Various views on the afterlife

The series of five interviews on the afterlife with NPR’s All Things Considered host Robert Siegel was pretty good. Siegel himself does not believe in the afterlife and his questioning of his guests was gentle but pointed. He interviewed an evangelical Christian pastor (that I wrote about before), a Muslim imam, a philosopher, a Jewish rabbi, and a Catholic theologian. Each of those links has links to the transcripts of the interviews. [Read more…]

Hurting the working poor out of spite

In all these discussions over the Affordable Care Act and its Medicaid provision, the Republican party talks in high-minded terms of the cost, and they sigh regretfully that any adverse consequences for the working poor are the unfortunate side effects of the sacrifice we have to make for the sake of our children and grandchildren. Those hurt now are collateral damage, if you will, and need to suck it up. [Read more…]

Ted Cruz and Ben Carson, stand up comedians?

In his grandstanding against the Affordable Care Act in particular and president Obama in general, the rhetoric of US senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has been getting more and more extreme. In a speech to the Values Voters Summit, the annual gathering of all the right wing religious nutcases (take a look at the list of invited speakers), he said that Obama is seeking to void the entire Bill of Rights, facetiously including the little known Third Amendment which prevents the government from requiring people to put up soldiers in their homes. [Read more…]

Strange doings in Ohio politics

Republicans have a lock on all statewide elected positions in Ohio and have comfortable majorities in both legislative bodies, with the exception of the US senate where Sherrod Brown is one of the senators. So they can do pretty much what they like and one of the things they like to do is restrict women’s health options by passing legislation that “defund Planned Parenthood, block grants to rape crisis centers that refer women to abortion clinics, and prevent abortion clinics from transferring patients to public hospitals in the case of severe complications.” [Read more…]

US must lift the embargo on Cuba

With all the other things going on in international politics, often overlooked is the sheer cruelty of the 51-year old US embargo on Cuba that is meant to designed to strangle the economy of that country and bring hardship to their people so as to make their government subservient to the US. For the 22nd year in a row, the Cuban government is seeking to have the United Nations condemn the US embargo. Last year, 188 nations voted to condemn the embargo with only Israel and Palau supporting the US, showing how isolated the US is on this issue. The vote this year is scheduled for October 29. [Read more…]