Image by Tobyotter via Flickr

Once on a flight I ate a cheeseburger-in-a-bag. It was a wonderfully microwaved beefy dough ball of cheesy-type goo. It tasted amazing! Of course, it’s designed to taste amazing. Mission so accomplished. The sandwich had the right amount of fat and salt to appeal to my ancient binge-to-survive-winter DNA. It was laced with artificial scents, laboratory flavors and synthetic colors. It had the proper “mouth feel.” The right size. The perfect temperature. My cheeseburger-in-a-bag was like a friend who had been paid to be nice to me: comforting, as long as you don’t think about it too much.

In short: The meal was manipulated by years of food science and marketing research to manipulate me. The “taste to actual health benefits ratio” was way off. It was more appealing than life sustaining.

It was the definition of junk.

Which is an apt metaphor for the state of cable news in America. Stick with me here:

Watch your average for-profit 24-hour station for one hour. Your pulse will start racing. Something horrible is going down! Something that will kill you and your family and everyone you care about is close and imminent! You MUST stay tuned! There’s something outrageous! That’s why people are yelling at each other! Cable news starts with a story, removes the grain and nuance then mainlines the fury. It’s all high-fructose hyperbole all the time.

Originally there was one 24-hour cable news channel, CNN. Then there were three. Now the three have spin-offs and there are by my count nine (CNN, HLN, CNN International, CNN en Espanol, MSNBC, CNBC, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network and Bloomberg) all vying for attention. That’s 216 hours of programming to fill with the news of just one day. It used to be the formula of Fox News to be a parody of Howard Beale in The Network, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!” Now all the channels are guilty of the same schtick – doing whatever they can to fling themselves to the top of the heap to make their respective Faye Dunaways happy.

In short: The shows are manipulated by years of psychology and marketing research to manipulate us.  The “entertainment to information ration” is way off. It’s more appealing than illuminating…which also makes it junk.

The literal translation of what locals in Somalia call the man on the BBC who reads the news is “He Who Scares Old People.” For the higher-on-the-dial news shows this moniker is a selling point, if not a requirement.

Because if you’re not afraid, you’re not watching.

Just as an experiment – instead of cable news watch PBS or listen to NPR. Try it. It’s like going from Oreos to oat bran. There’s a sudden withdrawal. You keep expecting someone to yell, shake their fists and proclaim “We’re doomed!” but it doesn’t happen. It seems as if the world might go on – that we have some problems, here they are and here is the context for said problems. No one calls anyone a Nazi…unless they actually served in the SS. It’s very novel and foreign when you’re accustomed to “loud equals accurate.” A study released at the beginning of the year by Shawn Powers at USC and Mohammed el-Nawawy at Queens University found that the more their subjects in the study watched Al-Jazeera English, the less dogmatic they were in their thinking. Participants retained their opinions but were more open to the views of others. It’s like all the studies that find a diet of real food consisting of vegetables and fiber makes you feel better in every way. It’s interesting…and ignored.

We have too much over-processed junk food available round the clock, and we are fat. We have too much over-sensationalized news available around the clock, and we are miserable. More importantly a giant chunk of us are incredibly ignorant. Just as obese people are often malnourished, there are people who watch the “news” constantly and are horribly uninformed. It’s overconsumption of junk.

What’s the result of an uninformed, frightened and hysterical populace? As the saying goes, we get the government we deserve: shortsighted, petty and trend-obsessed. Which in fairness…is great for ratings.

Image via Wikipedia

Safe to say, nothing is so bad that a hurricane can’t make worse. Take an existing problem, toss it around in the wind and smack it with flying debris – it’s certainly not going to improve. Shoddy construction is made worse, communication concerns – made worse, a struggling economy – made worse, disastrous Bush presidency – made worse. And now the wonders of deregulation – the BP Oil Spill – the worst environmental disaster in the history of the U.S. – found itself in the pathway of early riser Alex, the first official hurricane of this season.

Alex shut down drilling and clean-up efforts for a few days until it made landfall in Monterrey, Mexico, missing the marshes of Louisiana. Rain instead has plagued the region. The BP Oil Spill is already a current-carried glob of doom. It’s a mass of toxic sludge submerged in the Northern Hemisphere’s hotbed of hurricanes. As usual, we are at the mercy of the winds. We are the subjects of the impending season of storms that rip through our Gulf Coast every year.

In 2007 during a cable interview, Senator Barbara Boxer said, ”One of the very important national security threats we face is climate change.” Warmer waters in the Gulf will promise more hurricanes. Oceans will rise from the melting of glaciers. Heat waves will kill crops and damage industries. Famine, floods, tornadoes, drought, violent storms, fires, tsunamis, disease and unrest? Sure, this could be a concern to the security of the nation.

Now, sacked Hewlett-Packard CEO turned California Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina used the Boxer clip for an attack ad. Carly, in her curious Jodie Foster accent, said in the spot, “Terrorism kills and Barbara Boxer is worried about the weather.”

Then the self-proclaimed fringe to the “lamestream media” and fraction-of-a-term governor Sarah Palin chimed in on Twitter, “BarbBoxer sez ’greatest security threat’ is WEATHER. Not nukes, or unsustainable debt leading 2 insolvency? Silly Senator, glad theres competition.” [Spaces added.]

Palin is like a militant reformed smoker – she quit her job as governor and now has contempt for all who continue the habit of public service. Silly Senator, keeping oaths are for chumps.

Okay, first off: the “weather” is not the “climate.” The difference between weather and climate is length of time. Weather is the immediate information – climate is the big picture. So it’s like trying to discuss a concern about a decade and Carly Fiorina says you’re worrying about an hour. This is why climate change deniers disagree with scientists – they’re not using the same measurements. If you believed miles were inches, you’d think you were being lied to by eggheads all the time too.

Our climate is changing. And yes, WEATHER is also something which warrants worry: In the last ten years, there were more Americans who died from extreme weather than there were U.S. soldiers who died in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars combined. According to the National Weather Service, during the last decade 5,754 people have died due to weather events such as extreme temperatures, flooding and hurricanes. Compare that death toll with the 5,521 soldiers killed in the two wars we’ve waged since 2001. Truth be told, to date there have been more U.S. lives lost as a result of Hurricane Katrina (estimated 1,800) than there have been U.S. soldiers killed in the war in Afghanistan (1,125).

And as far as Fiorina’s focus on terrorism killing – well, an average of 42 Americans die from being struck by lightning every year. As opposed to – well, almost none from terrorist attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11.

Here’s the problem with the Politics of Fear and Confusion: it confuses what to fear. Is terrorism still a threat? Sure. Should we pursue the elimination of terrorism while ignoring all other concerns because it makes politicians seem tough? No – at least not anymore.

This week the National Weather Service issued an excessive heat advisory for the Northeast. Forecasters predict prolonged temperatures exceeding 102 degrees could wreak havoc in cities like New York, D.C. and Philadelphia. Several have already died from the heat. In 1980 during a similar heat wave was responsible for 1,250 deaths.

Why? Because weather kills.

How’s that “worried about the weather-y” thing workin’ for ya?

Image by The U.S. Army via Flickr

Edith Shain was 91 years old when she died peacefully last week in her home in Los Angeles. You knew her as the woman in the iconic black and white photo of a jubilant soldier kissing a nurse in Times Square on V-J Day. The snapshot tells an American tale of a war ending and an entire generation of people coupling up – creating the suburbs, a solid middle-class and a stupendous baby boom.

What strikes me about the photo is that they really knew how to end wars back then. For example: they used to end wars…back then. There was a global conflict followed by a resolution. Beginning. Middle. End. Done. Birthrate skyrockets.

Now we have two never-ending wars and Cialis commercials on an eternal loop. How far we’ve come.

The U.S. decided to invade Afghanistan after September 11th in 2001. As troops were being mobilized, Americans preemptively bought yellow ribbons to show support for the mission and the troops. Yellow ribbons also appeared in 1979 during the Iran Hostage Crisis and again in 1991 for the troops in Operation Desert Storm. Then ten years later they were back, displayed for all to see: tied to trees, flagpoles, telephone poles and every pole in between. Our nation was awash in American flags and yellow ribbons. “These colors don’t run!”

The other day I saw a yellow ribbon stuck in a chain link fence. The ribbon was tattered, frayed and sun-faded. The war in Afghanistan is so long it has outlasted the material of the ribbons initially supporting the effort. An original ribbon from this current war is now an antique.

About five years into the conflict yellow ribbon car magnets became a big trend. During that time I was traveling all over the country, and in every pocket of the U.S. were cars, trucks and SUVs with magnets showing support for what had become not one, but two wars. Yellow ribbons were ubiquitous. And then gradually the magnets starting disappearing until they were gone. Individually – one by one – in private, with no fanfare and no media coverage – Americans removed their patriotic yellow ribbon magnets from their vehicles. You don’t see them anymore. Apparently something as temporary as a magnet shaped like a ribbon is not the proper symbol for the war we are actually waging.

With all the red-baiting and pundit-driven fear of the U.S. becoming a communist country because we no longer let health insurance companies deny coverage to sick children, we’ve lost sight of an important fact: the Soviet Union – communists – lost their collective red shirts in Afghanistan. The perils of fighting a determined local force whose idea of infrastructure is a bridge to the sixth century proved too enormous for the last super power that fought there.

In fact, Afghanistan is an empire graveyard. It has been for millennia. How about this for a foreign policy: don’t invade a place where the last successful incursion was led by Genghis Khan.

Last week a Rolling Stone article about the war in Afghanistan resulted in the retirement of General Stanley McChrystal, Commander of U.S. Forces Afghanistan. The media attention focused on the personnel issue in the chain of command. What was skipped over was the passage about the COIN (acronym for counter-insurgency) doctrine created by McChrystal’s replacement, General David Petraeus. “The COIN doctrine, bizarrely, draws inspiration from some of the biggest Western military embarrassments in recent memory: France’s nasty war in Algeria (lost in 1962) and the American misadventure in Vietnam (lost in 1975),” wrote reporter Michael Hastings.

That’s right. We are looking at past mistakes and incorporating them into our current conflict – which is like gathering a bunch of defective parts, putting them into your new car and being surprised by the outcome.

So far the war in Afghanistan has cost the U.S. $300 billion. It’s already the longest war America has ever fought. The date President Obama gave for the start of withdrawal is July 2011. The war hawks argue this is too soon.

As if.

You can say many things about the war in Afghanistan but “not long enough” is not one of them.

Maybe those worn-out ribbons are more of a symbol than we planned on.

Image via CrunchBase

Before the tar balls had a chance to touch down on the white sands of the Gulf Coast – the message from the oil-soaked Republican Party was clear: “Don’t exploit the disaster…if you’re a Democrat.” But if you’re a member of the GOP, feel free to exploit this endless spill for political gain. Use it as a battering ram against the president. “Obama’s Katrina.” “Obama un-American for criticizing BP.” “The moratorium is worse than the spill.” “Obama isn’t doing enough.” “Government is bad – where’s the National Guard?” So on and so forth.

But don’t try to pass an energy policy in the wake of the biggest environmental catastrophe this country has ever witnessed. That’s exploitive. Crude.

The “don’t exploit this tragedy” knee-jerk catch-all phrase is absolutely meaningless. In American politics, we rule by crisis. There is no political will to act unless something is burning, melting or spewing. We don’t plan for the future – we brace for it. Our policies are all emergency-based. Our country is like someone who won’t pay their bills until they get a shut off notice.

“We can wait no longer! Now is the time!”

The Republican’s hands-off philosophy back when they held all three branches of government enabled a horde of deregulated industries with imaginary blow-out preventers to burst: the banks, Wall Street, the auto industry, the housing market etc. We’ve had to attend to these disasters, one after another. Tipping point after tipping point. Cliff after cliff.

The one issue Obama did address when it was only slightly gangrene was health care. Yet this is also the issue he gets criticized for doing instead of mopping up the Armageddon-of-the-month.

Appointed Arizona Governor Jan Brewer enjoys exploiting a tragedy to defend her disastrous-to-civil-rights immigration law. Have any Republicans admonished her for it? Nope. It’s a showdown – and Obama is IGNORING the crisis! Even though most statistics admit both incidents of violence and illegal immigration at the border had already declined. Even though “securing the border” is as ambiguous and unobtainable as “wiping out terror.” Even though according to Arizona Republic, the Customs and Border Protection, the federal law enforcement agency has an annual budget of $17 billion, doubling what was spent in 2003. “I have repeatedly sent letters to the administration and to the president of the United States with absolutely no response,” Brewer said on Fox News. It’s like calling your elderly relative just to have them bark at you that you never call. I can’t imagine why Brewer would get ignored.

But if a perennial progressive issue turns into a crisis – tragedy is suddenly sacred. A mass shooting at a school? Don’t exploit this tragedy to talk about gun control. Miners killed due to hazardous conditions? Don’t exploit this tragedy to empower unions. Our Gulf Coast lost for a generation because of drilling shortcuts? Don’t exploit this dead gulf or you’ll kill jobs.

The point is: Obama should exploit this tragedy in the Gulf. Not “exploiting the tragedy” is saying the status quo is perfect. Don’t do anything. Just wait out the clock.

Yes, just like the “actions” of the 109th Congress – the last one controlled by Republican majorities in both houses. When the Republicans set the agenda, they met a whopping 242 days in two years, which was 12 fewer days than the 80th Congress, the first to be dubbed a Do-Nothing Congress by President Harry Truman. The 109th had an average of eight months off a year – because nothing celebrates government ineffectiveness more than a gig in congress being a nearly no-show job.

“But if we seize this moment we can rebuild our economy on a new foundation,” said President Obama on his Organizing for America site this week.

Please, exploit this crisis. Make it the reason a spill like this won’t happen again. “The only real solution is to take American ingenuity to get energy in different forms,” Microsoft’s Bill Gates said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Gates proposes spending one percent ($11 billion annually) of what we spend on energy for research and development.

Finally an idea, not just a denial with a chant. “Drill, baby, drill.”

Yes. Exploit this crisis and exploit the clean renewable natural resources inspired by Bill Gates – the country’s nerds.

Image via Wikipedia

While perusing the Internet, I came across an article about how to be a more attractive woman. First on the list was to learn how to tell a funny story. “Wit is the key. Be interesting.” When have you ever heard anyone advise a woman to learn to tell a decent anecdote? Never. Encourage women to be interesting as opposed to hot? It was radical! Totally progressive and forward-thinking. Then I realized I misread the premise: it was how to be more attractive to women. The suggestion is well-worn and typical – for dudes.

Here’s the thing: if we still have a need for the word “feminist” then the goal of gender equality has not been reached. No one has to say they’re an abolitionist. It’s just assumed you’re against slavery unless otherwise indicated.

We clearly still need the word – and the concept of – feminism.

The 2010 primary season has marked an unprecedented number of female candidates for national and state offices…according to the hype. Republicans winning Republican primaries across the country is a victory for Republicans everywhere! There are more female GOP candidates this season than ever before. Well, there are four: former HP CEO Carly Fiorina, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, South Carolina State Representative Nikki Haley and former Nevada Assemblywoman Sharron Angle.

To some this could seem like a feminist victory. It’s a female Republican victory, sure. But being a feminist and being against reproductive freedoms means you are not a feminist. You can say you’re a Mets fan, but if you only want the Yankees to win – you’re not a Mets fan.

The irony is this swarm of candidates, almost all entirely anti-abortion rights (save Whitman) has the feminism movement to thank for their ability to be candidates. Which is like using Twitter to get your message out about the evils of micro-blogging.

This new trend in the Republican Party – putting up women who want to turn the clock back to criminalize abortion – is complicated for feminists. And feminism in its third wave (or so) is already complicated. Yes, it’s great to think of women in power, but not when they’re against women’s rights as their platform.

The anti-choice movement tells women they deserve better than abortion, that they are the ones who have the best interests of women in mind. But treating women like children who need to be told what’s best for them is hardly equality. It’s a step back. And saying not having an abortion is the right choice – is a choice.

A stealthy anti-abortion movement has been chipping away at access to information and services since before Roe v. Wade. Crisis Pregnancy Centers, the first opening in Hawaii in 1967, are fake women’s clinics offering no medical services, only religious-based misinformation and scare tactics to discourage abortion and in many cases premarital sex. They outnumber abortion providers 2-1 in this country.

The Dutch organization Women on Waves provides health services in countries where abortion is a crime. A doctor with the group told me an alarming amount of their calls are from women in the U.S. in desperate situations. Some are from U.S. soldiers who don’t have access to abortion while serving their country, even if they’re raped. This should be embarrassing to us. This should be a concern to thoughtful female candidates and patriots alike.

Currently, an amendment added to the 852-page Pentagon policy bill repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” calls for soldiers to get the same basic health care access as civilians. Civilians with money, at least. This has been called “government funding of abortions” by opponents and “supporting the troops” by everyone else.

Because nothing says “sanctity of life” like serving in a war zone.

The Republican rhetoric about freedom, the sacredness of the Constitution and government not encroaching on your rights all come to a screeching halt at reproductive issues. Republicans are for those platitudes…but with asterisks. To glaze over this contradiction, female anti-abortion GOP candidates have flippantly called themselves feminists. Which is like proclaiming yourself vegetarian while eating a ham sandwich. They’re not feminists. They’re just female. “Being a feminist isn’t a question of plumbing,” author Gloria Feldt said to me.

Yes, this third wave is complicated. But at least it’s interesting.

Billionaire Meg Whitman spent $88 million in a primary election for governor. Yes, it’s for the most populated state in the Union; California is home to 38 million people. But still, only a tiny fraction of them turn out to vote in primaries. After all the votes were counted, she received a whopping 1,101,528 – or 64%. Her personal purse secured her as the GOP nominee for Governor of California.

Quick math: that breaks down to about $80 per vote. Meg Whitman, former CEO of eBay, Republican who’s railed against bulging government budgets just spent the equivalent of a brand new high-end 4GB iPod Shuffle on each person who actually voted for her. “Buy now.”

To contrast that number, the winner of the Democratic primary for governor of California, Jerry Brown spent $200,000 in the primary and he received 1,478,752 votes, 377,224 more than Whitman. The self-described penny-pincher Brown spent a paltry $.14 per vote.

A couple of things: why would average Californians, hardworking regular people want to give money or time to elect Mommy Morebucks? Imagine that fundraising letter, “Meg needs your support. Please send whatever you can – $20 can secure her a quarter of a vote. Donate today!” The message? Take back Sac from wasteful bureaucrats and give it to a wasteful billionaire.

But also the reason why we give our elected officials a salary is so that they don’t have to have a personal fortune to hold public office. The trend in California’s 2010 primary was for campaigns to be a quaint vanity project for the ridiculously wealthy. Whitman’s main opponent in the race was Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, whose previous bout as a high tech entrepreneur enabled him to have $24 million to sink into his primary campaign (with 461,823 votes he spent around $52 per). All that and he lost by a proportionate amount. But don’t worry about ol’ Not-As-Richie, that cost is under “promotion” and according to my CPA is a Schedule A deductible.

Poizner ran for lower taxes!

Whitman has said that her cap on donating to her own campaign is $150 million dollars. She spent half of that on the primary. This is a governor’s race. One state. Just to put this into perspective, in 2008 John McCain spent $350 million total to run nationally for president. That’s all 50 states.

Whitman’s campaign will eventually ask people to phone bank on behalf of the candidate. Much like BP asking for volunteers to clean up oil in the gulf, it’ll be seen as tone-deaf. Money can buy you many things, but not charity for being wealthy beyond comprehension and cheap.

What this means is the Republican primary in California was won by the highest bidder, (insert obligatory eBay joke here). It was won by the person who knew she was going to keep upping the ante until it was too steep for anyone else.

Not the one with best ideas, or the most experience, or the greatest vision: just the most cash to blow. Making wealth the only political virtue of any value.

It’s not just unprecedented. It’s not just scary in an undemocratic way. It’s obscene. To paraphrase Justice Potter Stewart, I know it when I see it.

Image by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com via Flickr

The term “deep water” usually means you’re in trouble and “horizon” is what lies ahead. So the ill-fated drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, is aptly named.

Doom has arrived on our shores and our prospects are tacky with tar balls.

The geyser of crude, a mile down in the Gulf of Mexico, exposed America for what it is: bent over a barrel of oil.

The party that defiantly and happily chanted “drill, baby, drill” at their 2008 convention has been content to obsess about the Joe Sestak job offer story in lieu of drilling, baby, drilling. Why aren’t they defending their bumper sticker? With glee they’ve been chasing the hope something illegal happened in the White House so they can pounce on possible political gain in the middle of a the potential loss of our Southern shoreline to sludge. Republicans, with their 30-year menagerie of sound bites railing against government interference with business, have not surprisingly stayed away from direct action on this front. Except for Governor Bobby Jindal, who now publicly wants federal help instead of shaking his fist against the stimulus and then posing in photos handing out those government checks.

That size-of-South-Carolina amorphous blob of crude is the realization of Republican values: no regulations for drilling our way out of an energy crisis. It’s the rainbow connection!

Then the new darling of the right-wing, Rand Paul “shrugged” and said accidents happen and criticized President Obama for being “un-American” for coming down too harshly on BP. Then the old darling of the right-wing, Sarah Palin, whose husband worked for BP for 18 years, didn’t recuse herself from discussing the issue as a paid Fox News contributor because of a potential conflict of interest. Instead she accused Obama of being the one in bed with the oil companies. Which is so ridiculous it’s like Sarah Palin being the person to accuse Obama of being in bed with the oil companies.

Overnight, on Day 39, cable news put up neon graphics that it’s Day 39! Now the press is paying attention. CNN ran stories about how this spill is going to hurt BP’s image as a green company. Because this spill is a PR issue like terminal cancer is a problem with morale.

Suddenly 25 times more oil is coming out of the blown well than BP initially reported. Suddenly the press needs someone to blame. BP, Transocean and Halliburton get passed up for the government response. There is no response that would have saved the Gulf. But context doesn’t matter. We need a bullhorn moment to broadcast. That’s Obama’s failing: no bullhorn. Bush’s bullhorn was…well bull (Osama Bin Laden will die of old age). But we need to see the leader of the free world not being thoughtful – we need action. We need Obama to clean off some tar-covered birds! Why isn’t he in a flight suit err wetsuit!? He’s clearly not doing enough!

The oil companies in this snap shot are in arrested development. In the 1930’s some estimated we’d run out of oil in 10 years. Yet here we are. They’ve innovated to find more oil and effectively kept innovation from making them obsolete. It’s a marvel of modern lobbying, marketing and engineering. But are we out on the streets protesting them? No, we’re having a Tea Party about government tyranny.

The BP spill exposed that we’re still commuting in eight cylinder singly occupied vehicles, hopped up on plastic goods and scoffing at high-speed rail projects. Our government is representative – we haven’t clamored to get off oil. If anything we’ve threatened to riot for having to pay too much at the pump. Because of our myopic need to not alter our way of life – the Deepwater Horizon has altered our way of life. There’s a state-sized slurry of death floating around in the ocean and it’s just the price of doing business.

Calls for more drilling in the wake of the BP Oil Spill are as sound as a junkie shooting up into an abscess.

Louisiana Congressman Charlie Melancon said that these are not just Louisiana’s wetlands but America’s wetlands. And I would add that it’s not just endangered pelicans covered in debilitating oil – we all are covered in debilitating oil.

Image via Wikipedia

There are no democratically elected leaders in the Christian bible. I know – it’s shocking. But, if you catch the rhetoric pertaining to the US Constitution, you’d think the Ten Commandments are its bullet points. They’re not. The whole idea of a representative democracy (a Greek word) comes from Ancient (think then-solvent) Greece. The leaders in the bible were all kings and/or tyrants and the Bill of Rights is nowhere in the New or Old Testament.

Simply: Democracy isn’t biblical. But neither is the combustible engine, CAT scans or GPS – it doesn’t make them any less awesome.

So when fly-by-night pontificators, the loudest being the scholarly Sarah Palin, claim this country’s laws are ordained by God via the bible, she needs to show her work – because freedom of the press, due process and freedom of speech are not through-lines in biblical teachings. Nor is the citizenry bearing arms.

“Go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant – they’re quite clear – that we would create law based on the God of the Bible and the Ten Commandments,” Palin sputtered on FNC earlier this month.

Evidently, just because it’s “protected speech” doesn’t make it “factual.”

When you break it down, three of the Ten Commandments are universal laws with zero controversy (do not murder, do not steal, no false witnessing). The teetering point to make half of the most widely accepted version of the Ten Commandments actual laws have been fought over by the states. Blue Laws, laws prohibiting things on Sundays based on the Commandment to keep the Sabbath holy, are still on the books in some places. They’re some of the sillier laws in the country. In Texas you couldn’t buy anything on Sundays you could do work with. So hardware stores had to put blue price tags on things like hammers up until the law was overturned in 1984. There are still places where you can’t buy a car on “the day of rest.” Let alone booze.

Talk about over-reaching government dictating what businesses can do.

Other attempts to pass laws to abolish cursing, an interpretation of using the Lord’s name in vain, have been tried. The most amusing one was by the real Victorian-era sheriff of Deadwood, South Dakota, Seth Bullock. He cracked down on cussing in his rowdy mining camp only to have the most curse-laden HBO show in the history of television about it 140 years later. Then adultery is still illegal in some states while the Supreme Court overturned sodomy laws in 2003.

So to recap: Three of the Ten Commandments are covered by federal laws and three are laws in some states. But the other four are nowhere to be found in US law.

Which from a statistical stance sums up the debate about religion and our government: a third of people think this is and should be a Christian nation, others waffle yet most think it’s not a good idea in practice.

In fact, none of the Ten Commandments are in the US Constitution. The Constitution is the charter of the government outlining the rights of the people and the limits of government. Comparing the two is like apples to a red herring.

“The Constitutional protections are on what they [the Founders] thought was right and wrong, and what they thought was right and wrong is based on the Ten Commandments,” claimed Bill O’Reilly on his cable show.

The question is: do we really want to live in a country that makes not honoring your mother and father a crime? Is it wise to have a law mandating you can’t have any other gods or make false idols or covet your neighbor’s spouse? The Founding Fathers (ahem) clearly thought it wasn’t.

Why, if you want America to be more religious, do you need to co-opt history to accomplish it? Have the courage to stand up for your convictions without creating fiction about the founding documents. I don’t agree with the Founding Fathers about everything (slavery, women’s rights, native peoples rights). But that doesn’t make the US Constitution, in my eyes, any less of an amazing feat for humanity.

So go ahead and stand up for your faith and be proud. But lying for it is, ya know, after all – bearing false witness.

Image by www.WinningMan.com via Flickr

Hold the skinny jeans, we’re in the middle of a massive obesity epidemic. Every night we have to stare at stock footage of Americans waddling around in their maxed-out sweat pants on the nightly news. It’s clear; we’re fat. Our kids are fat. Our pets are fat. According to some Wall Street insiders, the trader who accidently entered the wrong number of share orders and nearly crashed the entire market – his fingers are fat.

If you combine overweight and obese, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association about 70% of us are fat. That’s nearly three out of four people in the US – a whopping majority.

But when we talk about this plague that will ensure this generation will die younger than their parents, we always wag our fingers at the “poor choices” fat people are making. It’s a way of blaming the victim, not addressing the issue and not offending business. It’s well-worn creed spouted often and rarely thought about. And we’re still fat.

Two percent of the population and it’s a personal responsibility issue. Seventy percent and it’s a little more complicated.

Here’s the thing: if you’re a capitalist – think it’s the only thing that can drive our economy, spur innovation and create “all that’s good in the world” (or in the case of BP all that’s gooed in the world), if that’s what you think makes America “American” – then obesity is great.

If capitalism is a virtue, fat people are saintly. The obese are good consumers. They’ve clearly done what they’re supposed to do – consume.

Food companies have done a great job with their tenets of capitalism making their products so irresistible – we don’t resist them.

So, stop blaming fat people for doing what companies have urged them to do. That’s like stalking someone for decades and then calling the cops once they agree to go out with you.

This week marks the end to the ninth season of the NBC’s The Biggest Loser, where overweight contestants battle it out to drop pounds. As a middle-of-the-pack runner, I got into the show because I enjoy watching people who are bad at sports do them on national television. Most sports broadcasts have elite athletes showing off their greatness. Who cares. Where do us average, picked-last-in-P.E. schlubs go to see ourselves represented on TV? The Biggest Loser. It takes the egalitarian nature of reality shows and then levels the playing field.

If you watch the show, as millions do, it’s basically a two-hour long infomercial for the overweight. The trainers hock sponsor’s products in staged scenes where contestants ask about healthy meals, ways to store their healthy snacks or are curious about products deemed healthy. Their gym is a sponsor; they tout their own brand of whey protein shakes and their own Wii Fit game. It’s like watching QVC with commercial breaks.

The contestants turn into shills for the companies advertising on the show. “I’m learning how to make the right choices.” In fact The Biggest Loser’s dogmatic phrase “make the right choices” is as about as commercial friendly as possible. Because it doesn’t discourage consuming, it encourages. Has The Biggest Loser thwarted our nation’s epidemic? No, but it has made a bunch of money off of it. Which is the point, right?

Obesity and the hidden costs behind it are a classic example of privatizing profit and socializing losses. The more successful the food industry is, the fatter we become and the more society has to absorb those costs. The military has reportedly turned away over 48,000 recruits since 2005 for being too fat to serve. And if they can’t pass the military’s standard of 26% body fat, they’re not likely to make it as a civilian first responder either.

Obesity is the crowning achievement of the food companies. They don’t have to pay for the health costs of an entire nation being fat. They just reap the rewards of a society that keeps on plumping up and eating more over-processed, nutritionally void catchphrases from people selling us “feeling good.”

Because like we saw with the housing crisis, unregulated big business can lead to disasters of epic proportions. Just like those epic portions on your plate that you’ll admit are a “bad choice.”

You know what we value most as a nation by what we are not allowed to take on without widespread hysteria. The illuminating metaphor is known as the “third rail” of politics. Lose your footing and step on something we as Americans hold dear and – ZAP!

Our most lethal third rails are cutting Medicare, cutting Social Security, cutting defense spending, and raising taxes. So, we can’t cut anything and we can’t ask citizens to pay for it. USA! USA!

Our third rails have us painted into a mixed metaphor corner.

This all could be a quaint ideological tug-o-war between Left and Right: Left wants to spend and tax. Right wants to cut and cut. If that were actually true, it would be as simple as choosing your side and making your case. Do you want to be taxed more or do you want the government to spend less?

What’s clouded this question is what the dreaded government actually is. For example: the slogan often used by right-wingers, “We are a nation of laws,” is singing the praise of the government. Who makes the laws? Enforces them? Alters them? The government. Private industry isn’t deciding case law (not yet anyway). It’s not bringing criminals to justice. It’s certainly not regulating businesses to work for the public good. That’s what government employees do. Or in the case of the banks, are supposed to do. Government makes us a nation AND makes our laws.

Saying you have a “legal right” is saying the government agrees with you that you’re entitled to a said action. Legality is what the government decides based on the will of the people.

But you’ll hear people confess they hate government and are exercising their legal right to say so. And they’ll say it without irony. What do they think the government is?

The phrase “government spending” is always a pejorative. It’s a nasty phrase for excess. According to conservatives government spending is always “out of control,” unless it’s on the military. If it’s the military: We support our troops. Wave flags. Apple pie. Debate over.

The military is the government. It’s government funded and government run. Big military is big government. The President is the Commander-in-Chief of the military. You can’t be against government and be pro-military. That’s like being anti-rain but pro-precipitation.

“I’m for fiscal responsibility and a strong defense,” is a weathered battle cry. The two concepts are at odds with each other. According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in 2008 the U.S. spent 41.5% of the world’s military expenditures. That’s of the entire planet. The second on the list are the Chinese who spend 5.8%. So what are we spending over $600-$800 billion a year on? Who are we protecting ourselves from? What enemy of ours has had a submarine in the past 20 years? Why do we still have those billion dollar programs?

Going largely underreported, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates spoke at the Eisenhower Library (named for the president who coined the term “military-industrial complex”), last week calling for cuts in the Pentagon’s budget. Gates asked, “Does the number of warships we have and are building really put America at risk when the U.S. battle fleet is larger than the next 13 navies combined, 11 of which belong to allies and partners? “

Gates’ speech highlights the fact that we’re in a solo arms race. Every other nation quit the competition and we’re still sprinting to be on top. For the first time we disclosed the exact amount of nuclear warheads in our arsenal: 5,113. That enormous stockpile has to be maintained and by some estimates we spend $29 billion annually on it.

That’s right, we spend $29 billion a year maintaining weapons we only have so we will hopefully never use them. But bring it up and you’re a thumb-sucking pinko.

We have two current wars we are waging and we are still preparing for other wars our grandparents already won.

Military spending is a third rail hopefully made less charged by Secretary Gates, but not likely. For American politicians speaking about it is taboo. To incorporate the always colorful, currently incarcerated, former governor of Louisiana, Edwin Edwards, he said the only way he could lose the election against David Duke was to be caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy. I’ll add: or admit plans for defense spending cuts.