I like to periodically clean up the spaces around me because I hate clutter but we all know people who seem to be minor or major hoarders, reluctant to give or throw away things that they have not used in years, are unlikely to ever use, or are even totally useless to them. They seem to not even be bothered by being surrounded by piles of stuff or to even notice it. [Read more…]
The Catholic Church continues its war on women in ever-more bizarre ways, tying itself into all kinds of knots as it tries to enforce its policies on the people over whom it has some authority. For example, the church seems to hate the thought that women might be getting pregnant in ways that it does not approve of based on its medieval ways of thinking. As a result, it finds itself embroiled in legal cases that do not show it in a good light. [Read more…]
When the great financial bailout of 2008 was rushed through with almost no discussion, I said in a series of six posts that it looked like a massive swindle perpetrated on ordinary taxpayers to benefit the wealthy and the financial sector and that we should vigorously oppose it. As I said in the first post in that series: [Read more…]
One of the major areas where Barack Obama has shamelessly and inexcusably reversed himself from what he campaigned on in 2008 is with regard to whistleblower protections. Candidate Obama praised those who blew the whistle on the Bush administration’s use of telecommunications companies to illegally spy on Americans, saying “We only know these crimes took place because insiders blew the whistle at great personal risk … Government whistleblowers are part of a healthy democracy and must be protected from reprisal.” This was part of his promise to have one of the most transparent administrations ever. [Read more…]
Ryan Andresen had dreamed of becoming an Eagle Scout from the age of six and had steadily worked towards it, creating as a project in high school a ‘tolerance wall’ of 288 unique tiles is an effort to create awareness of the need to combat bullying. He was devastated when his troop leader said that he could not be made an Eagle Scout because he had come out as gay. [Read more…]
Harvard’s Stephen M. Walt, someone who belongs to the ‘realist’ school of US foreign policy analysis, writes that the nomination of Chuck Hagel for the post of Defense Secretary does not point to a significant shift in the direction of president Obama’s foreign policy but does represent a widening in the range of such discussions. [Read more…]
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about what not to say to people after they have suffered a personal loss or a tragedy, and some of you added your own suggestions. But this does raise the difficult question of what we, as nonbelievers, can and should say to such people that might give them some comfort at such a difficult time. [Read more…]
One sometimes hears that humans use only about 10% of our brains. Some have suggested that this means that if only we could learn how to harness our brains fully, we could be geniuses. Others have used it to argue, somewhat desperately, that this limited utilization is the reason for god’s ineffability, because in the unused portions lies the ability to understand how god works and what his plan for us is. [Read more…]