The title of my blog is the title of my blog…

I’m getting pretty tired of hearing politicians and even newscasters on sources I generally trust like NPR refer to countries as “religious states” while others, including our own, are called “secular states.” One definition of secular is ” not connected with religious or spiritual matters.” So is the United States of America a secular state? If so, why is “In God We Trust” on our currency? If so why are the President and most elected officials sworn in with their hand on the Christian bible?  Why does every major speech by presidents end in some like “God bless America and the American people.” Looking at the religious affiliation of members of Congress we see an overwhelming majority are Christian. You might argue that is simply reflects the makeup of our population. OK, so what is wrong with a government comprised primarily of Muslims in a country whose population is overwhelmingly Muslim? Why is that government religious and ours secular?

Looking at our heads of state, we have never had a President of a faith other than Christian. We have had six who claimed “no denomiational affiliation.” But they were certainly not Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or any other religion. They just didn’t claim affiliation with any particular Christian faith.

Try arguing that the United States is not a Christian nation. You will be met with a violently hostile attack on your patriotism, your sanity, even the veracity of your own faith (as a Christian.) If you’re not Christian and make this claim then even strong attacks await you.

The founding patriots of our country did not intend, in fact attempted not to create a Christian nation. One need only look at their statements and an examination of the original founding documents. Yet Christian fanaticism has turned our country into a religious state in complete disregard for the founding principles.

President Obama recently stated in a speech in Turkey that the US is neither a Christian nor a Jewish nor a Muslim country. Though his remarks were definitely a step in the right direction, I’m afraid he jumped the gun. I regret that we still are a Christian nation and I look forward to the day when we truly are not.

I’ve recently added a listing for my services as  Macintosh trainer and consultant to a service called Thumbtack. The Thumbtack website provides a place for independent consultants to list their services for free. We’ll see if I get any referrals from them.

All of the cup holders must be full.

You supply the clever text… too many choices for me!

I saw this mis-constructed arrow in an elevator in a fancy hotel which will go unnamed. This is just one of many examples I’ve come across, and will be sharing here, of what I see as an indication of the lack of pride our workforce takes in its work. If I were reassembling this elevator indicator and saw that I’d put an element in sideways, I’d take it apart and put it back together right. Wouldn’t you? The other, equally sad, explanation is that once the unit was assembled, no one bothered to test it. I come across this often in the IT world. Instructions to do something are given to some poor non-techie without having been tested. The poor soul follows them to the letter, not just once, but twice, three times before he admits that he is just not “technical.” The Helpdesk person comes to help and lo and behold, there’s a mistake in the instructions. Anyway, here’s the first in a series of such items.

I’m not sure if the message is aimed at you and me or they’re just getting ready for the second coming. Or maybe they’re just refering to Jesus Colome of the Washington Nationals.

Did you hear? The President gave a speech to school children. Isn’t that terrible: the “leader of the free world” lecturing your kids on how to live? Oh, yeah, that was George HW Bush in 1991, opps, no, that was Ronald Reagan in 1988, or was it Richard Nixon.

The ugly names being hurled at President Obama can be nothing more than thinly disguised racism. Get over it, America! We’ve finally elected a President that most of the rest of the world admires, and some of us are acting like he shouldn’t be allowed in the Big House.

And by the way. Leave your damn guns at home before you hurt somebody.

So now the conservatives are concerned that the recent court decision against former AG John Ashcroft will result in government officials being too timid to act for fear of being prosecuted for criminal acts performed while in office. One shrill voice heard on NPR worried that officials will all have to have lawyers — an onerous burden, no doubt.

Let’s think about this.

1. First of all, Ashcroft is a lawyer as are many public officials. Reminds me of (FL Secretary of State) Katherine Harris’ being so ignorant (or contemptuous) of the laws she was supposed to supervise that she failed to resign on time to run for Congress.
2. In fact, lest we forget, he was the Attorney General of the United States. Are we to believe he unaware of the potential criminality of his action while AG?
3. Are we still under the Nixon delusion that when a government official does something “it’s not illegal?”
4. Do we think that a millionaire can’t afford a lawyer to defend himself against criminal charges? Well, if so, he could always get a public defender. Of course he’s bound to make a little from the $52million dollar
5. And what about the $750,000 per month that he got for his firm’s involvement in the Zimmer case?

There’s a much simpler solution to the problem. Government officials like Ashcroft, Cheney, Bush, etc. could just obey the laws they’re sworn to uphold.

The Republicans can certainly sink pretty low when trying to protect their privileged status and the totally unrealistic expectations they foist on an uneducated population. Their application of the “socialist” label to President Obama’s attempts to reform health care, save the economy and encourage school children to do what every good teacher encourages them to do is simply an attempt to mask their racism. Of course, they can’t call him a “nigger” like they would have forty years ago (still do in some parts of the country) so they call him a “socialist.” Counting on the general public’s total misunderstanding both of the meaning of socialism, and the fact that we’re already a socialist society, they use the term to generate fear and mistrust.

Let’s think about what our country would be like without “socialism”:

• The Interstate highways would be privately owned and operated toll roads. At the average national rate of $0.10 per mile your drive across the US would cost around $300 in tolls. Higher for trucks which would drive the price of all of our non-locally produced food and goods (which is basically everything) higher.
• Half of our elderly population would be living below the poverty line without their social security supplements.
• One third of the home owners in this country would not have mortgages. This is the share of the mortgage market that the FHA now holds.
• Of course, without “socialism” we’d have no War Department of Defense nor, what I would like to see — a Department of Peace. At any rate, that would put three million more workers in the job market.
• Ten percent of the construction projects in our country would not take place.
• Without “socialism” our spending on education would drop by close to one trillion dollars – an effective budget cut of 10%.

Of course, there would be benefits to a country without “socialism”:

• Tax payers wouldn’t be paying over one-half of their elected officials’ health care premiums.
• DC wouldn’t have the $1.4 millon per day pumped into its economy by the health care industry’s lobbying efforts.

Socialism? I’ll take it any day over greedism.