faulker012

Please bear with me; I'm no economist or political science major or business major. Heck, I'm an absolutely terrible person with maths. It's just that I've been thinking about somethings and I keep coming back to a weird conclusion again and again. Surely there is something to my thoughts. Or maybe not. I do promise to do some research on this idea... It's Just That... It seems to me that our economic system in this country, capitalism, isn't working. Over the many years that I have paid any attention to the news, to our economy, to our communities, to our social policy problems, to our environment, so many problems come down to our economic system where money is king. Not just Trickle Down Economics. But so many of our decision seem to be made de facto   due to the fact that money is made somewhere. As though there isn't a good rebuttle to that. It's a bad decision but someone is making money from it or they own that property, therefore we have no right...

You know, I go through stages. I'm sure we all do, but these stages I'm referring to are the stages of how I feel about belief, religion in particular. Sometimes I can just let go and be all live and let live   about it all, about religion and whatnot. But other times, like now, religion feels like a huge blistering pile of N efarious B ullshit that doesn't D eserve P rotection, much less deference. Of course, that original statement suggests that there are times when I do not view religion as NBDP. I must here admit that I don't think that is true... I honestly have lost all respect for religion . It is far easier and more common these days for people to express their disdain for religion, in fact it's the issue du jour, and I'm real glad. It's about time. But I'm taking it a happy step further. Religion has had its day. I see no redeeming quality of religion. It harbors abusers. It harbors ignorance. It harbors racists. It harbors misogynists. It harb...

A few weeks ago my dear friend's daughter had an emergency appendectomy performed here in St. Louis at the amazing St. Louis Children's Hospital. Late in the evening, both mother and daughter came up to St. Louis in a rather long drive of an ambulance. Because my friend has other kids and very complicated life, I stayed with her daughter, who I will call Sapphire, while my friend took care of some other business. I only saw Sapphire twice during her stay and was very honored to do so, as her mom was there constantly. As a visitor I would park in the huge parking garage, take the elevator to the tenth floor, and hang with the kid and her mom as long as they would allow. It was pretty cool spending time with this kid because she's really neat. Anyway, my experiences at that hospital reminded me of one single thing:  if you and your children are healthy, be grateful. Be very grateful. There was not one moment while I was there that I thought there was a deity. If I had thought...

One of those things that's been on my mind lately... The other day I was outside with my granddaughter, playing in the water, when someone from the neighborhood came walking up the street. They were walking their dog and talking on their phone, loudly. HOW they weren't huffing and puffing I have no idea because my street is a hell of a hill. ANYWAY, the content of her talking was all about the lord and blessings and whatnot.  This woman was just going on and on, fearlessly, certain that her conversation was absolutely acceptable to be expressing on my street. Can you imagine if I was walking up the street in my neighborhood, or nearly any neighborhood in the country, talking that loudly and proudly of atheism? I mean, I spent all of that time in the foxhole and darned if I'm still an atheist!  I'm not a believer, but that Pope Francis is awesome, hey!  And so I told her that I won't miss her when she goes to heaven!  Oh she did NOT! Extraordinary claims require extr...

Can we teach our children  to recognize indoctrination attempts  by the religious believers? I'd love to be able to tell you that, yes, there is a magic bullet, a way to make 100% certain that indoctrination attempts do not reach our children's ears or minds. Alas, there is not. What we do have, however, is time and reason. Raising children is a journey. Along the way we will enter Mordor as often as we enter Narnia; it's not really possible to avoid all detours and I'm not sure it's necessary. I can recall dozens of times when the issue of religion raised its alluring head to my children, times when they felt attraction to the tales and saccharine of various beliefs. As a freethought parent, a true skeptic, parts of me wanted to hide the kids in caves until it was over. But we all know that that isn't possible, nor is it preferable.  If there are going to be mind games being played, and there are, we want to be in the forefront of defense. And, delightfully, th...