said this.

New Pope Begins Reign of (T)Error

2005-05-08T08:20:00.000-05:00

It didn't take long. This week Pope Benedict XVI struck the first blow in his promised war on open debate, or even discussion, of important Catholic issues. The first casualty: Father Thomas J. Reese, an American Jesuit who is a frequent television commentator on Roman Catholic issues, who resigned Friday under direct orders from the Vatican as editor of the Catholic magazine America because he had published articles critical of church positions, according to several Catholic officials in the United States. Father Reese's great sin was to be "off-message" on the issue of condoms, his "heresy" was that he believed lives might be saved in third world countries if sexually transmitted diseases could be prevented.

That the new pope would come down so quickly and so heavily with the jackboots on one of the most evenly balanced Catholic journals, America, which is known for it's careful discussion of issues and for presenting conservative and liberal sides of debates, is an ugly sign. It's a warning to those leaders of the Church who might be tempted to actually think about some of the most important issues of the day that they better think Right, or they may find themselves in hot water. Jesuits, one of the most respected religious orders in the world, who as the "Army of Jesus" have brought so much light to the worlds of both faith and science, are so stunned they can barely respond. "It can have a chilling effect," says one theologian. No kidding.

I called a Jesuit priest who was a teacher of mine when I was in high school. He was one of those teachers who can light a fire under the lazy brain of teenage boy, and he exposed me to the world of literature and ideas when all that mattered to me was rock music and girls. I asked him about America magazine and the ouster of Father Reese. He told me that the problem is an old one, and he called it "paternalism". It means that debates on Catholic dogma have gone on since The Council of Nicea but that Church leadership often assumes that ordinary Catholics would only be "distressed" by these discussions. So it's OK for scholars, theologians and church leaders to discuss these issues, but the rest of us would only be worried by such information. So really, by gagging a priest who edited a magazine that publishes open dialogue they're really just protecting us. So is it the Pope's concern for our inability to handle the truth, or his fear of open minds that leads him to keep questions out of Catholic life? It all comes to the same thing for Father Reese, who made the great mistake of respecting the ability of rank and file believers to think for themselves.

A few weeks ago, news outlets all over the world reminded us that Cardinal Ratsinger, the man who would soon be named Benedict, was the head of an organization called "The Congregation (for the Doctrine of the Faith)", that used to be known as "The Holy Inquisition". These were the bright boys who tortured and murdered thousands a few hundred years ago because they believed in outrageous things like the Earth revolving around the Sun. Of course, we were told, this is now a benign outfit that simply makes sure Catholic doctrine is authentic, and that what Catholics believe is correctly represented. "There's no more Inquisition," they said. They lied, and the new masthead of the once-respected magazine America is the proof.

I wonder if there are European craftsmen who still remember how to build an Iron Maiden.

[If you're curious about what Pope Benedict thinks is unacceptable, please go to your library and pick up a back issue of America. You will be surprised]

Hate Radio: The Salem Radio Network

2005-05-07T10:01:00.000-05:00

If you've got a good job, or an education, or an FM radio, chances are you haven't heard the Salem Radio Network. So you probably don't realize just how ugly things have gotten in this country. Sure, you remember the ugly invectives from the "Religious Right" during the election, and you might remember Tom DeLay threatening to get even with the federal judges who decided that a person's right to make a decision with their spouse regarding the use of extraordinary means of life support in the event of irreversible catastrophic brain damage is not the business of Bill Frist, Rick Santorum and the irrepressible asinine Sam Brownbeck. You might even have heard Ann Coulter encouraging the murder of those she calls "liberal". But you haven't heard hate until you've heard The Salem Radio Network.

SRN, and their parent, Salem Communications is an upstart media conglomerate in the Clear Channel mode, but they play a low-down game, manipulating the religious fervor of the Evangelicals to push a neo-fascist agenda that makes the check-pants conservatives at Clear Channel or Fox News look like pikers by comparison.

Think of the ugliest stereotype of the phoney-baloney, cynical, TV preacher, sucking money from desperate folks while pumping it back into the political system, not to make the country better, but to fatten their wallets and to grab power. Picture the most foul Bill Maher joke about the neocon hypocrites with a cross in one hand and a flag in the other, greasing the way for rotten corporate thieves to take wealth beyond measure, while convincing the middle class that the lack of proper health care is the American Way. The reality of the Salem Radio Network has these exaggerations beat by a mile. They are the real deal. They are the Anti-Christian Christians, the Anti-American Americans. They are the worst of the worst. And they're slick liars, smooth on the outside, rotten on the inside. They've learned their business-school lessons well, with their synergistic marketing and disciplined message. And they're coming to your town.
I wish I had the literary and journalistic skills to convey the nastiness of this outfit, but nothing I could possibly write would do the job as well as a couple of hours of listening to SRN. Go to the website, find a station near you, or go to the individual hosts' websites and listen online. Then tell me if I'm wrong. It's time that that the decent people of America found out just how bad things have gotten, and just how serious the religious maniacs are about taking away our freedom, our way of life.

[Note to Chicagoans: Here, the Salem Radio Network can be found at AM 560, "Left on your dial, but Right on the issues."]

For Evangelicals, Culture War is Civil War

2005-05-06T12:17:00.000-05:00

Today, I became convinced that the fanatic Religious Right have declared a civil war in our nation. Just as the Confederate States declared that they could not obey the laws of America, that the country they wanted to live in was so substantially different from the USA of the 1860's that they could no longer abide by it's laws, customs, and culture, the numerically small but highly disciplined group of anti-American revolutionaries known as "The Religious Right" have now put the rest of us on notice: We are their Enemy. They want to destroy the way of life, the culture, the unity of principles that for 230 years has been known as the United States of America. Their very religion, known as Evangelicalism requires them to do it. They are in fact, the spiritual brothers of fanatical Islamists that our military has been fighting overseas. Their "God" is telling them that we must be destroyed.

Our first Civil War started small. A constitutional crisis in this state legislature, or a violent outcry over that federal court decision, and the men who believed they could own other men reached for their guns. Today, a Republican Senator tells his people that the Democrats in congress are against their religion, and a Republican leader of the House of Representatives warns judges that disagree with him that they should be looking over their shoulders, and another Eric Rudolph starts assembling a bomb, another Tim McVeigh's hatred boils over. Of course, the Far Right Republicans disavow any connection to the violent men who would bring home-grown terror, but where did Rudolph get the idea to bomb an abortion clinic? What made Tim McVeigh pick a building of federal agents to destroy?

Now we are told, by the James Dobsons, the Sam Brownbecks, that we are fighting a "Culture War". As usual, the men of the right believe war is the solution to all problems. A drug problem? We need a "War on Drugs". Forget using the combined international police agencies to fight the criminals we call terrorists. We need a "War on Terror". If George W. Bush had been in office instead of John F. Kennedy, the national effort of manned space flights would have been called the "War on the Moon".

When you use the "war model" to fight a problem, it makes it a lot easier to accept real bloodshed, real death. As we've heard time and time again, "We're at war" so a little torture, a little less liberty, more Americans in prison, that's all to be expected. How long do you think it will take before we start seeing casualties in "The Culture War"? Maybe we already have.

I happen to belong to the same religious denomination as most of the founding fathers of this nation. It's a religion that believes that human reason should be given equal weight to scripture or tradition. The Evangelicals have no such notion about human reason. If God says it's so, or more accurately, if the televangelist says that God says it's so, then it's for sure. I hate abortion, but I absolutely believe in a woman's right to choose whether or not to bear a child. I think committed, loving relationships are always better than promiscuity, so allowing marriage or civil unions between homosexuals can only be a good thing. I believe that in a prosperous nation like ours, that health care is a right for all people, as is education, whether or not that person happens to have a high-paying job. That Social Security guarantees that old folks who've played by the rules and worked hard all their lives can live with just a tiny bit of dignity is a good thing, I believe. I believe that if someone who pays for a subscription media service wants to see a little indecent entertainment, that's their choice. In fact, I like a little indecency myself once in a while. I believe in "Live and Let Live". I believe in the liberty that our Constitution guarantees is the right of everyone in this country, not just the ones who have found Jesus. These beliefs make me the sworn Enemy of the Religious Right.

Evangelicals believe that theirs is the One True Faith, and that if you haven't been born again, according to their rules, you are going to burn in Hell for eternity. This is not a secret, they trumpet this belief from their pulpits, from their blogs, and from their seats in Congress. As we've learned from other societies who've had such beliefs, this notion leaves room for a lot of horror if you don't happen to share it. For example, at an Evangelical church in the small Missouri town where I live part of the year, friends tell me that they are told that if they have any Jewish or Catholic friends, and they care about them, it's their bound duty to make sure that these non-Evangelicals are born again, or they'll burn in Hell for Eternity. If they have any friends who are not raising their children to believe the way the Evangelicals do, then that's the same thing as child abuse, worse in fact, because an Eternity in Hell is far worse than any earthly abuse. You can see where this is going. When it comes to saving souls, how far are you willing to go for Jesus? If that Democrat state rep or federal judge is standing in the way of more Americans finding Jesus, well, if it was 1935 and you had a chance to kill Hitler...

As Bill Bennett (famous moralist and degenerate gambler) is known to say, on his SRN Radio talk show, "Truth is Truth. Wrong is Wrong and Right is Right. There are no grey areas in morality." When James Dobson says that Democrats are the enemies of the faithful, then he's painting a target on all Democrats. And the people who are listening are mostly in states with quite liberal gun laws. When Tom DeLay warns federal judges to be looking over their shoulders because of the way they voted on the Terri Schiavo matter, who does he think is listening?

It's about the saddest thing in the world to me, but this I believe: When suicide bombers start their evil work in this country, they are as likely to be waving a cross as a crescent.

I Didn't Want to Write This

2005-05-06T11:17:00.000-05:00

It wasn't my intention to write a political blog. I didn't want to make fighting the rise of the right-wing quasi-Christians my reason for being.

I wanted to write about the beauty in the world. The poetry in great art, the music in architecture, the drama in sculpture. I wanted to talk about the way a song or a great novel can lift a human heart above the basic struggles of living and give us wings. I wanted to write about ideas and the value in play.

It didn't work out that way. I've never cared that much about politics. Despite my own faith and beliefs, I never really worried much about the religious beliefs of others. I was brought up to believe that there was room for everyone in this country, that as long as you didn't step on someone else's toes, you could go your own way. I always thought that was really the idea of our nation. But I've learned in the last decade or so that there's a movement that doesn't believe in freedom for anyone but their own; that believes their way is the only way, and they're ready and willing to enforce this belief no matter who gets hurt. This movement is extremely disciplined, they're all on the same page, they march in step. They use the most private insecurities of a vulnerable population to expand their power, increase their wealth by manipulating their very need for meaning in life - their need to believe. They work in concert with a nascent political philosophy inaccurately known as "neoconservativism" that seeks a society where the weak disappear and power is God. They've convinced the fearful, the less educated, the middle class and poor whites that there are enemies all around, and to vote against their own best interest using a fantasy of security, of "values" but not morals. They are not tolerant of dissent.

This movement, which I believe is set on the very destruction of the best of our society is called by many names, but none of these names is really accurate. "Religious Right" misses the mark and "Christian Conservatives" is way off, since they are neither Christian or conservative. "Evangelicals" is closer, but I'm not willing to cede the concept of evangelism to this vicious crowd. I guess "fanatics" is probably closest to the mark but it just doesn't get across the way this movement is willing to dress itself in the clothes of reasonable people, with titles like "Reverend" and "Senator" and "Chairman of a conservative think tank". Scratch the surface on these folks and you get the mirror image of the wild-eyed terrorist, willing to meet his maker in cleansing blast of righteousness.

A movement so bent on destruction needs an enemy, and that's me, and if you're reading this, probably you, too. We were brought up to believe that religious beliefs were a personal matter. A very personal matter. Decent people didn't go around putting pressure on friends, co-workers, neighbors or children put into our care, such as students or Cub Scouts or the kids next door. If you were the type who went around asking people if they were "saved" it meant that you were a little bit looney, and you probably weren't going to get invited to the next barbecue. But today, if you're NOT saved, for a lot of people and institutions, including some of our government institutions, you don't exist. Think about this: If a presidential candidate were to admit that even though he believes in God, he's not much on going to church on Sunday, could he become President? He couldn't even get a nomination. In fact, if a candidate doesn't claim to be born again chances are good that he won't get a chance to run. So we've already got a RELIGIOUS LITMUS TEST for presidential candidates. Joe Lieberman only got by because he's a devout orthodox Jew. If he'd been a secular Jew, no way.

The ironic part of all this is that it's only the generous tolerance of the vast majority of open-minded Americans that made this theocracy happen. We always knew a few nuts who believed that evolution never happened (it's only a theory after all, they say, showing a misunderstanding of both the science of evolution and the word "theory") or neighborhood cranks who used to warn that we were all going to burn in Hell and sometimes shouted it from streetcorners. But we used to simply walk around them and shrug: "It's a free country, after all." But it took the politics of terror to put so much fear into us that we actually voted those wackos into power. Now we have to pay the price for a few more years, but have we learned the lesson? Do we now understand that the folks who believe God is whispering in their ears are always going to be more dedicated, more fervent, more willing to go to their neighbors with petitions, more willing to strap on bombs? To the Evangelicals, the Jihadists, this is an end-game. They're willing to accept nuclear options, mutual assured destruction, final solutions. It doesn't bother them to throw the baby out with the bath water (as long as it's not unborn), because their shallow interpretations of scripture tell them Armageddon is coming, there will be no tomorrow. The scary part is that they are now in a position to make Armageddon happen.

If we're going to insure a future for our children and grandchildren, one that's free of abortion-bombers and burkahs, we're going to have to shore up the separation between church and state that our founders so presciently made. We're going to have to make sure that people seeking to govern our country are able to put love of their country and their countrymen before the mandates of their own faiths. The evangelicals tell us that they cannot do this. There's our answer.

Companies that Sponsor Hate-Speech

2005-05-03T23:51:00.000-05:00

I thought you'd want to know. Below is a partial list of sponsors of the Salem Radio Network, the good people who bring us Michael Savage, Laura Ingraham, Hugh Hewitt, failed movie reviewer Michael Medved and the famous degenerate gambler Bill Bennett, a lineup from 5am to after midnight filled with some of the most disturbing hate-mongering ever on the air in America.

Forget Rush, Hannity, and company, Clear Channel and Sinclair. These are the real haters. Just today you could have heard an hour-long segment on why Islam should be made illegal, why no Muslim should ever be allowed to become a federal judge, that all homosexuals are guilty of treason and why any Democrat who claims to be a Christian is a "rotten liar". On SRN, the holocaust wasn't quite so bad as some would whine. Liberals all suffer from mental disorders and Bill Clinton was our first Socialist president. I'll try to post a few transcripts here, but first I'll have to replace the radio that I flung against the wall in disgust. Even my Republican friends squirm in embarassment over the viscious and often violent diatribes on this network.

Interestingly, the hosts on the Salem Radio Network synchronize their message each day, so topics carry over from program to program. Today and yesterday, was anti-Muslim day on SRN. Bill Bennet (famous degenerate gambler, in case I forgot to mention it) kicked it off with a discussion of a moral comparison between Christianity and Islam. His take on it: The Christians are more moral. Laura Ingraham took up the cause with a guest who explained why Islam is a religion based on deception, violence and terror. Dennis Prager came on at 11, talking to a columnist for the Weekly Standard who made the alarming statement that Christian lives are worth more than Muslim lives. In the afternoon drivetime, here come Michael Medved (heavily closeted failed movie critic with the big mustache) who explains that anyone who is against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are no better than terrorists, and "Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslim". Apparently, he's forgotten about Tim McVeigh and Olympic/abortion bomber Eric Rudolph. "They are the dregs of humanity, Medved says about Muslims. Michael Savage come on at 5 with a careful discussion of "Islamofascism" (this Michael Savage guy, the same one who was so foul that Fox News through him off the air, is so bad that the other Salem Radio Network announcers disavow his existence. "He's on Salem Radio, but he's not a Salem Radio host" Dennis Prager says on his show.). Hugh Hewitt rounds out the day with a guest who has written a book titled "Prophet of Doom" that reveals that Mohammed was a liar, rapist and terrorist, and that all good Muslims must by definition be terrorists. Mike Gallagher takes the late shift and tells us that Islam is bad, Christianity, good. This group of radio bigmouths know how to stay on topic, that's for sure.

Here in Chicago the "SRN" is on a station that's waaaay on the end of the dial, in the radio ghetto usually reserved for Department of Transportation roadway bulletins and hokum prayer-lines, but in some small to medium markets in America, this is the only radio that comes in good and strong. This is what the people who live in the heartland listen to in between the farm reports and weather. It's just about all they've got, and the big right-wing conglomerates like Clear Channel and Salem are seemingly willing to lose money to get out their message of hate and support of the Christian Republican agenda.

You'll notice a distinct lack of prestigious national advertisers on this network. No McDonald's, no Coca Cola or Chevrolet. The ads here are primarily for hair-growth potions, get-rich-quick pyramid outfits and people who would sell you a book on how to buy gold. One big advertiser is a seller of the Phazer III radar detector which, as the commercial boasts, "..is illegal in eleven states!". But a few of the companies who, perhaps unknowingly, sponsor this filth might surprise you. All of them could benefit from a few phone calls letting them know the sort of rotten eggs they support.

Here is a list of the companies who are paying to spread hate and fear in the United States of America. I'll try to get phone numbers and email addresses and pass them along. Give 'em a call and let them know what you think.

Farmers' Auto Insurance

Pinnacle Home Mortgage

proflowers.com

Lear Financial

Comcast Sportsnet

4airfix.com

tweeter

eharmony.com (dating service)

expedia.com

Should Fetuses be Allowed to Marry?

2005-04-28T12:04:00.000-05:00

One wonders about the fetish that the Right-wing Christian Zealots have for the unborn. Fetuses are babies they say, and should have all the rights of any person. And this person-hood goes back to very act of conception. Even the "morning after" pill, "Plan B" is considered by them to be an abortifactant. The men and women (mostly men) who represent this radical opinion in our government, like Sam Brownbeck (R., insane, Kansas), Bill Frist (R., silly, Tennesee) and Rick Santorum (R., completely crazy, Pennsylvania), take it to the very limits of sanity.

The other day I was talking to a doctor friend, an OB-GYN in fact (who doesn't perform abortions in case you wondered) about this. He's a Catholic and a believer in a woman's right to choose whether or not to carry a fetus to term, but not a fanatic about it. He's a foster parent and when an abortion is performed, he says, "It means that our society has let a woman down." I asked him if a fetus and a person are the same thing. "There are a couple of critical differences," he told me. "First of all, a fetus is "breathing" amniotic fluid, rather than atmospheric oxygen."

The doc and I were roomates in college, and we shared a couple of philosophy and literature courses that had terrific impact on our two malleable young minds. We'd learned that the concept of "inspiration" which means the intake of breath, also meant the "drawing in of the soul" to the Greeks, as well as the most common meaning today, of the sparking of creativity.

But the biggest difference, he told me, between a person and a fetus, is that one of them has been born and one hasn't. I guess the anti-choice religious fanatics don't think that birth is a big deal, that it doesn't have much meaning when it comes to the formation of a human being. I'd suggest that if they don't think birth is crucial, in deed defining human life, they might want to talk it over with a mother - anybody's mother. They might get a different viewpoint from someone who's actually carried a child then has gone through the birth event.

This brings us back to the Ben Franklin-esque, common sense answer to the question "When does life begin?" When the mother says it does.

This isn't as flip an answer as it seems. That this answer is never brought up in the debate might be one of the reasons that most of the leaders of the Anti-Choice Movement are men. Sure, you see a lot of shrieking women on the anti-abortion picket lines, screaming and cursing at the scared young women trying to enter clinics around the country. The ladies are the ones who have the most caring, sympathetic comments for these poor girls going through a horrible experience: "Whore!, Murderer!, You will burn in Hell for Eternity!" You can tell they really care. [author's note: If you think I'm making this up, send me your email address and I'll send you an address of a clinic in a south central Missouri town, right across the street from a Catholic Church, where you see these disgusting, hateful, yentas, running across the street after morning Mass, to offer these kind words of Christian support to the young patients almost every morning.]

But it's the men, the James Dobsons and the Sam Brownbecks and Bill Frists of this country, who really pull the strings in the anti-abortion movement. Them, and of course, the poisonous bunch who have the word "Reverend" in front of their names, but have only hate in their souls, who lead the marches and who quote scripture with such authority. They're the ones who really know what's best for the women of America.

Eric Rudolph, the neocon maniac who somehow slipped through the National Security safety net to bomb a family medicine clinic and the Olympics, called himself "a soldier in the army of the Lord." Making a clinic where abortions are performed one of his targets didn't just spring unbidden into his brain. It was put there by the Dobsons, the Brownbecks, the Frists, the Right-wing talk radio scumbags like Laura Ingraham, Michael Medved. They lit Mr. Rudolph's fuse, all right. The ones who are standing up for "values", for "family", for "God".

It's a good bet that God would just as soon they shut up.

Bolton, Diplomacy & the Future of the World

2005-04-22T11:36:00.000-05:00

I remember, when I was a kid riding in the backseat of my family's car during our cross-country driving vacations, seeing billboards in America's heartland that led to my first political discussions with my father. The billboards read: "Impeach Earl Warren" and "Get the US out of the UN".

Now, in full disclosure, my old man was a Reagan Democrat when Ron Reagan was still wearing his dumb cowboy hat hosting Death Valley Days. My Grandpa was a railroad man, and my Dad worked in a factory along with several of his brothers. He didn't care for Kruschev and the commies and Martin Luther King made him pretty uncomfortable, but his experience in the CCC camps during the Depression and his time in the China-Burma theatre during WWII made him a big fan of Roosevelt. He followed the rules, worked hard, and lived for me and my sister. When he came back from the War, he spent time in the VA hospital recovering from his wounds, and the GI Bill helped him pay for school and buy our house. A first-generation American whose parents came over on the boat from Italy, he loved the USA.

I asked my dad about the billboards. He thought for a long time and then gave me a serious, simple answer. "There are some nuts in this country."

Dad's words are just as true today, but there's one big difference. Today, those nuts are running our government.

If someone would have told me, back in 1978, while I was driving a cab and going to college, that the year 2005 would come and there still would not be any sort of meaningful worldwide governmental organization, I'd have laughed in their face. Of course, by the turn of the century we'd see that the unity of our planet was more important than the arbitrary national borders that have caused so much death and disaster, and our leaders would at least be able to sit at a table to solve problems like famine, health disasters, and to slap down the occasional mad man who'd want to rule the world. An international criminal court? At least we'd have that much, surely. What responsible leader would be so insane as to not want a mechanism for nations to enforce basic human laws, to put dictators on trial, to prevent the kind of horrors that even thirty years after the War, were fresh in the minds of everyone living on Earth.

When George W. Bush took office, mistaking his judicial appointment to the White House for a sweeping mandate, he immediately pissed in the international swimming pool. Kyoto Accord to try to turn around the destruction of Earth's environment? Bush said "Fuck you." The International Criminal Court? Bush said "Fuck you." And now, mistaking a second highly-suspect lightning strike election for a huge mandate, he nominates John Bolton as our ambassador to the United Nations. Once again, Bush shoots the world the finger.

I remember listening to "moderate" Republicans during the 2004 election, soothing the voters with talk about how in a second term GWB would look to building his legacy, bringing the nation together, and even though he had to give lip service to the Right Wing Nuts (RWNs), that was only to get elected, and after the inauguration we'd see how Bush would "govern from the center."

Well, bullshit. Here he is, ensconced in a comfortable second term, owning the House, the Senate and the Media, and his nominations for high offices in his cabinet and the judiciary can only be called "insane". Bush is trying to put our nation into a hole so deep that my great-grandchildren will still be cursing his name. In just a few short years, he's destroyed just about every progressive movement of the second half of the twentieth century. Social Security? "Fuck you, " says the President. Women's rights? "I got your "women's rights" right here." Education? The Environment? You know his answer.

To be sure, the United Nations is not a perfect organization. There are some fundamental flaws in way it's setup, and in an age of the ONE GREAT SUPERPOWER, the "Security Council" isn't really what it was supposed to be. But it's the closest thing we have to an organization where governments can look at each other over a table, as equals, and try to hammer out solutions to the worst of the world's problems. That George W. Bush, and his gang of fascist neocons are trying to destroy even this, would make my Dad cry. The nuts haven't gone away, they've taken over.

Prayers of the People - Fill those Proscriptions

2005-04-19T09:27:00.000-05:00

Those Krazy Kristian Konservatives are at it again. They really don't want pharmacists to have to do their job, their only job, which is to fill the prescriptions that our doctors write for us.

Their big problem are these so-called "morning-after pills", aka "Plan-B" which would allow a woman (it doesn't work for men, unfortunately) who had unprotected sex to decide whether to let the lottery which is her reproductive system decide whether she gets pregnant, or to make sure that no pregnancy comes from a recent sexual encounter.

A certain segment of the lunatic religious fringe calls these pills "abortifactants". In other words, preventing a fetus from forming out of the few hundred cells that might be floating around inside a woman a day or so after sex is abortion. Or in the parlance of these nuts: "baby killin' ".

Here's the thing: MOST sexual encounters do not cause pregnancy. The sperm might get to the egg and do its magic, but in a huge number of those cases, a woman has her period and that's the end of it. Even several months into a pregnancy, spontaneous termination is quite common - much more common than a doctor-performed abortion. So does that make God the champion abortionist of all-time? And if each one of those lumps of cells (the medical term is blastocyte") has a soul, does that mean that heaven is full of partially formed fetuses? Yuk. Can I put in a reservation for the fetus-free heaven? Not according to the thousands of these groups with names like "Family Council of Research into Freedom and Life".

Getting back to those faithful farmacists who believe that a blastocyte is the same as a fully-formed human being (by the way, a remarkable number of them also believe that the earth is only 6000 years old). How far should we go with consideration for the conscience of the pharmacist? If they believe that all Jews are going to burn in Hell (if they're Evangelicals, that's exactly what they believe) is it OK to maybe turn their business away too? Maybe a pharmacist is a converted Christian Scientist, maybe they think thier customers should be praying instead of taking their cancer meds. You see where this is going?

Here in Illinois, the governor has said that any pharmacists who turns away a woman whose doctor has prescribed Plan-B will lose their license. This particular governor is not really known for his courageous stands, but he deserves some credit for this one. I'd print his name here if I could only spell it.
[My wife, who is of the same ethnic persuasion as the gov, tells me the spelling is: "Blagojevich". She also says he's a jackass, but she also says that about me sometimes.]

George Bush's iPod

2005-04-12T09:26:00.000-05:00

The president is a stupid dick. I'm sorry, but now we have conclusive proof.

Before I get into the contents of the actual iPod, let me say that whichever bright-boy neocon hanging around the White House had the idea that releasing the songlist in Bush's rotation would ingratiate him with the young people of this country and show him to be in touch with "what's happening now" needs to be fired immediately. Nobody that stupid should be anywhere near the President of the United States. The notion that a vision of W with those dumb white earplugs, playing air-guitar to "My Sharona" would do anything but scare the shit out of Americans shows either insanity or chronic ketamine abuse. What's next, a picture of Bush making Rush Limbaugh an honorary narcotics officer?

Now, the famous list:
First of all, where does Bush get the time to hunt down the Joni Mitchell album that's got her cover of Buddy Holly's "You're So Square"? Does he have John Negroponte checking the cutout bins at the local used record store? "Don't tell me you can't find Kinks Kronicles, John. Did you check under the "D's" for "Davies"?"

George Jones
This is a no-brainer. When Dubya was in his hard-drinkin', coke-snortin', AWOLin' days, like any of us would do, he learned to love George Jones. Who better to have on the juke box when the waitress just called you a weenie, your coke dealer won't take a money market check, and your dad just doesn't understand why he absolutely has to call that lieutenant major in the Air National Guard to explain why he can't be at training the week before and after the Super Bowl.

John Fogerty - Centerfield
Picture it: young Shrub, driving through the oilfields of West Texas with a bottle of Lonestar in his crotch, listening to "Who'll Stop the Rain" and knowing that, goddammit, someday he'd be the one to stop the rain.

The Knack - My Sharona
The dopey spoiled college-boy party animal national anthem. Picture the man who would be our leader pumping his fist singing "My, my, my, my YEAH!"

Crystal Gayle
Man, girls like that just never gave the poor prez-to-be the time of day. And Laura won't give him any back-door play. It's gotta be lonely at the top. But now, he can get on the phone (well, he's gotta have somebody else dial), and like THAT he can get Crystal on the phone. Even have her play for him at the White House. Goddam! I like being the President!

Assorted Country Singers
The Kennebunkport Kowboy. It's hard to live it down when there are pictures out there that show you in a Yale beanie leading cheers on the sidelines. But give the man credit, he's trying.

Pope-apalooza, Liars, and Laura Ingraham's Taint

2005-04-08T09:25:00.000-05:00

"The most-watched event in the history of the world (sic)"

They call Rome "The Eternal City", but all that's seemed eternal in the last few weeks are the flag-and-cross waving, shrieking, talking heads that have been proclaiming the resurgence of religion in the world over AM and low-power radio, for-hire tail-wagging conservative blogs and discussion groups in Assembly of God church basements. A poor, damaged woman who is finally allowed to die and a creaky world leader who finally let's go, and somehow it equals a brand new day for superstition, bigotry, patriarchy and exclusion.

My local public radio station has been in beg-mode the past few weeks, so I've found myself scanning the dial, only to learn that the great local radio stations of lore have been replaced by conglomerate-media neocon religious talk radio. I know first-hand that in South Central Missouri, you can ride up and down the dial all day and not hear anything but religious hate-speech and right-wing political hate-speech. Even country music is relegated to a miserable few canned programs from who-knows-where. You're more likely to hear about how "God hates fags" than Randy Travis or Hank, Jr. But who knew that the rapid-patter rock-n-roll dj's here in Chicago have been replaced by soft-voiced Catholics or not-so-soft-voiced Evangelicals, explaining doctrine and yes, begging for money? Of course, the message is still "God hates fags", but Chicago is the heart of organized labor, school-lunch, blue-state country, so the emphasis is more on limiting reproductive rights, keeping women pregnant (after marriage), and stopping abortion. There are no fewer than 6 all-talk, all-God, all-hate stations. Forget top-40, the end times are here, sweeping the quarter hour.

One particular blabber station caught my attention these last few weeks. It's WIND, 560 AM. An outfit called "Salem Communications" (more on them later) owns this conservative mouthpiece, and even though it's so far down at the bottom of the dial that I practically have to tune them in on my toaster, they've got a crushingly loud signal, and their crushingly loud talkers are looking to push the (get this) "too liberal" voices like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity off the air.

WIND's all-star lineup starts at 5am with Bill Bennett's "Morning in America". This great conservative yodeler, known mostly for his books about morals and values, and for his degenerate gambling, kicks off the day with a surreal amalgam of old-school conservative hate-speech and quotes from Aristotle and Samuel Johnson. If jaw-dropping pedantics and pretentious hypocracy are your thing, this is the show for you. His producer, a snotty little Karl Rove wannabe punk, chimes in on the quarter hour, shamelessly kissing the ass of the former Education Tsar, dropping quasi-intellectual mis-quotes and other high-minded malaprops. It would all be a hoot if one could forget that these guys would shut down the Federal Courts tomorrow if they could, and "Dr" Bennett, as he's known to the high-school dropouts that slaver over his phonelines would use the Consititution to light one of the fat cigars for which he is famous. What I wouldn't give to see this guy coming out of a Reno casino at 6am, sweaty and smelly, hat pulled low over his face so none of his Krazy Kristian buddies sees him hustling a barely-legal hooker into his comp-ed hotel room.

Next up is Laura Ingraham (I just learned how to spell her name today), the shrill, snotty pin-up girl for the Kristchun Koalishun. Now she's impossible to listen to, so I don't have much to say about her except that if you can imagine a female Hannity, using the sound-bite techniques of the Howard Stern clone, including the studio full of staffers hootin' and a-hollerin' at every witty quip, trying to show how neocons can be edgy, too, you'll won't even begin to understand how awful this show is. Last Thursday, her big moment was wondering aloud about the fleshy growth on the side of Ted Kennedy's neck. "I mean, what IS that thing?" she shrieks. Oh what fun. This is what passes for intelligent commentary on the issues of today. Here's a uber-Repub good-time girl who would love to give that hunk Tom DeLay a trip around the world, and without a condom, too, you bet.

to be continued...