Paul Hackett is an Iraq War veteran. This grandson of a union man and son of a traveling salesman & schoolteacher fought in Ramadi and Fallujah and returned to his Ohio home in 2005. He’s also committed to “retooling” the Democratic Party and, from the
An American holiday tradition that’s proven to be financially successful was observed again last month. It’s a tradition that reminds one of comedian Stan Freberg’s 1958 spoof of Dickens’ Christmas Carol called “Green Chri.” Freberg’s Scrooge owns an ad agency geared to profiting off of
In all my student years, I never thought the teaching of biological evolution was anti-God or religion. Even when I studied the two creation stories in the Bible’s first book, Genesis, it didn’t seem as if they forced anyone to choose between God and evolution.
You’ve heard the question in a number of forms: Why are gay people the way they are? I’m not talking about the complaints of critical right-wingers. They refuse to accept a rational answer, and don’t want one. I’m talking about the generalizations we make about
Living in hope when you’re not an optimist An optimist, my favorite definition goes, is someone who falls off a skyscraper and as he passes the thirtieth floor thinks: “So far, so good.” The Bush presidency, the corporate take-over of the US, and the destruction
The ideals our culture installs in little girls to make them into “real women” hurt close relationships. The goal is to make women the warrior support personnel needed to maintain masculine-based warrior culture. The pattern of masculinity that destroys deep relationships requires the pattern of
The anti-marriage-equality juggernaut moves on successfully every time it’s put to the people. These religious and political extremists know how to use an apparently democratic process because they’ve borrowed the business lobby’s issue-distorting techniques to win referenda. Meanwhile, pro-equality activists work hard to fight a
Take right-wing religion’s teaching that people are basically so evil and lost that they deserve eternal, abusive punishment. Add its effectiveness at convincing people of their innate evil because they’re prepared for it through childrearing methods that punish inherently bad children. Enforce such messages with
I remember hearing popular psychological speaker and writer John Bradshaw say that the “high” one gets from being righteous was similar to the high of cocaine. As both a former monk and addict, he knew the feelings personally. As the religious right pushes its anti-gay,