Are We Programmed?

Prepare me for the afterlife and
don't steal my religion. It's mine!

Are we programmed? How can we tell if we're programmed? We may think we are freethinkers, but are we really?

Maybe we are programmed in certain ways to keep our society orderly. Maybe our leaders want to program us in a specific way to better meet their ends.

The best example in history of a re-programming was when General Constantine made Christianity the official religion of Rome to help unify the failing empire. The plan worked better than Constantine could have EVER imagined.

One of the shocking and even chilling discoveries I have recently made is how closely modern Christianity resembles Ancient Egyptian religion. Both religions feature an afterlife, demons, a judgment day, a similar creation story and more. Much to my recent surprise, our modern religion just didn't appear in the First Century, rather it appears to have evolved over thousands of years.

However, one constant in our continually evolving religion is that it always personifies humans. Only 150 years ago, religion in the U.S. was used to justify slavery and then in 1960s it was used to justify civil rights. Today, religion is used to justify the persecution of gays, but some denominations are challenging this "norm" and moving society forward. The conservatives have circled the wagons and are mounting one last offensive with the gay marriage ban, just like conservatives in the South resisted school integration in the early 1960s.

So, like we learned from Emperor Constantine, religion is a great way to "program" the people and ensure an orderly society. Of course, the Romans borrowed these ideas from the greatest society of all — the Ancient Egyptians. Their society lasted a stunning three thousand years. A few simple programming tricks include making your leaders God-like and keeping the people united with an elaborate religion — preferably one that focuses on an afterlife. What a great way to keep the citizens preoccupied. What a great strategy: Let the government handle current affairs — you need to focus on heaven!

Though the U.S. has only been around a paltry 200+ years, our leaders are learning too. Our politicians use religion and fear to keep us controlled and compliant. They masterfully play the abortion card to get the single-issue voters out en masse. The single-issue voters then put more "conservatives" in power, who, in turn, dismantle labor and environmental laws as a way to repay corporate donors. What a wonderful marriage of convenience.

But one thing is wrong ...

The one big difference I see with the Ancient Egyptians and today's religions is that the ancients appeared to be genuinely happy. Despite common myth, the Pyramids were built by skilled workers, NOT SLAVES. They were well fed, many lived with their families, and they built the Pyramids as a labor of LOVE, NOT FEAR.

Yet, after the Roman Empire collapsed and the Dark Ages began, the "joy" of religion seems to have become tempered with endless guilt and fear. Why was God always punishing people? Why was life so hard? What did we do to deserve the Black Death? Actually, it wasn't God that devastated Europe with the Bubonic Plague, rather it was the little Oriental Rat Flea. And it was not God that destroyed the Twin Towers — it was a group of young, middle class Saudi males.

Maybe when we fight Saddam and terrorists, we are really fighting a form of symbolic evil. Maybe our government is using this as an opportunity to "unite" us, when, in fact, they are really just programming us.

free·think·er n Somebody who refuses to accept established views or teachings, especially on religion, and forms opinions as a result of independent inquiry.
—Encarta World English Dictionary

Our Many Gods

I don't like you for what you've done to me. You pumped up my country's
children on Ritalin because you didn't want to deal with them. You
medicated their minds to prepare them for the New World Order. You
are trying to re-program America but I will resist.


Just one God? Don't be silly. We have many Gods in the United States. Allow me to name a few:

Prozac
Cipramil
Aropax
Zoloft
Tofranil
Pertofram
Deptran
Aurorix
Arima
Nardil
Parnate

Welcome to America, the land of antidepressants and LOTS of depression. Why are we so unhappy? The United States is the land of plenty, of opportunity, come on! How can anyone be miserable?

In Atlanta there are shiny new fences on all the overpasses. Everywhere I drove yesterday they were all over the place. Some are curved inward and all are high. The fences are to keep people from jumping off.

Two apparent suicide tries forced the closing of two Atlanta area interstates Tuesday, raising concern among officials that media reports are fueling a copycat trend. The two incidents were the third and fourth times in three months a metro interstate has been closed because of suicide threats.
—Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 6/16/04

Jumping off bridges? Come on, we are in the land of utopia where tanks rumble in the desert and conservative religious leaders touch the "abortion button" to mobilize their legions for the November vote.

The Rev. Jerry Falwell boasted Friday that evangelical Christians, after nearly 25 years of increasing political activism, now control the Republican Party and the fate of President Bush in the November election.
— Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 9/25/04

Oh, yeah, so why are people trying to jump off bridges in Atlanta? Well, one of the jumpers comes from my hometown. Fortunately, he survived the 30-foot jump.

In Cobb County, Gregory Layne Light, 26, of Powder Springs stood on the edge of the Windy Hill Road bridge over I-75 for more than two hours at midday May 27, prompting officials to close the interstate in both directions for much of the afternoon. He told negotiators he had no job and no money and that everything had gone wrong in his life.
—Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 6/16/04


Meanwhile, the Republican Party, now controlled by the hard-right Christians and Industrialists are amassing their forces for the final kill. Their goal is to exterminate the Democratic Party and create a one-party fundamentalist state, similar to Iran.

"I want to be invisible. I do guerrilla warfare. I paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag. You don't know until election night."
— Ralph Reed, Bush-Cheney '04 Southeast Regional Director, past interview

Having worked in political campaigns against Republican Candidates, I can assure you that the zealots now working for the Republicans lie, mislead, and deceive to achieve their ends.

The Democrats are taking a beating, perhaps because they are too principled to fight back. Maybe it's too much of a shock to see the way that Karl Rove and Ralph are now playing the game. All I know is that the cynicism and ill will they are creating is destroying what's left of our ailing democracy. But, isn't that the ultimate goal anyway?

Maybe Jerry, Ralph, and Karl should come to Powder Springs and hang out with Gregory Light and try to find out why he jumped off the bridge. Maybe then, the world will begin to change.

But in reality, the doctors will just pump Gregory with Prozac and Zoloft and send him on his merry way. In the meantime, the Department of Transportation is spending $3.5 million to build fences on Atlanta overpasses. That money could buy a lot of Prozac, or it could even pay Gregory's power bill. But building fences is how we react to problems here in America.

Unless we change our ways, we are doomed.

The Abortion Issue

You don't agree with me, you don't
agree with me? Why, I'll take care
of you...

What bothers me most about the abortion issue is how both sides have totally used and abused it to further other goals. Somehow in all the debate we've forgotten about the women who are actually going through this dreadful process.

As I write this, some Catholic leader in Atlanta is sending out letters and writing articles urging all parishioners to only vote for "pro-life" candidates. That's not a problem, since most people around here are doing that anyway — they are called single-issue voters.

Now, without question, I find abortions troubling and wrong. Whether you believe in a "logic-based" or "God-based" morality, abortion fails both tests. I do not believe it is right to create the most complex organism in the Universe and then destroy it.

A few points to ponder:

• Who are these women having abortions?

• Why are they having abortions?

• Just how many women are having abortions? Enough to justify making this a key, lightening rod issue in every freaking election?

In 1988 I served on the Mayor's Task Force for Teenage Pregnancy, and did volunteer work on this issue again in the late 1990s. What I found is that those getting the abortions are often poor, and often either extremely rural or urban. It deeply troubles me that people like right-wing zealot Pat Swindall would like to throw these women in jail, as if they haven't gone through enough already. I have a better idea — why don't we throw the guys who impregnated them in prison?

ONE DAY...

One day many years from now humans will look back and say, "How did we ever engage in that barbaric abortion practice? How could we destroy the life within us?"

The Solution

Much to the chagrin of the "hyper-moralistic" Christian fundamentalists, throwing rape and incest victims in jail makes little sense. What makes even less sense is aggressively pursuing anti-choice policies in poor Third World nations where women are forced to have their babies, only to see them starve in the streets.

The answer is to focus on PREVENTION. Young women need to be educated, contraceptives need to be universal, and men need to RESPECT the women by exerting more self-control. Our government needs to ignore the small but vocal moralists who scream, "Sex education will only make teens have more sex." What we need is comprehensive sex education in our schools. Abstinence-only education is a dark humor joke, since we know a certain percentage of young people are going to have sex anyway, regardless of what they are taught in school, home, or church.

Digging Heels In

There used to be a saying of "safe, legal, and rare" that appears to be a fair compromise for both the Left and Right. But, unfortunately, the Right keeps looking for creative ways to chip away at the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. This includes passing "back door" laws that limit abortion and stacking the courts with anti-choice judges. In response, women's groups are forced to dig their heels in and mount defensive campaigns. Abortion has become a key point of conflict in the ever-widening Culture War. On several occasions, I have seen pro-life protesters carrying posters that show aborted fetuses — the images have an uncanny resemblance to a McDonald's Happy Meal.

Are the abortion protesters saving children by offering to adopt them? Are they addressing the dire situations that lead to abortion? Are they being a Big Sister to young ladies who simply need companionship, a caring friend, and someone to talk to? Are the protesters so busy politicizing abortion that they have forgotten that the women are often victims too? Victims of abuse, victims of men who use them and leave them, victims of drunken fathers who commit incest?

With all the churches and talk of morality in this country, it is a shock that we have one of the highest teen pregnancy rates — 53 births per 1,000 teenagers, which is a higher rate than India and Rwanda. This rate is much higher than those worldly Europeans — Great Britain - 20 babies per 1,000 adolescents, Germany - 11, Norway - 11, Finland - 8, Sweden -7, Denmark - 7, the Netherlands - 5.

The bottom line is that something is terribly wrong in the United States, and rather than addressing the source of the problems (poverty, poor education, right-wing plutocracy) we focus on abortion, which is merely a side effect of our societal ills.

I place blame for the abortion tragedy squarely on the religious community. Instead of holding after-school programs for at-risk teens, they would rather wave their spaghetti and meatball posters in front of an abortion clinic. Or worse yet, they would prefer to throw young girls in prison instead of dealing with the core issues. I also place blame on mothers and fathers who need to spend more time with their kids. Come on parents, where are you?

A great source of abortion facts: Alan Guttmacher Institute . Oh, and by the way, abortions in the U.S. are declining.

Potato Chips, Cavemen, and Asteroids

Well, we discovered fire, but
there's still a lot of animals out
there that can eat us. This is a
hard life we lead.

Has humankind made any progress in the past 30,000 years? Well, men don't drag women around by the hair anymore and our clothes are more stylish, but other than that I don't think so. We are prisoners of our "human-ness." We are likely the most complex organism in the Universe, yet we are often irrational and emotional. We all want love, yet we hate and kill. We want happiness, yet we bring misery on ourselves and others. We are spiritual animals and worship a higher power in a thousand different ways, yet many humans think their way is the only "correct" way. Some are even willing to persecute and kill others over their beliefs.

Some say that it is part of our human-ness to destroy whatever environment we are placed in. Some say it is natural for us to murder our fellow humans for a thousand different reasons and causes. I do not believe this for a minute. Many indigenous cultures have survived for centuries in a sustainable, and sometimes even PEACEFUL, fashion.

What Next?

What does the 21st Century hold for us? In Russia we are seeing that a handful of well-financed terrorists can shake an entire society, maybe even to the point of collapse. Will the terrorists spend the next few decades blowing us up at home, blowing up our children, blowing us up in buses, blowing us up at work, sending anthrax in our mail, poisoning our air and water, beheading us, making us totally paranoid, and spooking us until our society collapses? Will the terrorists of the world force the great nations of the world to revert to Police States? Will we nervously hide behind our governments to protect us from the random murderers and anarchists? Will the terrorists blast us back to the Middle Ages?

Or... will we be united, be strong, and tackle this blight by defusing the sources of anger? Will we find a way to cut off the terrorist's money supply by becoming energy self-sufficient? Will we work closely with other nations to pro-actively destroy the cold blooded murderers before they can bring more harm on peaceful people?

One thing is for sure, and that is we are going to pack out this World with humans. There will be 9 billion people, and then maybe 12 billion all squeezed on our Little Blue Marble that's flying through space. And what about the "have" and "have nots?" Are we just going to sit around while the rich use their wealth to extract more wealth, while millions starve? Will the rich recede into gated compounds and keep us subdued with their hired security forces? Is this the New World Order that George Bush Sr. referred to?

Maybe ... Just Maybe

Maybe people will begin to listen to the Yellow Canaries of the Planet. The authors, speakers, and occasional politicians who scream, "We are not heading in the right direction" may one day be listened to and accepted.

But Christmas is coming and it's time to run up the charge cards, and the car lot is running a special on Hummers. And the kids have to go to dance, karate, clogging, and soccer practice. We have to keep those little children over stimulated and stressed just like us. We have to go to Hooters and slosh beer and check out women's bosoms, while others go to little country churches where preachers scream that you must give more, do more, and "be faithful." Who has time to listen to the Yellow Canaries who talk about crazy things like peacemaking and environmental protection? Who cares because God and Government (perhaps a synonym) takes care of all that.

Soggy Potato Chips

We humans are like soggy potato chips. We are all wet and slithering all over each other in the bottom of a bag. We are still salty, we still have our nutritional value, but who the heck wants to eat us now? We had our chance, but we are blowing it.

Maybe an asteroid will take us out, so maybe it makes sense to go to Hooters and be merry. Or, well, in a few hundred years we'll start settling planets and then maybe one day the entire Universe. Maybe one day there will be trillions of people all over the Galaxy, and other Galaxies, and we will all live in peace and harmony. We will mine planets, run giant farms, and build really fast space ships. And we can gather together and say, "Look at us, look what we've accomplished?" But then we will say, "Yikes, the Universe is about to burn up all the hydrogen, all the stars are dying out, and this Universe will soon be dark and cold. What the hell are we going to do?"

Escape from the Clone Army

Some in the U.S. thrive on the
world power and domination.

What if we all have been placed under a spell or some sort of mind control? Are we really reacting the way we feel, or the way some organized power has programmed us?

When I discuss the war and terrorism with really conservative individuals their answers are surprisingly the same. The "RIGHT" answers have been burned into their psyche and their allegiance to the system is infallible. Who has created this Clone Army, and why is their loyalty so unshakable?

I was once a right-wing conservative so I can relate to how they are thinking and feeling. First off, they are united by a great enemy, called Liberals. Other than Barbara Streisand and Ted Kennedy, they really can't pick out any evil Liberals by name. But they know about the ACLU, which is the Liberal front organization. The Liberals are constantly attacking "family values" and want to create a Godless society. The Liberals support abortion and gays, which makes them particularly evil. The Bible is under attack from these worldly and satanic-influenced forces. It is up to us to be the Defenders of the Faith. At least that's how I felt when I wrote my flaming right-wing editorials when I was a newspaper editor in the early 1980s. I was going to use my position as a weekly columnist to right all the wrongs in the world. As a conservative, you stand behind the president, you support the war, and you support God.

As for me, I'm a conservative gone bad. I'm one of those rotten apples that fell out of the basket. Believe me, I wish I could re-join the Clone Army and continue my mindless and empty pursuit of the American Dream. I wish my mechanical arm would just continue to drop money in the offering plate and my little mechanical jaw would continue to make me talk and say, "The Iraqi liberation is righteous and noble. And we are winning the war."

But I am tainted. I am not a Liberal, but rather a very angry and disillusioned Conservative. I have gone awry. So why doesn't Big Brother shut down my blog, or have the CIA "take care of me?" Because I'm too insignificant for them to even care. It's like these alien abductions you always hear about — they only want to study us and our cattle, and we are too unimportant for them to even attempt communication with us. Big Brother knows that the Clone Army will simply consider me a Liberal, which is a giant catch-all category that includes anyone who does not adhere to the One Right Way.

I know my Blog will never convert anyone. But perhaps those marching in unison in the Army of Blind Faith will at least look at me and wonder why one of their own has fallen off the cart. Perhaps that will become the beginning of a crack or fissure that will open their eyes. Maybe if they see enough dissent they will experience a new feeling in their consciousness — a strange urge to question.

Now, for the record, there is nothing wrong with being a conservative. What does trouble me is the trend for conservatives to accept everything they are fed without questioning. Perhaps they are afraid they will be viewed as less spiritual or unpatriotic if they question. Maybe they don't want to anger God.

About the Cartoon Above

I want to think of the United States as a gentle, loving older brother. At many points in our history we have behaved this way, and that's the part I love about my country. But lately, we've been acting like the neighborhood bully. We deal with our problems with aggressive, gut reactions. We think our military is the best, but they are now being humbled by the insurgents, just like they were in Vietnam. Yet, some ignore this and continue to scream, "We are the best, the strong, the God-ordained rulers. We are powerful!!!!." But what we should be is HUMBLE. We should work WITH the United Nations and the world community, no matter how slow and long the process. To scream, "we should pull out of the UN because it's corrupt and infested by liberals" is a shameful copout. If there is a problem at the UN, we should take a positive approach to make it better.

To Those Who Died Today

What are we fightin' for?

What will I tell my daughter?
What will you tell your son?
Where were all the doves?
That we were nothing but a shadow,
a faceless generation devoid of love?

The crucifix ain't no baseball bat
Tell me what kind of God is that?
Ain't nothing more godless than a war
So what are we fightin' for?

Excerpt from the alternative music group Live.

This post is dedicated to all the people who died in Iraq today. It was a bad day, with violence throughout the country. So much killing, hate, and destruction.

Both sides are equally guilty. I don't understand exactly why so many people in the Middle East are so eager to become suicide bombers. Maybe their situation is desperate or maybe they want their 72 virgins. I do not know. On the aircraft that went down in Pennsylvania on 9/11 I did hear the recording of the terrorist screaming, "God is great" as he dove the plane into the ground. God must NOT be so great if he's allowing an aircraft full of innocent people to die.

And an invasion disguised as a "liberation?" What is up with that? No question that Saddam was a thug, but with the creative minds of our nation we could have come up with a way to address the problem. Instead, we acted rashly.

Maybe this isn't an oil war after all. Maybe it is a religious war between fundamentalists. But what is up with Islam, Judaism, Christianity, and all this global violence? Maybe our religions are like stretched out Silly Puddy — we stretch, bend, and modify our faiths to justify whatever the heck we feel like doing, whether it's justifying slavery, bashing gays, or blowing up infidels while screaming "God is great."

The Roman General Constantine tried the "God is Great" thing with great success on the evening of a great battle. A rival army was approaching and he was in big trouble. What should Constantine do? Of course, have a vision. The general looked up, saw a cross of light in the sun, and he told all of his soldiers to paint a cross on their shields. GOD told him to do it, so darn it, get your paint out and make those crosses. We are going to war. The God of Love is the God of War, and with his holy army, Constantine won the Battle of Milvian Bridge. Oh, and Constantine got to become emperor too.

So the Roman Empire converted to Christianity and the Empire never went away — it just moved to America. Come on, visit Washington, DC and it looks eerily similar to ancient Rome. It's 1700 years later, yet we are still painting crosses on our shields and going to war, and the so-called enemy is screaming "Holy Jihad" and going to war too. Nothing has changed.

God told him to use the sign he had been given as a safeguard in all of his battles. Thus, Constantine converted to Christianity and ordered the symbol of his Savior's name (the intersection of the Greek letter chi and rho) to represent his army. Constantine was victorious in the battle of the Milvian Bridge, and he continued to wear the symbol for Christ against every hostile power he faced.

But, oh, it's okay because Saddam tortured and killed his own people. Well, he had a rough bunch to rule over, I mean, now they are busy killing each other in ethnic, sectarian, and political violence. The Americans, I suppose, are mainly staying in their bases, but they are still getting killed too. They are lured out of their compounds and then attacked.

I'm not sure where it all ends or what it all means. However, I do know that the United States still hasn't learned its lesson. Maybe we will learn this time.

Who's the Real Conservative?

The United States of America - heading toward a national
debt of $14.8 trillion.


What are all those Republican conservatives up to?

They are cutting taxes you should rightfully pay, and are deferring them to your children. They are engaging in adventuristic wars and sticking future generations with the tab. They are betraying every principle of the Grand Ol' Party, yet they still have the gall to call themselves conservative Republicans.

Now, if we launch wars overseas, shouldn't the American people have to pay for it? Shouldn't we be assessed with a tax surcharge? Nosiree, President Bush wants you to have your cake and eat it too.

The Clinton-era budget surplus that Bush inherited has been squandered. The $5 trillion surplus has been spent and we are now headed toward another $1.54 trillion in debt. Most of our tax money will be spent paying interest on debt instead of helping the poor. Is that Compassionate Conservatism?

I hear people being interviewed on the radio saying, "Well, I'm voting for Bush because he has cut my taxes and he is fighting terrorism in Iraq." Wrong on both accounts. The President is simply DEFERRING taxes to a future generation, and in regards to Iraq, any connection between Saddam and terrorism is fuzzy at best, and there ARE NO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION.

Wake up, America! You are being fed distortions and lies. Sure, you can sing the national anthem until the drool runs down your chin, but wake up when the President raids the Social Security fund. That is your money — the money that represents your sweat. It is there to provide you security in your old age, not to fund opportunistic wars.

Why do I bring this up?

Because a key part of sustainability is living within our means. If our nation is buried in debt, we won't even be able to help our own people, let alone the World. Can't you see the predicament we are getting ourselves in? It is unacceptable to pass an unbalanced budget — either our nation must spend less or we must be taxed more. Please, stop screwing over your kids while you are going around saying what a "moral" man George W. Bush is.

On a final note, it appears that the ban on assault weapons will not be renewed. Why isn't our President taking a strong stand on getting this ban renewed? Police officials and law enforcement groups support the ban, but the Righteous Ones seem obsessed with the idea of making rapid-fire murderous weapons available to young people and terrorists.

Do you sense that something is wrong here? The Canary sure does.

We've got the right to bear arms. You never know when our government is going to turn on us. It already has. We gotta protect ourselves. Yeah, from gun lobbyists. The President is a GOOD man. Well, he's good for large corporations. And YOU CANARY are a left-wing trouble making scum. If you don't love this country, why don't you just move to Cuba! Well, I flew over it once and it's quite beautiful. It's all about morality, son. Get right.

My Vision For A Better World

I have been called a "Global Utopian" and a member of an audience once said I was trying to obtain Nirvana.

My goal is NOT to create a perfect world. All I want to do is promote long-term sustainability. I want to keep us from destroying ourselves through violence and environmental destruction. To obtain this goal we must not only change our government laws and policies, but we must also change the way we think. We as humans must reinvent ourselves and create a new attitude.

So, what is my dream?

• I envision a United Earth where there is absolute free movement and free trade. I would like to see the European Union model slowly expanded to encompass the Planet.

• I envision a stable human population. Flattening the human growth curve would at least give us a fighting chance at addressing our worse environmental and social ills. I believe that the population explosion is a root cause in problems ranging from global climate change to terrorism.

• I envision a society that lives sustainably. Rather than harming the World, each generation should strive to leave the Earth in better shape than they found it.

• I envision a human race that lives in harmony with nature, rather than trying to constantly exploit it for short-term gain.

The Challenges...

• Now reaching a sustainable and peaceful world is going to be a great challenge of the next few generations. The great problem is that our economy is based on infinite growth and the Planet we live on is finite. This means we are trying to do the impossible by growing our economy but with the same resources. Eventually, such a flawed economic model will collapse, which will result in much suffering for millions of humans. For the Earth, the "Infinite Growth" model is especially bad because as the world economy and population continue to grow, there will be increased pressure to exploit, rape, and pillage what's left of the natural world. Screw our children and future generations — we must get everything we can now because poor people need jobs and rich people need yachts.

• Another great challenge is addressing our one-sided "ethics" toward life. In the late 1800s we conquered many childhood diseases, and this is the main factor that sent our world population soaring. At the same time, we are now extending life expectancy. Now we face a double whammy — more people are surviving infancy and plus living longer. This is a good thing, but all the "good" can actually contribute to our demise. As more people exploit and deteriorate the environment, the health of the biosphere decreases and then the health of humans decrease. Then the medical establishment pumps us full of drugs to counteract the asthma, cancer, and all the other diseases related to our polluted and poisoned world. So, for example, all the advances we make against cancer are set back by our exposure to all the man-made toxins that CAUSE cancer.

But back to my point: There is a lot of screaming about "sanctity" of life, yet corporate polluters and their minions in government make decisions every day that are killing us, all in the name of profits.

An abortion is considered "murder" and a "sin," yet it becomes a news novelty when a fertility doctor screws up and a woman has premature quintuplets. My question in this case is: Who is the real sinner? Humans in terminal agony wish to take their own lives, but we say that euthanasia is a "sin," so these individuals are kept on life support, running up incredible bills, at the same time that medical insurance is becoming unaffordable for small businesses and millions of Americans. Again, I ask: Who is the real "sinner?"

It seems that our relationship with life and death has changed dramatically in the last century, yet our religious and "moral" values have yet to catch up. We now seem to value life at all costs in the short-term, even if means destroying it in the long-term.

• The last challenge to a sustainable world is the problem with social security. People are living much longer, often kept alive with handfuls of drugs. As we stabilize our population, a smaller pool of workers will be supporting a huge group of retired persons. Eventually, this bubble in the growth curve will even out, but in the mean time we have some difficult years ahead. I have no answer here except that governments will be forced to make hard decisions, such as higher retirement ages and reduced benefits.


For seven years I've organized forums, passed out literature at tabling events, and have given dozens of presentations. When I first became a population activist I thought the light bulb would just come on in people and a domino effect would begin. I mean, hell, it makes so much sense to me. But what I've found is that swimming against the tide of Mother Culture is exhausting. All of us are on a runaway train, and trying to stop it is harder than I imagined. But I remain undaunted. What I've just realized in the past few weeks is that what I believe in is ... well ... I believe in people. And I believe they will ultimately do the right thing.

Ending the Bitter War Against Gays

Confusion, forced guilt, conflicting values, hypocrisy, and baseless societal norms.
It all makes for a really bad headache.


In the late 1980s I was editor of a metro wide teen newspaper. It was a great job, but I quickly learned it came with a great responsibility. Not too long after I started working there, I noticed the sometimes-depressing letters and poems I received. Whether I wanted the role or not, destiny had placed the lives of hurting teens in my arms. There were teens in great anguish out there, and some of them were killing themselves.

In 1989, our newspaper teamed up with Campfire USA, local social workers, and a mental health organization to form a teen suicide prevention coalition. Our goal was ambitious — we wanted to hold a city-wide rally and start a prevention group in every school in metro Atlanta. Teens from our group made a presentation at every school board meeting in the area and we received widespread support. A large Atlanta-based firm agreed to underwrite our first metro-wide rally. The event was attended by nearly four hundred kids, and there were sports celebrities and TV stars present. Afterwards, the teen representatives returned to their schools to form suicide prevention groups.

Most troubling were the teen suicides without notes, and it was believed that many of these were gay suicides. At the time, there was a string of one car teen fatalities, and these were believed to be deliberate. Gwinnett County, a suburban county of Atlanta, was especially hit with teen suicides. To address the problem, the local newspaper hosted a forum and I was invited to sit on a panel. The event was held in an auditorium and it was standing room only. The room was dark and I was sitting at a table, on a stage, facing hundreds of teens who were seated and standing along the sides and rear. I was suppose to start the discussion, and the moderator read the first question submitted by someone in the audience. "I am at my wits end, my life is falling apart, and I am considering suicide. What should I do?" Wow. I leaned forward to the microphone and I could hear my voice echo throughout the auditorium, and I basically talked about how perception made things worse than they really were, and that the goal was to stick it out because things would get better. The social worker sitting next to me then took the microphone and mumbled a lot of psychology jargon. The evening did get better as we let the teens in the audience do most of the talking and sharing. That's important because I believe that LISTENING is a key to teen suicide prevention.

There were more letters and poems, and often they did not have a return address. What I saw and felt was a lot of deep pain. The secretary of the Atlanta Gay Center contacted me about doing a series of articles on the topic of teen gay suicide. In one of the great regrets of my life, I refused because I was afraid our newspaper would get kicked out of the more conservative schools.

What I learned ...

What I learned is compassion. In a way, our society is literally killing its gay youth. I remember one letter in particular from a gay teen in Marietta, GA. I was given a glimpse of the pain, persecution, guilt, needless humiliation, and suffering that many of these youth go through. And the persecution is all for absolutely nothing.

Gay marriage

All year my stomach has been churning as I hear the pious politicians scream about gay marriage bans. They are trying to position themselves to win the favor — and vote — of the self righteous and hypocritical religious conservatives. But what they don't know is that they are hurting completely innocent people and they are creating a culture that condones persecution and hatred against gays.

It is a total joke to talk about "sanctity of marriage" when the divorce rate is 52 percent. Marriage is not about a union between a man and a woman. Marriage is a truly beautiful thing where two humans COMMIT the rest of their lives to one another — it is the ultimate act of love. "Love" is what is sacred in this world, not a legal marriage document.

Do I expect gays to be moral? Absolutely. I expect gays to be true to their commitments, faithful spouses, good citizens, and caring individuals. If a gay gets married and commits adultery, then they are just as big a weenie as a heterosexual person.

It is not wrong to be gay, and I have 100 percent peace with that in my heart. What is wrong are the ridicules charades, innuendo, misinformation, and downright lies that lead people to justify their overt and subvert persecution of gays. It is WRONG to treat a gay person anything less than a complete equal.

I am grateful for the gay friends that I have had in my life — they would destroy all the stereotypes that the Righteous Ones try to throw on them. They are good people with feelings and dreams, just like you and me.

The rancorous debate over gay marriage is wasting taxpayer money and taking up valuable time both in Congress and in many state legislatures. To the Righteous Ones leading the charge, let me assure you that gay marriage is not an attack on family values or morality. No gay couple is going to become less moral by getting married. Give me a break.

And for the record, I will never retract my statements above.

Yellow Canary

Today I Have Hope

Well, I could just spend my life in front of my computer. Or I could just read books. But it's much better to go out and enjoy social interaction once in a while.

While still feeling glum about the slaughter of the Russian children by terrorists, I did make the 29 mile drive to attend Green Sunday at my favorite church — Oakhurst Baptist Church in Decatur, GA. Wow, imagine a racially and ethnically diverse church that welcomes gays, is sensitive to current world issues, and even cares about the environment. I went to attend their Green Sunday program and for 90 minutes I was in heaven. For once I didn't have the usual cognitive dissonance eating away my stomach. This is the church where I belong; too bad it's so far away.

The message on environmentalism was beautiful and touching. The part that stayed on my mind the most today is where the speaker said that compared to most of the world's religions, Christianity does not have much of an environmental ethic. Apparently traditional Christians see themselves at an airport. They are waiting to catch the flight to the next life, and are quite willing to let the maintenance personnel take care of the airport. Off they go, to fly to their gold streets and mansion, and as for Mother Earth, it is just temporal. One theory the speaker suggested is that early Christians were trying to differentiate themselves from the more nature-based pagan religions.

Oakhurst is the model for the Church of the 21st century. Rather than confining people to self-destructive, discriminatory, and illogical interpretations, the Decatur church acknowledges our changing world and is GROWING with it. And this gives me hope. Two bad there only two other Baptist churches like Oakhurst that I know of in Georgia. They are dots in a giant sea of business-as-usual religion.

Flashback:

When I was helping to launch a new church in 1993, we spent a few Sundays visiting other startup churches. One church we visited was Eagle Pointe Church in west Cobb Country, GA. This was one of those "seeker" churches designed to attract affluent yuppies from the zillions of new housing projects in the area. It was held in a school auditorium and everyone was just sitting there in their shorts sipping coffee. The pastor got up and gave a scathing, hateful, 35 minute tirade against gays. I think all of us were just kind of shocked. Wow, what a headline: "Yuppie Church of Love Shows Hatred." I wasn't sure what to do or how to react. If I had it to do over again, I would have walked out, or better yet, I would have tried to stop it.

Hate is Not A Family Value

Why I Do This...

I started keeping a journal again in December. By "again" I mean I used to keep one in the years following college. When I started having health problems in 1993 I threw my 10-year-old journal away, along with many of my best short stories and uncompleted novels. I tossed it all because I didn't want my children to see what a depressing wretch I was. But now I regret throwing my works away — it was a part of me.

So, partly at the suggestion of my church pastor, and partly because I got a free electronic journal, I started keeping entries again. The first few months of this year were difficult for me and the journal helped me get through it. There is something wonderful about getting your thoughts on paper.

I started writing at age 8 and really got into it by age 12. My favorite writing style has always been satire, and because some teachers would take my writings literal, I sometimes got into trouble or was given a bad grade. But most teachers appreciated my satire and love for irony and cynicism. In Junior High School they had a wonderful program called Independent Studies where you could sign up to study a topic not normally covered in the curriculum. So, for two years I wrote like crazy during my Independent Studies periods. It was at this time that I started my novel, which I worked on for years but never finished. It was titled "Winter Days and Weary Nights," and, in short, was about a movement that started in northern Europe and Scandinavia to conquer the world for the sole purpose of making it better.

I did major writing during the last two summers of college, and then when I graduated I REALLY started writing for about four years. Here I was just married and broke, but I came up with the money to buy a used IBM Selectric typewriter. It was a lemon — it never worked correctly, but I kept on writing with it for several years.

By 1984 I begin getting interested in one of my other passions in life — computers. I learned BASIC programming, got involved in computer user groups, and my life took a different turn for the next decade.

Early on I realized it was too hard to make a living at writing, and there is little demand for rambling satire, so I became a newspaper reporter instead. Over the years, I worked my way up from a reporter to an editor and today I'm a communications manager.

Five months ago I began this Blog. I write mainly as a way to record my thoughts, and to have an immediate off-site safe back-up. Of course, when I croak, my on-line subscription will eventually expire, the service will be shut down, and all my innermost thoughts will be erased forever. As for me, my will states that I am to be cremated, with my ashes scattered in a prayer garden. There will not be a trace of me, and there is something beautiful and glorious about that. In a way, it is vain to reach out for immortality. I am just here today, trying my best to be a good father, a good husband, a good citizen, a good neighbor, and a good human being. But, while this MAY sound cocky, I also have a deep yearning to leave the world a little better than the way I found it.










For us writers, there is something eloquent and beautiful about
the absolute vanity of life. It is better to be ashes than to be
an obstacle for a lawnmower.

While I write this blog mainly for myself, I do write it for others as well. I have received a few positive comments on it over the months. After seven years of trying, I now doubt that I can save the world. But maybe I can plant a few seeds. If someone reads my blog and it encourages them or inspires them to improve the world in some way, then I have accomplished my mission.

My journey through life has been so painful because I look at my fellow humans, and I see so much good. Yet, I look around the world and see so much bad. We humans are capable of doing FAR BETTER than we are doing. God has entrusted us with an incredible brain and a Planet with vast resources, yet we are squandering and screwing it all up. It seems that our successes only create new problems, our ancient way of thinking keeps us mentally caged, and we continue to screw things up royally. Maybe we are learning from our messes, but if we are it is a slow process.

My statement on life

I will not ramble further. However, I would like to share an entry from my old journal from earlier this year. It is the thesis of my blog and website:

I, Yellow Canary, have existed on this planet for 43 years. While I see great good and beauty in my fellow humans, I also see bad, in the form of ignorance, indifference, and apathy. When I look into our future 50 years from now, I do not see good. What I do see is a badly crowded, badly stressed, and badly polluted, Planet that is full of violence and hate. We have already seen plenty of violence and hate in the first few years of the new millennium, and the 2000s are just beginning.

Terrorists suck from the tits of Mideastern oil wells, and rather than finding alternatives to the madness, we continue to buy SUVs and Hummers so that we may feed our enemies. And all the while the religious doomsayers bow down and condone the corporate savagery that keeps the imported oil flowing.

Blessed are those who resist this madness.

A Double Bad Week

Heaven awaits the righteous.
But who is really righteous?

So, now the terrorists are killing children at a school in Russia. Humanity has sunk to a new low this week. A group of individuals have reverted to the barbarism of our ancient ancestors. We don't seem to be making progress as a species, but rather we are going in circles. The blatant terrorist acts this past month are making me re-think the whole issue. These idiots are not picky about who they slaughter. Whether it be truck drivers in Iraq, airline passengers in Russia, or whatever, it seems that terrorists, particularly Islamic fascists, are quite determined to murder for whatever cause-of-the-month they can think of. Maybe annihilating them is the only answer. One thing is for sure, and that is in the War on Terrorism, everyone must be a lookout and front-line soldier, even women and children. We must all be on the alert to protect one another from the destroyers of civilization.

Now, where is all this anger and hatred coming from? Who is whipping up all the furor? Maybe it's the Georgia turncoat senator, Zell Miller, who betrayed his party at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night. So much for peace, harmony, respect, and reconciliation. Rather, Zell's speech was full of partisanship, vitriol, and divisiveness.

The United States appears more divided than ever between the conservatives and liberals. As for me, I am sick of the name-calling and bigotry on both sides. Conservatives play the "protector of the peace" to cover up their leader's error in Iraq. Liberals play the role of self-righteous judges, and the bantering goes on and on. There is no civility, no respect for different opinions. Everyone has their mind made up and no one seems to care what the other side has to say.

Certainly, both political parties are rascals, but the Republicans, backed by the devious corporate brains and their limitless money, are particularly nasty. Whether it be some obscure millionaire funding Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, or getting a turncoat Democrat to speak at the GOP convention, any standard of decency is gone.

In November when the election rolls around, it doesn't matter who loses, because every single American has lost. Our country is heavily in debt, our manufacturing jobs are going oversees, our middle class is disappearing, and the rich are getting richer and more powerful. And opportunist politicians scream out "sanctity of marriage" when the divorce rate is 52 percent, and they scream "sanctity of life" when the HIV/AIDS infection rate in some African nations is 40 percent.

Let me tell you, there is no such thing as sanctity in this world. The only "sanctity" we see are the moral standards defined by the ruling party. There are so-called "pro life" groups right here in Georgia who scream "sanctity" when a 10-year-old girl is raped by her drunken stepfather and forced to have her child. There are groups who scream "sanctity" when family planning aid is cut off overseas, which insures more crowding, poverty, and misery for millions.

So, Sen. Miller, make your little rambling speeches. Show the world your love, compassion, and understanding. Get angry and rant. Nothing will really come of it, except the lowering of humanity one more notch.

Canary