Wackos of the World Unite: You Have Nothing to Lose But Moronic Thinking

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conservatives, liberals, philosophy, psychology, sociology, tea party, teabaggers

I was recently called a wacko. Nothing could be truer and if the person who so named me, had known me well, I would have laughed in agreement. But he knows nothing but a smidgen of my politics, and his opprobrium was limited to that fact alone.  To that sir, I take umbrage!

I have heard, and it seems to be folk wisdom, that one becomes more conservative with age. I guess it stems from an accumulation of anecdotal observances of friends and family as they age.

It may well be true.

I know it was nearly true of me.

At one point in my life, I found my life in a place that was not pleasing. I was living in an urban setting in a city known for violence. I was tired of house break-ins, and all the petty crime that life entailed. I was tired of my job, tired of the people I worked with and we were embroiled in a fight within our organization over wages and rights.

And I found myself slipping into conservative mode. I wanted out, and that required savings, and anything that impinged on my ability to save money was something I was against.

Life got better. And it continued to be so.

I realized something as life got sweeter. My normal liberalism was returning. My life is great today. And my liberalism is flaming, in fact I’m not sure I’m not sliding well into anarchism. (please do look that up before you report me to the FBI–I’m a Chomsky type anarachist and I’m just beginning that journey of discovery, so don’t hold me to it. Being the eclectic I am, I am always trying to learn something new. I almost became a nun for goodness sake!)

Which suggests that something more is at work here.

I’ve become involved in some discussions with old school mates as of late. The discussions have often involved issues of the day. And I find a very curious thing. Perhaps I’m reading the tea leaves wrong, but well, judge for yourself.

I view the Tea Party as a loose amalgamation of disparate spirits. There are your fiscal deficit hawks. There are your, don’t tax me (but do fix the pot holes). There are the “it smacks of socialism/fascism/communism” to me even though I can’t actually tell you which is which, but I don’t like it. There are your basic racists and any anti-Democratic group sounds good to me given that THAT guy is in the White House types. There are your basic survivalists who just hate government, but are also itching to shoot it up. There are your religionists/fundamentalists who think the US of A ought to be based on the bible as they interpret it, along with all their ideas of social living arrangements made mandatory by God, speaking through them. There are probably more.

It makes for a messy group.

But in discussions, I find that those who are most impossible to engage in anything other than sound bites direct from Breitbots, Daily Caller, Blaze, WND, and the ever reliable bellicose grifters, Coulter, Limbaugh, Hannity, and so on, are people who over time, you perceive to be just really really unhappy individuals. They have fallen into their conservationism as a defense to their miserable lives.

I paint this portrait with the proviso that not all need apply, but as they say, if you find yourself answering yes to three or more, you may have a problem that is leading you to be a Conservative:

1. You are divorced or separated, and you feel that you are not at fault, having spent your life working to provide for your spouse who is an ungrateful _________.
2. You have no education past high school, or if you do, it was toward a trade or low-level technical job.
3. You are self-employed and have no more than six people who work for you.
4. You have long given up an dreams of opening a second shop, franchising your business, or crossing that threshold to being a “businessman”. In other words, you still are working along with your employees.
5. You work long hours, and while you make a decent living, you still can’t afford all the things you dreamed of having at this point.
6. Every dime you pay in taxes becomes a dime that keeps you that must further away from “retirement”, and a chance to finally enjoy life. Emphasis on finally because you don’t expect to enjoy life until you have “made it”.
7. You have few hobbies or enjoyable down time, because you “don’t have time” or can’t afford it.
8. Life has definitely not turned out the way you expected it to, and you are close or at retirement age.
9. You increasingly see that most people don’t work as hard as you do, yet they “get stuff” for free because they are a minority, a woman, an undocumented worker (illegal).
10. You know that if the government didn’t take your money, you could have been wealthy like all the rich people you so admire. You’ve read all their books, and you know you are just like them.

What this all leads to is extreme anger. It’s not my fault I’m not living the life I deserve. It’s __________ fault. It’s got to be somebody’s fault you see. I just has to be. For it cannot be mine. I work too hard for it to be mine.

Of course, it begs the question that you have perhaps listened to the wrong people. I could explain that you are believing exactly what the corporate masters desire you to believe. You are blaming who they wish you to blame. You are mired in self-pity, because it is not your fault. And it truly isn’t your fault. You simply based your beliefs on those whose interest it is to keep your striving in place,  and misdirecting your anger away from them.

So I think of it as a badge of honor to be a liberal at my age. I have successfully avoided the pitfalls of self-interest in the name of what I call being human. I see the human experience as one of striving to be more human, and that means being more open and giving and sharing with the lives that surround me. There is nothing so very noble about it. It’s a constant struggle to pull away from purely selfish interest to include “the other”. I don’t always win that battle, but the struggle enhances my ability to win more than I lose. And as a citizen of planet of earth, I find that a positive step forward.

Evolution is about change over time. Try to be mindfully engaged in that process. I think God likes that. But that’s me, the wacko speaking.

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Do You Like Sport?

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Entertainment, philosophy, sociology, Sports

Are we getting it yet?

Are you still enthralled with your favorite hero? Is it Clay Matthews or LeBron James? Is it Wayne Gretzky or Miguel Cabrera? You do realize they are humans and they are flawed don’t you?

Lance Armstrong is so flawed he deserves to be in his own hall of fame of worst possible human being in the entire 20th and 21st century. I mean, he stands back and admits to all the things he’s been accused of for years, without batting an eye, oblivious EMOTIONALLY to all the pain he has caused others. He’s a sociopath, and in another life would be a mass murderer. Instead he’s just a mass cheater, liar, and life wrecker.

Manti Ta’o? The kid from Notre Dame with the strange story about the girlfriend he had never met and may never have existed? Oh, I have no clue if Manti was in on the hoax or a victim of it. Having spend more hours than I wish to admit to on the old IRC back in the day, I know so many stories like this that I’m inclined to give the kid the benefit of the doubt. I knew people who feel deeply in love with personas that were not even close to truth. I knew men who fell in love with men who thought they were women. Truly it happens. Or it did.  .  .  . back in the day at least.

Never happened to me. Back before the Contrarian, I met a lot of men via the Internet, and physically met close to a half dozen. They were all who they purported to be. I was lucky I guess. I met the Contrarian via the Internet, and in a display of utter dumbness, or incredibly acute intuition, gave up my apartment and hired a moving company before I had laid eyes on the man. But we are now into thirteen years of marriage, and a happy one at that. Don’t use me as measure however of the safety of this medium of communication. I am quite sure if you x-ray my skull, you will find the alien implant that suggests I’m just on loan from Planet Glix for an earthly experiment. I think my real occupation, when not being a test subject (think 2 years government service equivalency), is as an online psychic charlatan on the run from three known law suits, and three hybrid brides who were left at the altar.

See, that stuff floats through my head, and just must be when the old implant goes into a defib mode for a few seconds.

Anyway, either Manti or Lance serve once again to remind us that we should never place our adoration at the foot of most any human, for they are just always going to disappoint you in the end by being ALL TOO HUMAN. Or maybe less human in the case of Lance.

Which begs the question, where does one lay one’s adoration? Some find elegance in the medium of mathematics, and indeed I can appreciate the elegance of that. Or the universe itself which has a majesty that is enough for 3,000 lifetimes. One can find enough to adore in the soft breathing of a newborn, a new-born of any species actually. Awe is part of adoration after all, and life awes.

I find a single dandelion growing through the crack in an old sidewalk worthy of adoration. After all, talk about tenacity. Tenacity seems worthy of adoration.

So symmetry,  the miracle of life, and tenacity are in the mix. How about longevity?

There is much to be admired in a face like this. A worn face, a face that has worked, loved, cried, laughed, and somehow continued on.

Eyes that hold a library full of stories.

Hands that have caressed a woman’s cheek and then tightened around a wrench and heaved loose a nut.

Shall we trip the light fantastic and delve into the realm of mystery? Shall we glimpse the ineffable, the transcendent? Are we not in the place of adoration?

Shall we imagine the temperatures and pressures that brought into being the pebble that you walk upon? That came from the rock, that came from the mountain, long broken and sunk back into the landscape? Adore it?

Did all this start in a giggle of a thought about Mitt Romney and his reference to liking “sport” instead of “sports?”

Can we adore the mind that can move across such distance of space and subject,  and still remain stable enough to shop for groceries and watch 30Rock?

You tell me.

Wait for it, Wait for it. See I Told Ya They Would

Tags

budget, Einstein, gay rights, GOP, Humor, justice, Michele Bachmann, morality, philosophy, physics, Sarah Palin, speed of light, teabaggers

Yesterday you were invited to watch the debates under a new game rule: look for the inappropriate audience response.

And as expected, those of you who watched saw just that.

That the GOP and the TeaNutz® are morbidly repulsed by gayness, is of course well-known. It’s against their self-serving interpretation of the bible.

Last night, a gay soldier asked the candidates what they would do given that DODT had been ended.

The response of the audience was a very loud bunch of booing, and then the usual Ricky (why won’t you give me a chance) Santorum response which is that “we shouldn’t be doing social experiments with those we need to protect our country.” See a complete transcript of the exchange at Pass the Doucheys on the Right, as well as appropriate biting comment.

Might I also note, that not a single one of the “candidates” bothered to thank Mr. Hill, who is serving in Iraq, for his service to the country, something all the GOP pushes and shoves to be first to say to prove their patriotism.

God, the GOP sucks.

Note also that Chauncey de Vega has a great piece on this event as well.

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You know, I’ve often alluded to the fact that our world, especially here in America is deeply out of whack. What I refer to is how we reward people in oddly weird ways over others. Huh? Okay let me clear it up.

We pay actors, who individually may be pretty much stupid as rocks, millions to make us laugh or cry, or applaud a fantasy life or event. We pay CEO’s millions for making a company wealthy, and at least a few stockholders a few bucks. We pay schoolteachers paltry amounts to teach our children whom we claim we worship and want the best for. We pay scientists next to nothing even though they discover the things that make our lives easier, healthier, and safer.

It’s called moral philosophy, and the king of the hill is one Harvard professor named Michael J. Sandel. His lectures were turned into a PBS series, and in Asia have prompted classes to mimic his ideas. His book, Justice: What’s the right thing to do?, has been a great hit.  A NYTimes article about his success is linked here. Might be worth buying his book.

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When does the difference between 299,792,458 and 299,792,454 matter? Why that’s easy. Come on you know the answer. The first is the speed of light. And the second it the time it took some neutrinos to make the circuit. And that means that maybe the SOL is not what we thought it was.

And that means that Einstein was wrong, and somethings (neutrinos) can travel faster than the SOL, and that means something really really big and important, and it probably means that we can go to Arcturus by the end of next week.

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It’s the old chutzpah again. The GOP holds the disaster relief funding hostage unless the Democrats agree to funding cuts to the most job-producing programs going, and then accuses the Dems of holding up FEMA relief!

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I continue to hold out hope that our dear girl Sarah will jump into the fray. Her slavish knuckledraggers are sure hopin’ the same too, and took time after last night’s debate to hit her main target with all they had. From Conservatives4Palin:

Everyone here in Palinville who looks forward to good hard competition will be relieved to know that Gov. Rick Perry was NOT drunk at last night’s debate, all appearances to the contrary. It’s just that before taking the stage he inexplicably chose to receive a Gardasil shot, one of whose known side effects is mental slowness.

Given that our Sarah subbie, Michele (I am frakin’ dumber that her actually) Bachmann is unable to know fact from fiction and has slipped down the hill toward the black hole of oblivion, we have no choice but to wave a flag pin at the Palinator and hope hope hope she joins the increasing circus that is known as the “TeaNutz® on Parade” or “The Last Dance of the Dinosaurs” which ever you prefer.

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From Think Progress

On the Stove? Oh a new Chicken Enchilada recipe. I’ll post it if we decide we like it. So far, it seems to meet my objections to most Enchilada recipes: the turning to mush of the corn tortillas. I’m hopeful if this technique works, that it will be my new go-to method for both green and red enchiladas.

 

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Know Thy Enemy

Tags

Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, capitalism, economics, free-market economy, GOP, government, Objectivism, Paul Ryan, philosophy, Rand Paul

I’ve been reading Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand’s epic novel that has become the spiritual guide for the likes of Rand Paul and Paul Ryan. They, so we understand, have made it required reading for their staffs.

I’m only about half way through (it’s over 1,000 pages), and I can already tell that anyone who thinks this is some kind of model of how to run a country is, well, not exactly playing with a full deck.

Ayn Rand was an immigrant from Russia, and pretty much that’s all you need to know. Her thinking is utterly shaped by her hatred of Communism and those who brought it upon the earth–the intellectual elites in the form of “progressives.”

Her heroes in the book are all brilliant industrialists, those who work because they  see the only virtue as being the quest to create. It is the purpose of existence.

Juxtaposed against them are the progressives, those who teach and those who are not capable of creating. They pursue as their virtue love of humanity and the need to help one’s brother.

Where it all goes horribly wrong is in the extrapolations. The good guys are perfectly good and the bad guys are perfectly bad. It gets down to even sex. For the good guys sex is a million fireworks going off at once as to perfect people unite in creative glory. For the bad guys, sex is that dirty little animal drive reserved for faceless men and women in back alleys.

In a nutshell, Rand creates draws out the pitfalls of the nanny society to such absurd extensions and the glories of unbridled capitalism to inhuman heights, that they ultimately are laughable. That anyone could take this as a serious likelihood worldwide, is indeed quite juvenile in their thinking. Indeed, they are incapable of anything resembling critical thought.

The fact that most philosophers have rejected her theories of “objectivism” relying on utter reason as the basis for all knowledge, and her belief that only a pure laissez-faire capitalism can protect individual rights, hasn’t stopped those who champion her cause. Of course it is a rather convenient excuse for corporate greed. And surely she would have nodded at Gecko’s shout: “Greed is good.” She promoted selfishness a proper and “good” thing after all.

Ironically, she was very much against religion of any kind, finding it failed the “reason” test. I say ironic because today her most ardent supporters are the know-nothing TeaNutz®. A healthy percentage of them are also ultra right-wing Christianists who wish in the end to form a theocratic state modeled after their strange interpretation of the bible. Ayn would have shuddered and be repulsed by such notions. Given that the average TeaNutz® imbiber has neither read Rand nor has a clue of anything she wrote, this is pretty understandable. You can imagine that the GOP elite is not rushing to inform them either.

She would have whole-heartedly endorsed the idea of calling industrialists as “job creators” since she found workers as parasites, necessary ones to be sure. Among her friends and presumably fellow travelers is one Alan Greenspan. Other admirers are Mark Cuban, owner of the Mavericks and John P. Mackey, owner of Whole Foods.

It is not hard to extrapolate from her portrayal of the wealthy as the true “victims” of society to the idea that it is a near-religious sin to think of taxing these superior folk. That is essentially the Republican mantra. After all, they are the fountainhead (pun intended) of the successful state.

I have to admit that I am enjoying the read. I love tomes (I read Aztec for god’s sake!), and this one is about par for the course, wildly boring in spots, full of soapbox rhetoric that passes as “conversation” and a plot that is fairly obvious. I am about half way through and long ago “guessed” the outcome. Still, the characters are interesting and like I said, I like these kinds things. (I’ve also read War and Peace TWICE.)

Still, reading the book or even reading a Wikipedia bio on Rand explains a good deal of what would otherwise be inexplicable regarding the GOP. What is amusing most of all is that the silly TeaNutz® continue to have no clue. It is quite clear that the GOP elite neither cares nor is interested in pursuing the social aspects of the trailer-livin’ right. They are prepared to give lip service and that only. Rand was in favor of abortion rights, she had an open marriage, and she as I said, had no use for religion whatsoever.

 Much of the “shadow” GOP feels the same. This is simply about money, and making sure that money goes to the right place and thus power is retained where it should be. The little folks are just to be patted on the head, thrown a crumb or two once in a while, and assured that “efforts are being made” to effect a moral government based on the bible. To the degree that a number of them feel that this is “ordained” by their unique interpretation of the bible, that is well, gravy.

I don’t say read the book. You may not have the fortitude to sign up for that long a haul, but do at least familiarize yourself with its basic outline and the life of its writer. And do pay a bit closer attention to those who promote this science fiction as “where we are headed” if a certain black man continues to guide the ship of state.

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• Articles of Faith: Did Ayn Rand and Austerity Politics Kill Compassionate Conservatism? (swampland.time.com)
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• Rand Paul Agrees With Mitt Romney: “All Of Us Are Corporations” (alan.com)
• Ayn Rand and the GOP vs. Jesus (tinyfrog.wordpress.com)
• Atlas Shrugged (gabriellapinto.wordpress.com)
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Hey, I’m a Person Too!

Tags

Arizona, class action lawsuits, climate change, Fox News Channel, Fox Noise, Humor, immigration, John McCain, JonStewart, Keith Olbermann, Media, MSNBC, philosophy, science, SCOTUS, Simone Weil, WalMart, Women's issues

Fresh from the invigoration of being granted personhood for purposes of financially buying its own congressmen and women, corporate persons have moved on to even greater heights today.

The SCOTUS, judicial biggie of the land, has effectively made them lawsuit-proof, by knocking down the million-plus-plaintiff discrimination suit filed against Wal-Mart.

You know that they meant business when they let Scalia write for the 5-4 majority. It seems that the women, did not have one single common claim among them, since DISCRIMINATION BASED ON SEX was deemed not to qualify.

 It appears that all a corporation must do is have a “stated” policy of non-discrimination at the head office pinned to the wall. It’s actual store managers are left to promote and pay as they deem fit *wink wink nod nod*. Yep, pretty darn slick wouldn’t you say?

But one more reason to make every effort to avoid spending your precious dollars at Wal-Mart.

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Time to change your diapers again Johnny McCain, you dirtied yourself once again. I should have known some such crap was a coming when I saw his Tweet that he and Kyl were going to “tour” his beloved fire-devoured Arizona. They did, and then held the proverbial press conference to show their civic concerns.

McCain, older than Eve herself, and who cannot possibly think of running again, sucked up to the racist element in his state by blaming the fires of “illegals who were out there starting fires to signal each other.”

He could, of course, point to no specifics. Later, his minions explained that they had got their information from the state’s forestry department. Funny thing. The Forest Service has no freakin’ idea about what Johnny was talking about. “You know, sometimes he forgets his meds,” they chortled. (Oh, I made that last thing up, but not the rest!)

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Some scientists in Australia have gotten piqued at the continuing “debate” over climate change. They claim that there is really no debate at all. It’s a done deal. The climate is changing, and we are responsible. They run a really excellent site called The Conversation and there is a section with numerous articles on climate change. Take a look. It seems filled with the arguments and with explanations of the games the pseudo-science right light to play to obscure the true facts. Oh and they have plenty of other subjects. The website is an EDU domain. (h/t to Think Progress.)

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Some times I think there is a failure in my generation of really great women. I’m talking about women who were out side the norm in every way, who walked alone, unafraid of being defined as “odd” or not being subject to being slotted into some category. Simone Weil comes to mind, who lived in the same place and time as Simone de Beauvoir. There is a lovely bio of her at Lapham’s Quarterly. Go read it. It’s worth it.

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Don’t know if you got a chance to see it or not, but Jon Stewart was on Fox Sunday with Chris Wallace. Wallace did his best to start things off belligerently, implying that Stewart had dodged the interview (presumably out of fear). But as you might expect, Stewart walked all over Wallace who never had a clue.

What went unanswered was Wallace’s claim that their “audience” was very happy with them as being fair and balanced presumably. Stewart went unchallenged when he remarked that every poll and study also suggested that Fox news watchers were the most misinformed people of all news watchers. You can see excerpts and links to actual polling at above link.

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In case you didn’t hear, Keith Olbermann is back on the airwaves again starting today. His new show is on channel 358 (Current TV) on most cable networks. We have sure missed him on MSNBC. Shultz has been a belligerent disappointment and so frankly has O’Donnell, both of whom come from the “if I don’t like what you say, I’ll yell over you” school of interviewing, made so popular at Foxy Noise. His list of sidekicks looks like fun too. Be sure to watch.

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What’s on the stove? chicken stir fry with homemade spring rolls and crab Rangoon.

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Founding Fathers Opposed Darwin!

Tags

American History, Anthony Weiner, boredom, David Barton, early humans, evolution, founding fathers, Health care, Herman Cain, immigration, lifestyle, Neandertals, paleontology, philosophy, psychology, Rick Santorum, science, self

Shocking? I guess it should be given the fact that Darwin didn’t publish his seminal work until 1859, more than half a century after our government was formed.

That is the claim however of the pseudo-historian David Barton. And he claims that no less of a questionable religionist than Thomas Paine, who died the same year that Darwin was born, argued that creationism must be taught in the schools.

If all of this leaves you a bit skeptical, well, Barton has plenty of other ideas that would make a big business  CEO grin from ear to ear. Jesus was opposed to minimum wage laws, and therefore unions, as well as progressive income taxes.

Even more shocking Mr. Barton explains the real impetus for the revolution was not economic, but a persistent dedication to the eradication of slavery. Somehow, England ultimately beat us to the punch on that, but no matter, it’s the thought that counts.

You can read all this and watch the actual interview wherein Barton espouses his unique “history” by following the link.

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Herman “step ‘n fetch it” Cain is busy these days, yakking up the airways with his bizarre understanding of the world. He too has a slippery grasp on history as he reminded us to “read that small section of the constitution” wherein we were promised life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Except that that little phrase doesn’t come from the constitution, but rather from the Declaration of Independence.

Cain then went on to and pontificated that as President, he would not sign any bills longer than three pages. Given that much of any bill deals with its impact on a plethora of other agencies and legislation and regulations and interfaces are essential for all these things to work together, this presents quite a problem. It suggests that Cain would end up signing zero bills. It also suggests Cain has no sense whatsoever of how the government operates.

Now Cain explains how he would deal with the problem at the border with Mexico–a wall, akin to the Great Wall, and one with a companion moat, and yes, filled with alligators!

Cain appears to subscribe to the Palin school of knowledge–just say what seems sensible to you, even when its demonstrable that you are not a very sensible person.

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“To thine own self be true?” Okay, but how exactly is one to determine who the true self is? It’s a lot harder question than you might have thought. Depending on what standard you use, you can end up at quite different conclusions. A very thoughtful article by Joshua Knobe.

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That leave you bored? Well join the club. Boredom is a human condition, no matter what anyone says. Even animals get bored. Boredom can be normal or abnormal, situational or existential. So if you find yourself bored, then read all about this subject! Nothing could be less boring.

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Memo to Antony Weiner: Dude, don’t miss the next meeting of “How I threw away my life”. Lots of your favorites will be there! Tiger Woods will offer the first testimonial. Also, a good move would be to check into rehab forthwith. That tends to get a sympathy vote. Sex addiction is the hottest trending rehab these days.

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When I was growing up, to call someone an Neandertal was essentially to call them something just barely above the level of ape. Today, our understanding is vastly superior, and we find that most of our old assumptions were wrong. Neandertal DNA shows up in some parts of today’s populations. And there is no evidence that Neandertals were in conflict with more modern man.

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These chin-ups are sure to pay off in the future!

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If you aren’t totally tired of Weiner jokes, then bop on over to Political Irony and see the late night comedians do their thing.

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Ricky “don’t google me” Santorum, just can’t stop being a boob. It’s his nature. He has told Johnny McCain that he don’t know nothin’ bout no torture, said that climate change is a patent absurdity, claimed he would make marriage inequality the center of his campaign, and so forth. Now in the growing Republican revision of history, he tells us that the D-Day invasion occurred precisely to insure the American right to private health care. Yes, he said that:

 

Almost 60,000 average Americans had the courage to go out and charge those beaches on Normandy, to drop out of airplanes who knows where, and take on the battle for freedom. … Those Americans risked everything so they could make that decision on their health care plan.

 

Yes, my friends, the ultimate nutjob said that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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This is Sooooo Unfunny

Tags

budget, bullying, Catholic teaching, Catholicism, liberal/conservative, morality, Paul Ryan, philosophy, religion, wacko religious right

Hey! Mother, the freakin’ Nature! Wake the frack UP!

It’s April 16, well into Spring. Can you pay a bit more attention please. I can tell you with supreme authority that I do NOT like waking up to that ———>

Not funny. Not at all.

Okay, so it is mostly gone already, but the wind is still blowing and it’s dark and dingy outside, and not even 35° and well, if you don’t mind can we get back to something in the 60’s and sunshine?

Geesh, is that asking TOO much?

Not the least of which, it rained on my birthday! I mean, how nice was that of you?

I got me six animals all in varying degrees of pissed off because they had already gotten used to lounging around outside relaxing in chairs and on porches. And you know they think I control all this, so I’m getting all these angry looks, lots of sighs, and every time one wants out, they scurry away from the door as soon as they take ONE look. 

So get on the stick. Get on the stick? What does that even mean? Is Mother Nature a witch?

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I ran across this article that reviews a book on secularism and morality. It sounds interesting, and the review itself makes some valid points I think. Worth a look-see. From Prospect Magazine.

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Speaking of religion, all of Christendom seems engaged in its own in-house squabbling. Perhaps this has always been the case, but I’m more acutely aware that I used to be. It seems that most denominations are dealing with some sort of battle between the progressive/liberal arm and the conservative element. John Allen calls it “tribal Catholicism.  Allen writes a thoughtful piece in NCR addressing the issue in the Catholic Church. I think his suggestions are timely and I’d sure like to see them instituted. We have too much of the “liberal” church vs “conservative” church mentality. We need to find a way to bridge the gap.

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This next article caused me to bolt from my chair, run to the bathroom and look deeply into the mirror. Whew, my head is on straight after all. I was worried. Why is the wacko, crazy, insane, and ever radical right-wing religiosity against anti-bullying measures? Oh, yeah, they think we shouldn’t protect gays. Or anybody else who is the victim of this aggressive behavior. They think it pollutes our gender priorities or something. They are crazy. This makes me crazy. All in the name of Christianist fundamentalism.

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I don’t mean to turn this into a religious day of blogging, but this next post caught my eye, because the author really takes a  Catholic teaching and skewers the GOP’s Paul Ryan. He argues that anyone who supports Ryan’s budgetary plan is simply unfit to present themselves for communion along the lines of intrinsic evil versus prudential judgment, as laid out by Benedict in a 2004 letter.  Makes for some interesting reading.

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Tis a slow day. Tis a blustery day. Tis not a nice day at all. Going to hide under the bed until it makes nice. Mother Nature. Put up yer dukes!

Related Articles

• The Catholic Remnant (unreasonablefaith.com)