Heathen Middle Podcasts

Iraq Rap

2007-02-16T06:07:00.000-08:00

http://www.livevideo.com

Animals Have Souls Video

2007-02-16T06:05:00.000-08:00

http://www.livevideo.com

Religion Defends Against the New Atheists

2006-12-01T11:22:00.000-08:00

by staff writer Fritz Alvarez

When some think of Atheists the name O'Hair comes to mind, along with an image that seems kind of fringy and on the edge in societal terms. Now there is a new generation of Atheists, and they are on the offense.

"Religious belief is a destructive force that causes far more harm than good." This is the first line in the web page of Atheist
Revolution. It is one of many rather sophisticated Atheism sources that have become newly aggressive in attacking religion in general and Christianity in particular.

Why, one might ask, this new push from the anti-religious (or Pro-Disbelief as we might call them)? We at The Heathen Middle believe it is because of the angry and dogmatic efforts of those who
are trying to take over the world in the name of their religions. This includes, but is not limited to, Muslim extremists and Christian Evangelicals. Previously on this site we have commented
on these efforts. (See: What Evangelicals Believe, Biblical
Diplomacy, and Wimpy Clergy.

We have also reported in the past on the Backlash against Christian Fundamentalism. Now the backlash is taking on sweeping new intellectual tones, and the leaders of this movement are well armed for their intellectual arguments.

One example of this is one of the newest leaders of the anti-religion movement Sam Harris. Author of several books on the subject of dangers from religion, including The End of Faith and
Letter to a Christian Nation, Harris recently had the occasion to debate one of the defenders of Christian thought Dennis Prager who hosts a nationally syndicated radio talk show live
Monday through Friday mornings from Los Angeles. He's appeared on "Larry King Live," "Hardball," " Hannity & Colmes," "CBS Evening News," "The Today Show" and many others. Prager was a Fellow at Columbia University's School of International Affairs, where he did
graduate work at the Middle East and Russian Institutes. He has taught Russian and Jewish history at Brooklyn College; and was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to the U.S. Delegation to the Vienna Review Conference on the Helsinki Accords. He holds an honorary doctorate of laws from Pepperdine University.

The debate between Harris and Prager ran in e-mail over several days and you can catch it here:

Day 1 (Sam Harris): Why Are Atheists So Angry?

Day 1 (Dennis Prager): Why Are Atheists So Angry?

Day 2 (Harris): Why Are Atheists So Angry?

Day 2 (Prager): Why Are Atheists So Angry?

Day 3 (Harris): Why Are Atheists So Angry?

Day 3 (Prager): Why Are Atheists So Angry?

Day 4 (Harris): Why Are Atheists So Angry?

Day 4 (Prager): Why Are Atheists So Angry?

In the debate Sam Harris continues his argument that religion is now threatening our very existence. He adds:

"Nearly half of the American population is eagerly anticipating the end of the world. This dewy-eyed nihilism provides absolutely no incentive to build a sustainable civilization. Many of
these people are lunatics, but they are not the lunatic fringe. Some of them can actually get Karl Rove on the phone whenever they want."

Even a newly released book by Carl Sagan Varieties of the
Scientific Experience is weighing in on the matter of spirituality, science, and the existence of God.

What makes the new intellectual backlash against religion most interesting is that religious fundamentalists prompted it. They have pounded all of us with their Bible slapping rhetoric for so
long that finally someone has risen to take on the reasoning and intellect behind their proclamations. It will be a long debate, and we predict religions will ultimately lose the attention of the World's young in the process.

Today's Reporting Sucks!

2006-11-07T13:04:00.000-08:00

Fritz asks why reporters are always interviewing each other.

MP3 File

Why The GOP Will be Booted Out

2006-11-06T20:46:00.000-08:00

Fritz Predicts voters will take control of the House away from the Republicans and tells why.

MP3 File

Gay Republicans? Puuleeez!

2006-10-14T07:36:00.000-07:00

The biggest oversight in the recent reporting on the Mark Foley affair(s) was that reporters seemed to miss the fact that this guy was a GAY REPUBLICAN. That should be the first clue right there. That’s sort of like being an African American Klan member. Why would any self-respecting gay man in his right mind want to be in the gay bashing party of the century?

So now Washington has become all about another witch hunt, finding and outing the gays. That could be a bigger blow to government than trying to throw out all of the gay priests would be to the Catholic Church. It’s just not going to happen. You see, disempowered minorities have a strange fascination for institutions of power. Truth is that most of the outing will probably be Democratic gays, and they are mostly outed anyway.

Why would anyone want to be a closeted, gay, Republican Congressman, supporting a party that sides with the gay-stomping Evangelical Christian Right every chance it gets? Any good Republican knows that the way to get people to turn loose of another hundred dollars for the “Grand Ole Party” is to mention “Clinton,” “Homosexual,” and “Gun Control” all in one sentence. It’s not Gays who keep bringing up gay marriage on Capital Hill, it’s the Republicans. It is a sure-fire money pump.

Foley could have been an “out” gay Republican. He could have been a member of that strange little group known as “Log Cabin Republicans.” Their motto is “Inclusion Wins.” They operate under the idea that being in the GOP helps to win the party over to gay rights activism. Whoops! Mark Foley just set that group back about 30 years. Perhaps they just want inclusion so badly they pretend to be included when they’re not. They actually are said to VOTE for Republican candidates. How stupid is that for a gay man? Probably no amount of freed slaves putting on white hoods and marching around with the Klan would have won them over to African American causes. Some day the disguise would have failed, and the hangman’s noose would have appeared. It should probably be considered an affront to every Democratic leader who ever stood up for gay and lesbian dignity and rights that any gay man would have the audacity to vote Republican.

It’s becoming clear that Republican leadership knew Foley was gay. Can it be that many of them are not the gay baiting homophobes they try to convince their evangelical constituency they have become? This time their hypocrisy, of being enlightened and pretending to be bigoted at the same time, backfired on them. The hypocrisy of Mark Foley overpowered the rest of the GOP leadership charade. Unfortunately, some very hard working, respectable gay staffers and members on Capital Hill will probably now take a beating because of one person couldn’t, for whatever reason, be authentically and openly gay.

Want to point at a Gay Congressman? Look at Barney Frank. Now there is a gay person’s Gay Congressman. If Barney Frank were going to diddle a young stud, it probably wouldn’t just be on the internet, and it surely would be an adult. It also would not have to be in the closet. He seems to know that, because of his “outness,” he is under such scrutiny he simply must rise to the challenge.

Here, from his web site, is what Frank says about morality:

"Democratic positions are fully consistent with values of patriotism, free enterprise, working hard for one's self and one's family, and holding people to a standard of behavior fully respectful of the person and property of others."

And what does Barney Frank think about as a Congressman? Here are a list of issues from his website: ”Issues” page:

Civil Rights/Civil Liberties
Congressional Reform
Economy, Budget, Jobs, and Trade
Environment
Federal Response to Katrina
Health Care
Housing
Judiciary
Middle East
Morality in Politics
Social Security

(Find here a speech he made about morality.)

He also takes a stand for gay rights, but it does not top his list of issues.

A gay member of Congress is not new. A teen diddling member of Congress is not new. There have been plenty of heterosexual/under age sex scandals on the hill. So far as we know, there was never an attempt to find and eject all of the other heterosexuals from Capital Hill because one was caught with his pants down (and in a bad way).

The story that’s missing in all of the recent reports is that of Mark Foley’s failed gayness. His actions do not reflect poorly on gays, because he was simply refusing to be authentically and openly gay. It’s a sad waste, frankly. Some joking has been made of Foley's claims that he was sexually abused as a child. It is pertinent. Sexual abuse of children is spawned by childhood sexual abuse. It is contagious, and it seems like an epidemic.

Imagine the extra energy and resourcefulness it took for a guy to be in his position in his circumstance. Now imagine if all of that resourcefulness had been put to work in a more constructive way. Democrats should not be quite so gleeful over all of this. It is a sad outcome for a lot of reasons.

America - Is Bush Breaking Us?

2006-10-02T08:43:00.000-07:00

The leadership of America continues to throw money around the world like we are Friday night rich.
Between our:

tidy little war
our outrageous cost of the deficit
government waste
tax refunds for millionaires
fraud
helping our “former enemies” dispose of their cold war waste
disposing of our own cold war waste
trying to find somewhere to put our commercial nuclear waste
funding homeland security
haphazardly throwing money around to belatedly respond to disasters
playing savior to the developing world
paying illegal immigrant's medical bills
giving money to “faith based” church programs
supporting young drug addicts with social security
(and the like,)

We are pretty much acting like we’re drunk and think there is no end to the money. CBS News reported this month that since the start of the Bush administration, the dollar has lost more than a third of its value against foreign currencies. Just as an example, in December, 2004 the Dollar/Euro exchange rate was 1.3466. At this writing A Euro is worth 1.249 U.S. dollars.

There are those who say we may be skirting on the verge of bankruptcy. Among them is Boston University Professor Laurence Kotlikoff whose academic paper on this subject was published by the Federal Reserve of St. Louis Review. His paper(
Is the United States Bankrupt?) says that radical reform of U.S. financial institutions is necessary to secure the nations economic future. The London Telegraph has done a great treatment with their report on this academic discourse.

Professor Kotlikoff ominously warns that we have only a small window of time to address our financial situation before the markets do it for us. He quotes a study that list the nation’s “fiscal gap.” at almost 66 trillion dollars. How much is that? A good perspective comes from a web site that gives a graphic representation of how much a trillion pennies would stack up to be. (Additional perspective on "trillion" can be found here, and this site that shows our "trillion" is not like everybody else's "trillion.")

In getting perspective on how much a "trillion" is, it is important to realize that China's Capitalization in the United States is almost 2-trillion dollars.

Another economist, George J. Swanson addresses the topic of potential American Bankruptcy in his book America The Broke. Here is a quote from the front cover flap:

One day soon, our government will suddenly run out of cash, unable to meet its payments, leaving the United States as bankrupt as any banana republic. We are far more vulnerable than most Americans realize. . .
With a debt of $7.3 trillion, if interest rates were to hit the levels we saw 20 years ago, it would take every nickel collected in income taxes just to pay the interest on our existing debt. There would be no money left for defense, or homeland security, or education, or Social Security.

We have previously warned in this commentary that the U.S. is playing fast and loose with international finance. (China and the Growing Economic Conflict, The President's Claims About the Impact of a Tax Rebate on the Economy are Bull, Being Old is Not an Option in Ameirca,and There Are Too Many Americans).

The current administration’s response to the Social Security/Baby Boomer retirement problem that is coming at us like a freight train was to try to push through a plan that would dramatically cut the amount of money going into the program and hand a piece of that income over to stock brokers. Next, they claimed to fix Medicare by setting up a prescription drug program that lets big business rob the federal cookie jar and the old folks go begging again.

Our country is fast becoming a banana republic. What characterizes a banana republic is bankrupt government, enormous corruption at the top political levels, economic victimization by foreign interest taking advantage of the corruption, over population, bad health care, indigent elderly, inability to appropriately respond to disasters, turning the insane onto the streets to fend for themselves, oppressive and dogmatic religious influence, having a handful of citizens who are enormously rich as a result of exploiting their fellow citizens, and inadequate education of the young (to name a few). Does any of that sound familiar?

We can no longer afford to let our choice of national political leaders hinge on abortion, stem cell research, or whether or not they have accepted Jesus as Lord. If they claim to have Jesus in their hearts and their hands are in our pockets, we have to throw the bums out and let Jesus deal with them later.

The country is being run by crooks and incompetents, and it’s hard to tell them apart. We have previously addressed in this commentary The Cost of War.

It is becoming apparent that the cost of war, out of control government spending, crooked raiding of the federal treasury, and our inability as voters to call our leaders to financial accountability will cost many Americans their retirement. All of this has already taken its toll on our ability to get health care and good education, and is leading to some very rough times ahead if we don’t wake up.

Raining Money on Iraq - Why?

2006-09-25T04:39:00.000-07:00

Recently this commentary discussed the cost of war. Since that time, the quantification of our involvement in Iraq has changed quite a lot. Now, we are told that the war has cost somewhere between 300-billion and 400-billion dollars, and that about a trillion has been committed to that engagement.

Of that amount, we know that over 9-billion dollars was “lost.” (One could bet that someone damn well knows where it is.)

The National Priorities website has done a great job of keeping a running tabulation of the cost
of the Iraq war in dollars. At that site one can not only see the dollar amounts as they add up, but compare that with the costs of at-home programs that could have been funded with the money. For example, we could have hired over 5-million school teachers.

The Social Security System, the educational system, and health care could all have benefited. The number does not take into account the cost of the war in Afghanistan.

Let’s take a look at what we have bought with the money. In Iraq we have purchased the deaths of over a couple of thousand Americans. We have also plunged the country into what amounts to civil war, a war that could well be won by Iran sympathizers. We have also bought an international loss of confidence in our policies. One thing we have not done with the money is take good care of our own troops.

What we have not bought is more security. Americans are now becoming a little more savvy about Moslem politics, and know that the former Iraqi government had
little in common with, nor sympathy for Osama Bin Laden. Certainly we would have done well to concentrate on capturing terrorists. So far as we can tell, most of the leaders and plotters captured have been captured by law enforcement, not the military.

What we have also not bought is security for Iraqi oil. When the war was started, we were told that it would be ultimately paid for by a self-sustaining Iraqi economy, driven by oil. The oil isn’t flowing. One would think that for 312-billion dollars the U.S. could have secured the oil fields
and transportation in that small country. Instead, oil prices around the world have been steadily driven upward, in part by our taking Iraq oil out of the mix.

Next, we must look at what we have bought in Afghanistan. We have created a country that is producing more heroin than the world can consume. We have also bought American deaths there, and a growing insurgency that could, at any time, plunge that country back into chaos.

Have we established Democracy in the Middle East? Hardly? Even our attempts at the establishment of a Democratic government in Iraq have resulted in nothing more than a sharply- divided theocracy.

The national debate in the United States seems to center on whether we should continue our effort as it is in Iraq, or pull out. Those are not the only options. Why can’t we do what Israel just did; get in there and get what we want, then turn it over to the United Nations to clean up the mess. Let’s secure the oil fields as an international treasure, then turn the rest of Iraq over to the U.N. to prevent a civil war. We can not simply pull out and sail home. We have created too big of a problem now to abandon that country in this way. We can go back to the table with the U N and try to work out a sharing of the responsibility for securing and reestablishing Iraq.

This is not a time to fight over whether going into the war was the right decision. We are there. It is time, however, to stop the endless bleeding in the bottom of our economic bucket, and halt this run away spending on a no-win war. We should proclaim that it is okay not to be in favor of what we are doing there right now. This is partly because we are not sure any one is quite aware exatly what we are doing there right now. It would not hurt to introduce the concept of diplomacy to the current administration and see if they can get any kind of a grasp on the idea. In the meantime, America is about to go broke. Iraq may just assure that happens.

Congressional Election - Why the GOP Will Lose

2006-09-11T08:38:00.000-07:00

The Republicans will soon be dusting off the jingles hoping they can win the upcoming election on slogans and catchy phrases. It may not work so well this time. Phrases like “Don’t cut and run,” and “They were wrong” won’t play when voiced by a party that has been so wrong in its congressional leadership so often now.

The November elections may be a point at which the Democrats regain control of both the House and the Senate. American voters are angry at the GOP controlled Congress and here are a few reasons why:

They played along with creating another Viet Nam in Iraq
They have refused to insist on some plan for victory/exit in Afghanistan
They have rubber stamped the President (and at least 55% of Americans think he is pretty much whacko)
They have failed to enact health care reform
They have allowed one of the most corrupt periods in the body’s history
They have pissed away hundreds of millions of dollars to “faith based” groups with no financial accountability for any results
They have allowed a deepening media monopoly to take hold in the country
They have failed to protect Americans in disaster recovery
They have dropped the ball on tax reform and given all significant breaks only to the very rich
They have a failed energy policy
They have allowed the country’s businesses to operate without proper trust and monopoly control
They have allowed greedy CEOs to rob their companies and ride gleefully into the sunset witn no government-imposed consequences
They have encouraged a huge migration of American jobs overseas
They have paralyzed stem cell research and deprived Americans of the potentials it could provide
They have failed the American veteran
They have failed to address the impending Social Security disaster
They have allowed our diplomatic ties with South America to sink to their lowest point in decades
They have allowed our good relations with Europe to decline dramatically
They have allowed the Legislative branch to be systematically robbed of power by a power obsessed Presidency
They have tried to strip the Judiciary of power and leave Americans more defenseless against big business and oppressive government
They have dropped the ball on meaningful immigration legislation

It is time to take power away from those who have so definitively abused it for so long. For all of the reasons above and more, in November Americans may show their outrage by surprising the Gop with a big boot from office.

Wimpy Clergy - and How They Damage All of Us

2006-08-22T14:40:00.000-07:00

One big, yet generally unrecognized, problem of modern culture is a large group of wimpy clergy who are in the mainstream of various religions. We frequently hear that Radical Moslem extremists do not represent the "true" Moslem religion and its teachings, or that zealot Christian Fundamentalists do not represent the "true" Christian faith in their dogma. Where now are the representatives of these "true" versions of various religions?

Most religions have fringes of belief. In the more ideal of modern times, those fringes have been contained by an assertive mainstream of thought. Occasionally a society passes through a period like the Dark Ages when fringe belief becomes so oppressive and intimidating that it bullies its way into control of mainstream doctrine. When those times happen it takes religious people of great courage and conviction to restore moderation and intellect to the church.

The world is suffering from a sucking absence of such clergy of courage today. Claiming to represent exacting interpretation of various versions of scripture that each sect claims to be the perfect and unassailable word of their God, radically fundamentalist clergy are taking over too many of the world’s great religions. It has reached a point where religion may push us to the brink of World War Three.

Fundamentalists Christians are engaged in a self-proclaimed push to take over the intentions and the activities of the United States Government. The aspirations carry with them a core of belief that counts on world destruction for the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy and the return to Earth of Christ (see our commentary “Biblical Prophecy and U.S. Foreign Policy.” and “What Evangelicals Believe”).

The radical conservative wing of Christianity can be vicious when it attacks mainstream Christians, especially other clergy. That is perfectly acceptable given that they generally believe that mainstream clergy are serving the devil and misleading their flocks straight to Hell.

Additionally, increasingly radical and conservative elements are taking over Catholicism. It is not unusual now to see some Nun or some pious young Priest wrinkling up their noses and lecturing on television about a real live Devil and how he will get us all if we don’t behave. There are elements pushing the Catholic Church back toward 1200 AD as fast as they can force the issue, and doing it with the innocent backing of new converts in some of the planet's poorest countries.

As this is happening, the subduing of moderate Moslem clergy by Taliban-like leaders of their religion has now yielded world shattering consequences.

Unfortunately newly-radical followers of many of our powerful religions are now so mean, that moderate, sensible clergy members have become afraid to cross them. For example, thousands and thousands of mainstream Christian Pastors know that God does not in absolute fact condemn homosexuals to Hell or claim they are an “abomination.” The very word may well be taken out of context by translators and interpreters of scripture. Those Pastors, however, stand by and watch unbelievable campaigning that uses homosexuals as whipping posts for fundraising for fundamentalist causes.

Moderate Christian leaders also know that there is not a definitive word of God in the Bible that Jews are “going to Hell,” but they stand by and watch, unchallenging, as Evangelical leaders make such declarations on TV news shows. They know that America attacking Iraq was not a Biblically-prescribed prerequisite to the "Second Coming of Christ," as claimed by Evangelicals, and they remain silent.

Most intolerant, radically fundamentalists religions, including those in Christianity, depend on the concept of their scripture being the absolute, verbatim word of their God.

Generally the notion is absurd. For example, many Fundamentalists Christians believe that the King James Version of the Bible is the definitive, divinely inspired Word of God. They ignore that the translation was from the previous collection of hundreds of versions and ordered translated by King James of England ( a homosexual, by the way).

Some believe that the King James translation was taken from “The original version of the Bible.” There is no such thing.

The fact is that no version contained the original handwriting of any of the Prophets or Disciples who supposedly sat down and had “God guide their hand as they wrote.” The fragmented, and highly questioned and debated, manuscripts that did surface were a collection of memories, and quotes, verbal history, and notes in the margins. History shows that it was in a highly despotic and cruel purge of the Church that the “final” content of Christian scripture was chosen amid deadly doctrinal debate.

Thorough and thoughtful Biblical scholars know this. They know that cold hearted and aggressive fundamentalism is in error when it pounds people and nations with “The exact words of God.” Many hundreds of thousands of mainstream religious stand by and watch the rest of us “poor sinners” take a pounding, and the world move toward a dangerous religious showdown, and they are too wimpy to speak up.

Sam Harris makes a strong case in his book The End of Faith. His premise is that if we don’t take charge of the dangerous radical religions of the world, they will destroy the world. He writes:

“If we cannot find our way to a time when most of us are willing to admit that, at the very least, we are not sure whether or not God wrote some of our books, then we need only count the days to Armageddon – because God has given us far too many reasons to kill one another than to turn the other cheek.”
Non-religious persons can’t mount a religious argument with fundamentalists Biblical scholars and their demagogue government whores. Mainstream clergy can and should. It is time for some scholarly and influential religious leaders to bring an end to the modern day heresy of intolerance, cruelty, and apocalyptic brinkmanship that is oppressing too many in our midst.

The New Puritans in Congress

2006-08-22T11:39:00.000-07:00

The New Puritans in Congress have an agenda, and chances are you aren’t going to like it. We thought they just had it in for Gays and Abortionists. But wait! They are now including lots more of us in their campaign to make America “Holy.” The latest volley in the Re-puritanize America Campaign came from (for God Sakes!) a Democrat. It was during the now routine attempt to get a gay marriage amendment into the constitution when Congressman Lincoln Davis popped up with comments that included these:

“Adultery is an evil that threatens the marriage and the heart of every marriage, which is commitment. …How can we as a country allow adulterers to go unpunished and continue to make a mockery of marriage? Again by doing so, what lessons are we teaching our children about marriage? I certainly think that it shows we are not serious about protecting the institution and this is why I think the amendment should outlaw adultery and make it a felony.

…We should also prevent those who commit adultery, or get a divorce, from running for office. Mr. Speaker, this House must lead by example. If we want those watching on CSPAN to actually believe we are serious about protecting marriage, then we should go after the other major threats to the institution. Not just the threat that homosexuals may some day be allowed to marry in a state other than Massachusetts. An elected official should certainly lead by example."

Was he serious, or was ue pulling our legs? We suspect it suddely got pretty quiet in the Congress. Many of the members are divorced, and probably more have, at some point in their lives, dabbled in a little adultry.

Maybe it was just the latest example of out-of-touch-with-reality attempts by Puritan whackos in the Congress and elsewhere to try to impose their ideas of “Holiness” on all of us. It was so much easire for so many more Americans to accept the antics of these folks when they were just targeting Gay people and abortion, or going after stem cell research. It didn’t come too close to home for most Amerians.

Now these nuts are moving to try to impose some kind of strained Puritan ethic that extends endlessly into our private business. Where will they stop? They won’t. (See our Commentary What Evangelicals Believe) There is no stopping place for a goal of religious zealot holiness. Let’s say we decided that, if we can’t beat them, we should join them. We could turn our backs on all of the “sins” we could think of, and embrace the faith. It wouldn’t be over. These folks aren’t happy until they have assigned a cohort in your walk with the Lord, whose job it is to police your prusuit of holiness.

You’ll need a nice “prayer partner” who can call you down in the name of Jesus, if you get out of line. There is even a new movement in fundamentalists Christianity that believes that if your “walk with the Lord” is as it should be, you won’t be fat. Millions are being told to lose their fat by getting a closer relationship with Jesus. The implication, of course, is that if you are fat, you are not as close to God as a skinny fundamentalist Christian.

The problem is that these cults are only rewarding if people can team up with God to repeatedly confirm they are holier and better than others. If the “others” get better, the holiness targets have to keep moving, and that’s what these folks do. We have said repeatedly in this commentary that what people believe as a religion is their own business. When they try to impose it on all of us through changing the United States Constitution, or deceitful and bullying kick-ass politics, it becomes the business of all of us.

Parts of the newly-aggressive legislative agenda are surfacing. The new Puritans are trying to do away with divorce, adultry, pornography, online gambling (except horseracing) and have already raided the federal treasurery to the tune of over 2-billion dollars in “faith-based” programs that the General Accounting Office says are difficult to confirm as being in any way effective at doing anything. The next thing we know they will be passing a law against being over weight.

Americans have already voted on these issues. If we vote with our actions and our money, which we do, we have already proven by the millions that we like divorce, and adultry, pornography, gambling, and eating our way to poundage. The fact that we stay out of church by the millions on Sunday shows we aren’t big fans of faith-based programs.

Americans mostly would like peace and prosperity and to have the government stay out of our personal business. We rather like logic-based, efficiency-based, and democracy-based programs, and the new wave of nuts in Congress don’t get it. What we don’t like is faith-based programs where the biggest faith element is having faith that the slick preacher or politician who is controling the money is going to do the right thing with it.

H. L. Mencken said a Puritan is a person who is worried that someone, somewhere, someplace is having fun.

Let’s get these idiots out of the Congress.

The Screw Revealed - What Big Business Wrote into the Immigration Bill

2006-07-08T22:34:00.000-07:00

America is being screwed on the immigration legislation and big business comes out the winner again. Those bleeding hearts who are holding on to the idea that the immigration flap is all about “protecting the poor immigrant agricultural worker who is here to do jobs no other Americans will do,” need to read the bill.

The Kennedy/McCain/Kolbe/Gutierrez – The Secure and Orderly Immigration Act is a cover for big business efforts to further break the backs of American workers. It is, frankly, mostly not about agriculture workers, but clears the way for immigrant workers to take American’s jobs in almost every other field but farming.

Agriculture workers, in fact, are specifically excluded by the act when it sets up in section 304 “Market based numerical limitations” that allow up to 500-thousand “H-5A” workers a year into the country to take non-agricultural jobs. In addition, section 603 allows for importation of about another half million of those folks’ family members.

The real blow to American workers comes in section 603 that increases the “employment based immigrant categories.” This section doubles the number of immigrant workers who can be brought in to take jobs from most of us. These are skilled workers, professionals, “persons with extraordinary ability, “investors,” and “others performing labor or services.” (Again, there is no mention of Juan mowing the lawn or picking tomatoes here.) This section is the real reason the current administration and the Neo-Cons have stirred this recent immigration issue. They want to appease big business by importing cheap, skilled labor to replace Americans.

If the Democrats think their base is supporting implementation of all of this, they had better go back home and ask. Ted Kennedy has either been sold out, or sucked in. His Web site even proudly proclaims the business backing of the bill. Teddy, you ought to be ashamed!

We’re not through yet, because a lot of these workers can, after a certain period in the country, apply for permanent status. They also have an advantage that American workers don’t have. Employers cannot exclude them from benefits by hiring them as contract workers. It is illegal to hire them as contract workers. This, while millions of Americans have been cut out of their company benefits by being hired on as contract workers.

Further, these immigrant applicants must be added, under the proposed law, to the Federal Job Bank. The Act also extends Medicare health benefits to cover hospital treatment of undocumented aliens. In other words, they are going to get what is left of our Social Security monies.

It doesn’t stop there. Section 133 of this bill authorizes expenditure of what will be huge amounts of money for what we can assume will have a pretty good chance of being crooked deals to provide technical and law enforcement assistance and equipment and vehicles to protect the borders between Central America and Mexico. That’s right, Central America and Mexico!

While we all fight in the media over whether Juan who works in the yard should be given legal status (even though he charges a hundred dollars to mow the lawn), our government is setting us up for another rape of the American workers and taxpayer, and Kennedy is in on it. Washington just doesn't get it. Americans are going to be livid when they find out what has happened to them here, but it may be too late. The sad part of it is that the Democrats have been caught napping, and the GOP will blame it all on the Democratic party need to ignore their consituency and protect illegal immigration.

MP3 File

How We are NOT Supporting Our Troops

2006-07-03T13:04:00.000-07:00

America is not properly supporting our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. We can display all of the bumper stickers we want, but if we can’t protect their lives and well being as much as possible America is not doing our part.

We all recall the soldier who challenged the Defense Secretary on military vehicles not having enough armor. Now, in an environment where roadside bombs go off every day, troops are waiting for good body armor. A Defense Department report last year showed that thousands of armored vests for deployment in Iraq failed inspection. The Pentagon has now directed that soldiers need the option of adding side armor plates to their vests. This, after a Congressional committee report claimed side armor plates could have saved about 21 of the lives that have been lost in the war.

The most recent news is that thousands of soldiers are suffering from concussions that go undetected. In many cases they are returned to battle with the effects of the concussion still present. The military just came up with a new helmet, but it is designed to withstand a better bullet and not sufficiently lined to protect against concussion.
An American non-profit organization collects money to send helmet liners to soldiers, but the Pentagon has now said that the fighters can only wear official issue.

If it is a question of money, perhaps the military could make a decision to operate more efficiently in other areas. It was just revealed that DOD inventory management centers are a mess. For example, the Army’s Aviation Missle Command was found to have about 193-million dollars worth of inventory that was so poorly coded the command wasn’t even sure how long they should keep the items, or whether they were needed.

And all of the abuses don’t just have to do with war. Veterans returning home have found some unwelcome news. The GAO and Congressional testimony revealed that many are being hounded by professional callers who are collecting military debt. It is debt that in many cases the soldiers didn’t even know they owed. Thousands more aren’t in debt because they knew sooner. They paid after they were erroneously given money on exit from the service, only to have the government make them return (sometimes thousands of) dollars that they are told had been paid by mistake.

The GAO found that 900 battle injured soldiers were being hounded by debt collectors for military debts amounting to 1.2 million dollars. The same report discovered that some Vets were unable to obtain loans or buy a car because they were unable to work the government red tape to clear up persistent reports of debt. These debts are turned over to collection agencies. We can only hope the GAO will check into whose brother-in-law owns the collection agency that is making money on all of this. The GAO also found that soldiers who died in combat were shown by the military to owe about 300-thousand dollars.
Further, Congress and GAO discovered that VA offices in different states were using widely varying approaches to how much Veterans were paid for benefits. A few state’s Vets were getting woefully short-changed on their benefits as compared to the benefits given to those who applied in other states.

To add insult to injury, now the VA has lost control of records of millions of vets, giving them the added burden of having to worry about whether someone is going to steal their identity
Meanwhile, America has pretty much settled into a ho-hum routine about soldiers being killed. There are over 2500 now killed in the current wars. During Viet Nam we saw the combat on television. We saw the flag-draped caskets coming home. The networks ran the names. Now, only a few television shows bother to show the names and ages of those who have died.

Regardless of how one feels about the war, our support to the troops must be steadfast. They make up the great wall of defense that protects our freedoms in a dangerous world. If we favor an all volunteer army, we must protect the honor, dignity, stability, and lives of our fighting individuals. On top of the assignment to fight a war that many are questioning, the military men and women must also put up with too many irritating and unfortunate failures by the current administration.

A Society of Prissy Little Bitches

2006-03-25T11:05:00.000-08:00

Fritz Alvarez reports that we have become
"A society of prissy little bitches," consumed by our arrogance and self interest and losing sight of the need to be a part of a global community.

We must say Fritz can be a little prissy too, so don't cross him on this.

all contents copyright by D.L. Day - 2006

MP3 File

Global Warming - Stop the Debate !

2006-03-05T16:08:00.000-08:00

Global Warming - Why can't we agree that the majority of the world's scientists are right about this? Fritz Alvarez calls for getting on with our global response.

MP3 File

The President's Arguments for Tax Rebates are Bull

2006-02-20T16:22:00.000-08:00

Recently the President has been moving around the country promoting keeping his tax refund policies in place. It is a terrible idea. His argument is that having tax rebates charges up the economy. This is a result, he says, of causing people who get money back to spend, thus helping stimulate domestic business and jobs.

His idea is not logical for at least eight reasons:

The claim that all the money sent out in rebates will find its
way back into the economy rather soon is not correct.
The premise that money that is returned to taxpayers will all stay in the U.S. is
flawed (consider the 15 billion dollar trade deficit with China and
the Billions sent overseas for oil).
The idea that the government can afford this at a time when there
is huge national deficit, a war, and recovery from a Gulf Coast disaster
is incorrect. Why would Americans choose to get back some small amount
of tax money in exchange for an out of control national debt and the
subsequent consequences.
The suggestion Americans can hang onto this money is wrong. Any money
Americans will save in taxes will go for rising interest rates because of
the growing national debt.
The argument that the tax refund helps support American businesses and provide jobs is flawed, because jobs
are being shipped out of the country, or people are being brought in
from out of the country to work.
The argument that the tax refund helps build American business is wrong,
because it will simply help increase the millions of dollars in CEO and CFO
bonuses (which will be awarded to wealthy people who get most of the
tax refund money from the government anyway).
The idea that the government can give this money back because it is
now operating so efficiently under the Bush administration that it is
saving billions is wrong, because government is more inflated and
wasting more money than it has in decades.
The claim this tax cut is somehow good for children is crazy, because
the children will inherit the heavy future burden of paying for it with
lots of interest accrued to the huge national debt.

What is true is that this tax cut talk is a common package
of electioneering bull and Americans are catching onto the tactic. Even in 2001, when this subject came up, conservative economic observers were disagreeing with the President’s claims of what the rebate could do for the economy. Writing in the Conservative publication
National Review Online, Larry Kudlow said the rebate plan was not the right approach to jump
starting the nation’s economy: “A 1970’s-style rebate, however, is a waste of resources that could actually make the patient worse.”

A 1975 tax rebate provided a 10% check return to taxpayers up
to a maximum of $200. A subsequent report by the congressional Joint Economic Committee in 2002 examined the results of that rebate and cited studies showing that in
the last three quarters of 1975 individuals spent only 23% of their
rebate. Overall consumption increased only 12 cents to 25 cents for
every dollar of the rebate.

In a climate where some significant part of that 12 to 25 cents would
find its way into foreign banks or in the pockets of corporate executives,
the whole rebate/economy boost argument falls apart significantly.

The idea of the rebate reflects Keynesian economic theories
which have been widely criticized. The 1975 rebate did not jump
start the U.S. economy. Subsequently, Japan several times tried a
similar jumper cable approach with similar flat results.

The rebate comes from a Republican administration that has
argued increasing the deficit will not increase interest rates.
We can see how correct that has been. The rebate is a bad idea
and it’s time to let it go.

Remembering Coretta Scott King

2006-02-01T06:49:00.000-08:00

America has lost a strong and precious hero in the death of Coretta Scott King.
Any American of integrity and intellect would do well to read her memoir My Life with Martin Luther King Junior. It is an epic account of devotion and patriotism.

From countless instances of racist intimidation, including the bombing of their home, to powerful and moving chronicles of courage, compassion, and determination, Coretta Scott King wrote of the civil rights movement in America.

At a news conference at Ebenezer Baptist Church, on the Saturday following her husband’s death, Mrs. King made these comments about their lives:

"My husband often told the children that if a man had nothing worth dying for, then he was not fit to live. He knew that at any moment his physical life could be cut short, and we faced this possibility squarely and honestly. My husband faced the possibility of death without bitterness or hatred. He knew that this was a sick society, totally infested with racism and violence that questioned his integrity, maligned his motives, and distorted his views, which would ultimately lead to his death. And he struggled with every ounce of his energy to save that society from itself."

A pessimist would say we will never again have anyone like Martin Luther King, never have anyone with the dignity and courage of Coretta Scott King. The new, corporate-owned media would rage against such brazen anti-establishment actions as those two championed. In the interest of cashing in on conflict , TV would cheapen the debate with endless attacks by talking heads.

The pessimists would say that in our world, organized political jingles will now forever drown out individual voices of liberation. The pessimists, however, underestimate the power of inspiration, underestimate the influence of quiet fortitude, underestimate the message of non-violence, underestimate the spirit of imagery, and underestimate the tenacity of the seed of possibility in a young mind.

As powerful and greedy influences work to create a growing and enormous chasm between the haves and have-nots of our world, as common working people are consumed by the effort of survival in this most complicated of times, models have been set in place for courageous, self sacrificing living, for future acts of societal redemption. Models have been set in place for an understanding of how even the meek and seemingly disempowered can change the public heart.

Perhaps even some of the youngest in our midst right now will rise someday to stimulate change, to oppose tyranny, to help us find our better selves. They may rise inspired by the model of someone we knew in life and they knew only in history books.

Coretta Scott King has inspired the present and will inspire our future. The memory of her life is a treasure of light in human souls throughout the world.

To end this tribute, here is one more quote from Mrs. King:

"But then I ask the question: How many men must die before we can really have a free and true and peaceful society? How long will it take? If we can catch the spirit, and the true meaning of this experience, I believe that this nation can be transformed into a society of love, of justice, peace and brotherhood."

Biblical Prophecy and U.S. Foreign Policy

2006-01-22T18:06:00.000-08:00

Fritz Alvarez explores the strange Evangelical Christian belief that
the Iraq war is against the "Whore of Babylon" and is necessary to
usher in the "End Time." He quotes an academic paper that can be
found at:
http://www.firststrategy.com/prophecyandwar.pdf

The Heathen Middle website is at: http://heathenmiddle.com

All content copyright 2006 by D.L. Day

MP3 File

The Christmas War on Us

2005-12-21T12:49:00.000-08:00

Fritz responds to those who believe there is a "War on Christmas." It is, he says, a product of a Christian Right desire to steal Christmas for their own, very finite religious intepretation.
He calls the Christmas war on us a "war for tribal conformity."

http://heathenmiddle.com

copyright 2005

MP3 File

The French Riots - Can It Happen Here?

2005-12-18T15:42:00.000-08:00

The riots in France seem to have settled down. No one can be sure exactly why. What has not been widely reported is that hundreds of cars were set on fire in other, similar riots around Europe.

In France the riots were much more dramatic than what was depicted on U.S. television. (check out some of the French media pictures)Almost 9000 vehicles were burned. Many stores and buildings were destroyed. There were 20 nights of rioting. Some 3000 people were arrested across Europe as a result of rioting.

Can it happen in the United States? That question has to be answered in context of understanding what happened in France. The standard over simplification by the U.S. media has been to talk about how the French government failed the immigrants in their country by failing to provide employment. The cover of The Economist magazine on November 12 heralded “France’s Failure” in big headlines. The magazine placed blame, in part, on a “high minimum wage.”

It is unreasonable to think that France, or any country for that matter, has an obligation to provide jobs for an endless stream of immigrants. It is also unreasonable to think that there should be no minimum wage (or a very low one) so the economies of countries like France can interface with lower standards of living which might be expected because someone immigrates from a less fortunate country. It is more of a “lowest common denominator” kind of thinking that threatens to bring the world’s best economies to their knees, so all common people in every country can ultimately be equally, moderately poor. To whatever extent there are those in the U.S. (Liberal or Conservative) who believe the country has an obligation to successfully employ any number of persons who flock to our shores, the French situation should be a good lesson.

There are some who believe the riots had less to do with jobs than with the desire to be left alone in communities to implement Islamic law, rather than the laws of France. Testifying before a U.S. congressional committee investigating the French rioting,Frank Gafney of the Center for Security Policy offered that Muslim extremist leaders are insisting that the French authorities stay out of their communities and allow them to be run strictly by Islamic law:

"When, as has been indicated, there is some pushback, they then translate themselves or trying to transform themselves into the protectors of all Muslims and thereby help endear themselves or at least legitimate themselves within their communities, not as fringe, not as zealots, not as ideologues but as the protectors of the faith.
…I was listening the other day to National Public Radio describing the outbreak of polio that has recently been heavily contained after I think two years of trying to put that horrible genie back in the box. Nowhere in the report was it mentioned that the only reason, the only reason there was an outbreak that not only afflicted Nigeria, where it began, but then disseminated widely in Africa and then elsewhere around the world was because Islamist Imams in Nigeria trying to dominate their community and their country – they have prohibited their followers from taking American vaccines for polio on the pretense that it was an American conspiracy to sterilize their women and to inseminate their children with AIDS."

Could the riots happen in the U.S.? The publication World Net Daily is claiming they could, and may involve a coalition of Muslim extremists, Hispanic gangs, and radical Hispanic activists in the West and Southwest. WND quotes a militant organization called "Aztlan” as predicting explosive riots, particularly in California.

Although the rioting people in France may have been frustrated, unemployed African and Arab youth, it is tempting to believe that the instigation of the French riots was probably the result of religious and political ideology which had been stirring unrest for some time. If similar rioting does occur in the U.S., none should have the ill-conceived notion that it is because our country didn’t live up to some fantasy obligation that we should provide an endless supply of good paying jobs to anyone who wants to immigrate to our shores. That is not the obligation of the French, and it is not the obligation of American citizens.

Every Genius Left Behind

2005-11-22T21:05:00.000-08:00

MP3 File

"No Child Left Behind" is dumbing down America. That is just the opposite of what it was intended to do . Children are being tuned out when they are too smart. They are treated as Attention Deficit Disorder kids, or given limited attention to their genius status. Fritz Alvarez reports on the problem.

The whole story is being spelled out by some wealthy and smart philanthropists Jan and Bob Davidson who have authored a book entitled Genius Denied. (check it out here)

Here are the facts (Provided by the Davidson Institute for Talent Development):

America has thousands of highly gifted children and millions of gifted children whose intelligence quotients (IQs) qualify them for gifted programs.

Gifted individuals (IQ 125+) appear in the population at a rate of 1 in 20 people. Approximately 5% of the population is gifted (IQ 125+).
Highly gifted individuals (IQ 145+) appear in the population at a rate of 1 in 1,000 people. Approximately 0.1% of the population is highly gifted (IQ 145+).
Profoundly gifted individuals (IQ 160+) appear in the population at a rate of 1 in 10,000 people.
Approximately 1.5 million gifted students in the United States are under-challenged by standard school curriculum and need an educational program more optimally matched to their abilities.

Gifted children are one of the most at-risk student groups in America.

Research indicates that up to 20 percent of high school dropouts test in the gifted range. (an IQ of 125 or above, or achievement test scores at the 95th percentile).
Gifted children are frequently misdiagnosed as hyperactive or as having Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) because boredom often leads them to be inattentive in class.
Researchers estimate that about half of gifted students are underachievers.
Gifted students learn more rapidly and desire to pursue subjects in greater depth. They need a rigorous curriculum that matches their ability to learn.
Highly gifted students are the most likely to fall between the cracks in American classrooms – they are the ones experiencing the greatest gap between their potential and what is asked of them.
Gifted children often hide their intellectual abilities in order to make friends. During adolescence, girls especially will “dumb down” to fit in with their peers.
Social development is more closely aligned with intellectual development than chronological development.
This means that many highly gifted students have little in common with students their age,
therefore they have trouble forming friendships. These students are more likely to develop friendships
when placed with their intellectual peers.

Gifted education in America is mostly inadequate and underfunded.
The $50 billion federal education budget contains only $11 million earmarked for gifted education - the equivalent of 2 cents out of every $100.

The only federal funding for gifted students – the $11 million Jacob K. Javits grant –
goes primarily to research and demonstration projects, not to educate students.
No federal mandate or overarching federal legislation exists to guide state and local school districts to educate highly intelligent students.
Only
32 states have laws requiring that gifted students be identified; just 29 require that they be served.
Roughly 70% of elementary school gifted programs consist of just 90 minutes to a few hours of “pull-out” enrichment programs per week.
These programs generally feature non-curricular work such as puzzles or games that do not challenge gifted students in core curricula subjects.
Many secondary schools serve gifted students by allowing them to take honors classes aimed at the 75th percentile, or by allowing students to move ahead a year in math
(such as taking algebra in 8th grade). Yet early entrance college programs have found that highly gifted students can usually compress the entire high school curriculum into one or two years. Talent search summer programs find that highly gifted students can learn a year’s worth of curricula in math in three weeks of intensive study.

Anti-intellectualism runs rampant in America.
The number of American students scoring above 1,000 on the SAT declined so much over the past few decades that in 1995 the test was adjusted to “re-center” the scores, having the effect of inflating their numeric value.

U.S. businesses have been complaining for some time about the lack of highly skilled workers;
many businesses have to import intellectual talent from abroad.
The No Child Left Behind Act penalizes schools if students do not meet minimum competency
requirements, but does nothing to ensure that high-scoring children continue to learn.
Because so little time and attention are given to nurture gifted students’ intellectual abilities, we are, in effect, writing off our nation’s brightest young minds.
By denying them the opportunity to excel, we deny the nation the benefits of what they could
someday achieve.

Anti-intellectualism has Conservative talk show hosts making fun of the intelligent, calling them "Pointy-headed intellectuals." It is, of course, understandable why some of those guys would feel left out of the circle of genius. The painful fact is America as a society is rejecting intelligence in favor of encouraging that everyone be exactly the same. Political leaders and business owners warn us that American workers must now compete in a global economy. It is pretty certain that no class in China has to twiddle their thumbs while the teacher tries to see if the little vegetable in the classroom is conscious at this moment, or he/she takes verbal abuse from young Blinky.

America is in trouble in education and the No Child Left Behind fiasco isn’t fixing it. We can’t just keep giving the smartest kids Ritalin because they are a pain in the ass. We are dumbing down America and Liberals and Conservatives must share the blame.

Click Here
- for some thoughts on what you can do

Sittin at the Superdome (Rap)

2005-11-12T18:53:00.000-08:00

Fritz departs from his usual middle of the road commentary to do a tongue-in-cheek rap about New Orleans.

"Sittin at the superdome wishin we could just go home -
People are cryin People are dying
Everybody thirsty for a bottle of water, bottle of water
FEMA's Brownie's sittin down at dinner - Wishen he was just a little thinner
has his Nordstrom's suit , and thinks he's really cute
All of us are hurtin for a bottle of water, bottle of water

Brownie Boy you doin such a good job maybe
Never mind some woman just lost her baby
The city is sinkin - everything is stinkin
And nobody's bringing in a bottle of water, bottle of water

All of us are shitin in the hallway
Bush's brownie sure does have his gall, hey!
Tele vision is on a mission and
Geraldo is floatin in a rescue boat!

Bottle of water, bottle of water, nobody is bringin us a bottle of water.

(Copyright 2005)

MP3 File

Biblical Prophecy and American Foreign Policy

2005-11-07T07:27:00.000-08:00

By staff reporter Fritz Alvarez

Some of us are so naïve as to think what is going on in the Middle East and around the world in the war against terrorism should be taken at face value. A graduate student researcher at Texas State University found evidence of belief by Evangelical Christians that it is all a part of a great Biblical battle of the “End Time.”

In a paper entitled Media in Texas, Biblical Prophecy, and the Middle East Wars, the writer raises a possibility that Evangelicals are using their influence in the media and in government to make sure U.S. actions in Iraq and elsewhere are true to biblical prophecy.

Viewing the attack on Iraq as the overthrow of “The Whore of Babylon,” as predicted by the New Testament book of Revelations, fundamentalist Christians are said to have viewed U.S. action there as necessary for a fulfillment of prophecy and prelude to the “Second coming of Christ.”

Examining Evangelical Christian support for Israel, the paper asks, then answers, the question of why a sect which believes one must “accept Jesus Christ as Personal Savior” to go to heaven would support a Jewish society which summarily rejects the notion of Christ as Savior and Lord.

The answer lies in the fact that Evangelical Christians take every word of the Old and New Testament as being the exact word of God. There is a belief that in the “End Time” a number (some believe the book of Revelations says it is 144,000) Jews will be “saved” and accept Christ as Savior. It is in the interest of these 144,000 future Christian brothers that the Christian Right supports Israel.

According to the scholarly paper, Evangelicals used their political and media muscle during the initial phases of the Iraqi war to influence their flocks to support the effort. They broadcast a belief that overthrow of “Babylon” (Iraq) was necessary for the establishment of a new regime there that would fulfill a prophecy that a %u2

Ranching Rules The President Forgot

2005-10-31T17:11:00.000-08:00

The World knows that George Bush likes to clear brush on his ranch when he's on vacation, but has he learned anything there? Texans know that a person probably can't go wrong with the powerful lessons that can be learned operating a ranch and observing cattle. Bush appears to have retained some of the rules from the ranch, but seems to have forgotten some of the most important ones.

Ranching Rules Bush brought from Crawford into the White House:

When a bull pushes everyone else away from the feed trough, he eats better
Cattle don’t like you messing with them, so either restrain them, or trick them when you’re going to do something to them that hurts
Talk to your cattle. It doesn’t matter what you say, just that you are always talking in sootthing tones
Don’t give names to cattle you are planning to butcher
Never let the herd see you doing away with their dead
Never complain about the smell of bullshit (to a rancher it’s the smell of money)
Cattle aren’t very smart and are easily distracted

Ranching Rules Bush seems to have forgotten in the White House:

Inbreeding in a herd fosters weakness and stupidity
You can put bullshit in the cattle feed trough, but they are smart enough to recognize it, and it pisses them off
It’s okay to have an occasional donkey mixed in with the herd (they keep the coyotes away)
If you keep squeezing a cow when she’s out of milk, she’ll finally kick the crap out of you
When the cattle see you coming, they expect to get something
If you get rid of a leader in the herd, the one who takes its place will do the same thing as the former
The leader of the herd loses face if she signals you are bringing food and you don’t
Don’t let cattle see you feeding another herd (it pisses them off if they don’t get the same thing)
The only time cattle really pay attention to you is when they think you’re standing between them and something they want
Ultimately, if they don't eat, you don't eat
The real leader of the herd is always a female
It's the rancher's responsibility to see that the cattle can get good health care
Cattle generally do best when they have a rancher who is smarter than they are

How the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Scre#ed Bill Moyers

2005-10-28T18:44:00.000-07:00

This is the story of how one of the most respected and dedicated newspeople in the country was
bounced from his job by a conservative onslaught at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Scre#ed without being tatooed. Read Bill's own story at:

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0516-34.htm

MP3 File

Iraq - This is a Democracy?

2005-10-28T14:15:00.000-07:00

Iraq has gone from a secular country to being an Islamic Republic and the Bush Administration is heralding the establishment of a "New Democracy." Fritz Alvarez reports on just how democratic the new Iraqi Constitution is not.

more at:
http://heathenmiddle.com

MP3 File (if you don't have FlashPlayer click on MP3)

Meet Us in the Middle

2005-10-15T15:45:00.000-07:00

"Moderation is a family value"

Ideologues don't want to you to go beyond the typical labels
of left and right, because people might start believing you. ...I've always
thought the American Eagle needed a left wing, and a right wing ...and both
would keep the great bird on course. But, with two left wings, or two right
wings, it's no longer an eagle, and it's going to crash.
-Bill Moyers - at the National Conference for Media Reform - May,2005

The Heathen Middle is a loose collection of middle-of-the-road people who would like to be heard amid the rhetoric of the radical fringes. We are moderate in our politics, our way of life, and our choice of beverages. Our goal is to keep the fringes from unraveling the fabric of our society. The comments on this page do not speak for all of us. Regardless of what may be claimed, no political commentary speaks for the full spectrum of individual beliefs of any significant number of Americans. Being able to have diversity of belief is a fundamental strength of a democracy. Being able to have a little fun with it is one of the goals of this site. We are tired of politicians who don't recognize that it is probably a good idea for a democracy to have more than one political party. Given the outcomes of recent elections and the entrenchment of the right and left, it is clear that a small percetage of Americans in the middle will decide elections for the next 20 years.
We are radical only about comfort, security, balance and stability. There are enough sinners among us for many to consider us "heathen." (A little sin and a little sainthood are the best ingredients of some of the finest people we know.)
We also know that lots of preachers raise money by making people suspicious, angry, and afraid. That's how some are building 90-million dollar churches. We would simply remind them that power corrupts, and a combination of power, money, and religion corrupts absolutely. If there is a great judgment someday, those who are seen as "heathens" may fare better than some preachers.
"Don't Fiddle with the Middle!"
SOME OF THE TOPICS WE WILL COVER IN A WEEKLY COMMENTARY:
The Media
We are on to broadcasters who know the best way to get an audience is to exploit conflict. Most Americans would like our politicians and media to know we would benefit from a little less conflict and a little more peace and quiet, even if it involves aggravating the greenhouse gasses, executing everybody on death row tomorrow, and letting the guys next door marry each other and suffer like the rest of us. Just quit stirring crap so we won't notice when politicians hand all of our money over their crooked friends!
We are also on to broadcasters who constantly find and interview obscure people from some "think tank" who tell us what we ought to be thinking about various issues. We are smart enough to know what to think, and it doesn't have to always be along party or partisan lines.
Stem Cells and "Life"
Some of us believe that killing an embryonic stem cell is probably no more a sin than whacking off in a tissue. (and we realize some people think that's pretty sinful.) Believe it or not, some would like for their neighbors to quit having so many children. Use a few stem cells to bring a better quality life to those already here.
Education
American children are in trouble. The left has raised so many equal opportunity concerns teachers can't teach school anymore. Making the curriculum move so slowly that no child is left behind will eventually make every American child behind much of the rest of the world.
Age
We are smart enough to know that many Americans are in a wave of "Baby Boomers" who are going to be out of luck when they get old. Their retirement has vaporized, and they are going to be expected to work well into their 70's. There is also a well-kept secret of age discrimination against them that will preclude their having worthwhile jobs as they age. No one, anywhere, is telling the truth about this. Big corporations are moving these people out of jobs in waves with offers of insignificant chunks of cash. Many are being replaced with cheap labor from other countries. We know that some high tech corporations fly work teams in from Russia to work 18 hour days while staying three weeks at a time in small hotel rooms. They pay them pennies on the dollar compared to what an American would make doing the same work. All of this is being done with little regard for the fact that we are rushing full speed into a crisis of elderly poor.
Liberals facilitated this corporate scam with their happy "We are the world" attitudes about immigration. Conservatives empowered greedy corporate bosses to skim and screw their way through the entire U.S. economic system. They have allowed top executives to rape all of our best corporations and put the money in their own pockets.
Politics Liberals have been so "gentle" and non-committal that their political identity is now being defined only by conservative talk show hosts. Conservatives have traded their traditional democratic values for an ever-narrowing path of moralism which is dictated by self-righteous clerics.
Now, Only the middle can declare the emperor naked.
Americans long to find the middle ground. Civility, tolerance, acceptance, democratic values, dignity, and respect await us there.
MEET US IN THE MIDDLE !

http://heathenmiddle.com

(A note about the rules of journalism: We know them, but won't be following them. No one else does, why should we?)

America - A Nation of Chefs ?

2005-10-07T09:21:00.000-07:00

As jobs keep going to other countries, is America becoming a nation of chefs? Young Americans in increasing numbers are being pointed toward Culinary Arts schools. Why? Do their advisors know something about the future of America the rest of us don't know? How is it some of the youngest and brightest in America are learning to be chefs, while the rest of the world fills up our science and engineering colleges.
Fritz Alvarez reports from The Heathen Middle.

http://heathenmiddle.com

MP3 File

Democracy Now Reports on Evangelicals

2005-09-27T08:47:00.000-07:00

Whatever you do, do NOT miss this video from Democracy Now. It spells out the agenda of the Evangelicals in America like no other you can find anywhere. This is a video that all Americans ought to see, to make certain we all know what is going on. Don't watch it until you have time to watch it all. But, whatever you do, watch it!

http://www.archive.org/stream/dn2005-0505_vid/dn2005-0505_256kb.mp4

ALso check out these links:

http://www.harpers.org/FeelingTheHate.html

and:

http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2005/06/feeling_the_chr.html

Good Luck !

Fritz Alvarez

Katrina - God is a Bad Shot!

2005-09-16T19:05:00.000-07:00

Fundamentalist Christians are saying God destroyed New Orelans because of homosexuals.
But Wait ! Wasn't the French Quarter the least hard hit? (I think I saw a homosexual there once.) Didn't Katrina also destroy lots of "God fearing" good ole boy Republicans in Mississippi? Whoops! God must be a bad shot !

MP3 File

The Media is Going to Hell

2005-09-01T17:34:00.000-07:00

The Media is going to hell (and there's nothing you can do about it). Fritz Alvarez reports on the sad consequences of concentrated media ownership in the U.S. Six companies own 85% of the media outlets in the nation.

More at heathenmiddle.com

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Gay Marriage - The Wrong Question

2005-08-18T15:42:00.000-07:00

Fritz Alvarez comments from The Heathen Middle on various issues of gay marriage. He claims heterosexuals have the marriage game so messed up no one can give it a bad name. Besides that, what does the greater society expect should be the aspirations of mature and intelligent gay people? Fritz asserts they probably won't all "accept Jesus as Lord" and suddenly become straight.

Read the Gay Marriage text for this podcast.

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Did Jesus Love T-Rex?

2005-08-18T15:41:00.000-07:00

Fritz Alvarez comments on the latest move by Creationists who are claiming dinosaurs mingled with Bible characters. (Yeah, and the world is flat!)

Read the full text of this podcast on dinosaurs in the Bible.

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So, What Do "Inactivist" Judges Do?

2005-08-13T11:40:00.000-07:00

A commentary from heathenmiddle.com - reports on the attack on America's judges and why an independent judiciary is so important in a free society.

Read all the Fritz Alvarez reports each week on
http://heathenmiddle.com

Stem Cells, Aging, and Dead Chickens

2005-08-13T11:09:00.000-07:00

Heathenmiddle.com's Fritz Alvarez reports on the stem cell debate and how the cells may slow aging. This gutsy commentary goes to the cutting edge of what makes the stem cell debate so emotionally charged.
Fritz's commentary appears every week. Check out:
http://heathenmiddle.com

You can read the full text of this podcast by clicking here.

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