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April 30, 2007

Screw the Goat

Have I just been transported to another dimension? I mean, in the world I know, if a major company held a press event to launch it's latest product geared toward teenage boys (despite its claims to the contrary), and that press event was themed as a Greek orgy complete with topless women and a dead goat, severed head and dripping blood and all, as the centerpiece, people wouldn't be arguing over whether it was alright to kill a goat. But that is exactly what is being argued about over Sony's launch party in Athens for God of War II.

I first read the event description published by the Daily Mail, and apparently it was written by someone who did not actually attend. According to Sony that description was wrong about people reaching into the goat's corpse to eat its still-warm entrails, as reported in the newspaper. Rather, guests ate warm soup that was billed as offal. Various sites disagree on whether it was or was not actually offal, but in any case, it was not offal from the bloody goat corpse on the table at the event. Furthermore, Sony says it did not butcher the goat on-site. It was killed off-site by a butcher, and after the party it was returned to the butcher.

I have a hard time believing Sony, and here is why. Its latest official PlayStation magazine features photos of the event and asks readers how far they would go to get a PlayStation 3 (the magazines have since been recalled and the spread containing the photos removed, though 2,000 copies were already in the mail).

How about eating still warm intestines uncoiled from the carcass of a freshly slaughtered goat? At the party to celebrate God Of War II’s European release, members of the Press were invited to do just that.

Animal cruelty groups are crying foul over the way the goat was killed (apparently by near-beheading) and their assumption that it was killed solely for this event (though it went back to the butcher). I understand their view, but I don't share their opposition to eating goat or any other commonly eaten meat. What I find repulsive is the mixture of topless women feeding grapes to the guests, a bloody goat carcass, and a focus on the Fear Factor-style eating of disgusting, make-you-vomit items. Death and sex and vomit do not belong together.

Slasher movies featuring the murders of hot young women are horrible. Engaging young men in the scenario by selling killing games featuring sexy women is even worse. When that sex/bloodlust combo is transported out of the game and into reality at a party, we're most definitely on a speedy downward slide. I don't even want to know where we go from here. I just know I'd like to find my way back to Kansas.

(For any animal rights people who may find my analysis callous, I refer you to my earlier posts explaining my views on the matter of animal rights: Fur Defender Says Animal Pain Doesn't Matter, Don't Let the Door Hit You on the Way Out, Take Responsibility for Your Food Choices, and Pro-Hunting Animal Lover.)

(Oh, and I didn't mean "screw the goat" literally, in case anyone misunderstood.)

Posted by Becky at 01:24 PM |

Richard Perle is a french loving traitor

Neocon extraordinaire Richard Perle was skewered in George Tenet's new book entitled At the Center of the Storm. In the book, Tenet accuses Perle of urging attacks against Iraq as early as 9/12--the day after the attacks by Al Qaida against the US.

Perle's neocon compadre Bill Kristol has lept to Tenet's defense, saying that the encounter Tenet describes didn't happen because Perle was in France at that time.

France??? Richard Perle was hunkered down with those traitorous cheese-eating, freedom-hating, wine-swilling, World War 2 surrendering FRENCH on the day of the worst attack against America since Pearl Harbor?

Well...I think that tells us everything we need to know about Richard Perle.

(For those of you who don't get satire--think of this as tongue in cheek)

Posted by Carla at 12:24 PM |

Hirrary is Rike Godzirra

Everyone's having fun with Hillary Clinton's fake Southern accent. The Arkansas News calls it "Sensational, sappy and stupid," the New York Post is reporting that Hillary thinks America is ready for a multi-lingual president, and WorldNet Daily has a hilarious editorial entitled, "Repubricans are rike Godzirra. As for me, I can't help but think of another obnoxiously phony woman, whom I dislike nearly as much as I do Hillary – Madonna, who has also been ridiculed because of her "pseudo-English, rich snob, 1930's film star" fake accent. And it's not just the phoniness that bugs me about Hillary. It's the total self-absorption that it betrays.

I don't have a problem with fake accents per se. I can put them on myself and have on a number of occasions. I learned how to do it when I spent a year teaching English in Zimbabwe during college. The day I arrived on campus I was called before an assembly of students to introduce myself. I gave my little hello speech to roars of laughter. I was terribly embarrassed because I couldn't understand what I had said that was so funny. When I sat back down my guide explained to me that they were laughing because they didn't understand a word I had said. I learned during the time that I was there that laughter also comes more freely to Zimbabweans – they don't view laughing at someone as the insulting thing that we do. They seem capable of recognizing that people are just plain funny, and that's OK.

Anyway, within a few months I was speaking English with a distinctly Zimbabwean accent, and the reason for it was because I was trying to teach these kids and they flat out couldn't understand me any other way. To this day, when I'm speaking with foreigners, which I often do because I travel quite a bit and meet a lot of people from other countries, I speak more slowly and with greater enunciation so they can understand me. I've had a number of people tell me they understand me better than just about anyone else they've met since arriving in the country. My point is, taking on an accent for the purpose of helping your audience understand you better is a good thing. But that isn't what Hillary is doing.

Hillary is trying to go the next step and make her audience believe she is one of them so they will support her and vote for her – it is entirely motivated by selfish interests. And the fact is that she isn't one of them and she doesn't understand them. That's why she makes mistakes like this:

On Monday, Hillary Clinton likened Harriet Tubman's legacy to her struggles with a malfunctioning microphone.

"There may be some bumps along the road," Hillary said at a fundraiser. "You know this reminds me of one of my favorite American heroines, Harriet Tubman. For when she made it to freedom after having been a slave and she got to New York and she could have been so happy to just stay at home and just breathe a big sigh of relief, but she kept going back down South to bring other freed slaves to freedom. And she used to say, 'No matter what happens, keep going.'"

And then there was this beauty:

Her latest offense occurred while trying to rev up the crowd at Al Sharpton's National Action Network Conference in New York last weekend. "When I walk into the Oval Office in January-two-thousund-and-nine, I'm uhfraid I'm gonna lift up the rug and I'm goin' to see so much stuff under thar.

"Ya - ya know, what is it about us, always havin' to clean up after people? I ask ya to join me on this journey. But this is not just going to be pickin' up socks off the floor. This is going to be cleanin' up the guverment," she told the crowd.

I suspect that she's got a very skewed view of African-Americans and she doesn't even realize it. In trying to "connect" with them she is vocalizing some truly degrading stereotypes. And it's really odd because frankly, she sounds more like the blue blooded Barbara Bush than someone who wasn't born into privilege.

And typical of Hillary, when asked, she comes up with a whopper to explain it, saying her Southern drawl is the result of having spent a good deal of time in Arkansas, as opposed to being intentionally cultivated for political purposes (and someone needs to tell her that fake accents aren't her forte - she's no good at it).

Which brings me to the "Godzirra" editorial, which begins by accusing her of doing "an incredibly insulting political version of 'Mammy'" and trying to "till more plantations than Robert 'King' Carter." And it asks – and answers - the question we all want to know: "Who is Hillary Clinton really? Why, she's whatever you are, unless you have a well-oiled B.S. detector."

Apparently, the Left is going to let all this phoniness slide. Hillary's implication that black people all clean up after white people should have prompted outrage from Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, but it didn't. Like so many prominent religious leaders on the right, these two are simply partisan hacks, playing their loyal followers for all they're worth. As this editorial asks, if Hillary can say to a black audience, "What is it about us always havin' to clean up after people?" would it be OK for her to say to a Hispanic audience, "What is it about us always having to care for peoples' lawns?" or to a Japanese audience, "Repubricans are rike Godzirra – they must be stopped." Of course, not (at least not since 1946).

Posted by Becky at 09:42 AM |

April 29, 2007

Where's the pro-life love?

All across America folks are participating in the March of Dimes' annual Walk for Healthy Babies. Meadville PA raised $36,000, Glens Falls NY expects to almost meet their $75,000 goal, Victoria TX raised $33,000 and 1,700 other communities across the nation. But the star appears to have been Chicago, IL where $2.2 million was raised. All to help meet the March of Dime's mission to prevent birth defects (120k born yearly), premature birth (1/2 million born yearly) and infant mortality (30k per year).

Seems like a no-brainer for pro-life groups to support, right?

Wrong.

The Illinois Family Institute ("upholding marriage & family, life & liberty in the Land of Lincoln") does mention the March of Dimes on it's main page, but only to attack them with the insinuation that "for political reasons alone" they are turning a blind eye to some study suggesting a link between abortion and premature birth.

The Christian Newswire, which regularly carries statements from a wide variety of pro-life groups doesn't even mention the Walk for Healthy Babies.

I did find a pro-life blog which mentioned the March of Dimes. Apparently Lauren can't support the March of Dimes because they "are huge proponents of amniocentesis and are quick to support 'options' when the results are not positive."

So I'm wondering where is the love? Where is the professed value for life? Surely these "pro-lifers" don't cease to care once the infant has been born, do they?

Posted by Kevin at 08:38 PM |

April 27, 2007

Extremes in the First Amendment

Three free speech issues caught my eye today. In one, Philadelphia suddenly decided to enforce a 30-year-old law barring psychics, astrologers, phrenologists and tarot-card readers who charge money for their services. In the second, a case eerily similar to that of Seung-Hui Cho, an Asian high school honors student wrote a violently disturbing essay for school that so upset his teacher (understandably so) that she reported it to authorities. The boy was charged by the police with disorderly conduct. In the third, a man unhappy with the construction of the tram in Portland has placed a big sign on his roof, clearly visible from the tram, that reads, "Fuck the Tram."

What is really most interesting to me is that it is likely that the expelled psychics, who probably are offending almost no one, may have very little protection under the Constitution, whilst the high school student and the disgruntled public cusser, who have greatly offended a number of people, probably have quite a bit of protection. Do you agree with that assessment? Are you fine with it?

Posted by Becky at 01:11 PM |

Illegal Immigration: A Tool of Satan

Utah County District 65 has itself a most interesting Chairman named Don Larson. He has submitted a formal resolution that will be discussed this weekend at the Utah County Republican Convention. The resolution, in a nutshell, states that Satan is trying to set up a New World Order and destroy our freedom, but to do this he must first destroy the country. To defeat Satan, Larson says, we must stop the slow invasion that is occurring via illegal immigration.

I've studied all the conspiracy theories on the New World Order and the North American Union, and I grew up believing Satan was a real, living being, so I understand how Larson arrived at this conclusion. But never have I heard anyone actually say such things out loud in public. Wow.

Fortunately, the Republican Party is disavowing any responsibility for or agreement with the resolution. And of course, we are talking about Salt Lake City, where 48% of the population is Mormon and believes Satan is real. So Larson probably did not realize how crazy his statement would sound to outsiders. Like members of Utah's Latino community, who were, shall we say, taken aback by his comments.

"It sounds like someone who is way out in left field, living in some fantasy world," said Tony Yapias, director of Proyecto Latino de Utah and former head of the state's Office of Hispanic Affairs. "He is just an extremist, radical right-winger."

Rolando Murillo, a volunteer for ACELA (the Latin American Cultural and Education Association of Utah), is startled that anyone would believe such a plot. "Everyone can have whatever beliefs they want to have," Murillo said. "In the state of Utah, we're grateful that the vast majority of people do not embrace these ideas."

It isn't the first time that a Salt Lake City Republican has fingered Satan as the cause of some big problem. Last year, congressional candidate John Jacob said that he believed Satan was destroying his campaign by interfering with his business dealings so that he didn't have enough money to run properly.

It's interesting to me that we often will allow ourselves to think things in private that we would never say out loud in public because they would sound crazy. But laugh as we may when people say things like this, the fact is a lot of people believe Satan is as real a living being as Jesus Christ or God himself. So while we're laughing publicly, a lot of people are no doubt nodding their heads in agreement in private.

The belief in a personal God and the belief in Satan serve to satisfy the a desire for a concrete explanation as to why good things and bad things happen – it is not mere luck, but rather the intentional and meaningful acts of an unseen being that caused it. These beliefs offer us a sense that life is not merely a matter of chance and luck, but of providence and blessing, punishment and intentional provocation. They satisfy our desire to believe that we have some control over our own destiny by being good and pleasing God and thereby winning his favor, but that when we don't do what God wants, it surely must have been because Satan tempted us. We know we have a good side and a dark, animal side. Belief in a personal God and Satan personifies this and makes it easier to grasp and more comfortable.

And the relatively wide-spread acceptance of these beliefs is a fact of life. Though almost never uttered in public, they greatly influence the public debate on many issues. Unless you realize that, you will not be able to understand either the fervor or the thinking behind much of what the Christian (or Mormon) Right believes.

Posted by Becky at 12:22 PM |

In Abortion Debate, Words Mean Something

Those crazy Texans. Some overly-enthusiastic pro-lifers in Austin left a live bomb in the parking lot of the Austin Women's Health Center Wednesday, forcing the evacuation of the center and a nearby apartment complex while the bomb squad detonated it. The bomb was described as "capable of inflicting serious injury or death." Considering the crazy tone of the anti-abortion crowd in the area, I'm not at all surprised by this.

Austin Abortion Exposed features the center on its website, where it describes the doctors as "serial killers" and the clinic a "killing center." Red River Church describes the clinic as a "death chamber" that is engaged in "killing children." The doctors are called "roving serial killers" and "contract killers." They even accuse clinics of killing "children whose mothers are poor" because it is "cheaper" than paying "the hospital to deliver a live baby." It is a short step for a true believer inspired by such outrageous, highly charged language to deciding that God wants them to snipe abortion doctors or blow up clinics. Particularly in a state where the abortion rights battle has been so hard-fought.

Posted by Becky at 12:06 PM |

April 26, 2007

Right-Left Alliance Against the War is Possible

I found this very thoughtful article by Jon Basil Utley entitled, "A conservative makes the case against the War Party," and I hope you will read it. It looks at who is backing the war and who is opposing it – and why, where war opponents' political goals match and where they diverge, and how the various war opponents can overcome their differences and work together to end the war. Utley is a writer and advisor for Antiwar.com and a chairman of ConservativesForPeace.com. You'll probably not agree with everything he has to say, but I think you will agree with a lot of it.

Posted by Becky at 12:15 PM |

Christians Who Hate Liberals

How often have you heard Christians claim that liberals hate them? Of course, liberals know that accusation is patently false and that Christians who believe it are simply ignorant about liberalism. But that doesn't stop them from their fearmongering. If you look around at what Christian commentators are saying about politics you can find copious examples of Christians writing hateful things about liberals. Marsha West is a repeat offender in this regard.

Recently, she wrote about how "Christian Kids are too Gentle to Live Amongst the Wolves" (the "wolves" being liberals who have their "bony fingers" in everything). The article is now available on literally hundreds of websites. Other past articles, also widely disseminated, have included, "Radical Feminism: The Kiss of Death," in which she says liberal educators are corrupting children; "Parents, Listen Up!," in which she calls liberals "barbarians" and public schools "government-run-institutions-of-indoctrination" and says that "liberals are grooming school-aged children to become good little anarchists"; "Will Same-Sex "Marriage" Impinge on Religious Liberty?," in which she calls liberals "the enemy" and says that "A good drenching of truth could cause liberals to melt into a steaming puddle of sludge like the Wicked Witch of the West did when Dorothy tossed a bucket of water in her face"; and "Values Voters – Head to the Polls!," in which she says that "liberals are far and away the most morally challenged primates on the planet." She has written many others that contain equally outrageous statements about liberals.

Her latest piece, "Liberals [are] More Concerned About Bears than Babes," has also been widely published on the Internet, including at News With Views, Renew America, News By Us, The Conservative Voice, Renaissance Women, and MichNews.com (a conservative news service). In it she entirely ignores the legitimate arguments and thought processes of liberals in the partial birth abortion debate, choosing instead to see the matter in its simplest terms as one pitting good conservative Christians against evil liberals who think it is perfectly OK to poke a hole in the head of a baby and suck its brains out.

If this gruesome procedure were done on, say, an Arctic polar bear and the public got wind of it, radical animal rights groups such as PETA would bleat louder than a flock of sheep in a shearing shed. Cable news and the three network morning shows would have grist for the mill for days, perhaps weeks!

This begs the question, “What’s up with humans who “love animals” but wouldn’t lift a finger to save precious babes in the womb?” Babies are completely helpless, they can’t speak for themselves, plus they’re members of the human race, so it’s perfectly rational to consider putting the rights of animals before the rights of human beings patently absurd. (Incidentally, Jesus Christ came to Earth to save HUMAN BEINGS, not animals! Certainly Jesus was fond of critters, but He loved PEOPLE. In truth, He willingly laid down His life so that MANKIND could be reconciled to God.)

She then goes on to say that Christians must control the courts to prevent more of this sort of travesty. She has before mischaracterized the liberal view of partial birth abortion in her article, "Hang 'Em High," in which she calls for execution of late term abortionists and generally denigrates liberals.

How does the liberal media react when a Federal court judge strikes down the Constitutional ban on the uncivilized partial-birth abortion procedure? They praise the gods, clink their glasses together and celebrate another victory. In the old west if a baby had been partially delivered then clobbered with a mallet, the killer would have been given a speedy trial and taken to the nearest tree and promptly hanged. And the punishment would have fit the crime. Back then folks knew right from wrong. They also knew a thing or two about justice. When someone decided to commit a heinous crime, they could expect to pay dearly for it. "Fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he has injured someone, so shall it be done to him" (Leviticus 24:20).

There are countless examples of other conservative Christians whose lies, half truths, and slander foment blind hatred of liberals across this country. Meanwhile, you can also find countless examples of Christian liberals, as well as secular liberals teaming up with Christians as allies in humanitarian efforts and fighting to protect religious freedom, even that of evangelical Christians, repeatedly.

Conservative Christians like to say that liberals hate Christians because they do not understand Christians. I would say that many Christians hate liberals for the same reason. Ignorance naturally begets fear, which begets hatred. When someone like Marsha West continually writes ignorant articles about liberals, articles that are designed to inspire fear in her readers, the result is – naturally – hatred.

Posted by Becky at 11:58 AM |

April 25, 2007

Hart Williams Kicks Ass and Takes Names

Hart Williams has just posted a scathing rebuke of the Archbishop of Boston for his response to the supposed "anti-Catholic" bigots who dared to notice that the recent Carhart decision appeared to be based on the religious beliefs of the five Catholic Supreme Court justices. It is lengthy, as is typical of Hart, but it is truly delicious. He points out numerous contradictions in the Archbishop's public statements, including the fact that he first credited the justices' Catholicism for their decision and then criticized those of us who were less pleased than he with the Catholic influence.

Posted by Becky at 10:57 AM |

Suffering Over Worm Dirt

Laura Bush may think that "No one suffers more than their President and I do," but one very rude Lieutenant Colonel is sure doing his best to pile on to the suffering of the Tillman family. Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich, the Army officer who directed the first official inquiry into football star Pat Tillman's death, has blamed the Tillman family's lack of religion for their inability to let Pat go and trust the government.

"His parents continue to ask for it to be looked at," Kauzlarich said. "And that is really their prerogative. And if they have the right backing, the right powerful people in our government to continue to let it happen, then that is the case.

"But there [have] been numerous unfortunate cases of fratricide, and the parents have basically said, 'OK, it was an unfortunate accident.' And they let it go. So this is — I don't know, these people have a hard time letting it go. It may be because of their religious beliefs."

…In an interview with ESPN.com, Kauzlarich said: "When you die, I mean, there is supposedly a better life, right? Well, if you are an atheist and you don't believe in anything, if you die, what is there to go to? Nothing. You are worm dirt. So for their son to die for nothing, and now he is no more — that is pretty hard to get your head around that. So I don't know how an atheist thinks. I can only imagine that that would be pretty tough."

Asked by ESPN.com whether the Tillmans' religious beliefs are a factor in the ongoing investigation, Kauzlarich said, "I think so. There is not a whole lot of trust in the system or faith in the system [by the Tillmans]. So that is my personal opinion, knowing what I know."

Asked what might finally placate the family, Kauzlarich said, "You know what? I don't think anything will make them happy, quite honestly. I don't know. Maybe they want to see somebody's head on a platter. But will that really make them happy? No, because they can't bring their son back."

…Mary Tillman, Pat's mother, … casts the family as spiritual, though she said it does not believe in many of the fundamental aspects of organized religion.

"Oh, it has nothing to do with the fact that this whole thing is shady," she said sarcastically, "But it is because we are not Christians."

After a pause, her voice full with emotion, she added, "Pat may not have been what you call a Christian. He was about the best person I ever knew. I mean, he was just a good guy. He didn't lie. He was very honest. He was very generous. He was very humble. I mean, he had an ego, but it was a healthy ego. It is like, everything those [people] are, he wasn't."

As I wrote last week, religious believe is not a necessary prerequisite to being a good person, and sometimes religious people are bad people. I think Pat Tillman, who could have been a multi-millionaire star for the rest of his life and gave that up to serve his country, and the Christian Lt. Col. Kauzlarich, whose callous statements have stabbed Pat's parents in the heart, have proved my point. I would add that logic tells you that someone who believes death opens the door to heaven will value this life less than someone who believes this life is all you have. Perhaps that's why this Christian Administration is so willing to sacrifice so many and why it believes its "suffering" is superior to the suffering of the families whose sons and daughters have died and become "worm dirt."

Nods to Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy for first bringing this sad story to my attention.

Posted by Becky at 10:03 AM |

Thank God for Nerds

Slashdot, a website billing itself as "Politics for Nerds," has posted an amazing bit of information – a smoking gun - that only nerds would ever discover. Not being a nerd myself, I can't say as I fully understand how they figured this out, but they have links and I'm sure other computer nerds will be able to follow it. But in a nutshell, what they've found is that the same out-of-state server that mysteriously froze up on election night in Ohio in 2004 during the highly contested and controversial voting scandal there (and again in 2006) also hosts the Republican National Committee's email system, from which all those mysterious Karl Rove emails were deleted and which are supposedly irretrievable.

I'm more than a little amazed at this whole other world out there of data and servers and all that nerdy stuff that is sadly beyond most of us to easily grasp. But a surprising amount has been written on this stuff and you can start finding some of it for yourself by doing a Google search, like I did, using the terms server rove emails ohio. It's all too techie for me to take the time to figure it out in the limited time I have to devote to such things, but I can see it's going to become increasingly important and I'm very grateful that some nerdy geniuses out there are busy working on it.

Posted by Becky at 09:53 AM |

Giuliani Kissing Up to Pro-War Faction of GOP

As horrible as the President's approval ratings are, and as much as the American people have lost faith in this war, it amazes me that Rudy Giuliani is kissing up to the pro-war faction of the Republican Party. He's actually saying that if America elects a Democratic president in 2008, we can expect another 9/11-type attack because the Democrats don't understand what we're up against and will take us back to our "pre-9/11 attitude of [playing] defense." If, on the other hand, we elect a Republican, he says, we will be able to anticipate and prevent such an attack.

It is more than vaguely reminiscent of Vice President Cheney's comments in early September of 2004, when he said if voters put John Kerry in the White House, "we'll get hit again, and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States." He also warned America would "fall back into a pre-9/11 mind-set."

There's an up-side to having a Democrat in the White House, though Giuliani doesn't see it as a positive: "We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, [and] interrogation." He thinks that's bad because we won't have as good an idea about what's going on out there in the effort to attack us. Clearly, Giuliani is not big on the Constitution.

Here are a couple of other mind-bogglingly stupid quotes by Giuliani:

“This war ends when they stop coming here to kill us!” (They haven't come here to kill us in almost six years.)

Terrorists “hate us for the freedoms we have and the freedoms we want to share with the world.” (No, they hate us for our imperialistic advances over the past century on their territory and our refusal to let them live their lives as they want to.)

“If we are on defense [with a Democratic president], we will have more losses and it will go on longer.” (No, it is Democrats who are calling for an end to this war and being berated by people like Giuliani for doing so.)

Posted by Becky at 09:43 AM |

Iraqi Police Show Incredible Patriotism

Call me naïve or ignorant, but I can't help but admire those brave Iraqis who continue to sign up to serve as police officers despite the frequent suicide bombings, armed attacks, hatred and distrust by their own people, distrust by the Americans, horrible working conditions, and sectarian political landmines thrown in their way. In Baghdad alone, 67 of them have been killed and 376 wounded in the past six months and in the past two years, 8,123 Iraqi soldiers and police have died and 18,236 others been wounded. Yet they keep signing up to serve in the ranks. You've got to really love and believe in your country to put yourself at risk like that. Am I misreading this situation, or are these men as amazing as they appear to me to be?

Posted by Becky at 09:24 AM |

April 24, 2007

Bottom of the barrel scraping

Its got to suck to be a conservative and/or Republican these days. Especially when the party sociopaths trot themselves out in front of TV cameras for this week's version of "Treason Talk".

Every time these two get in front of a camera I swear that the Democrats in Congress get a two point uptick in the polls.

Posted by Carla at 07:45 PM |

God Really Messed up with this One

Somebody needs to sit God down and have a talk with him because he wasn't very nice to Pfc. Brett Walton. Walton was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad after having been in Iraq less than a month. At the age of 37, he left his wife and 5-year-old daughter to volunteer for the war because he believed God told him to do it. Walton was a good man and a good representative of the United States. Immediately upon arriving in Iraq, he began showing his concern for the Iraqi children and doing good works. It was downright awful of God to take a man like that away from a family who needed him and then not even allow him to do the good things he could have done for our country and for Iraq while he was there.

Dislcaimer: I sincerely apologize to anyone who is offended by my lack of belief that God actually sent Pfc. Walton to Iraq, as well as my unwillingness to accept the rationalization that God moves in mysterious ways, and to anyone who views my opportunistic commentary on conceptualizations of God as tasteless. This post is not intended to denigrate Pfc. Walton, whom I respect as a brave and dedicated American patriot, for believing otherwise.

Posted by Becky at 11:28 AM |

I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means

Can someone please explain to me how a bill that would allow employees to skip prayer breakfasts and political pep rallies is the equivalent of banning prayer in the workplace? Because that's the claim of the religious right nutcases in Oregon. A group calling itself "Restore America" is carrying on an email campaign trying to convince legislators that HB 2893 is an assault on Christians in the workplace and "will prevent employers and employees from praying or worshiping together - even if it's their own choice!"

It's just another example of the persecution complex in the Christian community. Rep. Bruce Hanna of Roseburg is even distributing an action alert saying the bill "specifically targets Christians in the workplace, whether they are employers or employees." The truth is the bill is simply protecting the rights of workers to not be coerced into listening to things they don't agree with.

The bill says an employer cannot require an employee to attend an employer-sponsored meeting or to participate in any communication with the employer if the purpose is to "communicate the employer's opinion about religious or political matters." The bill also prohibits employers from firing or otherwise penalizing workers to force their participation.

But Hanna is completely paranoid, saying that employers would be so fearful of being sued by employees who willingly attended that they won't even have such meetings anymore.

Here's what I suspect is really going on. The bill was introduced by a labor union. It might be because it's a workers' rights issue, but I think it's more realistic to believe a union would only introduce a bill if it had something to gain organizationally by doing so. I'm betting that this bill is actually intended to ban mandatory meetings in which the employer tries to convince employees not to unionize, or to vote or take some other action contrary to what their union wants them to do. And I think the right-wing is very upset about this. The only thing they could come up with on short notice was this ridiculous nonsense being peddled by Rep. Hanna and "Restore America." And why not? Bring up Christian persecution and you have a huge constituency ready to speak out loudly on your behalf.

If you ask me whether employees should be forced to go hear their employer's religious or political views, the answer is a resounding, obvious "no." But if the issue is whether an employer with a stake in an employment dispute should be able to force employees to sit down and listen to his or her views relating to the dispute, then we have something reasonable and interesting to debate. The real question in my mind, then, is why the union that introduced the bill and the Republicans who oppose it aren't debating that issue, but instead are resorting to a sham debate that capitalizes on the persecution paranoia of the Christian right.

Posted by Becky at 11:18 AM |

Rush Reveals His Immaturity

Have you ever noticed when you catch your kids saying something really awful that ought to embarrass them, to save face they'll say they were just joking when they said it? It's very typical for an immature person to not own up to their own ugliness. Which is why Rush Limbaugh has just revealed himself to be very immature indeed. Last Thursday he said on his radio program that Seung-hui Cho (the possibly autistic and definitely psychotic man who was somehow able to buy weapons and shoot 32 college students in Virginia) was a liberal (a lot of other conservative talk show hosts also blamed liberals). But in order to avoid taking responsibility for what he said, he's saying his repulsive comments were just a joke on the liberals.

According to Rush:

If this Virginia Tech shooter had an ideology, what do you think it was? This guy had to be a liberal. You start railing against the rich and all this other -- this guy's a liberal. He was turned into a liberal somewhere along the line. So it's a liberal that committed this act. Now, the drive-bys will read on a website that I'm attacking liberalism by comparing this guy to them. That's exactly what they do every day, ladies and gentlemen. I'm just pointing out a fact. I am making no extrapolation; I'm just pointing it out.

Newt Gingrich got in on the act, too, blaming "liberal" video games and even campaign finance reform:

Newt Gingrich declared that 40 years of liberalism has caused society to get mean and nasty. Liberalism is responsible for young people losing their souls by playing violent video games. "We don't have any discussion about what's happened to our culture because while we're restricting political free speech under McCain-Feingold,(The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 that regulates campaign financing) we say it's impossible to restrict vulgar and vicious and anti-human speech," proclaimed Gingrich.

Of course, Gingrich also blamed Susan Smith's drowning of her three children on liberals, as well as the school shootings at Columbine. Getting back to Rush, he also said that future school shootings could be prevented if we banned political correctness (nobody helped Cho because, he said, they were afraid of being called "racist") and stopped spending so much time thinking about global warming that we didn't notice the "real threat."

Michael Savage also blamed "liberal scum" because they have "for 30 years handcuffed the police," and Neal Boortz blamed the victims for "standing meekly waiting for this guy to execute them. Waiting for what? The government to come save them" – a description any conservative listener would readily link with a blaming of liberals. And in case they didn't quite catch his intent, he said this was due to the "wussification of America." It's so easy to stray from Rush Limbaugh to other conservatives here, it's disturbing - in fact, there's at least one blog collecting quotes from various people laying blame for the shooting. One particularly egregious example, in my opinion, is the American Family Association blaming the incident on a lack of prayer in schools, lack of spanking, the teaching of evolution, abortion, condoms, etc. (this in a video they are selling for $5).

But let's get back to Rush and what exactly he said that reveals his immaturity. While all the other conservative talk show hosts dumped their horrible comments about liberals onto the public airwaves and simply moved on, not caring that they had offended people, Rush wanted to say those awful things without having to bear the moral responsibility for them. So yesterday on his show he took it all back and claimed his repulsive comments were all just a big joke on liberals.

On the April 23 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, host Rush Limbaugh claimed "I was making a joke" when he said on his April 19 broadcast that Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui "had to be a liberal, " and "it's a liberal that committed this act" before adding on April 23, "I do believe that it was liberalism that got a hold of this guy and made him hate things, professors and this sort of thing." Limbaugh also lashed out at Media Matters for America, claiming that he had made the comments about Cho "as a means of illustrating on this show how the words of conservative talk show hosts are twisted and taken out of context," before adding, "And sure enough, Media Matters fell for it hook, line, and sinker. They had it up all over the place."

I've long thought the man was an immature jerk, but this just proves it to me.

Posted by Becky at 10:37 AM |

April 23, 2007

Georgia School Enters the Modern Era at Last

Color me surprised. I thought segregation ended around the time I was born. At least that's what I've been telling my kids (who were surprised I was that old). But lo and behold, all these many years segregation was still alive and well in Georgia. Until this past weekend, that is. That's when, for the first time black and white students at Turner County High School went to the same prom. I'm not making this up!

The county's school superintendent said he was proud that the kids decided to finally end their segregated proms and said, "The changes needed to come from the student body.''

Say, what? Unless I am misunderstanding what he said, it sounds as if the "adults" in the high school decided to let the kids wait until they were ready to party with their brothers of another color. I thought adults were supposed to lead kids in the right direction, but apparently in Georgia they let the kids lead the way. Or so the superintendent would have us believe, because in fact it was only last year that the county finally crowned a single homecoming queen instead of crowing separate white and black queens. I can accept that the school let the kids organize and raise funds for their own proms, but the homecoming queen election is an official school activity. So it looks to me as if the adults down in Georgia set the tone for racism in the kids. And judging by the success of the first integrated prom, that racism won't be going away overnight.

Only about two-thirds of the school's 160 upper-class students purchased tickets for the prom, blacks still easily outnumbered whites at the dance, and many whites still attended their own private party a week earlier.

"Last weekend was more like tradition. It wasn't racist, or prejudice," said Calvin Catom, a white senior who attended both parties. "This weekend is about the whole school getting together and having a party.''

Tradition? A bunch of white kids get together for an annual school party to which only white kids are invited and this is tradition, as opposed to racism? I'm glad the school is finally entering the modern era, but it sure looks to me as if they have a long road ahead of them.

Posted by Becky at 02:29 PM |

Happy Fifth Anniversary, Ms. Hughes

It was five years ago today that Karen Hughes decided to leave President Bush's side and go back to Texas to be with her family. She wrote about it in her book, "Ten Minutes From Normal." Interesting, then, that today when I stopped by the Dollar Tree to buy a Coke, I saw copies of her hardback book on the racks, having dropped from a cover price of $25.95 to just $1.00. I thought about picking up a copy for kicks, but it wasn't worth the price. I already know that any book praising Bush for his "laser-like" mind is trash, even if her publisher was willing to pay the bubbly optimist spin-meister more than $1 million for the propaganda piece. The fact that it's now selling for a buck tells me America has largely wised up about this Administration, seeing the book as the worthless tripe that it is.

Posted by Becky at 02:02 PM |

April 22, 2007

My life is non-negotiable to me

The SCOTUS decision earlier this week to uphold the ban on so-called "partial birth abortion" has sparked discussion in many quarters, including here at PK.

The views of folks who adhere to a set of specific religious beliefs have been well represented in comments, on multiple sides of the issue. One view not apparently represented is that of the feminist--which I find not only fascinating, but enlightening.

One such feminist view is beautifully articulated in a diary at Daily Kos by Natasha, who strongly articulates why she feels such rulings are degrading to women. The whole thing is well worth reading. But here is a powerful excerpt:

Feminists are often singled out as a type of single-issue voter particularly deserving of demonization at this site. Our adamance, our insistence, it just gets right up some people's noses. Right up there. We are accused often, just as the anti-choicers and the Supreme Court have conspired to have us declared in the law, of not knowing what's really in our best interests. Accused, in the most loaded and demeaning of ways, of being crying hysterics who blow things out of proportion.

Screw that. Let me tell you just a little bit of why we're such demanding, whiny nags, such angry, raging bitches. And let me tell you why a refusal to join with us in our petition for justice and equality hurts everything this site claims to stand for.

This society spends an enormous amount of time working hard to make women afraid. It works. We are.

We can be forced to have c-sections against our will, invasive medical procedures with not insignificant risks to our future health. If we should become pregnant due to contraception failure, we may be given the run-around by medical professionals until it's too late to avoid pregnancy, and then if we talk publically about wanting an abortion we can get death threats and worse. A woman can be dragged to her death like James Byrd without creating any more public controversy than how best to cover up the blood stains on the road. As insult on top of all this injury, and more infuriating things than anyone has room for in a single post, Congress and the Supreme Court got together to declare us less valuable than female farm animals.

Than farm animals? Yes. Because not only is an unborn fetus apparently worth more than I am, an unborn fetus that can't live outside my body and a dead, decaying fetus that's been strangled by its own umbilical cord is worth more than I am. Worth more than my health and future ability to bear children. And a life exception?

If something that might only threaten my health turns out to be fatal to me, well it's too bloody late to grant me an exemption.

I fully expect that there will be irrational tossing of stupid pixels about the "angry feminist" in comments--while blithely ignoring Natasha's very important point: there is an effort in certain areas to devalue women. There are a lot of people in the US that see women as nothing more than breeding stock and laborers. Some of these people are in positions of power and wealth--and some of them may be sitting on the SCOTUS bench.

Continuing to ignore what folks like Natasha are saying is only going to lead to a serious backlash and then a revolt to a place of greatest extreme. Continuing to devalue her and debase her will simply add fuel to that fire.

Posted by Carla at 09:14 AM |

April 20, 2007

Poor Alec Baldwin

There's just nothing worse that making a huge, horrible mistake and then having everyone find out about it. It's even worse when you have worked to develop the image that you are a smart, thoughtful, politically-astute person and your mistake unravels every one of those carefully cultivated public attributes. So I've got to say I'm feeling pretty sorry for Alec Baldwin today. Here he clearly cares very much about his daughter, but has this witchy ex-wife trying to alienate her from him, and apparently pretty successfully, and then he goes and has a terribly immature moment in which he blows up about it and says awful things, and the ex-wife releases a tape of it to the press, and now the whole world is hearing him call his daughter a pig. I've got a few thoughts about this, for what they're worth.

First of all, if anyone didn't know that Alec, or for that matter, any of the Baldwin boys, had a bad temper, you've been living in a cave.

Second, if you didn't realize his ex-wife had major bitch potential, you've been living in a cave.

Third, if you expected that movie stars would behave any better than regular people just because they have money, and you thought that this sort of interaction between regular parents and their children was unusual, then sadly, you've been living in a cave.

Fourth, if you thought hot-blooded people like these two could have an amicable divorce and custody battle, or that any divorce and custody battle could occur without horrible, humiliating, heartbreakingly cruel moments, you've been living in a cave. Trust me on that one.

Fifth, I'd any day rather have had my dad get really made at me if I was avoiding him than what I actually did have after my parents' divorce, which was my dad seeming to forget I existed at all.

Sixth, none of this is any of our business in the first place. The only reason it has legs is because Alec has come off as being so arrogant in the expression of his political views.

Seventh, I'm presently feeling a tiny soft spot for Alec, despite seeing him as an arrogant, puffy hot-head, because I just watched him host a truly great and thought-provoking show on cave men last weekend and I really loved it (gee, at least I can admit I'm emotionally swayed by such things). I guess my point is, we're all pretty weak and wretched creatures at times. But we also all can do great things. So I say, since it's entirely unfair that we ever even knew about this phone call in the first place, let's let Alec get back to inspiring and infuriating us with his commentary and opinions and let him and his bitchy ex-wife sort their problems out in private.

Posted by Becky at 02:31 PM |

Frustrated Over Initiative Reform

Reactions on the right to the potential passage of an initiative reform bill in Oregon have me thinking about how we got to the point where we are today and why the two sides in the initiative reform debate seem unable to hear each other. For instance, Rep. Kim Thatcher, who opposes the reform bill, said, "Oregonians should not have to get permission from their government before they exercise ... free speech." Rep. Diane Rosenbaum, who supports the bill, defends her position, saying, "I would never support any bill that diminishes those rights." See? They're talking right past each other. And it frustrates the hell out of me.

Everyone seems to have forgotten how we got to this point. Here's how I remember it. The right wing succeeded in passing some ballot measures the left, particularly the public employee unions, did not like. Then the right proceeded to try to pass some more. The left and the unions desperately wanted to overturn what had been passed and prevent further passage of measures it did not like, many of which were directly targeted at their ability to be politically engaged. Not only did the left begin to use the court system to try to achieve its goals (ask yourself why Measure 5 was never even challenged on the single subject rule, but Measure 7 was overturned on it), but it also engaged in backroom deals and started looking for dirt to try to discredit those who were proposing the ballot measures. Bill Sizemore handed them their wildest dream on a silver platter.

All the rest of the crap that has been pulled by the left over the years still disgusts me (so does the crap on the right), but I can't see how any reasonable person could argue with the need to clean up the process now that Sizemore and a few crooked petitioners showed us how inadequate our safeguards actually were, particularly since we've seen how the Howard Rich measures all across the country last year involved much of the same sort of unethical and even illegal activity. That mess is such that those who initially focused on blocking measures they did not like now have something righteous to claim as their own so they can feel good about changing the initiative process. I agree that it needs to be changed, but those who are changing it should at least be honest with themselves about what they really feel and make certain that their political leanings aren't coloring their decision-making on this bill. They need to acknowledge where they have fueled the fires of their opposition.

That said, the right is so incredibly entrenched in their victim mentality and anti-left hatred that they cannot see the errors on their own side or the need for change. While those on the left have conveniently forgotten their own faults upon finding a righteous cause, those on the right have conveniently forgotten the errors and crimes their side has committed and see only that which reinforces their feelings of victimhood. If both sides would recognize their own contributions to this mess, set all of it aside, and look at the very narrow problem of initiative fraud discovered by the unions and agree to fix it, we might actually be able to make some progress an a greater scale. As it is, the left has enough power to fix the narrow problem, but the larger matter of distrust and dirty politics and self-delusion on both sides will continue on unrecognized and uncured.

Yesterday, Jason Williams at Oregon Catalyst, whom I know personally as a kind and decent human being, posted an editorial on the initiative reform bill that really disappointed me. He complained that it would make it more difficult to sort petitions because rather than being sorted by 36 counties, petitions would have to be sorted by 20,000 petitioners. This is really a sad argument. The right has been wanting to get rid of sorting by county for many years. They ought to be thrilled by this revision. No more crossing off otherwise valid signatures because someone signed on a sheet from the wrong county. No more having to carry 15 different clipboards at statewide events. One petitioner -- one clipboard. How convenient. But instead, they focus on sorting by petitioner name. I would not be surprised if they have 20 or so petitioners who collect multiple sheets, and those can easily be filed by petitioner name as they come in. The rest will all be single sheets collected by volunteers who had a few minutes to spare, and no sorting will be necessary.

Jason also complained about the problem of disqualifying signatures because circulators make a mistake. Again, the left has created this sort of victim mentality by rabidly throwing out signatures on a whim. Doe-eyed assertions to the contrary are bullshit and just piss me off, so don't even bother to make them. Nonetheless, this bill is not going to add to that problem. If a petition circulator has an ID card on his person listing the initiatives he is approved to carry, then it should be easy for even the most brain dead human being to compare the petitions in his hand to the numbers on his card to see whether he is authorized to carry them. And it should also be very easy for someone signing the petition, if that person is fearful that her signature may be thrown out, to ask for the circulator's ID to check whether that circulator is authorized to collect signatures on the petition that person wishes to sign.

Tim Trickey added his own comments to Jason's post, and he carries on with the victim mentality by claiming that the bill is all about whether the power in this state rests in the hands of the voters or the public employee unions. According to Trickey, the public employee unions who hate right-wing ballot measures have teamed up with the legislators who hate implementing ballot measures, and together they are scheming to destroy the initiative process. In fact, he says, these two groups are responsible for "the only abuses I've seen on the initiative process." Again, we have a member of the right who refuses to see the actual problem and instead prefers to focus on the ongoing battle between the left-leaning unions who found the serious problem and the right-leaning proponents of right-wing ballot measures.

Trickey points out that the bill started out "so blatantly anti-democratic that it scared even the most liberal Dems." For this reason, we are to believe that it still is intended to destroy the process. The logic, however does not hold up. If it was the "Dems" who "watered" the bill "down" to what it is today, then how could they be in bed with the anti-initiative extremists? It makes no sense, but for the right-wing it apparently does not have to. That is why fellow Oregon citizens who work in the Secretary of State's office are "tricksters" and fellow Oregon citizens whom we elected to represent us in the Legislature are "elitists" who "don't trust the voters" in Trickey's world.

And here is the best part. Trickey owns a paid "professional" petitioning company. This bill will hold him accountable for his employment paperwork and force him to hire and train ordinary Oregon citizens to circulate petitions. It will also make petitions available for free on the Internet, cutting out the paid petitioner – and his company – in the process. Yet he has the nerve to claim that the bill "will only serve to strengthen the 'professional' petition circulators, and put the goal of collecting signatures and qualifying initiatives even farther out of reach for the average grassroots campaign." My understanding of the bill is precisely opposite of that.

The entire subject flat wears me out with frustration over the childish behavior and manipulation for political gain on both sides. Can't we all set party aside for once and talk to each other like fellow citizens sharing the most beautiful, wonderful state in the Union?

Posted by Becky at 11:26 AM |

April 19, 2007

GOP Presidential "Kingmakers"

Religion News Service (RNS) today released a list of what it sees as the ten most influential “King Makers” in the Republican race for the Presidency in 2008. The ten are people who RNS believes have sufficient influence with Republicans that they could "make or break a candidate’s campaign for the GOP nomination." Reading through the list is very helpful in understanding the positions taken by some of the GOP candidates.

The RNS list includes:

Broadcaster and psychologist James Dobson, whose Focus on the Family radio show attracts some 220 million listeners who tune in for his views on the merits – and failings – of various candidates. He recently made headlines when he questioned whether Fred Thompson was a Christian because Thompson didn't "talk openly about his faith."

Michael Farris, founder and chairman of the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, who one observer said had "a network of home-schoolers that will do anything for him." Farris was in the news recently when he called police to prevent the gay Christian "Soulforce Equality Ride" group from entering Patrick Henry College, which he founded. Two members of the Soulforce group were arrested.

Richard Land, the go-to political guru for the nation's 16 million Southern Baptists, who has been outspoken in declaring what is acceptable (Mormonism) and what is not (infidelity). Land supports the War and is outspoken on immigration, supporting both strong borders and a process toward citizenship, and his recent appearance with Sen. Ted Kennedy on this issue has upset several of his fellows. He also has flatly rejected Giuliani as a Presidential candidate.

Pam Olsen, president of the Florida Prayer Network, and a mother of four who set up a network of pastors and organizers in each of the state's 67 counties. She gave up sweets for the Lord, believes God gave President Bush Florida's electoral votes because he is pro-life and is a close friend of Jeb Bush.

Rod Parsley, pastor of the 14,000-member World Harvest Church in the battleground state of Ohio, who can use his network of pastors to help a candidate fine-tune his message to reach conservatives. He recently commented on Rep. John Conyers's Hate Crimes Prevention Act saying it "represents the intense culture war between those who trust the Bible as a manual for life and those who reject it."

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, the most powerful Christian lobbying group in Washington whose e-mail alerts reach 200,000 people each day. He and his group have just joined with Concerned Women of America and other conservative groups in a lawsuit to try to force the FDA to reverse its decision to allow the morning-after pill to be available over the counter.

Steve Scheffler, head of the 4,000-member Iowa Christian Alliance, the most active – and credible – religious group in the Hawkeye State. Originally part of the Christian Coalition, his group broke off last year in light of all the scandals in the organization. All the major GOP candidates have taken turns parading past Scheffler seeking his approval.

Tamara Scott, Iowa leader of Concerned Women for America, who has talked with nearly every GOP candidate and is willing to back a candidate who's "truly conservative," even if he's a longshot. CWA recently said that the 140 sexual-orientation hate crimes in America last year, of which more than 90 involved physical violence, were "too few" to justify federal hate crimes legislation.

Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the pro-life legal group, American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), and national radio host, whose blessing on Mitt Romney's campaign was a huge stamp of approval for the Mormon candidate. ACLJ had filed amicus briefs in the "partial birth abortion" ban cases decided yesterday by the U.S. Supreme Court and recently urged President Bush to veto the Senate bill that allows federal funding for stem cell research. The group is also working to convince the Supreme Court to lift its ban on "issue advertising," a popular means by which to avoid campaign finance disclosure, in the days immediately prior to primary and general elections.

Don Wildmon, chairman of the influential Arlington Group and head of the American Family Association, pontificates about politics and society on the 185 radio stations that his group owns across 36 states. Wildmon has been leading a year-long boycott of Ford Motor Company because of its ads in gay magazines. Wildmon also asked Christian activists to withdraw their Evangelical Climate Initiative, which he, James Dobson, and Chuck Colson believed would threaten the Christian movement's core anti-gay marriage and anti-abortion agenda.

Posted by Becky at 11:29 AM |

April 18, 2007

Do We Really Need Religion?

Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe wrote a piece today entitled, "Why we need religion." And despite the fact that I wrote recently about the benefits of "mass illusions," in which I pointed out my concerns over the loss of a unifying belief system in American culture, I'm still having quite a difficult time with Jacoby's conclusion. He writes that atheists like Christopher Hitchens would find "unfathomable" the notion that Boston law enforcement officials would turn to ministers to pave the way in their efforts to reach out to residents of neighborhoods afflicted with crime. He says that religion is indispensable and only those who believe in God will, when it is most needed, reach into the gutters, stick their necks out, be allies of the police, exercise decency and loving-kindness, rise above themselves, love the unlovable, and exercise compassion.

Can ardent secularists, firm in their belief that there is no God to whom we must answer and no morality except that which human beings devise, be good and loving people? Sure they can. And yet when acts of charity and goodness are most needed, it isn't generally groups of New Atheists who are seen answering the call. Who is more likely to care for paupers dying in the streets of Calcutta? Secular humanist associations? Or Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity, who take God's word -- "Therefore love the stranger" -- as a binding obligation? When Boston's police need moral and trustworthy intermediaries, do they find them in an organization that campaigns against religion? Or in the Black Ministerial Alliance?

This is an argument that is made far too often without any sort of substantiation and simply accepted as true at face value. Yet it is not true. First, until recently, atheists were pretty much forced to stay in the closet, so how would one know whether they historically were more or less likely to be involved in community service? Second, as anyone who has ever been involved in volunteerism knows, many people in a community who are charitably involved are neither church-goers nor overtly religious, so it is not fair to assume that they believe in God. Third, religious organizations have fostered a culture of expectation of community service, both because they believe God wants them to engage in it and because it is excellent public relations that also happens to provide a tool for recruiting new members. We should not be surprised when members of any group exhibit volunteerism when it is something their group fully expects of them, and that is why many schools today are requiring volunteer work in order to graduate - the expectation is that these kids will become community-oriented adults.

Anyway, I found a wonderful essay by Dale McGowan entitled "Atheist Virtues" that specifically addresses atheism and charity. She points out that in fact people simply volunteer because, as part of a community, they want to help others and not because they believe God wants them to do it whether or not they are so inclined.

[A]s it turns out, 82% of volunteerism by churchgoers falls under the rubric of "church maintenance" activities -- volunteerism entirely within, and for the benefit of, the church building and community. As a result of this "siphoning" of volunteer energy for the care and feeding of churches themselves, most of the volunteering that happens out in the community -- from AIDS hospices to food shelves to international aid workers to those feeding the hungry and housing the homeless and caring for the elderly -- most of that comes from the category of "nonreligious" volunteers -- not all strictly atheists, of course, but the church monopoly on community service is clearly debunked.

McGowan also explains the faulty logic that is involved in accepting the notion that charity is necessarily inspired by Christian belief:

A fairly mainstream reading of the Christian worldview could easily endorse an entirely hands-off approach to charity. God is all-just, after all. He will provide for the needy -- and if not in this world, in the next. Yet Christians -- not all, of course, but many -- are out there doing for others as a direct and visible expression of their values. So much so, in fact, that the word "Christian" has found life as a synonym for "good," as in "He's such a Christian young man," or "Are you being Christian in your dealings with others?" …

Is the reverse true for atheists? Do we renounce an interest in the good? Not exactly -- we simply frame truth as a non-negotiable highest value.

Again, I'll suggest atheists should be better at living out certain values than Christians. We should be up to our elbows in charitable work, for example, since no one knows better than we do that WE ARE ALL WE HAVE. There is no safety net, no universal justice, no Great Caretaker, no afterlife reward. We have the full responsibility to create a just world and care for the less fortunate because there's no one else to do so. The answer to the question of how on Earth an atheist parent might instill values in his or her children is plain: the human moral mandate is, if anything, clearer in the atheist worldview than in the Christian.

I actually found several atheist groups that serve their communities by acting as an organizational tool for charitable community service. Such service included blood drives, roadside clean-up, and all the other usual community volunteer work. I dare anyone who believes that a belief in God is a prerequisite for compassion and loving-kindness to survey those who deliver meals on wheels, volunteer in soup kitches, participate in walk-a-thons, clean up beaches, etc. as to their beliefs. I will bet that the percentage of atheist volunteers is at least the same as the percentage of atheists in the community as a whole. Because I think people are just people, and their belief in God doesn't really change who they are. Some are good. Some are not. Join any church and after awhile you'll see what I mean.

Jacoby concludes his op-ed by saying a world without religion is an "evil" thing, as we've already seen in the visions of Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot. Pol Pot was an atheist, to be sure, and Stalin waged war on religion. But Hitler was a God-fearing Christian who actually denounced atheism. Granted, he eventually went off the rails so far it's hard to know exactly what he ultimately believed, but I don't think it's fair to use him as an example of what the world would be like without religion. And even in the case of Communism, it was not the lack of belief in God that caused the destruction. It was the desire to control and suppress others, including the forcing of non-belief on believers, that resulted in the evil that we so despise. We see those tendencies in human beings who believe in God just as often as in those who do not. And we see goodness and kindness in those who do not believe in God just as often as in those who do.

Posted by Becky at 02:12 PM |

Catholics on the Court

I'm not really clear on why so-called "partial birth abortion" is ever a necessary procedure and find it utterly repulsive and inhumane, but I can recognize when religion is intruding on a decision, and that is obviously the case in today's U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding a ban on the procedure. When all five Catholics – and only the five Catholics – on the Court vote in the same way on an issue like abortion, what else can you assume is going on? And when one of those, Justice Clarence Thomas, authors a concurring opinion in which he is joined by another Catholic, Justice Antonin Scalia, saying that Roe v. Wade "has no basis in the Constitution," you know something fishy is afoot, and it isn't about partial birth abortion as a specific procedure.

The Catholic influence on this decision is flat out unmistakable and I find myself inadvertently humming the tune, "Every Sperm is Sacred" from Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life." The Catholic reproduction skit is particularly relevant here:

I've got no option but to sell you all for scientific experiments. [The children protest with heart-rending pleas.] No no, that's the way it is my loves... Blame the Catholic church for not letting me wear one of those little rubber things... Oh they've done some wonderful things in their time, they preserved the might and majesty, even the mystery of the Church of Rome, the sanctity of the sacrament and the indivisible oneness of the Trinity, but if they'd let me wear one of the little rubber things on the end of my cock we wouldn't be in the mess we are now.

Interestingly, the Protestants and the Jew on the Court, who worship the same God, were not compelled to impose their theocratic views on the rest of us. With the religious right continually pressing for political domination in this country, we're very fortunate that that is the case.

Mr Blackitt: Look at them, bloody Catholics. Filling the bloody world up with bloody people they can't afford to bloody feed.

Mrs Blackitt: What are we dear?

Mr Blackitt: Protestant, and fiercely proud of it...

Mrs Blackitt: Why do they have so many children...?

Mr Blackitt: Because every time they have sexual intercourse they have to have a baby.

Mrs Blackitt: But it's the same with us, Harry.

Mr Blackitt: What d'you mean...?

Mrs Blackitt: Well I mean we've got two children and we've had sexual intercourse twice.

Mr Blackitt: That's not the point... We *could* have it any time we wanted.

Mrs Blackitt: Really?

Mr Blackitt: Oh yes. And, what's more, because we don't believe in all that Papist claptrap we can take precautions.

Mrs Blackitt: What, you mean lock the door...?

Mr Blackitt: No no, I mean, because we are members of the Protestant Reformed Church which successfully challenged the autocratic power of the Papacy in the mid-sixteenth century, we can wear little rubber devices to prevent issue.

Mrs Blackitt: What do you mean?

Mr Blackitt: I could, if I wanted, have sexual intercourse with you...

Mrs Blackitt: Oh, yes... Harry...

Mr Blackitt: And by wearing a rubber sheath over my old feller I could ensure that when I came off... you would not be impregnated.

Mrs Blackitt: Ooh!

Mr Blackitt: That's what being a Protestant's all about. That's why it's the church for me. That's why it's the church for anyone who respects the individual and the individual's right to decide for him or herself. … But they... [He points at the stream of children still pouring past the house.]... they cannot. Because their church never made the great leap out of the Middle Ages, and the domination of alien episcopal supremacy!

I have nothing against Catholics. It's just that I resent their efforts to drag us back into the Middle Ages with them.

Posted by Becky at 11:39 AM |

April 17, 2007

It's All About Community

Yesterday's massacre at Virginia Tech has a lot of people wondering how this happened and what we can do to prevent it in the future. Some blame "gun mania," the glorification of gore, and the pressure to succeed without asking for help. Some say it is part of a conspiracy by government operatives to convince Americans that now is the time for strict gun control – and the next step is a clamp down on the freedoms of unarmed Americans. And some say bad things just happen and sometimes you can't explain them. I have a very different opinion.

I think it is a symptom of the fact that too many of us feel we aren't, or don't have to be, part of a community. Whether we are loners or rugged individualists or ruthless entrepreneurs or, dare I say it, libertarians, for too many of us community is something we do not value or understand. It is there to serve us. We don't think about how the products or services we buy came to be or the people who brought them to us. We resent the taxes we pay that provide the infrastructure that we all use because we don't think about life without that infrastructure. We're too busy doing our own thing to take the time to volunteer to help the less fortunate and we don't appreciate those few dedicated souls who make personal sacrifices to care for the weak, the elderly, the sick, and the dying. Unless those problems affect us personally, they don't exist in our minds. The result of this massive disinvestment in community is that a few of us become so alone and so disconnected from others that the thought of taking others' lives is not the abhorrent, inconceivable thing it ought to be.

Think about it on a larger scale and you'll see what I mean. Spend a moment feeling your own pain and fear as an American whose security has been shaken a little bit by what happened yesterday. Now imagine the pain that is being experienced every day in Iraq. Yesterday, for example, 66 people died horrible, shocking deaths in Baghdad and Karbala. Did you know that? Twice as many people as died at Virginia Tech. And that sort of death is occurring in Iraq daily - in a country that never experienced suicide bombs before this war began.

We fear for our children and worry how the senseless school shootings affect them. But do we spend even five seconds thinking about the children in Iraq? Are they less human? Are they less important? According to yesterday's news report about the bombing in Baghdad, they are paying a terrible and inconceivable price:

State television aired footage from the scene, in which rescue workers could be seen evacuating casualties. The charred body of a child laid motionless on a stretcher. At least six children were among the dead, according to an official at Al-Hussein Hospital.

The deaths and physical injuries are just the beginning. We have school counselors to help our children deal with the stress of yesterday's attacks. But what do the Iraqi children have? USA Today reports that a study of primary school students in one Baghdad neighborhood found that 70% of them are suffering symptoms of trauma-related stress. These symptoms include bed-wetting and stuttering. Has the trauma of your child over the school shootings reached such a level? Do we suffer anything even remotely similar to what is occurring daily in Iraq?

Many Iraqi children have to pass dead bodies on the street as they walk to school in the morning, according to a separate report last week by the International Red Cross. Others have seen relatives killed or have been injured in mortar or bomb attacks.

"Some of these children are suffering one trauma after another, and it's severely damaging their development," said Said Al-Hashimi, a psychiatrist who teaches at Mustansiriya Medical School and runs a private clinic in west Baghdad. "We're not certain what will become of the next generation, even if there is peace one day," Al-Hashimi said.

Over the weekend, USA Today published another report on the traumatic effects of the war on Iraqi children. The paper told of a six-year-old boy who often will not eat and who refused to even leave his house for a year after permanently losing the use of one arm and suffering burns on both legs in a mortar shell attack. It told of a five-year-old boy who will no longer speak after having watched his father bleed to death in his home. One psychiatrist calls the traumatized Iraqi children "time bombs" and laments that few mental health care workers are available to help them.

We Americans are part of a much larger community – a world-wide human community that is increasingly interdependent. It astounds me that we can separate the violence in Iraq from the violence at Virginia Tech, that we can ignore or disregard the one and be outraged and terrified by the other. I believe that evil acts perpetrated on others are the direct result of an inability to empathize combined with self-absorption, disillusionment, and rage. What happened at Virginia Tech was likely the result of that lethal combination of personality problems in one person. What is happening in Iraq is the result of that lethal combination of personality problems in our entire country.

Taking people's guns away won't fix this problem. Blaming a secret government conspiracy won't fix it, either. The only real solution is to refocus ourselves and our children on building community through promoting volunteerism, respecting all people, paying attention to the needs of those around us and striving to meet them, and truly appreciating the contributions and gifts of every member of the community, both here and abroad.

Posted by Becky at 11:42 AM |

April 16, 2007

Feminized Fish, Boys with Breasts, and Mitt Romney

Those who think it doesn't really matter who sits in the Oval Office would do well to read this. The article is talking about the feminization of fish and enlarged breasts in young boys – and why those two things may well both be the result of chemicals found in detergents, cosmetics and other products that disrupt the endocrine system. The specific endocrine disruptors are called NPEs. Researchers suspect NPEs increase the risk of testicular, breast and ovarian cancers, and may cause early puberty in girls and underdeveloped genitals in some boys. NPEs have been banned in the European Union but not in the U.S., though the National Institutes of Health is advising doctors to look to cosmetics as the potential cause if they have patients experiencing these problems.

But what does that have to do with whomever we elect to serve as the next President?

The three main manufacturers of NPEs are Huntsman Corp., Dow Chemical and Rhodia (a French company). Huntsman Corp. is a chemical company located in Salt Lake City that produces about 90 million pounds of NPEs every year. Company executives, naturally, say the chemical is safe and they intend to continue to manufacture it. Huntsman Corp. is owned by Jon M. Huntsman Sr., a Mormon who is one of the top eight donors to Mitt Romney's political action committee – having given more than $100,000 to it. Huntsman is also the father of Utah's governor and a finance co-chairman of Romney's presidential exploratory committee. There's quite a personal relationship between Huntsman and Romney, too.

Huntsman said his late father-in-law, Elder David B. Haight, who was a member of the LDS Church's Quorum of the Twelve, grew up in Idaho with Romney's late father, former Michigan Gov. George Romney.

Romney's father and mother were family friends for half a century, Huntsman said. "They were almost like my own parents," he said, adding he was one of the earliest supporters of George Romney's brief presidential bid in 1972.

Huntsman said he and Romney became close after Romney took over the scandal-tainted 2002 Winter Games. As head of the Olympics, Huntsman said, Romney restored Utah's reputation around the world — including countries where the Huntsmans have plants.

"It meant a lot to me," Huntsman said, because until that turnaround, every time the Huntsmans made an investment overseas, the local press described Utah as the home of the Olympics scandal. "It really impacted our family's name and our family's corporation," he said.

Huntsman said he and some of his family contributed about $250,000 total to the political action committees organized on behalf of Romney before he created the political exploratory committee for a presidential race the first week of January.

Do you think a President Romney would help get rid of harmful chemicals being manufactured by someone like Huntsman? I really doubt it. You know, it kind of reminds me of the whole tobacco thing, the denials of harm and the massive political contributions to Republicans. And wouldn't you know it, Romney has a Big Tobacco connection, too. His former consulting firm had at least three contracts with Philip Morris. Later, when Romney was Governor of Massachusetts he refused to endorse efforts to ban smoking in workplaces and under his leadership, the state received an F grade in tobacco prevention and control spending in 2006 from the American Lung Association, which said the state was spending only a sixth of the amount needed and as a result, children were finding it far too easy to buy cigarettes.

I'd say his connection to Huntsman Chemical is far stronger than his connection to Philip Morris; therefore, I doubt he would be willing to do anything about NPEs. Just a little reminder of why campaign finance reporting is so important.

Posted by Becky at 02:48 PM |

Ooohhh... Romney is a CULTIST!!

(PK reader Spyder emailed this to the crew here.)

Frank Pastore writing at TownHall.com has his priorities straight and in full public view. At issue is the Mitt Romney candidacy for the presidency. Or rather the fact that Romney is a cultist.

Though I could vote for Romney, my ballot should not be seen as an endorsement of Mor-monism. Conservative Mormons are among the finest people I've ever met, and they are critical allies in the culture war. I appreciate their contribution to advancing our shared values. Yet as we make common cause, I should not be asked or feel pressured to compromise, weaken, or di-lute my theology. Allies need not obfuscate distinctives. We can unite politically and socially to advance our cause, but we must not blur the lines between our distinct religions.

Just as Christians and Jews, by definition, cannot ignore their differences over the resurrec-tion and the New Testament, so too Christians and Mormons cannot ignore the differences be-tween the Bible and the three books of Mormonism: the Book of Mormon, Doctrines and Cove-nants, and the Pearl of Great Price.

Yet many Mormons in recent years have taken to calling themselves Christians, and a grow-ing number of Christians are willing to speak of Mormonism as something akin to another Chris-tian denomination. But, Mormonism is not a Christian denomination, nor is it merely "a non-Christian religion." To be theologically precise, though perhaps politically incorrect, Mormonism is a cult of Christianity (www.apologeticsindex.org/c09a01.html) – a group that claims to Chris-tian while denying one or more central doctrines of the Christian faith.

What difference does it make if Mormonism is a cult if, as Pastore claims, he could vote for Romney? Either it matters or it doesn't.

What Pastore has done here is to very clearly spell out what is most important to the religious right and why they have stuck by morally and ethically challenged Republicans like Tom DeLay and our own Dubya.

Understand that all of the rhetoric about policy positions by this faction of the far right is just that... rhetoric. If you talk like they do and belong to the "correct" church then nothing else really matters.

Posted by Kevin at 12:56 PM |

Kulongoski v. Lakoff

Just read Lakoff & Budner's article on why progressive taxation is morally just at tompaine.com.

First thing that went through my mind when I started reading it was Governor Kulongoski's regressive taxation scheme for funding child healthcare.

The second thing that went through my mind was all of the self-described progressives who seem to approve of this particular regressive tax.

Posted by Kevin at 12:51 PM |

Why Rove Flopped in Portland

Karl Rove was in town to speak at a Republican fundraiser over the weekend, but despite all the hubbub and publicity leading up to the event, it turned out to be a bomb. Tickets cost only $60, but turnout was sparse and the group probably only raised in the neighborhood of $6,000. Thom Hartmann this morning reported that he counted a mere 109 people, not counting press and security guards. The Times reported that 150 showed up, along with a couple dozen protesters. The Oregonian was more generous, saying 200 attended and 50 stood outside protesting. But no matter how you count heads, it seems nobody wanted to pay to see Bush's Brain.

Some have expressed surprise that Rove came here at all, considering he is "probably the second most reviled member of the Bush Administration" (Vice President Cheney begin the first). But popularity doesn't seem to have ever hampered these guys' fundraising efforts before. For example, back in 2004 Cheney visited Portland and attracted 350 people at $1,000 a ticket. Last year, Rove spoke to a Texas crowd and managed to draw 300 people to an August event with ticket prices starting at $200 per person, raising a total of $250,000. He raised $60,000 at an event for the New Hampshire state GOP that month, as well. In fact, during the 18 months prior to and including those August fundraisers, Rove spoke at 70 events and raised $9.6 million, making him one of the leading GOP fundraisers. So what happened in Portland this weekend?

To hear Democrats talk about the Republican Party, you would think right-wingers would be flocking in droves to support their party, but Democrats would predict these things more accurately if they actually heeded their own stereotyping of Republicans. For many years now, I've been impressed by how impressed Democrats seem to be with the Republican Party's organizational machine – and by how little their awe is deserved. Democrats are far better organized at the grassroots level. Unlike Democrats, who have both wealthy contributors and masses of grassroots people who will turn out for an event if they can afford it, Republicans have big contributors and astroturf (fake grassroots) groups. Their real grassroots don't get involved (except for the Christians, which is why they are used by people like Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed, and Howard Rich). If you don't believe me, just look at what happens to turnout at Republican fundraising events when they are designed to attract ordinary people and the ticket prices are affordable.

Posted by Becky at 11:30 AM |

April 15, 2007

Sorcha Faal Tickles the Imagination

Reporter Sorcha Faal of Pravda, a Russian tabloid, is offering the theory that Don Imus was fired for threatening to reveal secrets about 9/11, not for making racist comments. I, for one, have been baffled why his thirty years of offensive comments suddenly now exploded in his face. The notion that we’ve finally just grown tired of it, that we’ve reached a tipping point, just doesn’t ring true. Surely, something else was at play here. Plus, as I’ve said here a number of times, I absolutely love a good conspiracy theory. So this one is just too good to ignore.

According to Faal, “US War Leaders” grew concerned when Imus told Tim Russert he would start revealing 9/11 secrets in retaliation for the government’s hiding of information from the public about soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s just so juicy a notion, you’re practically driven to lap it up.

[W]hile decrying the state of care being given to American War wounded [Imus] stated, "So those bastards want to keep these boys secret? Let's see how they like it if I start talking about their secrets, starting with 9/11."

Unable to attack such a powerful media figure as Don Imus, directly, the US War Leaders, and as we have seen many times before, resorted to a massive media attack against him using as the reason a racial slur against a US woman's basketball team, but which has been pointed out by other media outlets was not by any means a rare occurrence for the legendary radio icon to make.

But, to the US War Leaders, Don Imus represented the most serious threat, to date, of the growing assault against them by America's media personalities threatening to expose the truths behind the events of September 11, 2001 and the Iraq/Afghanistan Wars; and to such an extent that another American media personality, Rosie O'Donnell, has expressed concern that US Military Leaders could actually imprison Mr. Imus.

Sorcha Faal is herself an enigma, one that is probably far more interesting than her conspiracy theory about Don Imus’s firing. Little did I know when I decided to Google the name of the article’s author that I would be stepping into the world of the bizarre. She seems on the surface to be the imagined focus of some sort of Christian cult with a belief in prophecies of gloom and doom for the United States and Israel. In fact, the conspiracy theories surrounding her run so thick that a reasonable person quickly feels like a schmuck for having taken the slightest interest in anything she said in the first place – and wondering whether, indeed, she even exists or is merely a pseudonym for some whacked out nutcase or maybe someone with a perverse sense of humor.

Getting back to Imus’s supposed threat to start revealing secrets of 9/11, and being bored with the Sorcha Faal mystery, I next turned to seeing whether Imus really said it. He didn’t. Some other people had the unmitigated joy of re-listening to all his conversations with Russert and could not find where he said any such thing.

And what about the Rosie O’Donnell assessment that Imus was headed for prison? What she actually said is beyond me. Her blog posts are interesting, but I don’t see anything about Imus going off to Gitmo. Maybe she was just trying to say his firing represents a clamping down on free speech for everyone, and if so, I agree. If I may stray for a moment, it reminds me of the Cohen case, in which a man’s anti-war message (“Fuck the draft”) was ruled by the U.S. Supreme Court to be protected by the First Amendment because, the Court opined, “one man’s vulgarity is another’s lyric.”

So you may be wondering why I’m even writing this post. It’s because I just wanted to emphasize that lots of things we hear don’t make sense, but in searching for explanations we have to remember that people are out there who will make shit up for whatever reason. And too often, it isn’t anywhere near as easy to spot as this bit of nonsense was. It’s vulgarity, all these lies, but if you step back and look at them in a detached way, they really are a rather lyrical commentary on the human mind – a mind that loves the imaginary.

Posted by Becky at 04:14 PM |

April 13, 2007

Positive Changes Proposed for Initiative Process

House Bill 2082, which reforms Oregon's initiative process, is headed out of committee and ready for some serious debate by the Legislature and the public. If it is passed and signed by the Governor, it will certainly make it difficult for initiative campaigns utilizing paid petitioners to conduct business as usual, but having read the entire bill through and pondered a bit on it, I can only come up with one complaint and a lot of praise.

Let me say right up front that I don't know how Tim Trickey runs his petitioning business because he stepped into the scene after I had stepped out of it, but I do know a few things about how paid petitioning was done in the recent past (at least until Oregon voters ended payment by the signature). Petitioners could show up from out of state and hit the streets the same day with a fist full of petitions, knowing nothing about Oregon or the issues they were circulating. Their relationship with the Chief Petitioner could be very informal. Treated as independent contractors, they bore sole responsibility for paying taxes and they received no benefits. If they didn't pay their taxes, nobody followed up on it because nobody knew who they really were, where they really lived, or how many hours they really worked. If John Doe was being paid $1.50 for every signature and he could find ten other people willing to collect signatures for $1.00 each and give him their sheets to sign, he could do it and no one would be the wiser. If he just got out of prison for identity theft, nobody could stop him from gathering the signatures and addresses of thousands of Oregonians. Chief Petitioners could pay cash out as they saw fit with little, if any, record-keeping, make up out of whole cloth whatever they wanted to report to the Secretary of State, and nobody ever checked to see whether they were reporting factual information. Measure 36 put an end to some of the abuses, but not all. HB 2082 will really clamp down on the problem.

If the bill passes as written, paid petitioners will have to complete a training program and register with the Secretary of State before they will be allowed to collect a single paid signature. Registration will include providing a street address, list of petitions the individual will be circulating, photograph of the petitioner, sample signature of the petitioner, and criminal background information (those convicted for fraud, forgery or identity theft will not be allowed to collect paid signatures).

The one point on which I strongly disagree with this bill is that registration will also require submission of a statement, signed by a chief petitioner of each petition that individual will circulate, acknowledging that the chief petitioner is liable for violations of law or rule committed by the person collecting the signatures. I just don't see how that is fair unless it can be shown that the chief petitioner allowed or encouraged that behavior.

In any case, the petitioner will then receive some sort of identification showing that he or she is registered. That identification will include a photograph of the petitioner and must be carried whenever the person is gathering signatures. If the person collects signatures when they are not registered, all their signatures will be thrown out. And when it comes time to turn signatures in to the Secretary of State's office, the signatures will be sorted by petitioner, rather than by county.

These changes will make it much more difficult for initiative campaigns to attract the out-of-state petitioners because those individuals tend to want every day to count and will not be very willing to come to Oregon if they must spend several days passing a training course and obtaining registration identification before being allowed to begin work. They are already threatening not to work in Oregon because of the hourly pay requirement, as opposed to per-signature payment. Somehow I don't believe they will be missed all that much by most of us.

All around it seems the bill is making changes aimed directly at encouraging volunteer signature gathering. For example, signature sheets for volunteers will now be a different color from sheets circulated by paid petitioners. People signing a petition will be able to discern immediately whether the circulator is a volunteer. And sheets will now be available on the Internet for downloading and signing by anyone who supports the measure. A person won't have to go looking for someone carrying the petition. If they want to sign it, they can print it out themselves, sign it, and mail it in to the Chief Petitioner. This will be a great tool for legitimate grassroots groups. I can see the potential for someone to collect sufficient signatures without ever stepping foot on the street with a clipboard.

Of course, if the Chief Petitioner is actually just someone who has lent his or her name to the effort so as to obfuscate whose initiative it really is, that person will have to be willing to receive a heck of a lot of these individually signed petitions in the mail at his or her home.

The most sweeping change to the initiative process that this bill proposes is the record-keeping that will be required and the review of those records. Here are some changes that are long overdue. Detailed records will have to be kept pertaining to all contractors and subcontractors, employment or training manuals, payroll records that include hours worked, number of signatures collected and amounts paid (I would have given my left arm for such records when I was trying to do Sizemore's reports), payments made by the chief petitioner or contractor, and copies of all paid signature sheets. The records must be kept current to within 7 days at all times and be reviewed regularly by the Secretary of State. The Attorney General and Bureau of Labor and Industries may also inspect the records. All these records must also be kept for two years after the deadline for filing the signatures or the date the last statement of contributions and expenditures for the drive has been filed. If the records are not made available for inspection and review as required, then no more signatures may be collected on the initiative until they are made available.

The bill also increases the number of signatures needed to file a measure from 25 to 1,000. I think that is a fair compromise – any more would be problematic in the case that the Attorney General's office plays politics with a ballot title, thereby forcing a re-write (this does happen, heartfelt assertions to the contrary notwithstanding). This provision will prevent some of the whimsical filings by certain prolific writers (we all know who) who don't actually intend to pursue all those ideas, unless they happen to get a surprisingly uncontested and awesome ballot title, as occurred with what became Measure 7 back in 2000.

Another change would be to allow minor, unsubstantial changes to the wording of the measure without having to re-collect the 1000 signatures, so long as the deadline for written comments has not passed. This will allow for things like spelling, punctuation, and grammar changes, fixing legalese, or whatever other minor changes the Attorney General agrees will not "substantially change the substance of the measure." I'm a bit concerned about the level of discretion there, but not being an attorney I can't say whether it's legally permissible or not.

Finally, the wording of the affidavit on the petition has been changed so that the circulator signs a statement that he or she actually witnessed the signing of the petition, rather than that the petition was merely signed in his or her presence. This will prevent some of the carelessness that has occurred in the past with signature sheets being left out on counters or tables to be signed.

If the Legislature will dump the liability of the Chief Petitioner for whatever a signature gatherer does while out gathering signatures, then I can give my full support to this bill. I think it will make a very big difference in the process, making it far more difficult to continue with the sort of unscrupulous petitioning practices by some in the business while avoiding killing the process for everyone else. I'm pleasantly surprised by it and congratulate the committee for coming up with some substantive changes that will really make a positive difference.

Posted by Becky at 04:18 PM |

The Benefits of Mass Illusion

I think probably the primary reason I am so interested in both religion and politics is that both involve belief systems that are so fervent that people are readily willing to toss aside facts and reason if either challenges their belief system. I personally have never believed in anything so much that my belief was impervious to fact and reason. I've certainly been stubborn enough that it took some time to break through, but a break-through has always been possible. So I am fascinated with the mindset that would lead someone to remain loyal to a belief system - an illusion - no matter what logic and evidence tell them.

I think it was out of fear of people who think like I do that the Bible was infused with repeated admonitions to set aside one's own wisdom and trust in scripture, as well as predictions of wiley deceptions on the part of the Devil. Such admonitions are common in most religions, serving to prevent people from straying from the shared illusion, and thereby helping retain the cohesiveness and strength of the group.

Right now, American society is going through a fundamental cultural shift based on factual challenges to its traditional belief systems, both political and religious. The shift is creating a good deal of discomfort because we are less and less culturally unified. People who are traditionalists are doing their best to scare people back into the fold and prevent others from straying out of it. To be more blunt, in response to science and massive communication, the world is steadily letting go of its mass illusions, and political and religious traditions are increasingly feeling out of sync with the cultures where they are based.

At the same time, others who perceive the momentum is building behind a cultural shift are working to find a way to moderate their belief systems so as not to lose them entirely. This, in my opinion, is where we get the more progressive approach to Christianity. Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong is, in my opinion, one of those who is helping preserve the Christian tradition in a time of massive cultural changes by carving off the fundamentalist edges and making it more of a malleable belief system. He says he is embarrassed by religion in America today and says that "If that's what Christianity is all about, then I'm not really interested in that."

I don't have any objection to people making their theories, but when somebody says, 'This is the only way you can be a Christian,' that this is what the resurrection means and there is no other possibility, I think that becomes not only ill-informed, but biblically arrogant. And that's what fundamentalism always comes down to being, that we have the only truth.

Of course, this perspective is heretical and frightening to the fundamentalist. Religious and political beliefs have a lot to do with security. Some people just feel better if they think they have it all figured out. Change and uncertainty are feared. In the past, these fundamentalists had an easier time blending in with society at large. But America's modern mobility and pervasive, rapid technological advances have created a huge cultural shift among the younger generation, who, unlike their parents, embrace change and are stimulated by the possibilities in the face of uncertainty. So religion that teaches there are many approaches to God, or that we can't totally figure God out, or that each of us must find our own spiritual path are growing in popularity with the young, while fundamentalism is increasingly out of step with the culture.

This cultural change seems to be occurring on a worldwide basis. One of many examples of this is a new poll in Ireland that finds that 82% of parents will allow their children to choose their own religion. Thirty years ago, only 7% of Irish parents said they would not force their children to join the Catholic Church. If these people fervently believed in their religion, they would raise their children to believe it, too. After all, who wants their children to burn in Hell? But with knowledge has come a loss of blind, fervent belief - and with it, a loss of a unifying element of culture.

People are right to be concerned when the culture lacks a core set of beliefs, no matter how delusional they may be. I myself am very concerned about the damage to our national unity as a result of President Bush's having pushed credulity so far with regards to our self-