Do Other Countries Allow Gays to Serve Openly in the Military?

There are other countries in the world besides the United States who have dealt with the issue of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people serving in the military. Let's take a look at them.

Israel allowed LGBT to serve openly in 1993. The Israeli intelligence service has the highest number of LGBT. May explain why their intelligence service is better than ours.

Australia since 1992.

Canada since 1992.

British Navy since 1999. The British Army incrementally in the last 10 years.

Republic of China since 2002.

Denmark since 1981. This is not a surprise, is it?

France since 2000.

Germany since 2000.

Ireland since 1993. Yes, Catholic Ireland.

Netherlands since 1974, the first.

New Zealand since 1993.

Norway since 1979.

Alphabetically, the following countries also allow LGBT to serve openly: Albania, Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Colombia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Peru, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and of course, Uruguay.

India, the world's largest democracy decriminalized homosexuality in 2009. Ancient Indian culture was tolerant toward homosexuality - modern India, not so much.

Communist China has a policy of no approval, no disapproval, no promotion. 'Let's not talk about it and it's not a problem' seems to be the approach. A lot like 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.'

That's great, the country the U.S. policy resembles most closely is Communist China. Wonderful.

What about North Korea, Iran and Libya? These countries are evil, right?

We don't know what the policy is in North Korea. Since the revolution in Iran in 1979 the government has been hostile to LGBT rights. Homosexuality is illegal in Libya.

May have missed some countries, but this quick survey shows that other countries have dealt with the same issues we have been wringing our hands over the past few years. We don't need to be xenophobic about this.

We can ask other countries for advice on how they have handled the issue and how it's working out for them.

This reminds me somewhat of the furor over Virginia Military Institute's refusal to admit women.

In 1996, VMI was forced by the Supreme Court to admit women. Virginia Tech allowed women in the Corps of Cadets in 1973 and fully integrated women into the Corps by 1979.

As a Hokie alum, it made me proud when the Virginia Tech Corps volunteered to help VMI integrate, to show them how it could be done and done well.

I'm still waiting for our government to come to its senses. I'd much rather have us be like Israel than like Libya. Like Canada instead of Iran. Someday, maybe.

In America, we should heed the words of noted conservative Barry Goldwater, Sr., who famously said "You don't need to be straight to shoot straight."

Wading into the Family Gene Pool

My sister and I recently participated in the National Geographic Genographic Project.

The Genographic Project is primarily interested in human migration patterns. It is not an ethnic test. I understand there are DNA testing groups that can determine ethnicity. My sister has done enough research of our family's genealogy to have a good picture of our ethnic makeup, we were interested in where our ancient ancestors came from.

Genetic research is a relatively new field. Most genetic studies date from 2004 to the present. I have learned about haplogroups, subclades, alleles and short tandem repeats. Because the research is so new, much of the terminology is still in flux. But it makes for fascinating study.

My sister Cathy knows from her research that our father's family is from southern England and our mother's family is from Ireland. The question was, how did they get there?

Cathy had her DNA tested for MtDNA (mother's line) and I tested for the Y chromosome (father's line).

The results were surprising. All women can trace MtDNA to a woman (called Eve) in East Africa 150,000 years ago. MtDNA is mitochondria DNA, passed down from mother to daughter untouched by fertilization.

All men trace their Y chromosome to a man (called Adam) living in East Africa 60,000 years ago. The Y chromosome is passed untouched from father to son. Over time, human DNA has mutated and different groups have mutated differently. These mutations, called genetic markers, can be used to trace human migration patterns.

My father's group left Africa around 45,000 years ago and headed for the Middle East. They were part of the second wave of migration out of Africa. When drought hit Africa 40,000 years ago, my ancestors headed for the steppes of central Asia. The next marker is found in an ancestor in Iran, whose descendants in the next 30,000 years populated most of the planet.

Our ancestors moved to southern Siberia 35,000 years ago to a region where no other hominid species are known to have lived. This explains why my family thinks Minnesota winters are mild.

The first human migration into Europe began 30,000 years ago. My ancestors stuck around in northern France and northern Spain during the last Ice Age (12,000 years ago) and were the first to repopulate southern England.

Ninety percent of the people in Wales and eighty percent of those in Devon/Cornwall have the same genetic markers as my father. Basically, we found out my father's folks were Celts.

My mother's folks were the first group to leave Africa (Cathy says they got kicked out). They wound up in northwest Siberia as a rare subgroup that then moved into Scandinavia. They must have liked cold weather, too.

Cathy's question was 'how did they get into Ireland?'

We don't know that answer. There is this small gap from 1800 CE to 6,000 BCE that we need to fill in.

I also have an unanswered question. If Eve lived 150,000 years ago and Adam lived 60,000 years ago, what did Eve do for 90,000 years?

Extra! Read All About It! Tax Cuts For the Rich! Jobless Benefits for Everyone Else!

Was there ever any doubt that the wealthiest Americans would get their tax cuts extended? Did anybody really believe Obama and the Democrats when they demagogued about making the wealthiest pay their fair share?

Obama is an Ivy League lawyer. Did you really expect him to give rat's patootie about the working class?

Extending jobless benefits is the trade off in a compromise to give the wealthiest people in this country what they were going to get anyway.

Are you kidding me? Jobless benefits is the best you can do?

HOW ABOUT GIVING AMERICANS JOBS!

If the best the Democratic Party can do for the working class is extend jobless benefits, they need to go to timeout and not come back until they develop vertebrae.

We expect the Republican Party to favor the rich, they always have. The 'Compassionate Conservatism' Republicans trotted out a few years ago was ... well what was it ... I can't remember? Got lost somewhere in that latest surge of layoffs and disappearing retirement accounts.

The richest people in this country have been telling us since 1980 that the American economy is dependent upon their tax cuts. How's that working out? Trickle-down economics it has been called. How's the trickle? I guess the trickle is not having a job but getting paid about half of a what a lousy job is worth.

The American working class good - good, decent people who work hard all day every day - have found it harder and harder to provide adequate shelter, insurance, and education for their families.

Would an American family rather earn $60,000 and pay $15,000 in taxes or earn $25,000 and pay no taxes?

Lost in this heated debate over extending tax cuts is the sobering reality that nobody in our government is interested in fiscal responsibility. Extensive tax cuts HAVE NOT helped the American economy. It has helped the richest Americans. And helping the richest Americans is all our government cares about.

We are broke as a nation because we are fighting two wars. The last country I know of to fight two wars at the same time was Germany. How did that work out for them?

Tax cuts in the middle of wartime? Where is the money coming from to pay for fighting these wars?

There are so many things broken in the American economy it may not be capable of being fixed. Our national security depends upon being fiscally solvent. When foreign countries own our debt, they own us. The Saudis and the Chinese own our country, they own our future.

Wasting Time Waiting in Line - A Wonderful American Tradition

I have spent the last two days trying to get our son's car registered with the Motor Vehicle commission. In New Jersey, the second most corrupt state in the country (we try harder), the MVC has a Byzantine reputation.

Scandals involving MVC employees running a black market in fake driver licenses and horrific delays cause every governor to promise reform. It gets a little better for awhile, then plummets back into darkness between campaigns.

Somewhere, the concept of public service got lost. MVC employees are imperious, autocratic, tyrannical and thoroughly unpleasant. Marge Simpson's sisters are everywhere, lurking behind every window, telling you after a three-hour wait you are in the wrong line or don't have the right form.

This is odd, because the first thing you do upon entering is wait in line to talk to the employee at the information desk to find out what you need. It's either a conspiracy to annoy you or the MVC employees are inept beyond belief.

Rich people do not wait in line at the MVC. They have people do it for them, usually car dealers. Car dealers have their own line and it always moves the fastest. It reminded me of the latest scandal involving sexual groping at airports. Rich people don't go through security. They have their own private jets that leave from their own private airports.

It's only us poor folk who have to wait in line all day. The line was so long the first day that it wound around the parking lot outside for an hour or two. The good thing was it didn't rain, the bad thing was a lot of people were smoking.

Second day, the good thing was nobody smoked outside and the bad thing was it rained. It rained so hard and the wind was so strong umbrellas were useless. I had stashed the necessary paperwork in a plastic bag, anticipating the rain.

But it didn't do me any good. When I finally got to see a clerk, I was told I needed an additional form. I asked, as politely as I could, why I was not told about the additional form the previous day.

The clerk explained that somebody should have told me. She then spent another fifteen minutes trying to find the employee who gave me the incorrect information. When this employee was found (why it was necessary to do so is beyond me) she insisted it was my fault.

I felt like doing a John Cleese Basil Fawlty impersonation, but I was convinced in this climate I would get arrested.

I tried, again politely, to explain that I was highly motivated the day before to find out exactly what I had to do so I wouldn't have to come back a third time. The MVC employee then admitted she may have made a mistake. But it was my fault for not explaining my situation better.

I needed a license plate for my son's car, for crying out loud! It's not that complicated. At this point, I stopped being polite. I have learned the hard way that if you are polite in Jersey, people view it as a sign of weakness and they either ignore you or try and take advantage of you.

My paperwork got initialed and I was told I wouldn't have to wait outside in line when I came back. I told them that's what I was told the day before. I left the MVC convinced that the human race is not capable of competence.

Everywhere we turn, government, business, the military, Wall Street, there is incompetence and mediocrity. The latest leaks about our government in action are not flattering.

What has happened to our once proud, industrious nation? Maybe we're not a democracy anymore, maybe the comedy film "Idiocracy' got it right. Have we have degenerated into a country of citizens that allow torture of prisoners and sexual molestation in airports?

Maybe we don't deserve the bald eagle as a national emblem. Sheep is more fitting. Everybody say "baaa."

Enjoy the Movie All Ye Muggles!

Some of my best friends are Harry Potter fans. I'm too much of a misanthrope and sociopath to be a fan of anything. I refused to see Star Wars for years and enjoy poking fun at Star Trek.

That being said, I have read all seven Harry Potter books. Not because I'm a fan, but because I pretty much read every thing I can get my hands on.

I'm fascinated that Rowling had a vision of how the series was to end before she started writing. I had to read the last few chapters several times to fully appreciate how well this vision unfurled. It was stunning.

Some critics are bashing the latest movie, saying it made a lot of wrong choices and will only please hard-core muggles. If it only pleases fans, then it should be a success. Last time I checked, there were A LOT of Harry Potter fans. Seems like the smart thing to do.

I won't be joining you at the premiere , my muggle friends. I won't get dressed up as my favorite character and wait in line for hours. But I'm glad you all are. Movies are fun. Good movies are great fun. Enjoy the movie, enjoy each other. Have a great time rehashing the movie with your friends.

I'm looking forward to reading your reviews and impressions. I have a niece who is in China now in a student exchange program who is a huge fan. I hope she gets to see the movie.

Me, I'll catch it on Netflix in a couple of years. Maybe.

Why I'm Not a Conspiracy Theorist

In the mid-90s my brother-in-law gave me a box of books containing his 'conspiracy collection.' I read through most of them. They were about aliens, UFOs, government cover-ups and international conspiracies.
From my perspective, most of these theories don't work because their assumption that world leaders are involved is flawed. Namely, that in order for these theories to work, the people carrying them out have to be intelligent. Extremely intelligent.
My observation is that in the upper echelons of government throughout the world, this is not the case. Rather the opposite seem to be true, the leaders of this world are incredibly stupid and are not capable of running their own countries or companies capably. To affix to these inbred, elitist morons the ability to conceive and implement detailed complex plans appears to be far-fetched.
It is for this reason, the obvious stupidity of our leaders, that conspiracy theories inevitably turn to aliens as the source of this complex, intelligent, patient planning. There is an obvious explanation for the Pyramids, Baalbek, Stonehenge and other ancient structures that defy modern description.
Mark Twain said something to the effect that he didn't believe in evolution because from what he observed, humanity was getting worse. This is probably the key. Humanity has devolved over the centuries, not evolved.
As a species, we've never been very bright. Over the centuries we have gotten more arrogant but less intelligent. People point to technological progress and say "we have better TVs, that is proof we have progressed."
Really?
What do we watch on our better TVs? If American Idol and Desperate Housewives are proof of an advanced culture then we are indeed desperate.
Here's proof how stupid we are. Our water supply is rapidly being contaminated. Our air supply is rapidly being contaminated. Our food supply is (repeat as often as necessary).
I used to work for the West Virginia Department of Agriculture. My boss, the Commissioner of Agriculture Cleve Benedict, made apple growers stop using pesticides, made bug killers stop poring poisons into the groundwater, updated meat and dairy standards, and closed restaurants that sold soft ice cream with high bacteria levels. Benedict angered so many leaders in the agricultural community that he had no chance being re-elected commissioner and ran for governor instead. He lost.
I bring this up because Benedict is an anomaly. He is from the upper echelons. His mother was a Proctor (as in Proctor and Gamble) and he attended an Ivy League school (Princeton). He cared about the environment and was rewarded with early retirement.
One thing conspiracy theorists are spot on about is that governments continually lie and engage in cover ups.
But I would suggest government leaders do so to avoid being held responsible for mucking things up.
One more bit of evidence. During the government's disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina, we had a president tell the leader of FEMA that he was doing 'a heck of a job.' This only makes sense in light of the fact that our leaders are so incompetent they really have no clue as to what a 'good job' is.

It's Official - Our Government is Moronic

The color codes for security alerts introduced by the previous administration were bad enough. They exhibited kindergarten-level intelligence, but at least they were colorful.
The latest security procedures introduced by the current administration have made it official what many people have been saying for years. Our government leaders are morons. The inbred elites that have been running this country (into the ground) for the last thirty years now want someone to feel up your privates before you can get on a plane.
Taking your shoes off and confiscating your shampoo wasn't enough. No, our government wants, desperately it seems by the way administration officials are defending the policy, to play with your privates.
It has been a steady progression since 9/11. Every government response to the World Trade Center tragedy has been inept, inefficient and unnecessary. Now we can add perverse to the list.
When will somebody have the courage to say that creating the bureaucratic behemoth of Homeland Security and fighting two wars have bankrupted this country? Can anybody in this country do math anymore? More than half of the federal budget is spent fighting two unnecessary wars and paying off the massive deficit.
"We've got to do something to fight the terrorists, David. They want to take away our freedoms!"
No, WE want to take away our own freedoms. And it appears, act like a bunch of perverted morons while we're doing it.
"We've got to fight the terrorists, David!"
I grew up during the Viet Nam war. Here's what I heard:
"We've got to fight the Communists, David. They want to take away our freedoms!"
"If South Viet Nam falls, the Communists will take over all of Southeast Asia."
We now know that pretty much everything our government told us about the Viet Nam war was a lie. What on God's Green Earth makes us think it is different today?
We're pretty sure the reasons for going to war with Iraq were lies. We may eventually find out that Bin Laden died in 2002.
As for fighting the terrorists, if they were Saudis, hold the Saudis accountable. Did we? No, we held their hands.
There are effective, efficient ways to fight terrorists. We could learn from a country that has faced terrorist attacks from its inception, Israel. The Israelis do not treat their citizens as terrorists. They understand something the morons in our government have yet to grasp.
Selma from New York flying to see her grandchildren is not a terrorist. Bob from Michigan flying to California to attend his father's funeral is not a terrorist. Mindy from Utah flying home from school is not a terrorist.
Our citizens are not terrorists. The Israelis know this. Terrorists are people from other countries. While security at our airports is busy feeling up your grandmother or granddaughter, the Israelis take those from other countries aside and subject them to rigorous questioning.
You know what? It works.
Sooner or later, if we the people don't insist on stopping these policies, somebody may conclude that we the people have the government we deserve.

Growing Up With Sherlock Holmes

I don't remember whether I first came across Sherlock Holmes in the old black and white movies or in the school library. We watched Basil Rathbone, who usually played villains, as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Watson in those wonderful, old movies.

The one I remember most was The Hounds of the Baskervilles. Some of the films were updated to WWII England where the Nazis were the bad guys.

I only remember getting one Sherlock Holmes book, but it was the complete edition. The edition contained all four novels and five collections of short stories, amounting to more than 1300 pages. I have read it completely at least four times, and favorite stories many times more than that.

Looking back on it, those stories probably shaped my life more than any other collection of stories, save one, that being the Bible.

Knowing that Nigel Bruce's portrayal as Watson as a buffoon was not in the stories did not detract from my enjoyment of either. They are different mediums. People that expect movies to be like books know very little about either books or movies.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created memorable characters and different people can interpret these characters in different ways. Not all of us are going to like every version, but to NOT like it because it's not like the book misses the point entirely.

That being said, I appreciated Watson's portrayal in the British Television series by David Burke and Edward Hardwicke. Watson came across as competent and sensible. Jeremy Brett's Holmes was masterful, capturing the hyperactive brilliance of the detective.

Brett and Hardwicke did such a magnificent job that it is understandable there would be resistance to the newest version of Holmes on television.

I have yet to see the Robert Downey Jr. movie version, Max highly recommends it, but I have caught all three episodes of the Benedict Cumberbatch (that's his real name!) and Martin Freeman version on Masterpiece Mystery (i.e. British television).

The new version is set in modern times, with cell phones and texting playing a big part. Watching these episodes, which combined several stories in each one, I realized how much I was like Sherlock. It took the modern era setting for it to sink in. When Holmes was cavorting through Victorian England, he remained distant, detached.

It felt like I was watching myself in my late twenties, meaning it was somewhat embarrassing. As to affirm my thinking, my Masterpiece Mystery partner said after watching the first episode that Cumberbatch's Holmes was a lot like me.

In the first episode we find out some of the law enforcement officers regard Holmes as a psychopath. Upon hearing this, Holmes retorts "I'm not a psychopath, I'm a high-functioning sociopath, do your research!"

Holmes' mind works at warp speed. I have often told people that I don't consider my mind any better than any one's, but I understand it works at speeds far faster than the norm. I sometimes get frustrated with people, thinking, "You haven't figured that out yet! What is taking you so long?"

It's taken me years to realize that they're not to blame, they're normal, I'm the one who is abby-normal (apologies to Mel Brooks).

It's very hard for Holmes to have relationships. Watson puts up with him because he is a loyal bloke who appreciates Holmes talents. Freeman's Watson does a good job of calling Holmes on his shortcomings. Which Holmes, in his limited way, acknowledges and appreciates.

The Sherlock episodes are brilliant. Highly recommended. I'm looking forward to seeing the Robert Downey Jr. movie version of Holmes. It's in the queue.

Davey and Goliath meet David and Goliath

Many of us remember the story of David and Goliath. Some of us might remember the cartoon show Davey and Goliath.

The cartoon, a stop-action clay animation show, had a well intentioned but dim witted Davey and his intelligent dog, Goliath, who had to keep reminding Davey of what his mother had told him.

"Now Davey, you know what your mother said," Goliath would say.

But no, Davey was dumber than a box of rocks and got in trouble every episode until he 'did the right thing.' And if he didn't have his dog to remind him what the 'right thing' was, we can assume Davey would have ended up a juvenile delinquent, drug addict or in prison.

Every show had a moral message, which was basically that Davey was too dumb to remember what his mother told him. It was probably my favorite cartoon show.

The story of David and Goliath is a story about two champions who duel to the death. Goliath is huge and well armored. David is a mere boy armed only with a slingshot.

Naturally, the little boy with the slingshot wins, because, like the cartoon show, the story is fiction. But what is interesting is that it really does reflect warfare in ancient times.

Goliath was the champion for the Philistines; David was the champion for the Israelites. When David defeated Goliath, the Israelites won and the Philistines went home.

WHAT, ARE YOU KIDDING ME!

No, if your champion lost, your whole tribe or clan or city-state lost. We need to do that today. In the second Gulf War, wouldn't it have worked better if President Bush and Saddam Hussein had just duked it out and left the rest of us out of it?

Where did we go wrong? David and Goliath had it right. We are extremely messed up.

Napoleon came up with the idea of nationalism to convince people to die in his army fighting people in countries far away from their borders.

When Napoleon invaded Russia and Spain in 1812, his army was made up mainly of conscripts from the general populace.

Before Napoleon, most armies were comprised of mercenaries. The monarchs that ran most countries in Europe could not afford standing armies. Napoleon changed all that. The whole nationalism thing is one big scam perpetrated on people to get them to fight wars that used to be fought by mercenaries or by champions.

In effect, we are as dumb as Davey, we have forgotten what our mothers told us. We fight wars all over the world because we have been conditioned from birth, thank you Napoleon, that it is our duty to die for our country.

Our Founding Fathers, bless them, knew better. They mistrusted standing armies as well. They knew they were instruments of tyranny. Please, please, read the Declaration of Independence again. Washington had to rely primarily on local militia to win the war, as the Continental Congress refused to authorize a large, professional army.

We're fighting two wars now, are we insane or just very, very dumb?

Ancient peoples in some ways are more intelligent than we are today. At least in regards to the way we fight wars.

It would help if our leaders today were as smart as Goliath. The dog, not the Philistine.

I'm A War Gamer; Not A War Monger

We grew up playing board games, mainly Monopoly, Risk and Stratego. With six kids in our house, and many kids in the neighborhood our age, there was never a shortage of gaming or gamers.

One day, browsing in a hobby store looking for an updated Monopoly game I came across a game called '1914,' a simulation of the German campaign against France and Britain in the opening months of WWI.

I loved history and bought or read most of the books the game used as sources. Barbara Tuchman's Guns of August was the most memorable one. When I was in high school I complained to history teachers that we never got to WWI by the end of the year, (we were lucky to get to Reconstruction) so one teacher suggested I give a lecture to our class on the opening of WWI.

I put together what I thought was a great lecture. I drew maps in colored chalk all over the chalkboard. For almost a half hour I passionately and enthusiastically went through the opening campaign, from the capture of the Belgian forts at Liege and Namur to the stirring Battle of Marne where France averted defeat.

When I looked at my classmates after the lecture, I noticed most of them were asleep. Those not asleep had a glazed-over look in their eyes. For the not the first time in my life, I felt like an alien, a freak, some one from another planet. Nobody was remotely interested in WWI.

I kept reading military history and buying war games. I'd read the historical analysis and set the game up, sometimes playing it solitaire.

A few years ago, while searching for war games online (hobby stores didn't sell war games anymore) I came across a war gamers convention in metropolitan New York City sponsored by a game company called GMT.

Although based in California, after 9/11 GMT decided to sponsor a convention on the east coast to honor all their customers in the NYC area. I found out about this in 2005 and have gone every year since.

Every year is an incredible experience. War gamers are amazing people. I have never encountered the unabashed egalitarianism there anywhere else.

Nobody asked you about how much money you made, what your religion was, or what your politics were. They only asked "what game do you want to play?"

Over the years, I have discovered that many of the people at the convention are from the upper echelons. That explained their egalitarianism. They were comfortable with who they were and were accepting of other people, despite any perceived differences.

One of the game designers I met writes speeches for world leaders. Another does computer security for global financial concerns. Another is one of the founders of the rock group Three Dog Night. They are doctors, lawyers, accountants, computer programmers, historians, insurance salesmen and retired military officers.

When I shared my story during a break with some friends about my lecture on WWI in high school, one of them said kindly, "At that point did you realize you weren't like everyone else?"

We all laughed.

Then he said seriously, "At most only two percent of the people in the world can do what we do. We are all freaks of nature. That's why we like getting together."

We then went back to our game.

It was a battalion level recreation of the D-Day landings using all five British and American beaches. I also have regimental and divisional level games of the Normandy landings of June 1944.

I may be a freak. I may be an alien. But at least I know there are others like me. War gamers are not war mongers. We know full well the cost of war. We know how many casualties there were in every battle ever fought.

It may be said that those who know war the best, despise it the most. I think Robert E. Lee said something close to that. Lee knew a lot about war.

Voters Said 'No Thank You' to Millionaires

One interesting aspect of the recent election is that all of the high-profile millionaire candidates spending huge chunks of their fortunes lost their election bids. This usually doesn't happen, and should put the Tea Party and voter anger in a different light. Certainly different than what we've been hearing from the bobble-headed commentators on TV.

Last year in the New Jersey gubernatorial election between Chris Christie and Jon Corzine something similar happened. Corzine made his fortune on Wall Street and with no prior government experience, won election in 2000 to the US Senate, but didn't complete his term before winning the governor's office in 2005.

Corzine got his backside handed to him by Christie in 2009, as voters showed they weren't going to vote for someone who ran a company (Goldman-Sachs) responsible for much of the financial shenanigans that led to the crash.

In 2010, E-Bay CEO Meg Whitman, Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and Wrestling Magnate Linda McMahon spent hundreds of millions of dollars of their own money and were defeated. Whitman lost to Jerry Brown, the former Jesuit, former governor, Linda Ronstadt, former attorney general and son of former governor Pat Brown. A political hack if there ever was one - Linda Ronstadt - who will run for any office any time - Linda Ronstadt.

I like Linda Ronstadt a lot, and mentioning Jerry Brown gives me a chance to mention her. Linda Ronstadt.

Fiorina lost to Barbara Boxer, one of the most liberal members of the US Senate, EVER. But just so we don't think of the trend as applying to only California elections, Linda McMahon in Connecticut lost the senate race to a long-time elected official, attorney general Richard Blumenthal.

All three millionaire candidates this year that lost were Republicans. In New Jersey, the millionaire who lost was a Democrat. Keep an eye on Christie, his stock is sure to rise between now and 2012.

We learned last Tuesday that voter anger against incumbents must also be balanced with mistrust of the rich who are getting richer as everybody else gets poorer. Probably won't hear that in the mainstream media. But you heard it here. This is the Heretic, for November 7, 2010, Linda Ronstadt, over and out.

Insurance Companies Are the Problem

People are upset about the health care legislation called, by its critics, 'ObamaCare.' They are upset because insurance companies have spent billions of dollars telling them they are upset. Therein is the problem. Monkey hear, monkey speak. Insurance companies treat us like a bunch of dumb monkeys because they think we are a bunch of dumb monkeys.
And most of the time, they're right.
My job as a Heretic is to point out concepts and ideas beyond the traditional and orthodox. With regards to insurance companies, the orthodox positions work well - for insurance companies - but work horribly for everybody else.
Part of this is because insurance companies hire people really good at math and most of us suck at math. Simply put, insurance companies (I'll call them Leeches) make money by bringing in more money in premiums than they pay out in benefits. A lot more money.
We need to over simplify the insurance situation to create a level of understanding, knowing it's actually much more complicated.
Say you spend $100 on car insurance, $300 on health insurance, $50 on life insurance, and $50 on homeowner's insurance a month. That's $500 a month. For a year, $6,000. Here's where the math comes in (probability). The Leeches have figured out the probabilities involved in paying out premiums.
They know that most people, for example, that pay car insurance will not have accidents. If someone does have an accident, the Leeches know how high to push the deductibles so they still make a bundle in profits.
If we took that $6,000, saved it for, as they used to say, a 'rainy day' we would be in much better shape. What about catastrophic cases? My answer is to find out what we did before the Leeches convinced all of us we needed them.
The answer lies in the collective. In rural areas, it's called 'barn raising.' Insurance companies are not the answer. They are the problem. They have spent billion dollars buying legislators and judges so their services are required by law.
The Leeches have destroyed capitalism. They have destroyed the marketplace. They have destroyed supply and demand. Instead, we have extortion perpetuated and perpetrated on us by our government. This extortion is sustained by bribery - i.e. the billions of dollars the Leeches spend on campaign contributions.
Are you upset at ObamaCare? OK, but what is the solution? My guess is whatever solution you will offer has already put in your minds and mouths by the Leeches. They've spent billions of dollars to make it so. It's my job to help you get your own voice, your own thoughts, back where they belong.
You can think for yourself. You can take care of yourself. You don't need an insurance company to put you 'in good hands,' to be 'like a neighbor.' We need each other.

Tea Party Activism Exposes Myth of Good Living in the Suburbs as Seriously Flawed

Tea Party activists have a point. Property taxes are high. Especially in suburbs. There is a reason for this.

I call it the Santa Claus Myth. Conceptually, there is a big difference between the individual and the collective. In the west, we are all about the individual. At least since a period in history we label, perhaps not correctly, The Enlightenment.

Take the Santa Claus Myth. Someone in a sled driven by flying reindeer delivers presents every Christmas. On an individual level, the myth makes sense. But taken collectively, it starts to break down. At what point does the myth break down? Ten families? One hundred? One hundred thousand? A million?

When you do the logistics required for the Santa Claus Myth to work for a million families, it gets really, really absurd. Doesn't work. Not at all.

The myth of the Good Life Living in the Suburbs belongs in the same category. On an individual level, it makes sense. Taken collectively, it breaks down. Enter the Tea Party and similar movements, largely suburban based, upset over property taxes.

Here in New Jersey, property taxes in suburbs are high. There was an influx of people moving across the border to Pennsylvania where property taxes are lower.

Then collective reality hit home. No jobs in eastern Pennsylvania. Many of those who moved are still working jobs in urban New Jersey (or even New York City) and commuting 3-5 hours a day.

We live in Secaucus, five minutes from Manhattan and three minutes from Giants/Jets football stadium. Most of the town is industrial. UPS and US Mail have warehouses and distribution centers. Many large department stores have outlet stores and distribution centers. The New Jersey turnpike runs through the east part of town.

Big rigs rumble through town all day and night. At 9 a.m. in the morning the line of brown UPS trucks leaving the distribution center is a sight to behold. Why talk about this? Taxes, my friends. Taxes.

Unlike WalMart, these industries contribute to the tax base of Secaucus. The town has top notch schools and services. We put up with the noise and big rigs and traffic. The suburbs are quiet. Yes, they are. But without industry, where is the tax base?

People's homes, that's where. That's why suburban property taxes are so high. Who else is going to pay for the schools and fix the potholes? Suburban living, sold to people on an individual basis, breaks down in the collective.

My question to suburban voters is this - who is going to pay for your schools, roads, water and sewer? You live out in some rural area, probably on land once somebody's farm, and you're miles from any industry. Just like you wanted. All quiet and nice, away from all that urban noise, crime and diversity.

You can believe in Santa Claus if you want, but somebody still has to pay for all those presents. Welcome to collective reality. It's the place we need to go when our individual realities break down and don't work any more.

Max Voted Today (For the First Time)

We live in New Jersey. So does Lady Liberty. She faces Manhattan, but she is a Jersey girl. As we say here, "Lady Liberty, Jersey's got your back." Today is the first Tuesday in November, and in New Jersey we get to vote EVERY year.

Not this every other year stuff other states do. We hold state-wide elections in odd years, which is fitting (so does Virginia). We didn't vote for a president or U.S. Senator today. But that didn't that matter, it's still a special election.

Especially for Max, the 18 year-old high school senior we enjoy living with. He voted for the first time. He got to vote for Town Council, U.S. Congress and local sheriff (you need to support your local sheriff). There was also a ballot measure that would prohibit the state from using unemployment funds for anything other than unemployment funds. Pretty sad that you need to force politicians to do this, nothing is safe or sacred with these scoundrels.

Max made sure he registered early, got his voter registration card and sample ballot in the mail. He then wisely asked his mother her opinions. After riding his bike around town putting in job applications (he's getting a car so he needs a job) we went to the local elementary school to vote.

I am not exaggerating when I say that most of the female poll workers (average age 83) swooned when Max walked into the building. He is a tall, curly-haired young person who looks a lot like Roger Daltrey.

I had been harassed by political operatives the last three years (I guess I just look like a heretic), so I was looking forward to voting with Max. I sensed that would change the dynamics favorably. I was right.

Poll workers went out of their way to help Max. I insisted he go ahead of me in line, announcing it was his 'first time.' He chatted with several poll workers on his way out. I was hoping he had a good time.

Apparently he did. What moved me was his awareness of what a privilege it is to vote. I would like to share with you what he wrote about his voting experience.

"Today I voted. For wherever there is a crooked politician looking to satisfy the discontented masses, I will be there. With my finger upon the plastic-covered paper ballot and my choices hidden behind a cloak, I will be a hero with a secret identity. Even if the people I voted for don't win, democracy will win. And the green x's, like stars in the sky, shall light not only my future, but the future of our country."

Lady Liberty, Max and all the young people voting today for the first time, they got your back.

American Upper Class Twits are the Cause of Country's the Immigration Problem

A deservedly famous sketch of the British comedy troupe Monty Python is their scathingly satirical "Upper Class Twit of the Year.' The five Brits had no illusions about the upper crust in their society, they knew they're a bunch of twits.

Americans appear to not have figured that out yet here across the pond. Let me help.

Maybe "twit' is too British. We need to come up with a suitable word to capture the unique qualities of upper class idiocy in America.

I used to live and work in West Virginia. I worked with a sports writer at the Bluefield Daily Telegraph who grew up in McDowell County. He would tell me that some of the people in his hometown looked like the kid on the bridge in the movie "Deliverance.'

The result of inbreeding, he said. The same inbreeding happened with our upper class. Since these elites came across the pond in the 1600's to settle in the New World, they have been inbreeding. That's why our Founding Fathers consistently come off looking better than our upper class today. Every day we see evidence of more than 300 years of inbreeding.

The immigration problem is the latest piece of evidence of how densely stupid rich people are in America. It used to be that rich people could tell who their servants were by the color of their skin or by their accent (i.e. if they had an Irish accent).

It is very important for rich people to know who their servants are, otherwise they might accidentally treat them decently.

The freeing of slaves and the civil rights movement have made life confusing for rich people. Someone with black skin could be college educated and an Irishman could even become president.

Something had to be done. Rich people need to know who to be condescending to and who they can order around. It is their birthright to be waited on hand, foot and mouth (sounds like a disease doesn't it?)

It is much easier for rich people to identify their servants if they don't speak English. If they do speak the language then an accent not learned in an Ivy league prep school is required. The immigration trend in the last thirty years has been to encourage immigration from Mexico, Central and South America.

This has worked out well for rich people. Maybe not so well for the immigrants. Rich people are happy because they don't have to pay the new immigrants much or give them any benefits. Educated American workers have this nasty habit of wanting to get paid a decent wage, not to mention wanting an occasional day off.

Somewhere out there is an appropriate term we here in America can use to describe our upper class twits. Sports team owner? Network TV executive? Oil company CEO? Wall Street broker? U.S. Senator? Ivy League cheerleader?

Those are occupations, won't work. Any suggestions?

We've Seen This Before: White Voter Angst

Howard Jarvis led a movement in 1978 to reduce property taxes in California, called Proposition 13, that became a national movement. A hero to many, from my perspective, he was just another jolly (jowly?) white guy who didn't want to pay taxes.

I was going to a California state college in 1978. I had exchanged the bitter cold winters and sweltering summers of Minnesota for the perpetual sunshine of southern California. (It never rains in California, but boy don't they warn you)

In 1978, the census forecast for 1980 was that California would become the first state in the nation where whites would no longer be a majority. California in 1978 had significant Asian, African and Mexican minorities.

California had one of the best public university systems in the nation. The UC universities were designed to be primarily research institutions. UC-Los Angeles and UC-Berkeley being the most well known.

The Cal State universities were designed to be primarily teaching institutions, with the goal of providing low cost education to all Californians that desired it. I was attending Cal State Fullerton. After satisfying the state residency requirement, my tuition was under a thousand dollars a year.

The UC and Cal State systems were primarily funded by property taxes. My heretical theory is that when white voters realized that most of the young people going to college on their dime (their words) would not be white, they complained.

I would point out that most of these white voters did not complain previously, but rather had extolled the benefits of college education being available to everyone. I guess they meant every one who was white.

It may be a coincidence, and I understand there are people who explain the existence of patterns this way, but with census projections declaring that whites will no longer be a majority in the nation, it isn't surprising to see white people complaining again about property taxes (i.e. school funding)

Again, it needs to be pointed out that these angry white voters did not complain with the same vehemence before. It needs to be pointed out that most (what is it 90 percent?) of Tea Party activists are white.

The constitution was crafted by well-to-do white men to protect the interests of, yes, you got it, well-to-do white men. Brown men, black men, yellow men and ALL women were excluded from these protections. Any time any of these exclusive entitlements of these affluent white people are in danger of being reduced (I believe it's called sharing) there is a backlash.

This backlash has gone by different names in different times. The Tea Party is just the latest incarnation.

Let's face it, white folks aren't good at sharing. The White Anglo Saxon Protestant deity they worship has blessed their entitlements and they aren't giving them away to any Mexicans, Africans or Asians. No way, no how. Not without a fight!

Howard Jarvis and his cause are still being invoked in California elections this year. He is still a hero to many white people. I still think of him as a selfish white man who didn't want to share. But then, I'm a heretic. I don't mind sharing.

America is an Empire in Decline

Comedian and Daily Show correspondent John Oliver is British. He knows a thing or two about empires in decline. There was a time when the 'sun never set on the British Empire.'

The Brits began losing ground after WWI, losing a whole generation in the trenches of Flanders. Another British comedian, Rowan Atkinson, captured the futility and stupidity of WWI in his Black Adder TV series.

What was left of the British Empire was largely dismantled after WWII, most notably when India gained independence. The way Oliver put it before an audience in Montclair, New Jersey this month was the last time the British had guns they took over 2/3 of the world.

"We don't have guns now," Oliver deadpanned. "We're on timeout."

Fifty years from now, Oliver predicted, Americans will be on Chinese TV, voicing lizards talking about cheap car insurance.

Lewis Black, an American comedian, points out that many of the people claiming America is the greatest country on earth have never been to another country. America is not even in the Top Ten anymore in areas pertaining to quality of life. As Casey Stengel said, you can look it up.

As we get close to going through the motions of democracy next week, where one group of idiots will be replaced by another group of idiots, let's pause and reflect.

Will the Tea Party activists and newly minted Republican majority make us a better, stronger country?

Or will the same stuff happen that happened in 1994? Bomb thrower Newt Gingrich became Speaker of the House and was exposed for being a lousy leader and even worse human being. Conservative crusader Rush Limbaugh was exposed as being a mere mouthpiece for the Republican party and a blowhard. Term limits, a key part of the Contract for America in 1994, where did that end up?

It is convenient that each party can blame the obstructionism of the other party for not doing what they promised the American voters. This will continue, stay tuned. The political system as it currently operates in America does not hold its leaders accountable.

The foot soldiers, the elected officials, the idiots, these will change every four or six years to give us the illusion that change is taking place. The illusions of hope and fear will be used to motivate first one side, then the other.

America is an empire in decline largely because democracy has become a joke. People who make their living telling jokes have been pointing this out to us for years. Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Bill Hicks, and Lewis Black to name a few.

There was once something beautiful about this country. It died in 1968. It died when Martin Luther King Jr. was killed. It died when Robert F. Kennedy was killed. It died when the forces of Law and Order clubbed demonstrators at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

I'm tired of Ivy League liberals telling me I don't know anything. They start out by saying "Look ..." and then proceed to tell us why they're right and we're wrong.

I'm tired of conservatives and their bumper sticker slogans, thinking they are better than other people because they are white, straight or pious.

Regardless of who wins next Tuesday, America will still be involved in quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan. The infrastructure of this country will continue to decline. Higher education will continue to be more expensive and secondary education will continue to decline.

The wealth of the working class will continue to decline. Health and retirement benefits will continue to be taken away. More and more people will lose their homes.

American democracy is a joke, and the joke is on us. As George Carlin put it, "It's called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it."

What's in Your Wally? Credit Card Plundering and Pillaging

Watching my hometown college football team streaming on my computer this past weekend, I was subjected to a credit card commercial too many times to count.

You may have seen the commercial. It's one in a series of 11th century Norsemen (sometimes called Vikings) attempting to assimilate in modern culture. The commercials are funny. They are entertaining.

Then you ask yourself the question, what do Norsemen have to do with credit cards? The commercials all end with a catch phrase designed to get you to put one of their credit cards in your wallet.

So, I'm supposed to use your credit card because you have entertaining commercials? Is that how it works?

I would have stopped thinking about the commercials except for a seminary professor who told me about a BBC documentary on the melding of Freudian psychological theories with Madison Avenue. Most commercial campaigns after the 1940s have a strong psychological component designed to get us to buy products we don't need with money we don't have.

What are Norseman known for? Pillaging and plundering. They did a lot more, but most of what they did has not entered the cultural psyche. The pillaging and plundering is part of our cultural psyche.

My theory is the commercials are designed to get us to feel good about being pillaged and plundered. They are such friendly, funny Norsemen, aren't they?

Let's look at the math involved in the credit card plundering.

The standard credit card for this company has a 24.9 interest rate and $19 annual fee.

The card for young adults has a 19.8 interest rate and $39 annual fee.

The lowest rate is for the Prestige card, ostensibly not everyone has enough prestige to get this one, with an 11.9 percent rate and no annual fee.

Let's compare this with the amount of money you would receive for depositing money in their bank.

The rates range from 1.1 percent to 1.75 percent. Let's put this in simple terms. When you use a credit card, you are borrowing money. To do this, if you borrow $100 you will pay $120 with 20 percent rate.

If you save at this bank, at 1.5 percent, you will earn $1.50 from $100. The difference, called profit, between $20 and $1.5 is $18.5. In other words, when you give the bank $100 they give you a buck and half and they make eighteen and half dollars when they loan your money to some one else.

That, in other times, was called plundering. Your wallet has been pillaged. Today, we call it funny and entertaining. Banks and credit card companies spend billions of dollars mounting campaigns designed to pillage and plunder the wealth of working people.

Have they succeeded? Who cares, they're such funny commercials.

Tailgating - Good; Following Too Closely - Bad

We drove from New Jersey to Virginia over the weekend to attend a family reunion and take in a football game. We tailgated before the football game. It was fun. The food was good, the company was better.
Driving back to New Jersey through Pennsylvania, I muttered something to my traveling partner about some one tailgating us.
"I don't remember anybody tailgating us in Virginia," she said.
"Or Maryland or West Virginia," I added.
In New Jersey, tailgating is all too common. It's not safe and it's not smart. And it needs to be called something other than tailgating. We need to differentiate between good behavior and bad behavior.
'Following too closely' is the term used by states that have laws against tailgating. Let's use that term, though it doesn't fit on a bumper sticker as nicely.
Maybe those people 'following too closely' are trying to read our bumper stickers. Sure, when they pass us they're all friendly, roll down their windows and yell out "nice bumper sticker!"
Yeah, that's it.
I asked my partner, who is licensed and accredited in drug and alcohol rehabilitation, why people follow too closely.
She replied that they are unable to self-regulate. They drive as fast as they can until they are slowed down by someone in front of them. Then they engage in dangerous behavior until they get what they want, which is to get by you so they can run up against someone else's back side.
In other words, these people are sociopaths.
I have read through several state motor vehicle sites that discuss how to deal with drivers that follow too closely. They all recommend letting the offender get by as quickly as possible. They advise against braking suddenly (to teach the bum a lesson) or tapping your brakes several times (it doesn't do any good and creates a 'crying wolf' situation).
The sites advise against doing anything confrontational as it may be lead to 'road rage' and endanger other people's lives as well.
For me, that sums up our culture fairly well. We reward sociopathic, bullying behavior. We advise against doing anything about it. "Just let them go."
Political discourse, social discourse, and religious discourse in our culture more often than not resembles this kind of bullying, sociopathic behavior. It's not surprising it crops up on the road as well.
Being gentle and kind are seen as signs of weakness today. It shouldn't be. We're better than that. Or, we used to be.

Memories of Hazel, My Grandmother

We are all born of a woman. And the woman who gave birth to us was also born of a woman. My mother's mother name was Hazel, grandma Hazel to me and my siblings. She was matronly and kindly. She baked cookies. She mussed my hair and called me 'Butch.'

Like many women of her generation who raised families during the depression years of the 1930s, she had it rough. As a young woman before she married, she was a telegraph operator. In another time, she could have been a successful career woman.

Like many families in the Great Depression, she and her family were poor and when her husband was laid off, they got poorer.

But they raised their own food, grandma made every one's clothes and she stayed home while her husband looked for work. Like many people, he got a job in the military buildup to the Second World War, working in a factory that made missiles.

When her husband died when I was two years old, grandma was devastated. I remember mom and dad worrying about her. She never remarried. We visited her at least once a month when we were little. Then we moved away.

In the later years of her life, we moved again to be closer to her. I remember visiting her with mom and eating pie at her favorite restaurant. She liked pie.

I remember her telling me how important it was to be kind to people. She said just because people got older didn't mean they got nicer. If they were mean when they were young, they were mean when they were old.

Be kind to people, she would tell me as she mussed my hair. Every time we visited she would tell me how much her husband had loved me and how much she loved me. Then we moved again. She died a few years later and I didn't get to go to the funeral.

When mother died I had a dream and grandma was in it. I was in the hallway of a convention hall. In one of the rooms they were having a banquet. I looked through the windows of the door and saw mother on the stage, she was the guest of honor. I looked to the side and there was grandma, sitting on a bench, smiling.

"You can't go in there, you know," she said.

I nodded and then did something I had never done in a dream. Instead of passively letting the dream flow by me, I forced myself to interact and speak. I wanted to tell grandma something. It was difficult, but I managed to speak.

"I love you, grandma."

"I know, Butch. I love you, too."

I woke up from my dream and felt at peace. At peace with my mother dying, at peace with missing grandma's funeral.

All of us are born of woman. Many of us have lost mothers and grandmothers. Through these losses we can gain wisdom. The wisdom grandma Hazel imparted was simple, "Be kind when you're young and be kind when you're old."

She worked hard her whole life. She lost the love of her life. But nothing she experienced ever stopped her from being kind.

Every once in a while, when all the negative stuff in politics and in our culture gets me down, I think of grandma Hazel. And then I go out and try to be kind to everyone I meet.

An Ethical Response to the Rutgers Suicide

What is an appropriate response to the tragedy of the suicide at Rutgers University? Using the framework of intentional ethics as a guide, to aim for the highest ethical response it is recommended we seek to understand (intention) for others (motivation) a constructive action (result).

One item that needs to be understood is that planting a camera for the purpose of spying on other people is a perverse action. It doesn't matter if you're boring holes in a change room, rest room, shower, or bedroom, it is perverse. This action on the part of the two Rutgers students needs to be understood as an invasion of privacy issue.

Another item that needs to be understood is that an 18-year old's awareness that their actions can have negative consequences for others is not well developed. It is not surprising that all three adults involved were eighteen. It is a dangerous age, as the freedom they experience is not matched by awareness and consideration of others.

This is a development issue. It's not a hate crime. The actions by the two students demonstrate obliviousness to what effect the invasion of privacy would have on a vulnerable person living in a homophobic society. It is doubtful the two Rutgers students were homophobic. But they were clueless.

The motivation of an appropriate ethical response should be what can be done for others? What can we as a society do for other 18 year olds?

As a pragmatist, it matters not to me where ideas come from if they work. The Mormon church has an outstanding program for young adults. They go on a mission for two years. They develop a sense of awareness for people outside of their own culture. After two years of mission, they go to college or pursue their careers with new-found maturity.

A program of national service for two years (no exemptions) would serve a similar purpose. Young people could work in nursing homes, homeless shelters, or drug clinics. There should be military options as well.

How will we pay for it?

A country that throws away billions of dollars that are never accounted for does not need to ask that question. The money is there, the priorities are not. It is a matter of wanting to do what is best for others, and not just the top two per cent.

Intentional Ethics Explained

As a Heretic, I spend a lot of time dismantling orthodox ideas that don't work. Essentially, I'm a pragmatist, but that gets lost in the furor created by discrediting orthodox positions that don't pass muster.

From my perspective, if an idea, concept or theory doesn't work, it should be jettisoned in favor of something that does.

The motivation for creating intentional ethics was my desire to provide ethical concepts that work. This evolved into formulating a system that can be applied to any situation by anybody. Like any new idea, it will take time and testing to be used effectively.

The saying "the path to hell is paved with good intentions" was a starting point. What is a good intention? What is a bad intention? I felt these terms needed to be redefined. So I redefined them.

Adopting the more neutral language of mathematics was the first step. The next step was listing from highest to lowest four possible intentions. The highest intention would be to understand. The lowest intention would be the desire to eliminate.

The next highest intention would the intention to desire and the second lowest would be the intention to use force.

In order from highest to lowest, the intentions are:

4) To understand

3) To desire

2) To force

1) To eliminate

In my first year at seminary, I shared these intentions with classmates and professors, hoping for critical feedback. A Harvard-trained professor with a PhD in Psychology was fascinated by the intentions and suggested I look into motivations and their connections to intentions.

This led to the second phase of intentional ethics, combining motivations and intentions. I described three possible motivations.

3) For others

2) For self and others

1) For self

Good discussions followed. Several people pointed out that a motivation for others may always contain selfish aspects. They may be right. Altruism is rare, and may not exist in any pure form, the discussion went. I included it as the highest motivation based on my theory it is easier to attain if one has the intention to understand beforehand.

The result of the interactions between intentions and motivations produce results that can either be constructive or destructive. Assigning the higher value to constructive results creates the following table.

INTENTIONS/MOTIVATIONS/RESULTS

4) To understand

3) To desire; 3) For others

2) To force; 2) For self, others; 2) Constructive

1) To eliminate; 1) For self; 1) Destructive

There are 24 possible results (4x3x2x1). Twelve of the results would be ethically acceptable and twelve would unacceptable.

To illustrate the intention to understand for others to produce a constructive result, I suggest we look at Robert Kennedy's speech in Indianapolis the night Martin Luther King Jr. was killed.

You can find it on YouTube or follow the link to my Facebook page. Discussion will follow.

Oil Did Not Come From Dinosaurs

I never believed the claim that oil came from dinosaurs. It made about as much sense as 'the stork brings babies.' I can't remember if it was in any textbooks we were supposed to read in school, because I never read any textbooks in school.

I read a lot of books in school, mainly from the school library, but I never bothered with the official texts assigned in class. I was operating out of a default setting that adults and authority figures either didn't know what they were talking about or were lying.

Apparently, there are people who believed that the stork brought them their baby sisters and brothers. There are also people who believe, to this day I am told, that oil comes from dinosaurs.

Well, the truth is that nobody knows how oil was made. Nobody. There are many theories. Which means that the most educated people on our planet are still making guesses and don't know.

There are two main theories, one adopted by scientists in the West and one adopted by scientists in Russia and the Ukraine.

The Western theory is flawed because it can't explain oil bubbling to the surface that has not been subjected (as in Kuwait) to thousands of years of mountains pressing down on them. The Russian/Ukrainian theory, which stipulates a non-organic origin, suggests oil seeps through fissures in the earth's surface, can explain surface oil deposits.

The dinosaur 'theory' it turns out was based on an ad campaign by Sinclair Oil Company, whose mascot was, you guessed it, a dinosaur. Bet you didn't know Madison Avenue had it's own scientists, but it does.

There is an explanation that makes sense. It has to do with what we, today, do with waste. Especially waste we consider toxic or unhealthy. Think nuclear reactor waste. What do we do with it?

Here is where we get heretical. Imagine there existed on the planet civilizations far more advanced than ours. Oil would be one of the waste products they disposed of in the same ways that we dispose of waste today.

When anyone mentions a civilization more advanced than ours, and there is ample evidence to that effect, nay sayers bring out aliens and little green men.

Nonsense. No need of aliens.

There is evidence our planet produced intelligent life a billion years ago. This evidence is ignored because it does not fit any orthodox theory. The first intelligent civilization would have been underwater.

The next phase of civilization would have been amphibian. Our civilization, which begins officially with the Sumerians, may not even be the first mammalian civilization on the planet.

No need for aliens or little green men. It's all been home-grown.

The oil we use today is a waste product left behind by another civilization. It's called recycling.

Getting Rid of Bad Drivers, Mr. B's Solution

Good evening. Today, in our ongoing series 'Eliminating Bad Drivers from Society' we look at solutions to the problem. Our guest is Mr. Poobody, an expert on hanging his head out car windows.

Interviewer (I): Mr. Poobody, you are a dog, is that correct?

Mr. Pooboody (B): Please call me Mr. B.

I: Mr. B, how long have you been a dog?

B: My whole life.

I: In our series, we have discussed drivers who text while driving, who tailgate, who don't signal when changing lanes, who fall asleep at stoplights, who don't undertsand yield rules, who go 40 mph in residential areas, who use cell phones while driving. You claim to have a solution to all these examples of bad driving?

B: Yes.

I: Do you drive?

B: No, I just stick my head out the window when my human remembers to open it.

I: Your human?

B: No, I'm a dog.

I: What?

B: I've already told you I'm a dog. I own a human, though. Humans aren't very intelligent. They need owners to tell them what to do.

I: Huh? ... Moving on, what is your solution to bad driving?

B: Eliminate automatic transmissions, power steering and power brakes.

I: But ... but ... that would make driving hard.

B: That's the point. You humans would have to actually pay attention to what you're doing.

I: It would be a tough sell.

B: It would work. Humans would have to use two hands and two feet to drive. Their bodies and minds would have to be involved in the driving process. Distractions are the single largest cause of accidents.

I: We want driving to be easy so we can do other things while we're driving.

B: As mentioned earlier, you are not an intelligent species.

I: We were hoping you could suggest a slogan we could put on a bumper sticker.

I Ain't Got No Beliefs, I Only Got Faiths

The English language, having died last week, needs to be resurrected today so we can talk about the difference between Belief and Faith.

Grammar isn't my favorite topic of discussion, but today is Monday. Might as well.

When you list different forms of 'belief' you get: belief, believing, believer, believable.

For 'faith' you should get: faith, faithing, faither, faithful.

Don't know how it happened, but in English, 'faithing' and 'faither' have dropped out of use. We substitute 'believing' and 'believer' when we want to use the 'faith' word.

For me, the key is the use of 'believable' as opposed to 'faithful.' Beliefs are like theories, they are either believable or not. Faiths are what we place our trust in. The motto is not 'In God We Believe.' The motto is 'In God We Trust.'

Since beliefs are like theories, we should change them when presented with information or knowledge that renders them no longer believable.

Faiths are different. Where we place our trust may remain a constant throughout our whole lives. I want to make clear to my friends with strong religious convictions that I'm not going after any body's faith.

Beliefs, however, are fair game. They are designed to be subjected to scrutiny. Beliefs, as they are constructed opinions, can be deconstructed. This should not be construed as an attack on faith(s). That being said, let's get ready to use Mr. Peabody's WABAC machine.

Some Thoughts on American Fascism

Public discourse in America usually involves name calling and the avoidance of ideas and concepts underlying issues. For now, no name calling (maybe later), but instead a discussion on Fascism as it relates to our political landscape.

Having worked for both liberals and conservatives (liberals pay better) as well as Democrats and Republicans (Republicans pay better), I have concluded I would like to work for a liberal Republican. As it appears they no longer exist, I will probably remain out of the political fray.

So I will moderate this discussion on American Fascism (feel free to join in) between conservatives (C) and liberals (L).

L: I don't like you, you're a Fascist!

C: I can't stand you, you Socialist!

Moderator: There, we have the name calling out of the way. Let's talk about ideas. What is Fascism?

C: Something like Nazi Germany.

L: How about Franco's Spain or Mussolini's Italy?

Moderator: Ideas, please.

C: The merger of big government, big business and big military.

L: Mussolini said it was 'the merger of the state and corporate power.'

Moderator: I'll throw a couple of definitions out there for you to comment on. Here's one:

Fascism is "A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victim hood ... in which a mass-based party of committed militant nationalists working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion."

L: That pretty much sums up our government's approach since 9/11. There has been a 'preoccupation with community decline' and 'victim hood.'

C: The 'collaboration with traditional elites' includes all those liberals who have been in power for decades. And liberals in congress have not returned any of the democratic liberties taken away after 9/11.

L: Is 'spreading democracy' just a euphemism for external expansion?

C: Is obsession with 'community decline' a euphemism for internal cleansing?

Moderator: Another quote: "When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying the cross."

C: Sinclair Lewis said that. He was a Socialist.

L: Historically, the group that has hated Socialists most is ... wait for it ...

C: ... Fascists. Fascists fear Socialists most of all. It's their favorite epithet for someone they disagree with.

Moderator: Is America a Fascist nation?

C: Yes, in America even the liberals in government are fascists. Daniel Goldberg said that.

L: 'Liberal fascism' is a phrase coined by H.G. Wells. He was in favor of it. I'm tired of being told what to eat, what to believe and how to talk in public. Every one gets offended by everything you say and wants to impose their beliefs on you.

C: Conservatives do not want a big government.

L: Liberals do not trust a big military.

Moderator: What do you propose?

C: A return to decentralized government. The Articles of Confederation worked fine. We won our independence from England under the Articles of Confederation. The Constitution created a plutocracy, not a democracy.

L: The Bill of Rights was an attempt to save certain liberties from being taken by the government. That hasn't worked well. We lose liberties and freedoms every year to the government.

Moderator: What is the forecast for America?

C: Partly cloudy to rainy.

L: Stormy weather. Thunderstorms and lightning. Stay inside.

Why I Wrote 'The Heretic' Like an Album

The interview between my reporter self and writer self continues as the past and present discuss vinyl record albums.

R: What literary style did you use in writing your book?

W: Remember vinyl albums?

R: Yeah.

W: Remember when you bought an album how it was to take the record out of the sleeve, place it on a turntable, lift the needle on the vinyl and then kick back and give it that first listen?

R: Yeah.

W: How many songs on the album did you have to like to say you liked the whole album?

R: Good question. But I'm supposed to be asking the questions.

W: Roll with it, how many?

R: Probably at least three.

W: You didn't have to like all the songs on an album to say you liked the album?

R: No. There were probably some songs I didn't like at all. Or at least at the time. And then, I liked different songs better over time.

W: That's how I wrote the book.

R: Don't follow you.

W: Think of the book as an album with 12 different songs sung in three different styles. Not every style will appeal to everybody. But one of them might. Not every chapter may appeal to everybody, but three of them might.

R: OK, what you're suggesting is we don't have to like the whole book?

W: I'd be surprised if anybody did. I'm happy if you like a couple of chapters or a couple of scenes.

R: Are you getting any feedback that suggests this approach, dare we call it a novel approach, is working?

W: Yes, a first-year law student, who was a philosophy major, liked the philosophic parts, didn't read much of the rest of the book, but said he was fascinated or moved by what he did read.

R: More?

W: A young adult who likes fantasy and science fiction only read those parts and liked them, offering good suggestions for sequels. Some middle-aged readers liked the middle-aged romance that is the one of the soul centers of the book.

R: What are some other centers, or themes?

W: A daughter seeks the father she knew only from pictures, stories and dreams.

R: What is the point of view? What's your agenda?

W: Good question.

R: I only ask good questions.

W: The marketing person who read my book couldn't figure out what my agenda was.

R: If you can't discern an agenda, it may be there is none. Or that it is disguised or buried. Which is it?

W: Back to music. Remember what Jerry Garcia said about Bob Dylan's songs?

R: Yeah, I'm You, course I remember.

W: For the benefit of our readers, please.

R: Oh, yeah. Jerry said Dylan left space in his songs for others to inhabit. It's why there are so many Dylan covers.

W: I've left space for readers to inhabit. When they read the book, it becomes theirs. Remember that interview Bill Hicks gave to the BBC?

R: Yes, he said he viewed his comedy act as conversation between friends.

W: My book is a dialogue on ideas between friends.

R: What are some of the ideas?

W: Where go after we die. Whether we are reunited with those we love and how. There is an elaborate ethical system that runs throughout the book. The chapter headings sometimes give an idea of the ideas discussed, like 'Redemption' and 'Divine Justice.'

R: What was the impetus for writing the book?

W: The death of my mother. It ripped a huge hole in our family's universe. The book is my way of coping with the losses in my life of people that I have loved and cared about, from my grandparents to my friend Doug Hosier. It's also my attempt to share with others possible explanations for the after life/before life that are quite heretical.