Pakistan’s slide into theocracy

Pakistan is a country that seems to be standing at the intersection of secular and religious currents. One leads to a modern state that could become a powerful force in science, technology, and commerce. The other leads to a backward looking theocracy. Although modernism will eventually win out, as it always does, the signs are not hopeful in the short run. There are many signs that the craven political leadership is giving in to the clerics and religious fanatics. [Read more…]

Voting for an increase in income tax rates

I live in the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights. It is a fairly small residential community of about 5 square miles and 30,000 people. It has long been proud of the quality of life and services offered to its residents, and of its public school system which both our daughters attended throughout the K-12 years. In order to maintain this without a significant commercial base means that we have one of the highest tax rates in the state. [Read more…]

Joseph Stiglitz on The Daily Show

The Nobel prize-winning economist talks about how the US economy, if not already broken, is on its way to becoming so because of the rapidly rising inequality that is becoming entrenched and hereditary as the rich put in place laws that preserve their privileges. He dates the beginning of decline to 1980 when the divergence between the very rich and the rest of us began. [Read more…]

Alexander Aan’s blasphemy

Reader Mark of the Cleveland Freethinkers has asked me to try and rally support for Atheist Alliance International’s new scholarship fund for imprisoned Indonesian Alexander Aan who was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison and a fine equivalent to US $10,600 essentially for denying the existence of god on his Facebook page. The news report says that “Ana [sic] was accused of writing ‘God doesn’t exist,’ and posting links to explicit cartons showing the Prophet Mohammed having sex with a maid, and being sexually attracted to his daughter-in-law.” [Read more…]

Lewis Black rants on The Daily Show

Luckily for me, I almost never watch TV otherwise the political commercials that Black castigates would drive me insane, especially since Ohio is a so-called ‘swing state’ and we get much more than our fair share of this nonsense. Yes, we are all swingers here. To think that TV viewers have to put up with this for another three months makes me worry whether come November, people will be wandering around with glazed eyes. [Read more…]

Alexander Cockburn 1941-2012

The radical journalist died after a two-year struggle with cancer. His close colleague Jeffrey St. Clair said that he had kept his illness a tight secret, telling only his closest friends, not wanting to chronicle his own last days in the manner of Christopher Hitchens, his fellow British expatriate, one-time colleague, and later adversary when Hitchens abandoned his left-wing politics and joined up with the Bush administration and the neoconservatives in their warmongering. [Read more…]