In the 19th Century pot was legal and showing your knees was not. Right now I’m sitting in a crowded restaurant and its a fairly cool day outside. I can see two pairs of naked knees from where I sit. How many have marijuana concealed somewhere in a purse or pocket?… Read full post »

This is the first of a series on marijuana prohibition.

I don’t use any recreational drug nor do I ever intend to. My ideas are fairly radical in that I think all recreational drugs should be legal. I think the highly addictive drugs should be restricted to behind the… Read full post »

Trayvon Martin was dead for 46 days before the man who shot him stood in front of a judge. It was 46 days too long.

George Zimmerman may get off. He may actually be innocent—well, of premeditated murder, anyway.

To my unsophisticated, untrained ears, the 911 call… Read full post »

  This week David Boaz had a post on the Cato @ Liberty blog objecting to Obama’s use of the label “social Darwinist.”

Boaz said:

Is “social Darwinist” within some bound of propriety that “socialist” violates? I don’t think so. After a… Read full post »

I wore my hoodie this morning. It's not black. It's sort of a girlie shade of purple. Trayvon Martin was on my mind.

Generally, the story is this. Trayvon Martin was a 17-year-old black kid who walked to a convenience store for snacks after dark. George Zimmerman is a neighborhood watch… Read full post »

Rush Limbaugh thinks birth control pills work like the Viagra with which he is so familiar. LOL.

And he's now lost around 140 advertisers including IBM and Visa. They are running PSAs during his show. Word is, he'll end up on satellite radio with some other irrelevant scumbags.

This made my… Read full post »

The Koch brothers are trying to take over the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

If you are a wonk who follows politics like they are daytime soap operas you will respond:

[If liberal] “What? Those fascist pigs! They think they can own everything!”

[If cons… Read full post »

Word came down this week that credit card companies have pressured Paypal to stop processing payments for anything that depicts rape, incest or bestiality. Most erotica will brush by these topics in the course of any ordinary story. Many non-erotica books also depict these topics (a scholar… Read full post »

Andrew Breitbart died suddenly and unexpectedly last Thursday, probably of a heart attack. His fans are certain Obama is to blame. All the evil in the world flows from Obama outward.

I hesitate to say Breitbart was a journalist. I'm sure he thought of himself as one. His Wikipedia page refers/… Read full post »

This evening I'm officiating at a wedding.

This month, two more states legalized gay marriage and a federal judge ruled that the Federal Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional, virtually guaranteeing that the issue will end up before the Supreme court. It is a no-brainer that DOMA is/… Read full post »

MSNBC is shocked, shocked to discover that Pat Buchanan is a racist, rightwing, Nazi-loving asshole.

I know, who saw that coming?

In 1977 he wrote: "Those of us in childhood during the war years were introduced to Hitler only as a caricature…Though Hitler was indeed racist and anti-S… Read full post »

Even people who have a scientific turn of mind are often disappointed with the Theory of Evolution. It’s very blunt and plain. It has no frills. It has no emotional lift for the soul. Ursula Goodenough once wrote in The Sacred Depths of Nature: “The Scientific version of… Read full post »

This week Romney was trying to make an innocuous, pedestrian and clichéd point that he cared the most about the middle class. To clarify that point he said that he didn’t worry about the rich because, well, duh, and he didn’t care about the poor because they had… Read full post »

For the vast majority of human history, people have been embedded in small tribes. Only in the brief last five minutes of that history have we found ourselves in groups of millions of people. It's a problem, psychologically.

As I write this I am surrounded by about… Read full post »

Nanowrimo is a wonderful thing. It's a great personal challenge. You write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days in the month of November. If you have always wanted to write a novel and you never have, it's perfect. Challenge yourself to write 1700 words a day, every day for a/… Read full post »

What I wanted to write about this time is the conflicting streams of authoritarianism and anti-authoritarianism that flow through the GOP today.

Recently, Chris Matthews talked about the GOP being “junk laden” by the southern segregationists, religious conservatives and the neoc/… Read full post »

I was surprised at how bored the kids were with the Wizard of Oz.  It's a children's movie. They are the correct demographic for it. Music, singing, magic, witches, animal costumes, 100 little people...what's not to like? It had been a lot of years since I had seen… Read full post »

There is an interesting post over at the NYT from a few days ago called  "Good Minus God" by Louise M. Antony.

She says:

"I gather that many people believe that atheism implies nihilism — that rejecting God means rejecting morality.  A person who denies God, they reason,… Read full post »

Andrew Sullivan has some of the smartest readers in the world. (I should know, I'm one of them!) He has a series of blog posts talking about intellectual property laws and how the world is changing in that respect. One of his readers said this:

This assumption

… Read full post »

Because of the blizzard of self-published ebooks priced at .99, someone asked me how you find treasure amid the trash.

I approach a .99 book the same as any other, look at the cover, the blurb, read the sample. The cover MUST be somewhat professional looking… Read full post »

I once wrote most of a novel based on the speculation about what would happen if someone from another century had access to modern technology? What would the Mongol Hordes have been like if they’d been equipped with Uzis instead of bows and arrows? Think what Genghis… Read full post »

And I'm probably lying.

 I don't really have the personality to write a "real" blog where you get wonderful inspiration, tips, life hacks, and 10 Ways to Save Your Relationship.

But I like to talk and be friendly. I can do those things. I have avatars and personnas around… Read full post »