Author Archives: SJ

About SJ

I'm an older married guy, a former college psychology instructor and editor at a national magazine. Every stage of my very full life has been dominated by a passionate interest – from chess to distance running to photography (my current interest). I write under a pseudonym because the opinions I express, particularly about religion, might very well cause problems for my wife and me. I plan to "come out" after she retires. In the meantime, I'll do my best to defend and promote science and reason and to help keep power out of the hands of the proto-fascists who have declared war on just about everything I value.

Musings on Newtown and Beyond: The Deadly Mix of Gender and Gun Culture

Posted on by
1

“The gender of the perpetrator is the single most important factor, and yet it’s not talked about in that way in most mainstream conversations.” – Jackson Katz

“One failed attempt at a shoe bomb and we all take off our shoes at the airport. Thirty-one school shootings since Columbine and no change in our regulation of guns.” – John Oliver on TheDaily Show with Jon Stewart

“There are large segments of the population that want nothing more than to eliminate subsidies to the poor and then await the desperate masses who will supposedly come to their doorstep with a lead welcome.” – David Atkins

At some point during the G.W. Bush administration my longstanding ambivalence about the U.S. ratcheted further down to the level of cynical pessimism. The election of a “transformative” President in 2008 briefly raised dormant hopes and dampened foreboding; but now that Obama’s had four years to serially disappoint me (and other progressives), I’m less hopeful than ever in some important ways. So at this point even an event as soul piercing as the massacre at Newtown does not shock to the degree it once would have. What it does is strengthen my conviction that the country and its political leaders are evading the most serious problems. Or, in the case of conservatives, actively obstructing responsible action or, when it comes to guns, aggressively promoting the problems. The Newtown murders and their aftermath have intensified my well-developed loathing for conservatives. Their self-serving, politicized reactions have been nothing less than despicable.

Now whenever someone condemns an entire nation, as I just did, they’re unfairly condemning by association a great many good people who don’t deserve it. I realize that, but I still want to ask, where are the thoughtful, unselfish, independent, public-spirited political leaders we need to step forward in these perilous times? Politicians like Rep. Alan Grayson, of Florida. Oh, wait, there are no politicians like Mr. Grayson. Are there?

I frequently read in progressive publications words written by and about good and honorable men and women. They contribute much; their words and efforts no doubt helped elect and re-elect President Obama, thus delaying the right-wing apocalypse. But does anyone want to argue in all seriousness that his administration has not betrayed progressives’ hopes and trust? Or that the Democrats have not sold out to the 1 percent?

But right now I really want to say this: Much of what’s wrong with this country is the persistence and glorification of a harmful, vestigial trait in males I’ll call macho mentality. It’s a public health problem that afflicts a broad spectrum of mostly right-wing types: teabaggers, corporate CEOs and crony/casino capitalists, fundagelical preachers, and especially lunatic gun lovers craving the opportunity to play out their ”tactical” fantasies. It is also destructively prevalent in our inner cities. It permeates and poisons all levels of American society.

A Real Ad from Bushmaster Firearms, copped from Upworthy.com.

A Real Ad from Bushmaster Firearms, copped from Upworthy.

Women don’t get off the hook entirely; but hell, no one does – we can all do more good and less harm, individually and collectively. But make no mistake: it’s men raised in a macho atmosphere who make us the most violent society among industrial democracies and one of the most violent nations on earth. And possibly the most destructively irresponsible. Consider, for example, that it’s powerful, conservative American men who are behind the unconscionable and suicidal denial of global warming.

That’s a subject I will follow up on in coming posts. For today, I’m calling your attention to three excellent, informative articles I just read:

Each piece in its way makes the point that the most salient feature of the many-decades-long series of mass killings in this country is gender. The mass murderers are men, mostly younger white men, mostly middle class men. Yet it has to be more than gender, there must be cultural factors or our numbers would not dwarf other nations’. And indeed there are, including the obvious one, the ease of procuring just about any kind of firearm.

But predictably, the strident conservative opposition to any gun regulation goes on, sometimes linked to their perverted idea of freedom or a faux-patriotic non sequitur like “The greatest country on earth,” which in any case needs parsing.

Okay, we are the greatest military power and the dominant economic force (for now); and our graduate-level higher education and government-funded research are tops, and . . . and . . . surely there has to be more. But other than boasting about freedom as if other countries don’t have any, just what can proponents of the “America is the greatest” hypothesis claim in support of that position? I’m not aware of any indexes relating to physical or mental health or quality of life that put us anywhere near the top. “Most religious,” perhaps? Oh, wait, that’s not a positive. Besides, most religious leaders complain that we’re not religious enough. Like masculinity, Americans just can’t get enough vestigial superstition.

We do lead the world in the category of most lawyers per capita. I can’t find the quote, but a public figure a while back noted – and don’t hold me to these made-up numbers – that while the U.S. trained ten attorneys for every engineer, Japan graduated ten engineers for every attorney. He then observed that history had recorded no instance of a nation suing itself to greatness. I love that line.

Anyway, I don’t think there’s any dispute that we’re the most violent of the first-world nations; and there is, obviously, a much greater number of embarrassing statistics on the negative side of our ledger, including the highest teen-pregnancy rate, highest child-abuse death rate, the highest percentage of prisoners, etc. So I’m not buying into that “greatest country” conceit. Never have. That would be stupid.

The authors of the three blog posts are highlighting the long-overdue question that needs open discussion: Why is it always men who commit mass murder? For what it’s worth, here’s my take: On average, male genetic makeup is associated with a greater innate tendency towards violent solutions to problems (and please note, that’s tendency, not destiny). But when maleness is embedded from birth in a culture that has a near-psychotic obsession with guns and violence, the result is a peculiarly American style of manliness that has become an increasingly dangerous force at home and abroad.

What are We Celebrating?

Posted on by
Reply

I supported and voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and again this year; but sadly, there were major, negative changes in my thoughts and feelings this time around. Along with legions of liberals, I had come to have so many misgivings about the president that I would have much preferred a viable progressive candidate. But there weren’t any of those on any horizon I could see; and living in a swing state essentially meant that voting my conscience for a third-party candidate was tantamount to aiding Romney and his thugs, a prospect too odious to contemplate.

The Proprietor of Perry Street Palace has argued persuasively against the lesser-of-evils stance that I and most liberals, e.g., Daniel Ellsberg, have used to justify our support for Obama. So please do take time to read her six-part (!) critique of “lesser-of-evilism”, or at least start with the final installment, Part 6, which may well persuade you that supporting most Democrats, even in swing states, is the surest way to perpetuate the relentless and shameful rightward drift in American politics.

Here is just one of her arguments:

There are — or ought to be — clear lines drawn, on both principle and practical grounds, that Democratic candidates cannot cross and expect the support of liberals.  We can of course differ on precisely where those lines should be drawn.  (illegal and counterproductive wars? presidential kill lists? for-profit health care? Social Security “reform”?)  But if there really are no lines that cannot be crossed, then it means exactly nothing to be a liberal.

In the course of our email exchanges, Iris sent me a link to a blog post with the ominous title, Dead Enough: The Reality of the “Lesser Evil”, by Chris Floyd, who asked, in reference to Obama’s (i.e., our) drone war, “Is this child dead enough for you?”

 Image

Floyd graphically describes the brutal reality we become complicit in when we vote for any major candidate, including Obama. And he asks how, in good conscience, can we continue to enable a “lesser evil” that is so starkly evil? To those who celebrate Obama’s victory, he asks, “. . . what are you celebrating? This dead child, and a hundred like him? A thousand like him? Five hundred thousand like him? How far will you go? What won’t you celebrate?”

Floyd provides a link to this article from Wired.com containing several photos documenting the collateral death and destruction wrought by Obama’s / our drones. And as you probably know, it’s not only drones: Here is a recent, fact-filled article comparing the positions taken by candidate Obama in 2007-2008 with what he has done since he took office. It is far from reassuring, either in retrospect or prospect: the lawlessness of the Bush administration continues and has even been expanded in ways that have chilling implications for the future of constitutional democracy in this country.

Returning to Obama’s / our drones, it is inescapably clear that the injuries and killings are not limited to “bad guys,” as the president’s top aides have falsely testified.

And the little boy’s name was Naeemullah.

When I voted for Obama, it was with the hope that his reelection would give us liberals/progressives at least a fighting chance. So now that Obama has won, how do we begin to force his hand on this and other issues where he has betrayed our trust? Celebrity Obama supporters Michael Moore and Bill Maher have already demanded that he change course in ways almost all of us can agree with. Now their demands must be amplified by the words and actions of millions in a massive, concerted protest movement. Nothing less has a chance . . . and this could be our last chance.

Wrestling with Islamophobia

Posted on by
2

I am beginning to feel bad about the steady stream of Western slurs and ridicule directed at faithful members of a noble religion observed by an estimated 1.6 billion individuals making up almost a quarter of the world’s population. Here’s an example that arrived in my inbox just before Halloween:

Perhaps I should feel guilty for thinking this is funny or for saying that it makes an important point, one which is too obvious to elaborate. Maybe Western liberals who condemn “Islamophobia” are right: Maybe we in the reality-based community should question our own sense of moral and intellectual superiority and accept that Muslims are autonomous individuals, independent thinkers who have adopted their fervent belief in Islam of their own free will after due consideration and without coercion. Look at it from a religious, free-will perspective: They have freely chosen, and continue to choose, to submit to the authority of the word of Allah in all aspects of their lives. (Please disregard the fact that virtually no one in, say, Saudi Arabia, or even Pakistan, is, say, a Roman Catholic or, say, a declared atheist or agnostic. That is most likely just a statistical anomaly. After all, I’m sure you’ll agree that the existence of free will is a given that trumps mere empirical data: we all know, both a priori and based on scripture, that there is such a thing as free will. End of discussion.)

So who are we to ridicule the individual choices of 1.6 billion people? Or for that matter the enlightened cultures that offer them such a wide array of lifestyle choices? If leaders of a great religion or a great Islamic nation prescribe the death penalty for apostasy or issue fatwas placing bounties on the heads of novelists, cartoonists and filmmakers in Western nations, who are we to judge them? That’s their culture, supported by the free, uncoerced choices of large majorities of individual citizens, and therefore all true liberals should respect it. And in the same spirit of tolerance, perhaps we should rethink our condemnation of honor killings, female genital mutilation, restrictions on women’s educational opportunities, requiring women to wear full-body sacks with eye slits, etc. Bottom line: We scientific skeptics/atheists/freethinkers should be more open-minded and desist from denunciations and ridicule. Lest we be accused of cultural bigotry or even the crime of Islamophobia, along with the likes of Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, et al.

I’m sure you’ll also agree that Americans would never impose their religious beliefs on anyone, as some Muslims are inclined to do. It’s understandable that they would have that impulse. After all, religion is a necessary force for virtue, and the lack of religion (agnosticism, atheism) does not have moral standing. That’s an a priori/scriptural truth, too.

But at this point, I’m still a confused atheist. Can someone straighten me out on all this? Start by explaining why I should respect religion? Or if not all religions, which one(s)? Oh yeah, and why?

In the meantime, I think I’ll continue, in the spirit of Perry Street Palace, to enjoy the mockery. Frankly, I laughed my ass off at the “Halloween Costumes.” But when I stopped laughing, I remembered it was not only funny,  but tragic, just like this one, titled Breakthrough in Women’s Rights in Saudi Arabia.

Borowitz Predicts the Winner

Posted on by
Reply

And because he’s Andy Borowitz, he keeps effortlessly dropping memorable asides like this one:

Just let me say this: Watching cable news because you want to become better informed is like going to Olive Garden because you want to live in Italy.

Of course numerous other bons mots precede and follow this one – and this was a somewhat serious speech wherein he gives two reasons why he says ________ will win the election.

Don’t miss it.

I have been a big Borowitz fan for years and have even gone so far as to call him the greatest American political humorist ever. And if I believed in blessings (of course I don’t; blessing is a yucky, abject word), I would say this: We exceptional Americans are exceptionally blessed (ooh, yuck, there’s that word) to be living in a period of two singularly outstanding political humorists, Stephen Colbert being the other. Reading or listening to Borowitz/Colbert is like watching a superb sidewalk artist at work: WTF? . . . How does he do that? You know, like magic.

Now like most of the people reading this, I’ve had the experience of being pretty damn good at a few things, usually by dint of intense dedication and total immersion at the expense of other areas of life. The term I use is serial passions. But these guys are transcendently talented, which is an experience I’ve never come close to; but I’m not through yet . . .  there’s always tap dancing.

“Blessed,” “total immersion” – what’s with these religion-tainted terms? Hmm, might be time to get the old brain scanned.

But you know, watching Borowitz makes me wonder about something else: Why are all the good people Democrats, progressives and liberals? (Note: I am definitely not saying that everyone in those groups is a good person – far from it. The problem is thinking of even one person on the other side of the great divide who qualifies. Okay, I know that’s shameless stereotyping; but seriously, just look at the ones who venture out of their “private meetings” into the public eye. If you’re having a problem, I’ll be happy to provide you with a partial list (the actual list being endless). And here’s what I suspect: Conservative public faces – congresspersons, candidates, media personalities, pundits, religious figures, etc., are all schmucks, total asshats, the kind of people that would put their dog on the roof of their car or compel women to have unwanted children, even in cases of rape. Or whatever example you prefer to dredge out of the bottomless pit of revolting Republigoon words and actions.

And here’s the thing: These public figures are not extreme examples of what Iris has labeled CPD, or Conservative Personality Disorder. No, they are speaking for the conservative masses – they’re just more articulate, but not nastier. If anything, they make ordinary, everyday conservatives sound better because they have to tone down their rhetoric somewhat for media dissemination. Like Romney, I’m sure they are much worse when talking among themselves without suspecting they’re being overheard by decent people, or recorded. But even in public their true hatred, bigotry, deceit and willful ignorance are only thinly disguised by a lexicon of code words.

So that’s all I have to say about the broken American political system until after the election.

I ask you

Posted on by
4

Is it true, as Churchill said, that the only thing democracy has going for it is that all the other systems that have been tried are so much worse?

Is it also true that “People aren’t smart enough for democracy to flourish,” as some recent studies suggest?

Is what’s left of democracy going to be one of the earlier casualties on the road to imminent destruction? Or is our great experiment already terminal, having some time ago transmuted into a formal, no longer functional democracy, as Noam Chomsky and others contend?

Here’s my (provisional) theory: Human nature is superbly attuned, via evolution, to promote human survival. Too bad we’re talking about survival in a prehistoric, natural environment that has little relevance to anything humans must deal with in the developed world, circa 21st Century. When it comes to living in this kind of world, all indicators suggest we are maladapted in most ways that count, and it shows – OMG, does it ever show! Based on what has gone down the past 30 years or so, it seems highly unlikely that this brief human experience is going to have a good outcome. It appears as if we’re bent on destroying ourselves, along with countless other life forms. We already have a good start on the extermination of other species.

Evolution at the mammalian level, where we’re classified, is glacially slow, orders of magnitude too slow to help us now. What’s urgently required is cultural adaptation that can compete with our ancient, outmoded biological tendencies. Is that possible? Perhaps, as the rapid evolution of nonsectarian, non-nationalistic science shows. Is it probable? Hell no, based on recent trends, i.e., what has taken place politically in this country in the past 30 years.

In a narrow, personal sense, it won’t make much difference to me: Being old (even if still healthy), I know I’m going to die, sooner rather than later; and I probably won’t be around to watch the worst case scenario play out. So I guess I should thank the impersonal, utterly indifferent, mindless forces™ for bestowing on me the privilege of having lived in the best of times, by far. Not that 1939 to the present has been a cakewalk for me or humanity – far from it. Only, to paraphrase Churchill, all the other times have been so much worse. Imagine yourself living in any century before the 20th.

Suggested epitaph for humanity: It could’ve been worse.

Look, humans never would have made it to this point if we hadn’t been equipped with a “survival instinct” / reality-distorition field that persisted in the face of suffering and hopelessness. As Harvard psychologist and best-selling author Daniel Gilbert ably and entertainingly explains, we have an irrational but no doubt adaptive psychological immune system that keeps us within a tolerable range of happiness and optimism across a wide range of circumstances. (The book is “Stumbling on Happiness” – it could become one of your favorites.)

The message is this: there is such a thing as human nature (natural tendencies, impulses, etc.), and it appars to be maladaptive in direct proportion to the advancements of science and technology. Another way of putting it: survival skills in this world are not encoded in our DNA but require knowledge, understanding, and disciplined cooperation that are sorely lacking and not likely to come online in time to save us from our primitive instincts. You know, like bigotry, tribalism, superstition, ideology and blind faith (reference: Fox News).

Everything besides rational, evidence-based cooperation.So I ask you, is there any reason for humanity to be hopeful? Any reason at all?

Conservative Christians think the answers are in the Bible. Yeah, we need more ancient myths, superstitions, prayers and exorcisms.  That package of ancient nonsense will help us a lot. Unfortunately, that’s where humans are programmed to turn for answers and assurance. Too bad – nothing fails like faith.

Conservative politicians think the answers lie in the unregulated free market and all that entails. Just turn everything over to the plutocrats. Need I point out that’s an unsupported, faith-based ideology, no better than religion?

So I ask you, are we fucked?

I would be grateful to learn that I’m wrong. So have at it, I’m listening. But please, evidence and reason only – no religion, no political ideology. That stuff is tiresome and useless.

Philosophy is Better Than Creationism

Posted on by
Reply


Posted by the inimitable PZ Myers at Pharyngula.com.

Plaintive logic

It’s phrased as a syllogism, so William Lane Craig ought to love it.

Also, 100% of all creationist arguments. Therefore, philosophy is better than creationism.


I agree, except I think the 99% figure is just a tad on the high side. But PZ knows that – he’s just messin’ with ‘em. But I have no quibble with skipping 100% of creationist arguments.

You can Google William Lane Craig. Or you might try Googling “Broken Record” or “Pompous Asshole.”

. . . . .

Given my tendencies and proclivities, philosophy should appeal to me: I have never shied away from difficulty or complexity, and syllogisms do not flummox or intimidate me. Actually, philosophy does appeal to me, although mostly in principle. After all, it was the precursor of science.

Unfortunately, when I venture into the philosophical realm, I usually come away with this reaction: WTF??? What has this got to do with anything that matters? What has this got to do with making better real-life decisions? And most importantly, what has this got to do with understanding the natural world?

Now It’s important to define understanding: I think we can be said to truly understand something only when a proposed explanation passes the test of prediction – better yet, prediction and control. Of course some sciences are predominantly descriptive – astronomy and paleontology come to mind. In those sciences, control is not possible, but prediction is. So I’m arguing that to qualify as a science a field of inquiry has to do more than just make observations. We can claim to understand something when we are able to predict outcomes or actually use our knowledge to cause specific outcomes.

Therefore it seems to me there’s something fundamentally wrong with the idea that we can learn anything about the nature of reality only by thinking and arguing. Our thoughts and arguments have to be grounded in and supported by reliable observations and measurements, observations and measurements that constitute our premises, if you will. Deductive logic can’t tell us if premises are true.

And if someone makes a deductive error, someone else will point it out sooner rather than later. So I figure I’m covered without having to expend much time wrestling with the fine points of deductive reasoning. There is this emerging field called experimental philosophy that sounds promising, and I’ll be reading and writing about it.

As far as I know, philosophy per se never gave us any accurate predictions. You simply can’t think your way to an understanding of the natural world, aka all there is. To quote Thomas Huxley, “The great tragedy of Science: the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.” I would add that many beautiful hypotheses and theories are confirmed by facts – facts that came from observation and experiment, a recent example being the Higgs particle. Will the fallout from this discovery serve to draw physicists into another, deeper, more complex level of potentially discoverable reality? Scientists will love that.

So if there is some something or other besides the natural world, or if there is some way to divine useful, i.e., predictive, facts about the world from an armchair, I would like to know about it. Now some might be tempted to say that that’s just what the theoretical physicists did with respect to the Higgs particle. But of course their mathematical equations didn’t come from thin air but were grounded in and consistent with mountains of observational and experimental data. The interplay of theory and experiment defines science at its best.

To repeat: if we truly understand something, we should be able to make accurate, reliable predictions and, where possible, use that understanding to make things come out as predicted. Reliably.

So science works in the only ways that count. And does it ever work! Some would argue it works too well for our own good, that it has given us Sorcerer’s Apprentice power over nature that we are not mature enough to handle responsibly. There is undeniably much truth in that assertion, and now we’re at the point where we have no choice except to turn to science to help save us from the harm we’ve done to ourselves through the inadequately restrained use of its progeny, technology. It’s all summed up very well in E.F. Schumacher’s ironic expression, “A breakthrough a day keeps the crisis at bay.”

On second thought, more science (i.e., reliable knowledge and understanding) won’t be enough; there must be a basic change in human nature. I’m not talking about genetic modification, which is a ways off, but behavioral change: we must use our hard-won knowledge and understanding to transcend our natural intuitions and tribal impulses. We must adopt a rational, evidence-based approach to decision-making at both the individual and collective levels. There is no better source for this argument than Keith Stanovich’s marvelous book, “The Robot’s Rebellion: Finding Meaning in the Age of Darwin.”

The combination of advanced technology and unenlightened, dogmatic human nature (i.e., conservatism) has certainly brought us to the brink of catastrophe.

Humans must change in fundamental ways or they are fucking doomed.

Time to Watch it Again

Posted on by
2

The Pale, Blue Dot speech – about the best three-and-a-half minutes I’ve ever spent.

For the best of Carl Sagan, IMHO, read The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark, a sublimely eloquent tribute to science and reason, a scathing condemnation of unremitting, religion-inspired superstition and oppression throughout the ages (free PDF version here).

Here’s a quotation pulled more or less at random:

You might think that before they denounce unwelcome research findings, major corporations would devote their considerable resources to checking out the safety of the products they propose to manufacture. And if they missed something, if independent scientists suggest a hazard, why would the companies protest? Would they rather kill people than lose profits? If, in an uncertain world, an error must be made, shouldn’t it be biased toward protecting customers and the public? And, incidentally, what do these cases say about the ability of the free enterprise system to police itself? Aren’t these instances where government intrusion is in the public interest?

I’ll miss Carl Sagan until my final breath.

Despicable, deluded, callous scumbags

Posted on by
Reply

For what it’s worth, that’s what I generally think of people who self-identify or else clearly qualify as members of the religious right. Based on the kinds of public statements their most prominent spokespersons frequently make, I confidently assert that the burden is not on me to defend my assessment of them. No, it’s on them or their defenders to show that I’m wrong. My contention is that their own hateful words on a wide range of topics unequivocally put them in the category of despicable, deluded, callous scumbags. Consider Pastor Fred Phelps and his followers at the infamous Westboro Baptist Church (slogan: “God Hates Fags”). If I so characterized that group, is there any way in a sane world the burden would be on me to justify the use of those pejoratives?

Admittedly, bringing up Phelps and his loony band is an extreme, but not unfair, example. There are plenty of other leaders on the religious right who are not that far behind him, as I shall soon show. And I’m sure it comes as no surprise that they base their hateful bigotry on the words of an alleged holy book supposedly authored by the omniscient, omnipotent, all-loving and all-caring Creator of the Universe, aka “Almighty God.” It’s just one of many related ironies that the Old Testament section of the “inerrant” book they worship clearly shows that their “perfect” god possesses none of those qualities.

Holy book? Holy shit, give me a break!

The more I’m exposed to the Bible-inspired rants spewing from the religious right, the more they sound like the Nazis of the 1930′s. And I don’t care to hear about all the “good works” they do – thanks but no thanks, Nicholas Kristof. The same argument was no doubt made many times in defense of the Nazis.

So many right-wing Christians, so few lions.

Below is the first part of a blog post by Ophelia Benson that aroused my ire. The quotes in her post were taken from an update to a comprehensive report by People For The American Way detailing the religious right’s outspoken opposition to anti-bullying programs in the public schools (no, that’s not a misprint). I urge you to read it here and support People For The American Way if you can.

Note: My final 9 to 5 job was behavior analyst in a large public school system. In that capacity I witnessed bullying on an almost daily basis, and it affected me to the extent that I made it a cause to raise administrators’ awareness about its prevalence, the harm it inflicted on vulnerable children, and the absence of effective remedial action by school personnel. I would be lying if I said my efforts made a difference; but now, eleven years later, I’m encouraged to see that the cause has finally gotten the national attention it demands.

But there’s strong pushback coming from right-wing Christian @$$holes, who want to dismiss bullying as “part of the maturational process.” Why? Because some of the targets of bullies are LGBT or LGBT-perceived students. And because their children are the bullies. And because they think LGBT students need to be bullied for their own good. Pastor Phelps must be proud, seeing as how “God Hates Fags.”

Here’s the beginning of Ophelia’s blog, Bullying is healthy.

So people are trying to combat the bullying of LGBQ teenagers in school, and religious conservative lunatics are trying to combat the efforts to combat the bullying. Yes that’s right. Grown-ups in grown-up organizations full of grown-ups are trying to prevent people from stopping bullying in schools.

Last  year, many conservative political organizations, including Focus on the Family,  the Family Research Council, the American Family Association, Liberty Counsel  and Concerned Women for America vocally opposed attempts by school districts and public officials to combat bullying based on actual or perceived sexual  orientation and gender identity—categories typically considered along with other attributes such as race, sex, age, disability and national origin. Moreover, these groups smeared and demonized advocacy groups that collaborate with teachers and administrators in developing best practices to combat bullying,  warning that anti-bullying groups would encourage everything from “homosexualizing” youth to anti-Christian persecution to pedophilia.

Religious Right organizations demanded that schools and localities adopt policies that would effectively leave LGBT and LGBT-perceived students unprotected and tie the hands of schools that try to deal with the problem.

 …
God’s love manifest in the actions of his most devout followers.

Serendipity strikes again – twice!

Posted on by
2

Happy Easter Bunny day.

Thought I’d share a couple of articles that fortuitously got my attention this morning. The first is the latest post by Anthony Weiner, co-editor over at The Crisis Papers, a flaming-liberal website I just rediscovered in an overly long, years-old list of bookmarked websites. Weiner’s title: A Modest Proposal: Bring Back the Inquisition!

Here’s one of the money quotes attributed to his fictional but all-too-real conservative author:

Our faith rallies us to the cause. We can use any tactic, any strategy, break any human-made laws we need to, because we are the shock troops for The Lord. All it will take for our crusade to be successful is our hard work and the actual or metaphorical burning of a few political heretics at the stake. The other side is composed of nice-guy liberals who don’t know how to fight, and wouldn’t want to fight even if they knew how to go about it. They will either meekly keep quiet or will move toward us — or else.

Like all good satire, it exposes the nature of the beast – in this case the proto-fascist, rightwing mentality so thoroughly dissected by the always brilliant Sara Robinson at Campaign for America’s Future:

We’ve arrived. We are now parked on the exact spot where our best experts tell us full-blown fascism is born. Every day that the conservatives in Congress, the right-wing talking heads, and their noisy minions are allowed to hold up our ability to govern the country is another day we’re slowly creeping across the final line beyond which, history tells us, no country has ever been able to return.

Makes me more sympathetic to what Obama’s been dealing with. Not that I think he’s doing it right – clearly he’s not – and that’s why the proto-fascists are winning. The president is a decent, gifted person; but then there are many gifted people who are not qualified to lead a nation during a crisis like this. Maybe no one is. Maybe the right has already won the war, barring an incredible run of good luck.

All of which raises the overriding question at this point: Are we progressives and moderates ready to recognize that our Second Civil War started 30 years ago and the right-wing army that declared it is winning? That there’s no turning back, no compromise that’s possible except from a position of strength? That we have to put aside internecine differences, form our own army, and fight them on every front from local to national with all the weapons at our disposal, the most powerful weapon being our unity?

I don’t think so, and that’s why I think it’s clear we’re losing a war so many of us don’t even realize we’re fighting. How do we curtail the steady, rightward drift lurch that has made the Democratic Party more or less equivalent to the pre-Reagan Republicans?

Believe me, I want to be convinced that this assessment is wrong. So please point out my errors.

60 Minutes warns of the deadly, white powder. God hates figs. Media-bashing. Blasphemy. The top 0.001 throw their filthy lucre at the contemporary art market. All the usual gratuitous asides, including an F-bomb. And nuance . . . everything a loyal reader could hope for.

Posted on by
Reply

My brother is a smart, thoughtful and well-informed guy who just happens to agree with me on most issues, including nutrition and nutrition research. So this past Sunday night, on his advice, I watched 60 minutes – for the first time in more than ten years. Yes, 60 Minutes: that formulaic, infotainment, cash-cow icon that sets something of a standard for American TV journalism. Long after you and I have departed this veil of tears, when the iconic 60 Minutes finally succumbs to the total takeover of the medium by “reality” shows, the headstone should read, “Better than Fox News,” or maybe “Could’ve Been a Lot Worse.”

Reader challenge: I know you can do better . . .

Now for some perspective: It has been so long since I watched the show that I’ve forgotten the specific reasons it pissed me off, although I’m sure it came down to shoddy, careless, unreliable reporting. As in putting ratings, entertainment and profit ahead of in-depth, honest and responsible journalism. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but that’s the rule rather than the exception for commercial, mainstream media these days, especially when they try to cover demanding subjects such as, say, science. Or even really simple stuff like religion – you know, that hallowed, contrived institution that always gets a free pass from the free press. Free with the facts, that is.

Case in point: the bizarre mythology masquerading as historical fact in the dreary, annual, media-driven lead-up to Easter Sunday. You know, like, hey, let’s all of us exceptional Americans get all worked up and worshipful one more time and remember that God “died” for “our” sins! Damn thoughtful of Him/Them, don’t you think? I mean shit, He/They can do anything He/They wants/want, just with the snap of a metaphorical finger; so going through the motions of getting crucified must have really been a BIG DEAL for the Omnipotent Creator(s) of the Universe who somehow had to rest on the seventh day. Give me a fucking break.

While we’re on the subject of Easter, I never knew until yesterday how busy – and how pissed off – the Son of God was during those final few days. Did you know it was during that time frame when he drove the evil money changers out of the temple? Raised Lazarus from the dead? Dispatched an unlucky fig tree with a curse? Whatever happened to those magical powers when he needed a mere fig or two? And there’s quite a bit more to be learned in a very interesting take on those final days over at Edwin Kagin’s Blasphemous Blogging. Check it out, it’s well worth the trip. But as usual, I digress.

That Would be Most Helpful

Anyway, my last recollection of 60 Minutes was their mishandling of Bush’s National Guard coverup that culminated in Dan Rather’s firing. Not being able to prove their charges, 60 Minutes only succeeded in “validating,” at least in the impressionable minds of low-information voters, the right-wing claims of liberal bias in the media. (But we know, dear readers, that “reality has a well-known liberal bias,” as Steven Colbert so memorably, and correctly, said. Which means liberal bias is consistent with the traditional job description of a free press – something about the importance of discovering and publishing the truth. Lamentably, in this hyper-commercial, ratings- and profit-driven free-market era, that indispensable job description is honored more in the breach than the observance, particularly by Republicans.) Again, I digress.

Anyway, all their resources notwithstanding, 60 Minutes somehow succeeded against all odds in actually making Bush look better, in making it look as if the pampered, alcoholic, cocaine-snorting draft evader was the victim of a liberal smear campaign. Did that factor into the minds of undecided ignoramuses  voters enough to counteract the disgraceful Swift Boat tactics employed by the right? Way to go, 60 Minutes – you gave David Brooks an excuse to  write one of his patented false equivalence columns.

But hey, I’m not one to dwell on ancient history, so let’s fast-forward back to the present and last Sunday’s episode of 60 minutes. It was the segment titled Is Sugar Toxic? that my brother recommended, and after viewing it I’m passing his recommendation on to you. The gist was that sugar (fructose, really), in all its forms, is toxic to humans – a cause of or major contributor to obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and cancer! CBS even went out of house to secure the services of a highly-qualified correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta from CNN. The researchers Dr. Gupta interviewed offered up some persuasive evidence and altogether made a strong case that sugar consumption has caused a public health crisis. I was also impressed by how much scientific evidence they packed into a short, 15-minute segment. I urge you to watch it.

Then, for an entertaining change of pace and a glimpse of the ultra-rich at play, you might want to watch the segment titled Even in tough times, contemporary art sells, wherein Morley Safer reprises an infamous story he did about the art world almost 20 years ago. Warning: You’ll have to endure a Goldman Sachs commercial. Amazing, isn’t it, what can be done with millions of dollars?