David Ignatius of the Washington Post national weekly may well be a “stand up guy” in political savvy, but not in his article “Will Democrats Seize the Opening?” First, he tries in the style of Thomas Friedman to appease both sides by practically dismissing hammering DeLay as simply another copycat of Democratic leaders when they were in power. More importantly he sees the problem that Americans do not like self righteous “busybodies” from the right any more than they do from the left — a revela...

May I ask what is the difference between Social Security’s ineluctable “bankruptcy” compared with the “bankruptcy” of a nation mortgaged so heavily? By definition, according to Bush, bankruptcy means insufficient income to cover expenditures. Oh, really? And what of the far greater “bankruptcy” of Medicare and Medicaid — not to mention consumer debt and the untold millions riding on the crest of the false economy of the housing boom that is generating enormous equity loans, which are keeping t...

  It is not religion itself that troubles me as much as its officious absolutism. Obviously religion must retain a core of absolutism to remain true to itself yet to be viable it ought to accept change through compromising relativism. The new Pope Benedict XVI does not accept this premise. In an ideal world absolutes are uncompromising because of their prima facie truths, but we do not exist — even if we believe they are the foundation of existence — within the pure essences of a spiritual ...

  Religion as with the abused spouse’s twisted view is a masochistic belief that humans alone are responsible for the abuses of the world. Religion is incapable of understanding that the universe is sadistically indifferent to our plight: we are but babes in the woods left to the wolves. Nature’s epochs can turn on life and render it extinct. We cling to faith not out of love of God but as a haven against the wrath of forces of which we have no control. It is too horrible to contemplate the...

 The very foundation of the nation is to herald tolerance by reasonable law and not unfounded beliefs. Law by its very being — not entirely blind to enlightened religion — entails widespread morality and understanding of diverse cultures of harmless intent, including idiosyncratic individuals, however excessively recriminating, such as Falwell, Hannity, O’Reilly, Fonda, Maher, and Moore. Great societies have always benefited by incessant interchange of ideas by open-minds; failed societies ...

  It is a stretch to carry the “culture of life” to  in vitro fertilization in laboratories for purposes of medical research when it is clear no such “life at conception” exists. The potential if successful is to preserve the culture of life for those plagued by injury and disease. To limit such research to singular adult stem cells is to deny the holistic venture into greater cures. In this respect religious dogma is a plague on the house of reason and science.   Cop...

 American politics has always been pocked with wrong action; still — with its great Constitution — it became the greatest nation of all time by painfully rectifying injustice through initiatives of monumental sacrifice and courage, along with definitive legal decisions by the courts. From the moment George Washington sensed the authoritarian mentality of the people and consequently discouraged resurrection of royalty to the extraordinary civil movements of the ‘60sdecrying war and prejudice...

It is said continually since removal of Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube that the courts are defying the wishes of the majority of Americans when in reality that simply is not true. Over seventy percent think of it as a pragmatic, if not a serious medical decision and not a moral one. This issue is provoked by the religious right that opposes even living wills concerning the right to die; in its judgment only God has that right by religious proxy. What makes this case bazaar is that the most im...

It's time to amend the Ten Commandments: 1. I am the Lord, thy God, who has brought thee out of bondage so that thou shalt comprehend the meaning of freedom under law. 2. Thou shalt extend credence to Me as the sole author of Nature’s elements that have consummated in humanity. 3. Thou shalt not idolize the governance of men, or cults that do not reflect reverence for humanity. 4. Thou shalt not take the name of thy God in vain, nor mock divine intentions. 5. Preserve the Sabbath to worshi...

In early childhood all of us were taught to save for a rainy day: save up your pennies to get that baseball glove or hoop you always wanted. Later we were told to save those dollars earned working part time to get your first jalopy, plus enough for auto insurance. Before you could blink an eye you were contributing to your parents savings that would send you to college. When you married, savings were for a down payment on a house and education for your children. The point is “savings” is...

When is a Republican no longer a veritable Republican? When he/she puts Jesus before the constitution. When is a Catholic no longer a Democrat? When she/he votes on the dogma of the Vatican. When is a Christian no longer a Democrat? When the evangelical pulpit dictates. When is a Jew no longer a Democrat? When Zionism is first and foremost. When is a Democrat no longer a Liberal? When he/she forgets all that the New Deal has done for him/h...

All decent, caring people in all walks of life should take back God — not leave it to the zealots that profess to know what God is all about by insisting on blind faith for its own sake. On the contrary, God is political but not mercenary: he stresses the importance of all aspects of his creation being treated with respect and most especially those he himself has left shorthanded — in other words, the millions that are diseased and live in poverty. The strong, the gifted, should politica...

There is no denying that this country is God-fearing, loving, and that it is prefaced on religious tolerance. Whether one endorses the Ten Commandments or not, the law has transcended time and is a veritable symbol of law and order. Although it should not be used whimsically, distastefully and unilaterally zealous as did the Kentucky judge, it is not simply a bastion of the Judea-Christian belief , but universally accepted principles — but for a few items that I had pointed out in an earlier blo...

Who said crime doesn’t pay? — surely, not Martha Stewart. There is high hope for Iraq — thanks to the high number of women in government. If social security had begun as personal accounts, the wealthy by far would have the major share; as it stands the return value is greater for the poor. How is it there isn’t a stampede for Reagan’s features on Mt. Rushmore; or was the right wing flap expended by their crusade to dump Daschle? Is President Bush really concerned over his twin daughters’ be...

The difference between divine intelligence and evolution is barely perceptible until the creationists butt in and resort to the unsustainable six thousand year formula. Divine intelligence underlying creation is not far from Darwin’s “natural selection” whose inference is that “selection” did not start from a vacuum, but rather chemical reaction, however seemingly haphazard, somehow leaped from the inorganic to the organic by an inscrutably maddening but logistical design.   Copyright © ...