“God is dead … and we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us?” Friedrich Nietzsche… Read full post »

Does your legislator kill babies? For decades, conservatives have denied prenatal care to poor women; as a consequence, millions of babies have died or been born with debilitating birth defects.

Now these conservatives are about to perform another abortion. By clinging to their hypocritical… Read full post »

The massacre at Fort Hood, like the massacre at Virginia Tech, has left many people dumb-founded. It was shocking when it happened on a college campus, but it is almost beyond belief that it could happen on a well-guarded military base. This tragedy reminds yet again that there is no… Read full post »

Macho men are monsters, a very fickle breed
Prone to primal urges and to infantile needs
Elemental egos, a medieval mind to match
Desperate for attention and a woman’s cloying …

Snatching up a woman for a momentary fling
Insinuating succor – but providing only sting
In case of impreg… Read full post »

 "Mr. President,

Would you allow me to show my concern for your well-earned prestigious reputation and to point out that your star, which until now has shown so brightly, risks being dimmed by the most shameful and indelible of stains?

 Unscathed by vile slander, you have won… Read full post »

Not so long ago, miners carried a canary with them into the mines; if it died from toxic fumes, they knew it was time to get out. That same sad practice continues, only the canaries are the 50,000 or so people who die every year in the black holes of the… Read full post »

In my previous post Revolt of the Pitbulls, I lamented the decline and possible fall of the Republican Party. Having invited in a Trojan horse filled with religious warriors on the Rabid Right who would rather commit seppuku than compromise on core values, the Republican Party seems headed for politi… Read full post »

Alas, Republicans have become like one of their favorite whipping boys, the French – they lost their own revolution. Not so long ago, they broadened the party to include even Reagan Democrats. But it wasn’t inviting people to the left that caused Republican woes; it was selling-o… Read full post »

In previous lamentations in this outpost of semi-literacy and semi-civility, I coined a few terms I felt were essential to an understanding of the changing nature of life in the 21^st Century, a time when political skullduggery and financial thievery has devolved to depths not witnessed since the gild… Read full post »

Raquel Welch and Rush Limbaugh – it's a love story, but it's certainly not one made in heaven. They're in love, all right, but only with themselves – though in Rush's case the line between self-love and self-loathing may be a bit blurry.

But to hear them tell it,… Read full post »

I wasted a trip to the post office today, and all the way home I fumed as I do every Columbus Day. Why do we celebrate Columbus Day?

I suppose it was originally a sop to Italian-Americans. But if I were an Italian-American, I’d be insulted. Why not Leonardo da… Read full post »

In my post Connecting the Dots, I lamented the fact that so many fail to see the connection between evils like banketeering and insuragency. No, those aren’t misspellings; racketeering by bankers and terrorism by insurers are the result of one and the same thing: greed.

In his post Notes… Read full post »

I seldom pass along chain-mails, but this one I couldn’t resist. It purports to be an interview with a Chinese doctor about nutrition and exercise:

Q: Does cardiovascular exercise prolong life?

A: No, only seem longer. Heart only good for so many beats,… Read full post »

One reason government of the people, by the people and for the people is perishing from this earth is the people's failure to connect the dots. As Aristotle pointed out, connecting the dots is more art than science, but it is rapidly becoming a lost art.… Read full post »

The face of Thomas Jefferson must have been filled with a kind of ecstatic joy as he sat at his desk, quill in hand, writing the words that declared a people free from a dictatorial system that robbed them of their rights and their wealth. Would that he was with us… Read full post »

The debate – some would say debacle – in the Senate Finance Committee over including a public option as part of healthcare reform seems to confirm the old adage that sheep in Montana have more representation than people in California.

Polls consistently show a substantial majority of Ame… Read full post »

Apparently, The Sixties were harder on crooner Andy Williams than anyone realized. The singer may have appeared mellow on the outside, but he appears to have suffered some sort of permanent psychological damage when his former wife Claudine Longet deserted him for skier Spider Sabich.

Wha… Read full post »

King Liar, played by Max Buttkiss

An incompetent usurper who sells out his subjects but is so fearful of having his perfidy exposed he mutters in an all but unintelligible mumble in which every other word seems to be missing

Cornass, played by Gnarls Crassley… Read full post »

Recently, several seemingly intelligent people have attempted to explain away the great and growing gap between the haves and have-nots in this country, and the disconnect between that gap and the claim that America is the most Christian of nations, by resorting to the Prosperity Gospel, a corruption… Read full post »

Some people say they’re sick and tired of talk about healthcare reform. Too bad – because that’s exactly what those with very vested interests in the outcome are counting on – the pitiful attention span of a majority of the American public.

Too busy watching Desperate Hous… Read full post »

I just lost a dear friend, a man who meant a lot to me over the last ten years. That may not seem like such a long time, but we had the kind of friendship that forms at first meeting, a platonic love at first sight that grows quickly as both… Read full post »

Talk in Washington these days has turned from reforming healthcare to regulating the insurance industry. But after Enron, AIG, Bernie Madoff, et al, people can be forgiven for being skeptical about regulation.

Some argue our present woes were caused by regulators who didn’t believe in r… Read full post »

Okay, it’s official  I’m pissed. Many here, including Cap’n Parrotdead and some well-intended commenters on his post, say they’re tired of all the whining about healthcare reform. Channeling Spiro T. Agnew, the good Cap'n called those of us who continue to speak… Read full post »

It is written that a prophet is least honored in his own country. Even Jesus was run out of his hometown – so why is a fool like me prophesizing on a blog like this? Simple – it is also written that fools rush in where angels fear to tread.… Read full post »

In his recent address, President Obama delivered his position on healthcare reform and the controversy surrounding it in the strongest terms yet. He chided the children among us, the so-called adults fearful of all that is new – even when it is necessary and in their best interest &ndas… Read full post »