One of the benefits of being fifty-three is that I’ve got a lot of firsthand experience. If I had a magic button that would force everyone to live under the system that they advocate, I’d press it so hard and so many times that I’d break my finger. If you support Hamas, I’d make you…
The concept of racism has lost all meaning
March 28, 2015
Words are supposed to have definitions. One way in which those with nefarious agendas control the steaming masses is by flinging accusations in all directions, hoping to cow dissenters into silence. For years now, there’s been racism behind every tree and under every rock. It took a Twitter user to drive home the point that…
The main difference between us and animals
March 21, 2015
There are lots of differences between us and animals. We humans wear clothes, even if it’s just a penis sheath. Almost every group of us has a written language. We manufacture conveyances that defy the laws of nature, just so we can hurry from Point A to Point B. Last night it hit me that…
My calculated risk
February 27, 2015
Every now and then I’m reminded that what I do is dangerous. However, for me it’s a calculated risk, as I’ll explain in a moment. Today the American writer and blogger Avijit Roy was murdered in Bangladesh. He was killed by Islamists with machetes as he left a book fair. His wife Rafida Ahmed Bonya…
Is it just me?
May 22, 2014
Do you ever have one of those days in which you ask yourself, “Is it just me, or has the planet lost its collective mind?” One of my favorite films is Miller’s Crossing. It’s very violent, so you’ve been warned. I didn’t understand it until recently. It’s a movie about coming to sad realizations and…
New rules of engagement
May 10, 2014
What made the suicides of my parents so painful was that Mom and Dad kept assuring us that they wanted to live. They said one thing and did the opposite. I’ve dealt with people like that my whole life, but I was nearly killed by my mother and father reaching out to us and pushing…
Conversation with a Secular Humanist, Part One
April 13, 2014
On April 12, 2014, the novelist Anne Rice posted the following video on her Facebook fan page and asked for comments. I obliged her. In the interest of full disclosure, I was raised a Catholic, like Rice was. She and I both left the church at eighteen, but I never looked back. I was an…
Conversation with a Secular Humanist, Part Two
April 13, 2014
The conclusion of my Facebook conversation with the novelist Anne Rice. Conversation with a Secular Humanist, Part Two Christianity, with its belief in a fiery and everlasting Hell has waged battles and wars of genocide against other peoples throughout its long and bloody and cruel history because it believes ultimately that it has the only…