I am an artist. I'm a writer and a photographer, and I feel compelled, like most people here, to talk about horrific things in the world today. It's a choice I've made. It's a choice to keep hearing of all the terrible things going on in the world today, and by sharing the knowledge of these things with others, a chance to "lessen the load" even if it's by an iota.

I know other artists in the world. Some of them are very opinionated, but others really don't give a crap about politics, regardless of whether they are left or right. And that's fair, to a certain extent. But I want to raise a voice to talk about those artists in the past who saw horror and never did anything about it.

There are some artists who cited their "neutrality" when World War II brought the awful accounts of the Holocaust. There are those who shrugged, but did little else during the Korean War, the War in Vietnam, the first Gulf War, the current war, and oh, so many other conflicts and outright war actions.

These are people who could have made a huge difference in contributing their voices to those who spoke up about the atrocities perpetrated. These are people who, instead of making that difference, chose to consider themselves "outside" of the equation and stay "uninvolved."

People get angry all the time at some artists who DO speak out about things in the world that are wrong, but I would rather have someone say something--anything--than sit quietly without weighing in on an issue.

Yeah, there are a lot of people who have absolutely 0 interest in politics. Me, included. Well, I didn't until GHWB ran slimy ads about Michael Dukakis, and then I found I had deep hatred for the people who would campaign as negatively as Poppy did. It also bothered me a long time ago when Thomas Eagleton was forced to resign as a vice-presidential candidate in 1972 because the media went running with the shit-storm that Eagleton had seen a psychiatrist. There was, and is, nothing to be ashamed of--in fact, people who see psychiatrists or psychologists are far more healthy than those who refuse to see one, even though they know they should. Yes, there are things he was wrong about, but hindsight is 20/20 as it is said, and absolutely NONE of us are perfect.

But this world must have participants, and not just observers. We are all here only for a limited time, and those that CAN do something should at the very least make an attempt. If there is someone who is able to influence people to act, is it integrity if they do not?

Would people listen? I don't know. Would it make the difference if an artist spoke up? In the here and now, we are blessed with the internet, and widely diverse opinions are present--enough to guarantee we get different points of view, and that's all well and good, but such richness in reaching the public eye was more limited during the past, and unless you were otherwise "important" in some way, you didn't get the opportunity to let your voice be heard. Any major artist--painter, photographer, actor, author, musician--who could lend their voice to a cause would have been respected enough, I hope, to give their opinion. But it didn't always happen, and I have found I have far worse opinions of even the best artists who refused to speak up.

So I ask all of you: should artists lend their consciences to the causes that would likely be helped by them? If I saw things like the Killing Fields, the Holocaust, or the wholesale slaughter in Serbia, Croatia, or the injustices of any other war or police action, I would not be able to be quiet. I have no problem lending my voice to causes that focus on things that I have seen. I do it now--as someone who loves animals, I do what I can to help raise public awareness about some of the things which go on.

Did the artists who failed to become vocal lose integrity because they failed to speak up? Or should they have been allowed to continue on without speaking about the outrageous things they witnessed?

Let me explain one thing, though. I'm not talking about someone risking certain death by speaking up. No, their silence is different--THEY were the victims. But during a time when every able-bodied man was sent to fight during WWII, you have someone like John Wayne, trying to swagger around like he owned the place, who ran like a chicken when others signed up to fight. Or other cowards who talked their way out of reporting for duty. Or writers who suddenly went mum when their associates were reporting from the front line.

Some people like to complain about Alec Baldwin, Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, and other more outspoken performers, but I have to say I'd rather have them out there, reacting to the world around them, than someone who conveniently was absent the day that others went to war.

I found it to be chilling in many aspects, and have to admit, it's very scary to know people like this exist. It's a bit long, but it's worth a good read.
______________________________________________________
The Nightmare of Christianity
By Max Blumenthal

September 9, 2009

(The following is an excerpt from Max Blumenthal's new book, Republican Gommorah: Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party, published by Nation Books.)

A few miles down the road from Colorado Springs , in the quiet bedroom community of Eldredge, a deeply disturbed young man named Matthew Murray followed the unfolding debacle at New Life Church with an interest that bordered on obsession. Murray, a sallow-faced, bespectacled 24-year-old, had been indelibly scarred by a lifetime of psychological abuse at the hands of his charismatic Pentecostal parents. Murray's mind became crowded with thoughts of death, destruction, and the killings he would soon carry out in the name of avenging what he called his "nightmare of Christianity."

On an online chat room for former Pentecostals, Murray heaped contempt on his mother, Loretta, a physical therapist who homeschooled him to ensure that his contact with the outside world was severely limited. "My 'mother,'" Murray wrote, "is just a brainswashed church agent cun,t . The only reason she had me was because she wanted a body/soul she could train into being the next Billy Graham..."

He went on:

...my mother was into all the charismatic "fanatical evangelical" insanity. Her and her church believed that Satan and demons were everywhere in everything. The rules were VERY strict all the time. We couldn't have ANY christian or non-christian music at all except for a few charismatic worship CDs. There was physical abuse in my home. My mother although used psychotropic drugs because she somehow thought it would make it easier to control me (I've never been diagnosed with any mental illness either). Pastors would always come and interrogate me over video games or TV watching or other things. There were NO FRIENDS outside the church and family and even then only family members who were in the church. You could not trust anyone at all because anyone might be a spy.

An authoritarian Christian-right self-help guru named Bill Gothard created the home-schooling regimen implemented by Murray's parents. Like his ally James Dobson, Gothard first grew popular during the 1960s by marketing his program to worried evangelical parents as anti-hippie insurance for adolescent children. Based on the theocratic teachings of R. J. Rushdoony, who devised Christian schools and home-schooling as the foundation of his Dominionist empire, Gothard's Basic Life Principles outlined an all-consuming environment that followers could embrace for the whole of their lives. According to Ron Henzel, a one-time Gothard follower who co-authored a devastating exposé about his former guru called A Matter of Basic Principles, under the rules, "large homeschooling families abstain from television, midwives are more important than doctors, traditional dating is forbidden, unmarried adults are 'under the authority of their parents' and live with them, divorced people can't remarry under any circumstance, and music has hardly changed at all since the late nineteenth century."

At the Charter School for Excellence, a school in South Florida inspired by Gothard's draconian principles that receives $800,000 in state funds each year, children are indoctrinated into a culture of absolute submission to authority almost as soon as they learn to speak. A song that the school's first-graders are required to recite goes as follows:

Obedience is listening attentively,
Obedience will take instructions joyfully,
Obedience heeds wishes of authorities,
Obedience will follow orders instantly.
For when I am busy at my work or play,
And someone calls my name, I'll answer right away!
I'll be ready with a smile to go the extra mile
As soon as I can say "Yes, sir!" "Yes ma am!"
Hup, two, three!

Former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is among the 2.5 million Americans who have attended Gothard's Basic Seminar. According to Huckabee, who once earmarked state funds to distribute Gothard's literature in Arkansas prisons, Gothard was responsible for "some of the best programs for instilling character into people." But to the deeply alienated Murray, Gothard was the original source of his pathology. "I believe that the truth needs to be exposed," Murray wrote in a September 2006 discussion forum of recovering Gothard followers. "People need to see through errornious and destructive doctrines and teachings including Bill Gothard's."

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090921/blum...

I know this one fundie woman who used to bug the crap out of me. Her father was a doctor who protested at women's clinics against freedom of choice, and whose mother passed away when the daughter was about 10, from breast cancer.

This woman also has a daughter she homeschools, she tries to make herself out to be a victim like the rest of us, and, of course, believes in the full-throttle literalist bible crap about the earth being somewhere in the vicinity of 10,000 years old.

At one point, she wanted more babies, and it was not happening. So she went to her doctor and started taking fertility pills until such a moment where she did get pregnant, and ended up having twins.

So now here's the question:

How can these people possibly justify this? How can they continue to cite biblical inerrancy and the failure of evolution, and use the science whenever--and only--it suits their own purpose?

I know, I just answered my own question. It still pisses me off that these people are such hypocrites in every single action and deed they do, love pre-birthers, hate borners; love fertility drugs, hate non-white orphans; love the death penalty, claim that Jesus would kill those who didn't worship him.

And anyone wonders why the founding fathers wanted to keep religion OUT of politics! The minute this religious fervor took over our country, we lost. The secular government was used to keep people all on the same page. It meant that very single person could--and would--be heard on their own merits, and not on a "favored nations" type platform.

But the thought for the day for me is I DESPISE fundies, the radical religious morons, and anyone else who cherry picks the science they believe in, as long as it's to their liking. If consistency were needed, they would fail big time. Come to think of it, they have failed: their boat has a hole in it, and they're taking on water fast. We need only lean back and watch them devour themselves, I suppose. But it's a smaller leak than we thought, and it's going to be awhile before they notice it.

I understand the need and urgency to inform people of some of the more disturbing things going on, but I can't take it anymore, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

There are many of us who have worked in animal rights and have seen so much pain, so much damage and horrific things, and we have seen more than we should have through the years, because we needed to know what we were facing. But now, I can't take anymore, and putting up post titles with salacious details starts me crying all over again.

Please, I ask people, if you will choose titles that tell of a problem, but no more titles that evoke horror or graphic violence.

I am sure you are all intelligent enough to do that--and my heart and soul will thank you.

So, the Christian fundies (especially) like to talk about how something that (supposedly) appears to have no explanation otherwise gets classified as a "miracle" and that's their final answer.

And so, they go to these really big tent revival thingamagigs, and things supposedly happen there that defy real possibilities, and the whole congregation goes "ooh," and "aah" and they figure they've made it through another whole day just waiting for the Apocalypse, and that's part of the miracle, too.

My fundie ex-friend would look at a pretty sunset or dusk, or whatever, and at one point she said it looked like "god's thumbprint" in the sky and oooh, aaah, how excellent.

Well, this, to me, is bullshit. Another friend and I were talking about this a couple of days ago, and I said that anyone who could attribute such an event as being the work of the Xtian god has gotten simple in the head. How if that's all these people can say looking at such a beautiful event, they are dumber and more ignorant than most people in third world nations. Because the truth is, science is far better, far more of a "miracle" than anything these fundies could dream of, and they know it.

Talking about how a rainbow is formed, from droplets of water in the air, and how the sun takes each droplet, and makes it into a prism, and brings us the miracle of a rainbow. How beautiful it sounds to actually understand the science behind it, and how a pat "god did it!" renders it not only crude, but also ignorant. In this sense, one is reminded of all the myths that were originally created to explain complex scientific processes, and to make up some answer that otherwise went unexplained.

I think daily of how those who would rather accept a god of limited scope appear to be afraid of the truth. As one character in a movie hollered once, "You can't handle the truth!" and that gets more obvious every day how these people get deeper and deeper into the abyss of ignorance.

Science is quite beautiful. Ever see a picture from space, where, for example, the Hubble has taken pictures of a star nursery? Or deep within the ocean depths, where strange living organisms live on the edge of an entry into the mantle, blind? There are so many wonderful and thrilling parts of our lives that can never be explained away by these people as a "miracle" but are, in fact, more miraculous than anything they claim came from their "god."

And another thing: science is accessible to everyone, not just scholars, or priests, or people like Robertson, Falwell, Haggard, or any of those other idiots who make themselves out to be the handmaidens--oops, make that handmasters(we won't say what they've learned to master with their hands)--of god.

Science, as the NSF joyfully proclaims, is awesome. And in my mind, it's 1000 times better than telling the world how ignorant you are by saying it's a miracle from "god." Perhaps the science was influenced by some godlike creator billions of years ago, but we learned a long time ago that exploration of all that intrigues us is a major part of why we function. Curiosity is a part of our species, and likely will be always. Science is the real miracle, one which proves without a doubt a consistent and verifiable explanation.

Better than any old prophet could ever do.

Some pedophiles get a pass at DU just because they're famous. It's the same kind of double standard as they claim only right-wingers have, but it's here, and in abundance. While I knew when I posted my thread late last week on this very subject that my opinion was unpopular, I didn't think that DUers would have brought the torches and the hanging rope with them, but they did.

I guess it's trendy to love even the most unscrupulous child molesters, especially if they happen to be famous. What can I say, Javaman? It's been getting creepy for awhile now here at DU, and it's scaring the shit out of me when I see some of the postings I've seen.

I've got your back, but I'm not sure it's enough anymore.

and yes, that is my opinion, and nothing more. Just like everyone else, no one should take mhat I say as gospel, though I would like to think someone was willing to take what I say and contemplate it without pre-judging it.

Earlier this week, here in Worcester, a 7 year old child was beaten to death by his father. I could only think of all the horrible things that child had been subjected to, and I wish the strongest and most painful death for that man who was SO big that he couldn't pick on someone his own sizs.

And now, a man who had money to burn, who molested children and paid off their families to keep himself out of jail has died. Do I feel anyrhing charitable for him? Absolutely, positively, no fucking way.

I don't believe in false piety, nor do I believe I should somehow respect him now, just because he doesn't happen to be breathing anymore. He is still the man he was when he paid off one of his victims with 11 million dollars. He is still the man who owned a home where there were secret rooms in the house, all the more to molest children. Does anyone except me forget that he fled the USA because the cops were onto him?

Death is just another facet of who we are on planet earth--if we have been decent people, we will live on in the memories of others. If we haven't been decent, the memory of our wasted lives will finally put to end all the horror that we perpetrated here. Whether there is an afterlife or not, it's the memory that is immortal, and those who are still around after one's death are the ones who keep the deceased alive.

But Michael Jackson was a seriously disturbed man who had a thing for young boys, and in the eyes of the law of the USA, and in the minds of most people in the world, he was a pedophile who got away with his crimes. No, no sympathy from me for a man who used money to keep people quiet about his deranged choices, and who ultimately was able to keep his habit alive with the money he had.

Rest in disturbance, MJ--you deserve it.

that is predicated on this philosophy. I agree--a large part of this would never gotten very far if some of the people who could do anything about it had opened their mouths and spoke up sooner. But I can't forget that the 70s, 80s and 2000's were controlled by repugnants who not only kissed the asses of the religious right, but went straight into sex with them. Only now do people see what is happening, and oops! it's too late.

I tell ya, if this country ever becomes the sadistic and malicious theocracy that so many of these monsters covet, I hope I can find a way to get out of it.

I don't know where exactly to start. It's one of those topics which make people shift uncomfortably in their chairs, and while it's not illegal or immoral, it evokes very strong images and feelings in many people.

Let me therefore start with myself. I was adopted when I was a baby--the actual adoption happened when I was about a year and a half old, with me going to the adoptive parents when I was just nine days old. The biological mother, however, remained in my life, as she had given me to her brother--my uncle--and his wife to raise. So I knew my biological mother as my aunt throughout my life. Seeing that it was an open adoption, there were no secrets involved--at least not at the time it happened.

This is the hard part though--it wasn't until I was 18 before my mom tried to tell me about it. That was a stressful situation, and made even more stressful by the fact that I had known since I was 11 that I had been adopted. No one knew, though, that I was well aware of my status--I'd kept that from everyone for over 6 years. And as far as life changing event in one's life, this one is/was a doozy. Imagine having such a secret throughout the most tumultuous years of one's life, and it is easy to see how my life was significantly changed as a result.

Did I have my father's eyes, his smarts, her bad habits? Did I inherit the tendency for being overweight, for my love of animals, the streak of independence I possessed? My biological mother was an alcoholic, a smoker, a sex addict and had heart disease. I vowed as I went through my teen years that I would never be like her--the thought of doing so frightened me significantly. But while I never smoked, drank that much or even had much sex, I found there were some things I could not shake, as I inherited heart problems relatively young, even having a heart attack at the age of 43.

Well, now you've heard my story, and it's now time for me to address the reason for this post. If you are an adoptive parent, please do your children a big, big favor--tell your child the truth. Don't hide it from them, and certainly don't wait until they're almost an adult before owning up to the fact that there is a set of biological parents out there somewhere. Don't make them feel like they're second class citizens, either, for being adopted. And certainly, NEVER use their adopted heritage as any kind of punishment, even in the worst of arguments.

During the years in which I was aware of the truth, but kept it a secret, I often viewed myself as the scum of the earth, a child so hated that someone "threw me away" rather than keep me and raise me. As an adult, I know that is ludicrous, but a child doesn't know and certainly doesn't understand. Imagine feeling so unwanted that you question your worth, and come up wanting. Imagine that you look in people's faces on the street, wondering if you look enough like some man that you think he might be your biological father? I grew up looking at my biological mother quite often, but after finding out the truth, I was repulsed by her hypocrisy.

It's a fair assumption that a lot of adoptees feel like this, but usually, they have the support of their family when nagging questions arise, and indeed, most adoptees never find out who their biological parents really are. As I had stumbled on the truth and felt I couldn't tell anyone, both options were out to me. I always thought I wasn't achieving a lot in high school because I was too lazy, but there is a part of me that says I was, in fact, traumatized. Okay, so now there are some who believe that I should have picked myself up and moved forward. That's fine; but how many out there were 11 years old when they found out something similar, and who could move on from there without any problems? You can't just go on. If you talk with someone about it, you might be able to recover faster, but when it happened to me, there was no one for me to talk with.

I sit here now, wishing I could go back in time to hug my younger self and say that it's okay, and things will work out in the end, and to give her hugs and kisses, and promise that they will have a better life. I can't obviously, and obviously, no one did. It has altered my life, though, and in some ways extremely negatively. I rarely dated, rarely trusted anyone enough to trust them with who I really was, and if fact, while I had many good friends, I rarely had any close friends. Even now, I don't carry a lot of trust for anyone I don't know very well.

Still I try to keep going. At my recent birthday, when I turned 53, I reviewed my life and realized how much I'd lost simply because I had no support group to help me move beyond the shattering things I lived with for so long.

To other adoptees, was it any better for you? Or am I part of a eclectic group who faced similar doubts and fears with their revelations? How did others cope with this kind of dilemma? It might not be too late for me to learn something and apply it to my life, just when I need to feel that life isn't as unkind as I believed it be so long ago.

should continue to exist, it's about having more than a one-party system which quickly could turn into a totalitarian regime if there aren't checks and balances in place.

We've seen how this works already--before the election this past November, the Repubs were "in charge." Not only were they in charge, but they had already set up enough ways for themselves to continue to influence the country's politics long after they were out of office. It was just short of being a dictatorship in some ways, though you won't hear them say that, obviously.

A single party dominance, as we've seen for the past eight years, makes sure that their agenda is the one to be passed, and that any and all of their ideals are pushed through. In this past regime of the last 8 years, the incompetency of the president brought other members of the administration to the fore, and each soaked the country for their own personal gain.

I realize that some here like Hugo Chavez, but he is currently one of the dictators in the world that shows what happens when someone charismatic can do once they have their foot in the door. Making himself the "elected" president for life, he has managed to take over his country with sneak thief style, and while many might have wanted differently, he had the backing of too many people looking for simple solutions in their lives. They decided to forgo a system filled with those checks and balances, which actually protect everyone in the long run.

A democratically run country such as the U.S. needs to maintain two (or more) parties in order to show perspective of the entire populace. There are some ideals offered by the right that are actually admirable, if you take away the taint of the religious right from the party. The "old" republican party wanted smaller federal government, wherein the states themselves would have more power. The "old" republicans actually wanted to spend less, and rely on the people themselves to bring changes to the country. The old "pioneer" outlook was crucial in this country for many many years, and even when it was often cruel--killing Native Americans in order to move west, for an example--it brought the country from one coast to the other. The old republican party was interested in making the U.S. formidable and self-relying. They wanted to see the country succeed in every endeavor it made. And until the World Wars, the United States was relatively equal to the other countries, especially the European countries. I don't believe the concept of a "superpower" came until after the wars, but after all was said and done, the U.S. was crowned with that title, and it's been what we've been trying to keep up with since.

A single party system would defeat a lot of admirable traits that the real republicans hold. A multiple party system ensures that all the citizens voices are heard, and not just those on one side. It also makes sure that not one sector in the country is left out when decisions and choices are made. It is true that urban states have more liberal leanings, but at the same time, the rural communities in the country need a voice too. And republicans are largely from those rural settings, and represent those folks who otherwise wouldn't be able to influence decisions made.

The problem, unfortunately, is that real republicans have made some decisions over the past thirty or so years that have helped weaken the party. They have allowed neo-cons to flourish, and they have allowed the religious right to infiltrate them and demand decisions based on their sole criteria. As we have seen, now it is very difficult to remove the RRs influence--it's like a cancer which is so interwoven itself into the party, that to separate them is now impossible.

Hope this helps.

Tom Hanks Called "a Pawn of Satan" by Occult Expert for Starring in Angels & Demons

Many believe that the Illuminati secret society depicted in Angels & Demons the movie is real, and the film taints the facts.

Hollywood, CA (PRWEB) April 27, 2009 -- Tom Hanks' new film Angels & Demons blurs the line between facts and fiction surrounding a secret society and the Vatican, but the film has angered some researchers calling it "disinformation" and a "whitewash" of what they call a real satanic secret society that continues to exist today.

"It's sad that a great actor like Tom Hanks has become a pawn of Satan and is aiding the cover-up of the existence of the Illuminati today and is a part of Dan Brown's fraud," says Mark Dice, author of The Illuminati: Facts & Fiction. "Brown's book, as well as the film, serves only as disinformation and a whitewash of the real Illuminati."

A large subculture of people believe that the Illuminati secretly pull the strings in world events and worship Satan. Mark Dice is an expert on secret societies and insists the Illuminati is active today as an international mafia and is responsible for the 9/11 attacks and the global economic crisis we are facing today.

In his new book, The Illuminati: Facts & Fiction, Mark Dice points to the Skull and Bones fraternity at Yale University, the secretive Bilderberg Group, and the Bohemian Grove as evidence that the Illuminati continues to exist today and did not go into extinction in the 1780s as many believe. "If you read the original writings of Adam Weishaupt, the founder of the Illuminati, it becomes undeniable that their plans have been very successful and the organization continues to thrive," he insists.

Dice is upset at what he calls blatant lies and inaccuracies in Dan Brown's depiction of the Illuminati, and believes Brown himself is working for the secret society as a disinformation agent to make people think the organization is a fictional creation.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/04/prwe...

taught me a lor of what I know, and I will give you some highlights about growing up with her.

1. Authority figures, but mostly police: Don't trust them--in fact, call them swear words when they're not looking. This is true--my mom doesn't have a lot of patience wirh police.

2. Unmarried adults: "Shack up with them for a couple of years to see what living with them is like, and go from there."

3. Get a lot of experience in different skills, so you will always have something to fall back on. And if the company has three shifts, choose graveyard because you don't have as many distractions.

4. Be your own person. Don't count on others if you can handle something, go it alone. Then there is no one but yourself to blame, regardless of the outcome.

5. Don't take the first job you are offered. You might look at it as good luck, but the truth is, they're low-balling you right out of the gate. Unless you are starving, such offers could stand some negotiation.

6. Get fees for some services or under the table pay upfront if possible. Never be afraid to say something if you feel uneasy with a current situation.

7. Ask for an estimate for repairs or such and make them stick to their estimates.

8. The wife or mother has full control in all domestic scenarios. Husbands or fathers will only blow the wad if they had it.

9. Go out on Friday nights, It doesn't matter where, just that you break up the monotony at home.

10. Travel. It's great to go someplace new, and if you plan it right, you will have a lot of fun. Why stay at a huge hotel, when it's more fun to stay at a B&B or a pension instead--and cheaper, usually. You won't meet locals if you're bound for that expensive hotel with too many gauche Americans--if you can, grab a room near the bathroom at least!

11. Live without hesitation, but pick your future with caution. Live without interfering with others snd their agenda, just as you hope they will do the same for you.

12. Love--if you have an abundance of ir, give some to everyone; if you don't have a lot, give others what you do have. You'll get it back, threefold. And just as important, receive love as well. Everyone can love and be loved, but you need to know when the time comes to share it.


That should do it.

Let's say you're my friend. You have just suffered a loss, a deep personal one, and you are grieving. I come to you, sit down, and I listen to you and help you achieve catharsis. When you are done and it's time for me to contribute to the conversation, I simply tell you I care, that I will try to understand as best as I am able, and I let you know that you can come to me anytime you need to talk, and I will listen.

Fair enough, right? I've done what a friend would do most of the time for their friends--be there for them when the need arises. I don't judge whether the loss was something you could have prevented, I don't lecture you on why you should have done something different and I don't try to put my values, moral or otherwise, on you.

Now, let's say the reverse happened. I'm the one with the problem, and you come to me as a "friend." So you listen (at least I think you're trying to listen, even if you interrupt me endlessly during my talking), and then you take my hand in yours and you say, "I will pray for you, you know; I won't let your soul suffer as I will seek a blessing from Jesus for you."

That's well and good if it's a person from your church who believes the same things you do, or if it's a family member who shares your faith, but this kind of response is completely wrong for someone who doesn't share your beliefs. And nowadays, that is often the case.

I'm an atheist. But I'm also secular and a humanist, and I try to keep religion out of discussions in which a difference in beliefs might make some awkward moments. That's how I try to deal with people for the most part, and how some of my dearest friends have been in the past, including one close friend who was a devout Catholic, but who never pushed it on me, despite the fact that I grew up Catholic and "escaped" from it!

But if someone has to inject their faith into any conversations they have with others, especially when they know definitely that the person they're speaking with is not of their faith, how much of a friend are they? If they try to negate the part of you that is either not religious or of a different belief, they cannot really respect you for being who you are--instead, they are transferring their values onto you, and thereupon find you lacking by their moral standards.

I'm pregnant, and I want an abortion....by my belief system, it's got nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with me, a woman, making a choice. By your belief system, I'm going to hell for killing a "baby!" So you feel morally superior to me basing my choice on your rationale.

I'm gay, and I love my partner, with whom I've spent more years than you have with your spouse. By my reasoning, why would you have anything to say about who I care to love and want to spend my life with? You, on the other hand, see nothing wrong with having multiple partners, or multiple spouses, but have a problem with two people with the same equipment caring and loving each other. Again, you are transferring your moral judgement on my life.

I'm for gun control, you love to shoot guns. I don't eat any animal products, you crave steaks about every 20 minutes. I believe that it took many millions of years for this world and all the life on it to evolve into what we know today--you believe that a lot of begatting only took about 10,000 years, and that when your ancestors were little, they used to have Dino the Dinosaur as a family pet.

It doesn't matter. It really can't matter when you come right down to it--no single person on the face of this planet (except if you are one of an identical twin) has gone through the same experiences, has the same genes, or even the same ideas. And that's the joy of being who we are. We are the world (and no, don't cue up the Michael Jackson song, either!) and we are a world of differences. If we were all the same, we might as well be robots or clones, because innovation, ideas and inventions would never come, would never be able to discover the joy at finding out about another person.

I confess: I still have a lot of fury at a former friend because she chose to let her religious beliefs come between us. She always injected her fundie beliefs and values into conversations, and then she got offended the day I told her that I couldn't stand her and the "fucking fundies" she was part of. But during a particularly desperate year in her life, I was there for her, talking about everything in the world (as long as it didn't involve religion) and tried to listen to her without making any moral assumptions. And as a thank you, I had to listen to her rants about gays being evil, about those who had abortions being whores and worse, about how my soul was headed straight for the deepest bowels of hell, and about her being morally superior to me because she had been "reborn" and brought Christ into her life. Oh, and yes, I almost forgot: how Muslims worshipped the "anti-Christ."

I don't ask the people I meet for the first time about what they believe in. It's immaterial, and it isn't any of my damned business. I will argue with you if I find you voted for GWB, but that's far more important than whether you have a personal "savior" or are Wiccan and keep an alter in your bedroom. Who is to know if Buddha, Mohammed, Jesus Christ, or Zeus is the better idol? Who is to question whether you are a better human being if you worship cows or eat them? That's your choice, and I've got mine. Mine says that I have a right to mine, and you have a right to yours. But if yours says that you have a right to yours, and that I have a right to yours, I will surely find you morally repugnant for not extending the same courtesy to me that I have extended to you.

The fact is, we're all right, and we're all wrong. We come at decisions from different viewpoints, we come with a set of values which we inherited from our ancestors, and we will add some new values through our own experiences. If we or our children go to a public school, there is no room--none whatsoever--for religion to be part of a mandatory curriculum. On the other hand, if you or your child goes to a private or parochial school, or if you are homeschooling your child, you are paying or playing to impart to them whatever you want.

I could never be considered shy, nor am I ever anything less than outspoken. But if you give me no reason to attack you on any of your beliefs, you should accept the same from me. Don't tell me smugly that my "god is less than your god," because so help me, I'm to the point where if you do, I will seriously contemplate hauling back and breaking your nose. Treat me as you wish to be treated: nothing less than that. How much simpler can my argument get?

are without culture. It happens everywhere, all the time, and to everyone. It is not limited to Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, communists, conservatives, liberals, or any denomination, color, race, creed or gender.

It happens. It's built right into our genes--we are not that far off from our most distant ancestors, clubbing each other with a wooden club. If it weren't for that savagery, though, we might not have survived this far: no one can deny that for some reason, we progress faster when we are acting our worst toward each other. Still survival of the fittest? Perhaps. But there comes a time when we reach a crossroad, and our minds see and imagine more peace while our instincts still pull us toward another horrible conflict. We try to overcome our desire for violence, but we're still bound by rules that keep us clinging to old ways of death and destruction.

Survival in today's world is still gained by domination and force. It's not going to stop until the human race is dead, period. We kill. We believe we kill for a reason, try to rationalize our choices, but when all is said and done, there is someone standing, and someone not breathing.

There is much to change, but so few to understand, few to comprehend our existence. We can map the human genome, but until the cruelty gene is eradicated, we will always be incapable of evolving beyond our current state of mind.

There is much to be ashamed of in our history, but we still thrive on intense emotion, for bad or good. For every living thing tortured, maimed and killed, there is a Michelangelo, a Shakespeare, a Beethoven. Without the sorrow, there is no joy; without the pain, there is no pleasure.

We are dual beings, living in a world of Heaven and of Hell. We aspire to beauty, but we fall to the ugliness that made our world, our civilization.

It is not one sole group that harms and hinders, it is merely a single aspect of who we are. The main difference is how some will never make that transition from the imagination to the factual, but for others, there is only a threshold to cross to do such horror.

Repression of another, of imprisoning someone weaker than ourselves is not only fact, but common. It is a better person who can think, but not act on the impulses that bring about such calamity. If we were in the situation ourselves, there is always the possibility that we would act similarly, even if we can't visualize it. We're always quick to condemn someone else who has done something we don't approve of, but until we are in their place, we cannot and should not judge them without at least giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Under the skin, we are all the same: none of us has green blood, four eyes or six arms--we like to think we are better than those who bring harm to another, but we're not.

Watch out for canned food specials, for lower weight contents in familiar cans and boxes!

Tuna, once upon a time, used to hold 7 ounces in that can a few years ago. Then, it changed to 6 1/2 ounces. Now, in a 4 can package, each can holds only 5 ounces!

I've noticed it with a lot of cans, because they can add water or juice or some other liquid to compensate for the lack of actual product, and since it still goes into the can everyone is familiar with, hardly anyone notices anymore. You simply cannot gauge the product by weighing it with the liquid filler, and it's not until you get home that you figure it out.

Most regular cans once weighed a pound--a full 16 ounces. Many cans are still at 15.5 ounces, but others have gone all the way down to 14 ounces. It's important to check the content weight before you buy.

Normally, a can of tuna, for me, used to make 1 and 1/2 sandwiches. I was grateful this past weekend that I could get a full sandwich out of the contents of that single can. Next time I shop, I will be paying closer attention to the weight and contents of EVERYTHING I purchase.

Another product that has changed significantly is Macaroni and Cheese from Kraft. I've tasted other Macs and Cheese, but there is something about the Kraft that has made it my favorite.

However, the Kraft Mac & Cheese has gone down from 7 oz. of dry product as well, and the pasta enclosed in the packages has gotten smaller, thinner and generally mushy. You know there is a difference when the average cooking time used to be about 11 minutes, and now it's only 7-8 minutes. No longer is the product a nice, robust elbow macaroni, but thin, scrawny and pathetic straight pieces of pasta, so little resembling the pasta I grew up with! Perhaps it's what moms prefer--something that only takes a short time to cook and put on the table for small kids. But really--is there THAT much difference between a cooking time of 11 minutes to 7-8 minutes?

I know that costs of providing food for our families is paramount on everyone's mind, but cutting product down without any kind of obligation on the manufacturer's part to inform their buying base is the sign of a coward to me. Come right out and tell the truth, and people will feel you dealt with them fairly.