It’s been difficult to watch fetal rights trump women’s rights in the abortion debate.  Back in the day, there were chants of “my body, my choice.”  Now, we argue at which month the fetus has the right to destroy a woman’s health, sanity, family, and even her l… Read full post »

Indeed, it's not just the Kansas and DC shootings. Richard Poplawski, a right-wing extremist and white guy, allegedly gunned down three police officers in Pittsburgh in April, in part because he feared the non-existent "Obama gun ban." Jim David Adkisson, a right-wing extremist and white guy, alleged… Read full post »

Martin Luther King was a great man who led one of the defining movements of the 20^th century—for America, and by example, for the world.  However, I believe he was fundamentally wrong in the conclusions to which his Christian moralist background led him throughout most of his crusade. … Read full post »

 God’s Trombones

– From Just Titty-Boom, or A Memory of Fictions

Los Angeles - 1983

             When some hotel tycoon bought the TV network for which 24 year-old Jessie Grandier worked, layoff rumors flew.  The/… Read full post »

 Barack Obama on his invitation to Rick Warren to provide the invocation at his inaugural:  What we have to do is create an atmosphere where we can disagree without being disagreeable, and then focus on those things that we hold in common as Americans.

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Rick Warren: But the… Read full post »

In his column on the overwhelming black vote (black female vote in particular) in favor of California’s Proposition 8, the New York Times’ Charles Blow noted two main trends: a particularly irrational form of religiosity; and black, female self-pity and resentment. … Read full post »

American governance got stuck somewhere mid-20^th century.  It ambled along, hit a bog and kept on marching, lifting one leg high in a plucky arm-swinging gate and planting the next.  We felt the heart’s determined thump, saw the mud splashing madly and never realized that, collectivel… Read full post »

President Obama.  God that sounds weird.  I certainly never thought I’d hear the like in my day.  I had written that I was deeply worried about Obama’s chances of winning against a half-sane white Republican in a general election.  Luckily, the Republicans didn’t… Read full post »

What can one say?   John McCain has chosen the Far North’s Betty Boop as his running mate.  A 72 year-old cancer survivor who has refused any but the most perfunctory look at his health records has chosen as the leader of the free world should he succumb in his first term,… Read full post »

Before: Oh God.  An hour and a half of this.  I’d rather claw my own eyes out with spork.  I know who I’m voting for. If John McCain saved six black babies from drowning tomorrow, I wouldn’t vote for him.  I’m already pissed.  PBS’s Ray Suarez ju… Read full post »

Andrew Sullivan, squawking the name “Milton Friedman” as if it magically disappeared the ridiculous, sat on Bill Maher’s show blaming the financial crisis on American consumers who bought houses they couldn’t afford.  He was arguing against Naomi Klein’s thesis that… Read full post »

Why isn’t the Obama camp attacking Republicans for crying “sexism”  and Palin for playing the victim?  Why isn’t every Dem surrogate out there mocking Palin and her defenders with the same condescension with which Republicans and Obama surrogates mocked Hillary Clint… Read full post »

Fifty percent of this year’s Republican playbook is typically divisive Rove Culture Wars.  The other fifty percent is all about racial signs and symbols. Georgia GOP Congressan Lynn Westmoreland finally came right out and called Obama “uppity,” kindly leaving the inevitable to… Read full post »

At some point, Barack Obama had to decide if he wanted to be President, or a prophet; if he wanted to lead a government, or a Movement.   In the primary, the whole "Movement" schtick worked.  He was the insurgent, he had an front-running opponent he could vilify, and the issue (Iraq)… Read full post »

Three years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita battered the homes of hundreds thousands of Louisianans, too many residents are still unable to afford to rebuild their homes or find an affordable place to rent, according to a new housing report by the national research and advocacy group… Read full post »

After a couple of slave rebellions in the early 19th century, American Christianity shifted irrevocably from a catalyst for slave liberation, to an additional shackle securing black men in bondage to white ones.  After the Vesey and Prosser rebellions, whites largely oversaw slave worship to ens… Read full post »

My father was a career military officer, so pardon me if I don’t genuflect at self-important, self-serving mentions of our “brave men and women in uniform,” too often invoked by those who never served, or never knew anyone who did, or who fought like hell and worked every angle not… Read full post »