Tina Dupuy

Christianity Has Evolved Too

2011-02-01T15:28:42-05:00

Christians were not always opposed to evolution -- mainly because Christianity has progressed and made slow, significant changes over time.

Darwin's theory of evolution is 160 years old. Christianity has been thriving for more than 1700 years.

So, evolution denial is a new modification for the religion.

Has the church ever been against science before? Yes. Pope Urban VIII condemned The Father of science, Galileo. But by the time of the Internet in 2008, the church decided to erect a statue of the former heretic in the Vatican. A natural selection.

There are many variations of Christians today. They all have a common ancestry but are split off into distinct groups and sub-groups: Different continents and environments have forced different adjustments.

For example, the Inca in Peru had an ancestor ceremony in which at certain times of the year they paraded mummies of their dead relatives through the town square. After the Conquistadors, the same ceremony was re-interpreted. Now they parade statues of deceased Catholic saints instead of the deceased revered locals. The Cathedral de Cusco hangs a painting of the Last Supper showing the Twelve Apostles eating cuy (a Peruvian delicacy of roasted Guinea pig). This is notably a behavior adaptation that isn't found in other Christ-based events.

Christianity has had its own evolutionary dead ends, too. The 19th century had the Shakers -- a subset who believed in the second coming of Christ, spin dancing and absolute celibacy. The lack of procreation proved to be a real hurdle in the advancement of their kind. Thus they're extinct.

There are also mutations of Christianity who survived because of their fitness. Islam has its common descent of Christianity -- a different branch of the same religious tree, with an acknowledgement of Jesus as a prophet in the Quran. Migration and isolation spurred other mutations. Mormonism and Christian Science are native to North America.

Even the Christian Bible, the basic text of Christianity, has evolved. Bart Ehrman's 2005 book Misquoting Jesus masterfully documents modifications made over the millennia. In the Bible's first 1300 years changes were made as it was copied by hand. After the invention of the printing press, the tome was subjected to translations into new languages spawned from other languages; e.g., modern English.

The point is: Christ wasn't against Darwin's theory of evolution, but some Christians clutching to alleged originalism have opted to be. It's a relatively new characteristic.

And like the furry little ferret cousin, the skunk -- it's also a distinctly American mutation. Other developed nations don't deny biological evolution on the basis of religion.

The next thing you'll say is, "Americans are more religious than those other countries."

Not true.

Many studies have found Americans are not more religious in practice than people in other nations. We just lie to pollsters as to what we're doing on Sundays. Philip Brenner at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research did a paper looking at "500 studies over four decades, involving nearly a million respondents." The findings were summed up by Slate's Shankar Vedantam, "Brenner found that the United States and Canada were outliers -- not in religious attendance, but in overreporting religious attendance. Americans attended services about as often as Italians and Slovenians and slightly more than Brits and Germans." So really we attend church as much as other countries -- even European countries. Americans and apparently Canadians just lie about it ... in astonishingly un-Christ-like numbers.

Those same godless European countries are also outranking us in science proficiency. Depending on which damning study you read, the U.S. ranks 17^th to 29^th worldwide in science.

Last week on Bill Maher's Real Time, Congressman Jack Kingston (GA-R) admitted he doesn't think he came from a monkey. Other public figures hold fast to the same conviction. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, likely candidate for president again, in the face of all evidence still denies evolution.

They deny all missing links, yet they are straddled between medieval mysticism and medical science. Technology can grow a human ear on the back of a rat (whether members of Congress believe in it or not). Science deniers are starting to look like America's transitional fossils.

American Christianity eventually evolved to oppose evolution, but it's not getting more Americans to church or helping us in science literacy. Then, like the other profound questions in evolution -- male nipples comes to mind -- what is the purpose?

Government Workers Are the New Illegal Aliens

2011-01-25T15:23:53-05:00

Did you know the government can't create jobs? Nearly two years ago on CNN, former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele said, "Not in the history of mankind has the government ever created jobs." And then, "Trust me."

When Steele said those words, he was widely panned. It was dismissed on the right as a gaffe and debunked on the left as grossly inaccurate.

It was laughable... when Steele said it.

Cut to: Meet the Press last Sunday. Erin Burnett CNBC's Squawk on the Street host said, "Government can't create jobs." It was left unchallenged by any of the other panelists and host David Gregory.

Karen Hughes who worked in the Bush administration, her government j-o-b added, "Well... the president seems to have had a revelation that it's actually business that creates jobs."

Then to top it all off the Democratic Congressman James Clyburn -- agreed. "No, we can't create jobs, and we shouldn't. We want them created in the private sector. "

Over 16.5% of Americans are employed by the government, about 22 million of the 135 million payroll jobs. And they're not just pencil-pushing, useless cushy benefit collectors -- but scientists. There are no private sector astronauts. None. Firefighters are government employees as are police. "More cops on the streets" means more government trained and compensated people in your community. The district attorneys, judges and bailiffs draw an Uncle Sam signed paycheck. The government? Law and order.

The second largest employer in the country is the United States Postal Service. Try telling the lady raising her family by delivering your overdue notices that the government can't create jobs.

According to the Department of Labor, the private sector has been steadily adding jobs and the public sector has been cutting jobs at the fastest rate in 30 years. Especially local government jobs: teachers, sanitation workers and librarians.

So the government does, in fact, create jobs. It also slashes them. Cities and states have been balancing their budgets by cutting back on everything. Most infamously Camden, New Jersey is eliminating half of their police force.

To those who work for a living, a job is a job. To those who sloganeer for a living, cutting jobs means magically creating them.

It seems government workers are the new illegal immigrants. They are the new group who are treated like parasites on the system; their jobs are illegitimate and disposable. Lawmakers gleefully talk about eliminating government employees' livelihoods. The rhetoric would have us believe those aren't even jobs.

It's not the banksters and hucksters on Wall Street who wrecked our economy. No, now they're the only ones who can save us! It's not a general revenue slow down tied to a collapse after the Saturnalia of liar loans and real estate cheats. It's those comfortable public servants who are bleeding us dry!

We're told we're bankrupt because of well-paid government employees with "Cadillac health insurance plans." Yes, we still refer to posh things as an American made car from a company, GM, which the U.S. government saved and made profitable again.

So everyone who makes an actual Cadillac can thank the government for their job.

Out of our $3.5 trillion annual budget we dole out around $1.5 trillions on "defense" spending. It really should be considered "offense" spending these days, but I digress. There are some accounting tricks with mandatory and discretionary spending. But added up: it's $1.5 trillion.

What is the military? Jobs. Careers too. Plus a retirement plan and socialized medicine. It's a jobs program the government created. It's also a big wasteful unaccountable sieve for tax dollars. If the GOP-controlled House is really looking to weed out pork (which they arguably are not) they would check out the bacon haven we call the Pentagon.

But, better to stick with the empty and symbolic than tackle the difficult.

At Least Stand By Your Free Speech

2011-01-09T13:04:59-05:00

Last Saturday morning, 20 people were shot in a Tucson Safeway parking lot by a 22-year-old who stated on YouTube he "won't pay debt with a currency that's not backed by gold and silver." Fifteen minutes after the news broke, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin tweeted, "The price of gold today is at $1,368.90 an ounce."

Coincidence?

Yes.

None of us want to live in a society where hyperbole, exaggeration, satire, bad taste and horrible timing are subjective. Stupidity is legal. So are bad jokes. Ditto for calls for revolution. As are declarations using violent imagery. Pornography, too.

So Sarah Palin has a right to display images on her sites SarahPAC, Facebook and TakeDownthe20.com. On those sites she had riflescope icons over the districts of Democratic congresspersons who voted in favor of health care reform. She stated in bold red letters: "We've diagnosed the problem. Help us prescribe the solution."

In March, shortly after TakeDownthe20.com was launched, the window of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' Tucson office was shot out with a pellet gun. Giffords said in an interview, "The rhetoric and firing people up... we're on Sarah Palin's targeted list. But the thing is that the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gunsight over our district. And when people do that, they've got to realize there's consequences to that action."

There were reports of Tea Party protesters outside her office with signs like, "It's time to reload" and "One way or another, you're gone."

Why? Because people listened to Sarah Palin. They listened to her debunked baloney that reforming health care would kill your grandmother. According to Palin, Giffords was trying to kill everyone's favorite elderly relative. Therefore, there was a target on her.

There is no evidence any of those people who listened to Palin shot the member of Congress in the head with a semi-auto Glock. Besides being steeped in revolution, a cockeyed view of the Constitution and anti-government rhetoric, the shooter has no connection to Palin.

However, minutes after the former governor tweeted about gold, I reported her website was scrubbed of the now infamous crosshairs graphic. It was gone. Then there was a note on her Facebook page: "On behalf of Todd and my family, we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice."

So in a moment of national peril -- when a political "enemy" who was on a hit list had been "taken down" -- the FIRST thing Palin does is act in her own interests?

In a word: yes.

This is the most cowardly thing I've ever witnessed. If you are going to say outrageous things, then you are going to have to stand by outrageous things.

By law, Palin has the right to hurl verbal grenades. But free speech doesn't mean you're not accountable for the things you say. It means the government can't pass laws to make saying them a crime. It doesn't mean you can beat the drum of rebellion, sell a couple books, delete a graphic, embrace the Bill of Rights and you are magically not a selfish weasel.

Sarah Palin has the courage to delete her convictions and saunter away whistling like nothing happened. All of it is legal. I agree, and I will fight for that: Sarah Palin has the right to be spineless.

Here's the thing: Palin had an opportunity to have a "bullhorn moment." She had the opportunity to rise to the occasion and prove all her critics wrong. She could have proven she truly is a leader. That she's not just a capitalizing catty mean girl who can't tell the difference between an opponent and an enemy. That she is worthy of all this presidential buzz and not just skating by on some mushy conservative platitudes and good looks. She could have come out strong and expressed regret for demonizing a member of Congress who was shot in the head with a 9mm.

But instead... she cowered. Pitiful.

To be clear, I'm not blaming Sarah Palin for 20 people being shot -- six of them dying from their injuries. I'm blaming Sarah Palin for taking down her "take down" map sans comment. I'm not blaming her for throwing bombs. I am blaming her for not uttering remorse when they explode.

Palin wants her followers to "stand up?"

Her first.

Arctic Turkey: My New Year's Resolution

2011-01-04T17:11:12-05:00

The latest numbers show only 40 percent of Americans actually make New Year's resolutions.

Sure, I did it once -- five years ago this week I reluctantly quit smoking. If you listen to anecdotes about people who quit smoking, they always "smoked three packs a day." I only smoked two. Two packs. Everyday since junior high. I was thin, grey and phlegmy. I'd get winded playing Scrabble.

But I liked smoking. I had romanticized smoking. A cigarette was my steady companion. I didn't see smoking as a vice -- I saw it as an extension of my personality. If you knew me, you knew a cloud of tobacco exhaust was my wingman.

People come and go. Pets die. Cars die. Years go by. But smoking cigarettes was my constant. Besides, I was so precocious when it came to nicotine, I had been a smoker the majority of my life. I couldn't imagine anything different.

The end came shortly after I drove cross-country. At a truck stop in Arizona I wasn't allowed to smoke inside the restaurant. Yes, truckers, who as part of their vocation are known to urinate in soda bottles and toss them onto the side of America's highways, were collectively stating, "Smoking offends us." Government ordinance after ballot initiative interrupted my smoking pleasure. Being a smoker these days is agreeing to be quarantined from the general smelling population. My "friend" was making me a pariah.

So five years ago for New Years... I quit. How did I quit? Arctic turkey. I simply didn't smoke. I watched the clock and eventually it added up to time away from nicotine. People who have never smoked think this is the moment of triumph: time without smoking. But I can't even remember my first three months of not smoking. I know afterwards I had fewer friends. I know I started a dark anonymous blog about every neurotic incongruous fear which popped up. (One was being afraid I'd start to like neutral colors. Another was being afraid I'd become a "morning person.") I do remember I couldn't sleep and drank bedtime tea all day long.

A side effect I didn't expect was a yearning for schmaltz. I had a sudden appetite for all things "inspirational." I'd secretly read websites about life transformations. The more maudlin the better. I'd watch shows like BBC's You Are What You Eat and NBC's Biggest Loser to get some joy out of seeing others struggle, too. And I'd cry. I went from heavy smoking to heavy sobbing.

It was horrible.

Before I quit smoking I had never been inside a gym. I never had a reason to go. But now I had to DO something. So I went to a gym with a guest pass and then swiftly fell off the treadmill. I stopped walking. The treadmill didn't. Treadmill won. I was on the floor. I got up. Got back on. Stayed on. I ran my first marathon when I was 13 months off-cigarettes.

People warned me about lung cancer, emphysema and my teeth falling out, but no one cautioned me that quitting would turn me into a sap-craving below-average athlete. By my second marathon I discovered I do my best work in the morning and had acquired a beige couch. Pretty much all my fears manifested.

On the plus side, all the money I spent on cigarettes was just enough to purchase health insurance -which has come in handy for all my new sports injuries.

There were plenty of lowlights in 2010, but I would like to relay a high point: Rescued Chilean miner, Edison Peña participated in the 2010 New York Marathon. After the cave in, while trapped half a mile underground Peña ran up to six miles every day in the dark in 90 degree heat.

When asked why he did such a thing he said, "I wanted god to see that I really wanted to live."

Which is the definitive mantra for personal resolve. But really, it's perhaps the most articulate thing ever said about self-imposed exercise.

Satire is Very Serious

2010-12-28T15:50:36-05:00

People understand comedy like they understand electricity. They utilize it, enjoy it, know it comes from somewhere - but fundamentally don't know much about it. And judging by the reaction to The Daily Show host Jon Stewart's championing the Zadroga 9/11 responders bill to a successful passage during the lame duck session - most of the media doesn't understand comedy either.

On Fox News Channel, Fox and Friends' reflective co-host Gretchen Carlson commented, "Stewart decided to have a serious show about it - that's like mixing apples and oranges." No, that's like mixing your simile.

Even the far more reputable Brian Williams, anchor of NBC Nightly News, told the New York Times this week, "His audience gets to decide if they like the serious Jon as much as they do the satirical Jon."

"Serious" is not the opposite of "satire." Satire is especially serious to the satirist. Ask anyone who pokes fun at power for a living if they're serious (that's if you can stomach the moroseness), and they'll tell you what they do is solemn. They will describe their plight in life like others describe their Type 2 diabetes. "It's not as bad as it seems, I've found a way to live with it."

People who are not satirists hear "comedy" and think of Jackass 3D. They think vaudeville. They think rubber chickens. They think light. They think whimsy. They think goofy. They hear "comedy" and think "clown."

So what is satire? Satire is a kissing cousin of comedy. Yes, they're related, but not one and the same. Comedy is the more familiar cousin who the press will automatically bring up to demean the satirist. Especially when, like Gretchen Carlson, they themselves have been easy prey for satirists.

For example: Satirists won't distract bulls at a rodeo, but they will point out how the event has tons of bull crap. Zing.

And just being funny doesn't make you a satirist. Stewart, during an interview with the cute and quirky Rachel Maddow, tried to explain, "I feel more kinship to Jerry Seinfeld than I do to, you know, what you guys do...in that he is able to comedically articulate an intangible for people." Maddow didn't understand how her using humor to tell a story is different than what they do on The Daily Show.

The difference between reporting and satire? Bad reporting is still reporting, while there's no such thing as bad satire. If it's not true - if it doesn't work - it's not satire.

Satire is much more delicate than telling a story.

Stewart also pointed out in that same interview the legacy of the satirist - he referred to it as "the box."

"You know, there's been a form of me around forever, a comedian who, with political and social concepts, criticizes them from a haughty yet ultimately feckless perch, throwing things, like, that - the box that I'm in has always existed," relayed Stewart.

The court jester is an often-used example: the only guy who could tell the King the truth and keep his head. The Babylonian Talmud says Elijah the Prophet told a man named Rabbi Beroka of all the people in a marketplace, comedians are the only ones who are God's servants.

And if you think NASCAR crashes are tragic - try watching one of God's Servants bomb on Friday second show. Eep.

Reporters compile the first draft of history. They're supposed to be shortsighted - focused on the small picture. It's their job: what happened today. Commentators create the second draft. Historians after that. Satirists catch folly whenever it occurs. All are important - but all are not the same.

Jon Stewart had on his show four 9/11 first responders who are all sick with cancer. The Zadroga (paid-for) Bill could help them not bankrupt their children with their medical bills. It was being filibustered by a party who likes to use 9/11 for punctuation. Stewart's role is to point out silliness. Sometimes silliness surrounds a New York Firefighter with inoperable Stage 4 throat cancer.

What Stewart did was both satire and serious. Congress ended the joke when they did the right thing.

We Are Not Scrooges!

2010-12-21T15:13:59-05:00

Ever been stuck in holiday traffic fighting to be stuck in a holiday cashier's line so you can purchase low-priced presents on your high-balance Visa listening to high-volume holiday music and think, "Why am I doing this to myself?! I don't even really like Christmas. It's just a scheme to get me to gain more weight AND gain more debt."

When you're broke, there's nothing like Christmas to make you feel bad about yourself.

Nothing shatters one's contentment more quickly than that ever-looping commercial in which a guy buys his wife a bow-wrapped $100K Lexus as a "surprise." Every time it airs I think to myself, "My husband would have to put just that bow on layaway, and I'd still KNOW."

But if you confess this deepest of secrets -- this latent loathing of holiday "cheer" and the futile materialism of these now six weeks out of the year -- someone inevitably hurls the accusation: What are you... a Scrooge?

Yes, Englishman Charles Dickens penned an American Classic. His A Christmas Carol, published in 1843, is now a staple of the season. It's been re-made, re-hashed and re-imagined more times than John McCain's political convictions. In the story a stingy old man hates Christmas until ghosts scare him into being generous. He ends up loving the holiday and all the trimmings.

However, Dickens unknowingly created a character who is now used as propaganda to quash all voices of Christmas Present dissent.

The dreaded: You are a Scrooge.

To which I say: No, I am not. If you read the tale, Scrooge is (wait for it) rich.

This is a widespread yuletide misnomer. It must be stopped now. I'm not even going to comment on Christ never envisioning his birthday plagued by obligatory tchotchke acquisitions; senseless seasonal slaughter of Douglas Firs; or the pointless battle about Wal-Mart greeters muttering "Happy Holidays" (a contraction of holy days) versus the more allegedly pious "Merry Christmas" to an indifferent public. Charles Dickens, an advocate for the poor, certainly never meant for Ebenezer Scrooge's name to be applied to those with a paycheck the size of Bob Cratchit's.

Bob Cratchit -- Scrooge's underpaid underling -- is nice to people all year round even though he's paid hardly anything. You know, Tiny Tim's dad. That's who 98% of Americans are.

We're a nation of Bob Cratchits who are terrified of being Scrooges.

Yes, the difference between a venerable philanthropist and a charitable person -- is a charitable person works for a living.

But we want the picture-perfect holiday gift-buying guidebook Christmas. So we fret, agonize and figure out a way. We create for ourselves unnecessary annual stress. And then it all goes on a credit card with interest paid perennially. All because we don't want to be seen as a miser. We have to do Christmas, or we haven't done something right.

Not giving on Christmas is a moral shortcoming. Or so we're told. Not having money? A sin.

In a Dickensian reality, if we haven't made enough money to fall in a certain tax bracket the Ghost of Christmas Past won't even waste his time with us. Any apparitions 98% of us see are from the 90-proof in our eggnog. Holiday ghosts and specters -- we'll call them executive bonuses.

From Cratchit's point of view he just worked hard, enjoyed his family and was pleasantly surprised when his boss had a change of heart.

The U.S. poverty rate is now at 14.3%. Our current unemployment is 9.3%. Our once robust middle-class is looking a little anemic. The vast majority of us are stretched thin. My point is: It's time to lighten up... mainly on ourselves.

We are not Scrooges. We do, however, work for some (author's note: except my editor, of course).

Freedom of Deplorable Speech

2010-12-14T14:26:35-05:00

Pastor Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church congregation -- also known as the "God Hates Fags" picketers -- have no place in a polite society. But we don't live in a polite society. We live in this one. And in this one we are guaranteed the freedom of speech.

If you're for free speech, which I am, you're proclaiming you can be offended and be reasonably okay with it. Freedom of speech isn't just saying what you want to say, it's also letting other people say heinous and indefensible things and accepting the government's inaction on the issue.

The Bill of Rights deals with the relationship you have between you and your government. It doesn't mean that I can't tell you to shut up. It also doesn't mean that people like "n-word" aficionado Dr. Laura Schlessinger is "losing her First Amendment rights" by being boycotted. It means she is so distasteful that corporations don't want to endorse her speech by giving her advertising money. She still has the right to say it -- it's the wide broadcast and corporate sponsorship she mistakenly thinks is her constitutional right. It's the reason she quit her job as a syndicated radio host to go to Sirius XM...to be a satellite radio host. Makes sense.

The Westboro Baptist Church came on the national scene by picketing Matthew Shepard's funeral. Shepard was a 21-year-old student in Wyoming, who in 1998 was tortured and beaten to death because he was gay. The church showed up to point out the victim was a "sinner." At the time it reminded me of the bloodthirsty demonstrators outside prisons during an execution, but this wasn't a convict -- Shepard's only "crime" was being a gay kid in small town.

After that, capitalizing on a tragedy to make a religious point became a theme for Pastor Phelps and his small church.

Soon they started picketing soldiers' funerals, claiming our men and women in uniform die because our country tolerates homosexuality. The church sees this as their mission: tell us we're going to hell. And to thwart any labeling by the media -- the description they provide their website reads, "Site of anti-homosexual propagandist Fred Phelps of Topeka, Kansas."

What they do is hideous. But lots of hideous things are done in the name of religion: sheltering child rapists; advocating violence against women; not helping the poor. And becoming wealthy by preaching the gospel of an insolvent prophet is...well, not exactly practicing what He preached.

Every time I hear blowhards claim this is a Christian nation -- I just point out the poverty rate is 14.3 percent. Christian nation? No, we're not.

Anyway, in 2007 Louis Theroux of the BBC made the documentary, The Most Hated Family in America. He followed the Phelps congregation, which is mostly his own large family. It's a fascinating look inside this icon of intolerance, daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper explained that what they scream on the street corner is done out of love. Informing people they're going to hell for their sins and for tolerating others' sins is...loving. That's how they see what they do. They think they're spreading the word and all of us are over-sensitive and in denial about our impending perpetuity in hell.

It's almost street theater the way our sacred cows are made into creamed chipped beef casserole right in front of us. Anything we as a country deem sacrosanct and beyond controversy -- there's Westboro Baptist protest signs reading "Thank God for AIDS."

Which is why last week the group showed up at Elizabeth Edwards' funeral. Why? I'll paraphrase: It was because she didn't repent enough.

There are plenty who think they are against political correctness until faced with a Fred Phelps God Hates Parade at the gravesite of a marine who died from an IED. Then there's a PC pause.

Yes, it angers us. What they do is disgusting. Which is why the Supreme Court is going to decide a case brought against the church by a family of a soldier who died in combat.

But popular speech doesn't need protection. Nor does popular religious belief. Seeing the Westboro Baptist Church protesting is (at the very, very least) a sign of our freedom.

Out of Ideas? Call for a 'Simple Solution'

2010-12-07T17:35:21-05:00

Americans are now in a global economy. We're citizens of the world. We're engaged in delicate diplomacy made all too apparent by Wikileaks. Our markets are complex. Foreign markets are complex. Economics are complex. Communications are complex.

In the last century we went from the horse and buggy to the Y2K buggy.

Over 300 million people live in this country. A collection of recent and not-so-recent immigrants (and some native peoples) with many different ideas brought together in a participatory government - a relatively new experiment in human history - a democracy. The financial meltdown of 2008 made us all aware of how vulnerable and intricate our economy is. People making nothing were shockingly still earning tons of money. Morality aside - there are some serious issues with the fact that such a thing is even possible.

The only difference between a pirate and a buccaneer is a note from the King. The financial crisis is so involved we don't even know who was wearing a white hat and who was wearing a black one. Who to hate and who to cheer? Who knows?

It's complicated. Very.

My mechanic is, for all intents and purposes, a computer programmer in coveralls. So why can't politicians stop hawking only "simple solutions?"

"I have a fundamental problem with any 1,000-page bills," said Senator David Vitter last year during the health care debate.

China is about to pass us as the world's largest economy, they already beat us in student test scores but the main thing to be concerned about is that bills have too many pages? There's some misplaced skepticism.

I understand how anything "simple" seems better than having a conversation about insurance hedging for exotic derivatives and how that made your neighborhood dry cleaner go out of business. But it's condescension when politicians can't have a reasonable discussion about real issues without bleating out some melba toast bromides.

This week on Face this Nation, Senator Jon Kyl was asked about his holding up of the START Treaty with Russia. This treaty not only reduces the number of nuclear warheads in our arsenal (and the cost of maintaining said warheads), but also allows us to keep an eye out for "loose nukes." When asked if he were against the ratification of the treaty, instead of answering yes or no, the Senate Minority Whip dodged the question with, "I'll make my views clear about whether I support or oppose the treaty." And then he winked.

Yes, when faced with the fragile issue of our post-Cold War relationship with Russia, Senator Kyl - who's holding up our ability to "verify" our former enemy's arsenal - was coy and then...winked.

But Kyl was very clear about wanting the Bush Tax Cuts to be renewed.

See? Complex issue? Dodge. Call for tax cuts.

Yes, it's simple. Just cut taxes. Calling for tax cuts to balance the budget is like shaving your legs because you need a haircut. Not all problems are simple. But all our solutions have to be monosyllabic: wink.

So the question is: Does Kyl understand the issues we face as a country? Or does he just not concern himself with them?

Whatever the case, it's putrid to draw a paycheck, take an oath and still not do your job.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has a simple solution for that: Make congress a part-time job. In a recent op-ed Jindal wrote about the founding of the nation, "Back then, farmers would literally leave their fields and go to legislate in our nation's capital."

Hold on - Congress, the most shallow, petty, bickering body of ineffective air-suckers is - wait for it - too professional?! Jindal also celebrates the "do-nothing" Congress of the storied Harry Truman era while not bothering to mention the "do-even-less" 109th Congress - in 2006. Yes, be like them. Do nothing, like the founders intended, and then go home to your farms fueled by slaves somewhere in one of the 13 colonies. Simple!

Farming is even too complex these days to ever be a part-time profession. Let alone making laws.

There's another word for "simple solution."

It's "gimmick."

After I Compiled Sarah Palin's Enemy List...

2010-12-06T13:28:08-05:00

I made a list of all the organizations and people Sarah Palin has feuded with in the media in the last 30 months since she was tapped to be John McCain's running mate.

Spoiler alert: It's pretty long and bipartisan

The list is here.

Sarah Palin: America's Full-Time Professional Duelist

2010-11-30T12:58:01-05:00

The template for the perpetual Sarah Palin feud was set last Valentine's Day. The animated series Family Guy aired an episode in which a character with Down Syndrome said her mother was the former Governor of Alaska. From her platform as a paid Fox News contributor, Palin pounced on the moment to condemn Seth MacFarlane. "Cruel and cold-hearted people who would do such a thing," she said on Bill O'Reilly's The Factor. She also used the occasion to demand then-Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel step down for using the word "retard." When asked, Palin said Rush Limbaugh -- who constantly uses the r-word -- is "using satire."

Following Palin's determination of what satire is, the actress Andrea Fay Friedman who played the character with Down Syndrome -- who also fittingly has Down Syndrome -- made a statement to the press: "I guess former Governor Palin does not have a sense of humor...My parents raised me to have a sense of humor and to live a normal life. My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former Governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes."

So the mold of Sarah Palin's taking to the airwaves to blast someone using incorrect facts solidified. If she had just done a little Google research, when asked about the episode she could have graciously said, "I would be proud for such an accomplished actress like Miss Friedman to be my daughter." Instead Palin appeared volatile, insulting and ignorant.

During the same appearance in which she slammed MacFarlane, Palin also pronounced to O'Reilly, "Let's not call each other names because it invalidates what our arguments are all about."

Uh huh.

This is the same woman who refers to her critics as "jerks." Palin called CBS-affiliates "corrupt bastards" in the same week she called reporters "impotent and limp and gutless." She called the McCain campaign's Steve Schmidt a liar and in her book said he was "rotund." She called journalist Joe McGinniss a "pervert" and implied he was a peeping tom. She labeled feminists as a "cackle of rads." She blasted Alaska bloggers as "bored, anonymous and pathetic." She deemed David Letterman "sexually perverted" after accusing him of making a rape joke about her then 14-year-old daughter. And don't forget when she accused her opponent/enemy of "palling around with terrorists" and still refers to him as "Barack Hussein."

How's that not name-y because it invalidates your argument thingy working out for ya?

In fact, Palin is now our nation's only full-time professional duelist. She fights with everyone. Her entire post-quitting career is centered on flame wars, most of which she starts. They are often petty, sanctimonious, trumped-up jabs which do nothing but make the media talk about her more. And she's monetized the drama. She's gone pro. Yes, she's found the formula Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian pioneered: shameless and shallow sells. I'm inexplicably addicted to the show Jerseylicious, and if it weren't for conflict it would just be a bunch of frosted-lipped spandex-clad women cutting hair. Instead it's World War III in a rhinestone-studded turnpike-adjacent strip mall. That's what makes it a show.

The media loves conflict. It's easy to cover verbal battles. And so we do.

Palin has dueled with McCain staffer Nicolle Wallace; father of her grandson Levi Johnston; Ashley Judd; Karl Rove; Politico; Alaska teacher Kathleen Gustafson; Arnold Schwarzenegger; columnists Maureen Dowd, Peggy Noonan and Kathleen Parker; Reality TV mom Kate Gosselin; Ben Bernanke; Katie Couric; Senator Lisa Murkowski; Congressman Spencer Bachus; Mayor Michael Bloomberg; Gawker; and, Barbara Bush -- just to name a few.

The common denominator in all these feuds? Sarah Palin.

Besides viciously accusing men with whom she disagrees as somehow being sex perverts, while at the same time granting a pass for indiscretions to men with whom she agrees (Limbaugh), Palin's main accusation is that people are lying. They are "making stuff up." Yes, according to the trumpeter of the "death panel" canard, everyone else is a liar. It's just a coincidence everyone Palin encounters isn't truthful. Poor, Barracuda.

Palin has gotten a couple of number-one hits with the same old song. That's why it's all starting to sound alike.

I've watched enough nature shows to know that if a real Mama Grizzly fought this much of the time -- we'd have to assume the beast was rabid.

A tally of the Sarah Palin feuds can be found here.

CORRECTION: The original post mistakenly said Levi Johnston was the father of Palin's granddaughter instead of grandson. The text was changed to fix the error.

It's Only Unethical When It's Called 'News'

2010-11-16T15:44:16-05:00

Imagine an entire 24-hour cable news network devoted to political causes. Many of their employees are future and former candidates for president, giving them a national platform to reach potential voters. Entire "movements" of political discourse are not only showcased -- they're even started on this news channel. Fundraising, the toughest part of running for political office, is made easier, streamlined by the on-air hosts of the news channel telling viewers to donate money to certain candidates. World events shaping our culture are put into perspective by the personalities. The production value is as sharp as the agenda. Poignant scripts are followed religiously. Everyone at the network -- from the top anchor to the fill-in weekend guest -- plays ball. It's a machine: Well-oiled. Well-funded. For-profit. High-rated. Caffeinated. Influential.

Now imagine it's liberal.

Why doesn't the Left have a Fox News? Why isn't there a liberal version of political organizing on television? There are currently nine 24-hour news stations, so why isn't there one that's outright for progressives?

Progressives will say, "Because we're better than that." It's against journalistic ethics to be a news organization and endorse and fundraise for candidates. They point out how promoting talking points in lieu of actual reporting is propaganda. Liberals, they'll tell you, don't like propaganda -- they prefer nuance.

Conservatives will tell you all channels are liberal, and Fox News is "balance." They'll say it's not unethical for Fox News to prop up issues and candidates because they're told on Fox News the Left does the same thing. On Fox News (and only on Fox News) they and their viewers are the underdog. Their narrative is how they're so outnumbered by all the richie-rich powerful clandestine liberals that journalistic codes of conduct are beside the point. They're in war, and in war things like habeas corpus and ethics have to be sacrificed in order to win. Or really, survive -- in their version it's always a life and death struggle.

Over at MSNBC, Keith Olbermann was suspended for donating money without management permission to candidates he had on his show. Yes, the "liberal media" does stuff like that. A former president of MSNBC is reported to have said that he did not want MSNBC to be a "liberal answer to Fox News." During Olbermann's brief suspension without pay, his colleague Rachel Maddow went on air and said, "Let this incident lay to rest forever the facile, never-true-anyway, bull-pucky, lazy conflation of Fox News and what the rest of us do for a living," she said. "They run as a political operation; we're not."

Okay, fine. MSNBC isn't the liberal equivalent of Fox News. Why isn't there one?

The only thing unethical about Fox News is the calling themselves "news." Fox News is based on right-wing talk radio and no one ever calls that "news." It's like if the Christian Broadcasting Network kept their same programming but switched their name from "Network" to "News." They would suddenly be very objectionable from a journalistic integrity perspective. But as it is now, the CBN raises money and endorses causes, and no one bats an eye.

Other than the "news" moniker, Fox News is fine. They're for their side, compelling to their side and benefiting their side. Plus, they give the people what they want: entertainment.

So what is wrong with liberals doing the same thing? What's wrong with progressives having a channel based on the events of the day that is informative and amusing to other progressives?

The Left is always saying their main problem is with messaging - not the lack of ideas, but the selling of ideas. The framing of the debate eludes the Left. Candidate Barack Obama was able to message and sell his ideas to the American public; therefore, he got elected. Then he started doing the job he ran for instead of still campaigning for the job he ran for. The "perpetual campaign" is the bane of modern American presidents. You'd think liberals and progressives now with a Democratic president in office would at least consider replicating a communication model that has proven to work.

Yes, I'm saying it: Liberals should mimic Fox News...in some ways. Be engaging, have a point of view, and tout progressive causes.

Just don't call it "news."

Attention Congress: Fix the Potholes

2010-11-09T11:58:05-05:00

It's an odd Americanism to elect someone to be in government who freely admits they don't like government. As if reluctance translates into competence. "Oh he'll be a great husband, especially since he doesn't believe in marriage." For some reason, we buy the premise of politicians begging to be a part of the thing they are, in theory -- against.

Son of an incumbent seven-term Texas Congressman, Kentucky's Rand Paul, in his first public statement as a government-employee-elect, said, "We've come to take our government back." And he's going to do that by cashing a government paycheck...reluctantly.

A politician who is against government is like an actor who is against entertainment. It's ridiculous. Because we hate politicians so much, the only way we can stand inking a bubble next to their name is to pretend they really don't want to do their job.

But do Americans actually know what the government is -- or what the government actually does? Failed Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle told a crowd during her campaign, "Government isn't what our Founding Fathers put into the Constitution." Yes, the framing document of the U.S. Government has no "government" in it.

At CPAC this year, Fox News Host Glenn Beck told his government-leery audience he learned progressivism is evil by educating himself at public libraries because "books are free." Yes, Glenn, they are "free" because the government funds public libraries with taxes -- a progressive plot.

RNC Chairman Michael Steele said last year, "You and I know that in the history of mankind and womankind, government -- federal, state or local -- has never created one job." It's a battle cry repeated by many a Republican, some now working in -- yes -- government jobs. Such a sound bite is often said in front of people employed by the U.S. Postal Service (the second largest employer in the country), public school teachers and the U.S. military -- jobs which the government arguably and factually created.

So there are deniers of climate change, evolution, the Holocaust, 9/11, AIDS, Obama's American citizenship, Separation of Church and State and a round Earth. People deny these things in the face of overwhelming evidence. Even though these things exist. They happened. But government deniers? Really?

For U.S. citizens, the most common interaction with the government is on the road. When you drive down the street or use the sidewalk, you are utilizing something your federal and local governments build and maintain. Yes, that's the government messing up your car's alignment. And along with bridges, dams, drinking water, energy, waterways, levees, public parks, rails, schools and sewage -- it's all in desperate need of repair. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave our infrastructure an average of a "D." They also reported it would take $2.2 trillion over five years to bring that grade up to a "B." The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (AKA The Stimulus) allotted $105.3 billion to infrastructure projects. So we're the richest country in the world yet we're spending only 5% of what we need in order for our citizens not to die from bridges collapsing and levees buckling.

This is the most basic thing the government can do: fix the potholes. Fix America. Business can't work if we don't have roads. Left, Right or Independent -- we are all dependent on a functional sewage system and an electrical grid.

In light of this, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said his party's top priority -- top meaning above all else -- is to make Obama a one-term president. So after the Bush Lost Decade of job growth and wages, a current 9.6% unemployment and other countries (e.g., Kazakhstan) outperforming us in basic literacy -- the Republicans once again opt for myopia. Instead of enabling the country on its most fundamental level to work -- the Republican plan is to throw a monkey wrench in their opponent's presidency. Their eye is on one prize: a one-term president.

This is like firemen refusing to come to your house to put out a fire because they want the Captain to lose his job.

Here's a message from the people "on the ground:" Knock it off -- and fix the potholes.

Midterm Choice: Profiteers or Bureaucrats

2010-10-26T16:04:04-04:00

Five years ago, on one of my "UFO Tours" (coined by comedian Bill Hicks, when you only appear in small towns in front of a handful of people so you start to doubt your own existence), I had a show in Burley, Idaho -- home to some of the warmest and most hospitable inhabitants I've ever hung out with.

Burley is a town of less than 10,000 residents whose median annual income is $27,981, far below the state or national average. The center of Burley is a Walmart. Across the street is a Rent-a-Center which is next door to a Check Cashing place. These three establishments are the jewels of capitalism. Walmart's bottom line is always the bottom line. Profit trumps all at the giant box store to end all box stores. Walmart's wages are so low you can only afford to shop at Walmart. A modern homage to sharecropping. Rent-a-Center allows their customers to pay high prices for low quality appliances and furniture in turn for monthly payments. Check Cashing places - providing payday loans and charging outrageous amounts for emergency lending -- are parasites of poverty.

If you're struggling to keep your head above water, which most people in Burley arguably are, it's death by a thousand (as in, everyone-takes-a) cuts.

So the center of town is a testament to freedom...for corporations.

And the town smells like dog feces. In the middle of winter it was about 20 degrees outside, and I looked under my shoe to see if I stepped in anything. The entire town smells like that. I asked why, and I was told it was because of pig farms outside of town. According to a New York Times Freedom of Information request regarding toxic water in the U.S., the City of Burley has had 285 EPA violations. When the report was issued in 2008, Burley was noncompliant 12 out of 12 quarters.

So the air and water around town are a testament to freedom...for corporations.

And this is how the GOP wants America to be for those who work for a living. When Republicans talk about freedom, they don't mean the freedom to be able to drink clean water piped into your home. When they talk about freedom, they don't mean a job that pays enough to live on. When they talk about freedom, they don't mean not being a victim of predatory lending.

No, instead they want the government to stay out of business regulation. Less regulation equals freedom...for corporations.

"I think having a moratorium on new federal regulations is a great idea, it sends a wonderful signal to the private sector that they're going to have some breathing room," said Minority Leader John Boehner in July of this year.

When the GOP talks about "breathing room," they don't mean clean air for us. They mean freedom...for corporations.

And if you think what they really mean is "free market" -- that's wrong. A free market's foundation is honesty and transparency. What the GOP claims as their "free market" principles are actually fixed market conspiracies favoring monolithic and monopolistic corporations at the expense of everyone else's quality of life.

"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies," wrote the German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche. The "all regulations are bad" viewpoint, the "cut taxes at any cost" doctrine and the "let business reign" dogma of the right-wing caused the economic collapse of 2008. Wall Street and Banks were allowed to rule. Government ceded power to corporations. The economy became so hollowed out and dried up -- it cratered. If you want to see how GOP convictions work in the real world -- look at the final few months of the Bush Administration.

And if Social Security were privatized -- as Bush mentioned last week regretting not accomplishing - we would have had ten-fold the tragedy. How can the rigged faux-free market fix the problem of millions more seniors with no safety net? Quite simply: it won't.

It's understandable -- Americans are mad at the government for not working for us -- now we want the government to go away. Get drowned in a bathtub. More government? Freer business? Each feels like putting a hot compress on a burn at this point.

The fact is we have a choice in the midterms between profiteers or bureaucrats. And all things being equal -- at least the bureaucrats are accountable to "we the people."

The Incredible Shrinking Women

2010-10-19T16:53:39-04:00

If you happen to mention the name Hillary Clinton to my grandmother, she'll pause, lock her jaw and declare, "That woman...ambitious." That's all she has to say about Clinton because, after all, Granny's polite. Also, the first female Speaker of the House's name is akin to a curse word - something you say when you stub your toe. "Ah! #*&% Pelosi!"

But if you think Grandma is a Sarah Palin fan, think again. Once, I asked her about Palin - she faked a hearing-aid malfunction.

Even so, think of where women were when my grandmother was born:

Montana holds the honor of electing the first woman, Jeannette Rankin, to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1917, a full three years before the ratification of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote. Rankin is also noted for being the only member of Congress to vote against the U.S. entering WWII (pacifism being a "woman's issue"). Interestingly, Montana also holds the honor of electing only one (think: first AND last) woman to Congress.

Yes, in almost a hundred years Montana has elected just one female to represent them in Washington D.C.

But if you think that record is shoddy - Iowa and Mississippi have never (think: ever) elected a woman as Governor or to the U.S. Congress. Mississippi you can understand. Tell Mississippians (like my grandmother) they're 50 years behind the times, and they'll get mad at you for calling them progressive.

But Iowa is a more civically mindful place. America's presidential candidates are vetted in the Iowa Caucuses. If the candidates don't make sense, they don't get past Iowa. Iowa is like our nation's liver - cleaning out all the toxins (e.g., Tom Tancredo) - before they get on the ballot. Yet locally, Iowans have never once elected a female candidate to represent them in the Governor's mansion or Capitol Hill. Currently, Assistant Attorney General for Iowa Roxanne Conlin is running against incumbent Senator Chuck Grassley. She is 25 points behind in most polls.

Presently, 51% of the population is female, yet only 17% of Congress is female. If the old white men - the majority of the Tea Party - want "their country" back, look no further than the Halls of Congress: It's 87% white and 83% male. If Congress got together and misspelled some Nazi-laden Mao-heavy picket signs, it would look exactly like every other conservative rally since Obama took office. You know, those folks claiming not to have a voice in government.

Even in the wake of "Mama Grizzlies," a phrase coined to describe a female Republican candidate with a Sarah Palin level of competence, USA Today reports the number of women serving in the U.S. Congress could go down for the first time in 30 years. Women have been more likely to vote Democratic, even though feminist author Gloria Feldt (No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think about Power) states, "The Democrats have been remiss in recruiting women for office." Still, a majority of female Representatives in Congress have a "D" next to their names. And it's going to be a bad year for Democrats. So as Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle running against Harry Reid would put it, Congress is about to "man up."

Here's the thing about women candidates: they are more interesting to the press than their male counterparts. The media just likes them more. There's an obsession with female candidates' gaffes. The idea that someone denounces the Supreme Court as "activists judges" yet is unable to name one decision with which they disagree - like Christine O'Donnell and Sarah Palin before her - is noteworthy. "That woman...ambitious." The year 1992 was dubbed "The Year of the Woman" because four women were elected to the Senate as opposed to the over 30 men who were elected or re-elected to the same body.

Yes, female candidates may get all the ink - but male candidates get all the votes.

And now with Mama Grizzlies roaming about - women voters know that these female candidates sucking up all the oxygen don't even support traditional women's issues like reproductive freedoms, child welfare laws and social security. So - ironically - if you're for women's issues, you just might have to be against women candidates. Which is getting one step up and a hundred years back.

The Full Gingrich

2010-10-12T11:47:04-04:00

It takes a special kind of 3-D hyperbole to curl your eyelashes and simultaneously drop your jaw. Newt Gingrich's declarations produce an Andy Kaufman type of discomfort, where I don't know if what I'm hearing is brilliant, offensive or intentionally comedic.

"What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?" Gingrich asked Americans to ponder last month. "That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior."

Wait, so who's pro-colonial? Weren't the Founding Fathers "anti-colonial?"

Gingrich's schtick is Scorched Earth meets Straw Man. He not only incinerates the hypothetical Straw Man - he also verbally salts the soil where the Straw Man's make-believe family lives after razing their made-up home.

So, if you're imaginary - meet your worst nightmare: Newton Leroy Gingrich, former Speaker of the House, now testing the waters for a 2012 presidential bid.

In the '90s, while beating the drum of morality against President Bill Clinton for his affair, Gingrich brazenly had his own extra marital affair with a congressional staffer. And now because he's a man of principle, he's pictured next to his third wife on his new DVD, "America at Risk." No, he's not selling burglar alarms as the slogan would lead you to believe. He's warning us about people who aren't him - who aren't us - "others."

What others? The Obama Administration. Sure, Gingrich did tour with Al Sharpton last year at the request of the White House. It was surely a Machiavellian attempt by the president to ruin the Gingrich's Republican purity street cred. Their five-city tour was aimed at bridging the achievement gap for minorities on the 55^th anniversary of Brown vs. The Board of Education. Well, Obama is foiled again! Because Gingrich has moved beyond that bi-partisan experiment he had in school. Now he knows who he is! He's perfect to point out the moral weakness of phantom unknowns. More than anyone else you could imagine, he's ready to take down anyone he imagines.

One has to admire the bravery it takes not to navel gaze about your own personal failings and former Sharpton associations. While I want to shrink into the fetal position for three days after making a typo on Twitter, Gingrich is out there - candid Wikipedia entries and all - among the people.

More specifically, he spoke at the Values Voters Summit last month. What pressing issue did Gingrich decide to take a hard stance against? "I am totally opposed to any effort to impose Sharia on the United States," said Gingrich to the enthusiastic crowd. "And we should have a federal law that says under no circumstance...will Sharia be used in any court to apply to any judgment made about American law. And we should make clear to Justice Breyer and Justice Kagan, who both seem confused on this topic, that no judge will remain in office who tries to use Sharia law to interpret the American Constitution."

But we have that law: the First Amendment, ratified in 1791. Done.

And yes, Gingrich called out two Jewish justices for allegedly trying to impose Islamic law in the U.S. Which is like declaring North Dakota needs to respect its border with Florida. Yes, we agree, and we are so grateful you pointed out the urgency of the issue.

To add a nice twist to this very twisted tale: Politico is reporting this week Republicans are going on record saying Gingrich sometimes goes "too far." This is shocking! In 2010 when the first black U.S. president-as-a-Nazi is so ubiquitous it's a cliché, and the word "socialism" is used as punctuation on right-wing media outlets - there's still such a thing as "too far!" Congressman Tom Cole (R-Oklahoma) told Politico Gingrich "has a tendency to go one stop further than he should."

Cole clearly doesn't see the things that Gingrich sees. In fact, it's safe to say most of us don't.

Who else has the leadership and resolve to take a firm position on something that doesn't exist and no one is actually FOR? It just proves Gingrich is a visionary! Or at least having visions.