52 Articles

Thursday, September 6, 2007
The Prerequisite for Salvation
Over and over again, we mobilize ourselves around the illusion of consequence-free, violent eradication of threats and annoyances, and in the process run roughshod over a more complex view of human interaction and effective problem-solving. True self-defense begins with eye contact.

Thursday, August 30, 2007
Presence of Mind
Self-defense is more about eye contact than firepower. If you've ever defused a threat unarmed, let me know. It's time to disarm the myth of redemptive violence.

Thursday, August 23, 2007
The Nanny State
As we belittle government we also erode patriotism -- and that's probably a good thing. Humanity is entering its political adolescence.

Thursday, August 16, 2007
Creative Destruction
Our only hope is to remember not just the horrors of the neocons' war in Iraq but the ironies. Bush's "war on terror" is a terrorist's best friend.

Thursday, August 9, 2007
Disciples of Yossarian
(2 comments) Relax! Barack Obama would only target non-civilians with nuclear weapons. This is why we need a Democrat in office.

Thursday, August 2, 2007
Mission Gone Bad
(1 comments) The media are beginning their phased withdrawal from Iraq. They're hoping the lie of U.S. good intentions can be salvaged intact.

Thursday, July 26, 2007
Caged Priest
(2 comments) The growth of the Prison Industrial Complex is fueled by its own ineffectiveness at curbing crime. When it comes to making matters worse, it could be a model for Bush's war on terror.

Thursday, July 19, 2007
Homeland Conspiracy
(1 comments) National coherence takes more than hymns and hoopla. Only a good dose of fear will get us to stand up and salute. We've always been at threat level orange.

Thursday, July 12, 2007
The Secular God
(23 comments) To save the wall that separates church from state, we may have to release God from the captivity of religion.

Thursday, July 5, 2007
Gorilla Suit
No matter what the Pentagon flaks say afterward, the war on terror can be summed up thus: No civilian shall ever come in the way of America's intention to kill its perceived enemies.

Thursday, June 28, 2007
The Violence Interrupters
"I was called six times in the last 24 hours. It's July, and this is the killing season."

Friday, June 8, 2007
The Conscience of Los Alamos
(2 comments) "It was once believed that only God can destroy the world."

Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Dancing With Fear
When chubby 9-year-olds are inspiring the language of Guadalcanal and 9/11, maybe as a nation it's time to rethink our rhetorical default settings.

Thursday, May 17, 2007
Blair's Law
Violence always shows up disguised as a means to an end. When it's your child who's caught in the crossfire, the truth is suddenly apparent.

Thursday, May 10, 2007
Rescuing the Democrats
(1 comments) The moms of the world are getting tired of the politicians who feed their children into the maw of war. They're angry and organized! Woe be unto Democrats who fail to take them seriously.

Thursday, May 3, 2007
The Crusaders
(2 comments) Is it possible that religious zealots, with their contempt for the Constitution and zest for Holy War, are gaining control over the U.S. military? Does God have a nuclear arsenal at His disposal?

Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Green Beacon
Welcome to "Solartopia," the world just beyond the horizon, where King CONG and the fossil fuel junkies don't rule, and the great healing has begun.

Thursday, April 19, 2007
Season of Grief
Let's get clear about the questions raised by the Virginia Tech horror before we start demanding answers.

Thursday, April 12, 2007
Thwarted Warrior
Why are so many GIs coming home sick? Could depleted uranium munitions have anything to do with it? The VA scandal is a minor part of the environmental havoc we're wreaking.

Thursday, April 5, 2007
Devil Weed
(2 comments) Bernie Ellis could lose his farm for growing a few pounds of medical marijuana. Welcome to the Bush administration's other bogus war: the war on drugs.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Symbolsim and Duct Tape
(1 comments) How come recruitment video games don't have names like "Friendly Fire" and "Rape"?

Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Mission Accomplished
(1 comments) Four years into the Big Mistake, we're poised to do it again, and probably -- in a generation, in 10 years, before the next election -- we will. The American gun is cocked.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Hemorrhaging Nirvana
You want a tour of the human brain? You probably can't do better than Jill Taylor's "My Stroke of Insight," which courageously opens the door to the mysteries of the brain's right hemisphere, and the vast peace it harbors.

Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Count the Quagmires
To be constantly prepared for war -- to be a superpower -- means that no cost is too great for the latest weapons system, but almost any cost is too great for the care of the wounded.

Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Hold the Mushrooms
(1 comments) Divine Strake, the big simulated nuclear blast the DoD wanted to set off at the Nevada Test Site, raised the specter of hell for local Downwinders and they raised hell to oppose it. This just in: The little guys won.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Stale Glory
(1 comments) After 25 years, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall is closer to the American heart than any other monument. Its purpose is to heal a wound, not celebrate a war, and it has become sacred space. It also opens up the possibility of a future that transcends war.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Sorry About That
"The Bomber's Dream," a documentary on the history of aerial warfare, tears back the assumptions, paradoxes and good intentions of modern, high-tech war and brings us to the brink of the gaping hole at its center: No one is responsible for what happens.

Wednesday, February 7, 2007
A World That Works for Everybody
The creation of a Department of Peace would be no means extricate us from our dilemma, but it would signal our collective interest in making a start.

Wednesday, January 31, 2007
A New Manifest Destiny
What's missing is a coherent, sustaining vision of who we are, something that ignites our passion and self-interest, but isn't based on greed and conquest -- and isn't, at its core, irrational

Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Heaven Waited
I edited Art Buchwald's column for the last six years of his life, which gave me a front row seat for viewing his miracle year, when he became "the man who wouldn't die" -- until last week. So long, Art.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007
"Un-Inventing' Nukes
(1 comments) Temporary necessity is the fallback justification for every initiative that pushes against conscience and sanity, however permanent the ramifications.

Thursday, January 11, 2007
A Different Story
(2 comments) If the truth about war is fated always to be tangled in secrecy, how can we ever become less stupid in our assessment of the new one on the horizon? What the Middle East needs instead is something like South Africa's Truth Commission, which investigated not merely the crimes of the agents of apartheid but the brutalities of the African National Congress as well, with an eye far less to punish than to understand.

Wednesday, January 3, 2007
Celebrity Carnage
With Saddam's execution, the war's supporters got one last swig of moral clarity -- at about a trillion dollars a shot. Media coverage politely omitted U.S. complicity in the Butcher's rise as well as his fall.

Wednesday, January 3, 2007
Live Spring
A 5-year-old's curiosity is a wonder to behold -- more than a wonder if you haven't had your coffee yet, or if you're trying to get last-minute Christmas shopping done at Target and your son says he wants to die right now so he can meet God.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Ignorant Armies
What if we were so serious about peace on earth that we inconvenienced ourselves on its behalf?

Thursday, December 14, 2006
Rules of Engagement
What illegitimate secrets are hidden behind the word "classified"? Pull back the curtain on this war and you'll find cowards scrambling to cover their asses.

Wednesday, December 6, 2006
Electronic Treason
Let's connect a few dots, OK? E-voting machines are easily rigged, the results of some of the congressional races last month look highly suspicious, and the national exit poll results are wrong again ... those machines must really hate democracy!

Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Blood Fatigue
U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel's reprised proposal to reinstate the draft is a deliciously terrible idea that forces the nation's hypocrisy out into the open. Why shouldn't kids from gated communities be radiation guinea pigs or rapists' fodder?

Friday, November 24, 2006
The Peace Majority
(2 comments) How can a few city council resolutions stand against the tide of war? What chance does a Department of Peace have to be implemented? About the same chance the human race has to survive the 21st century.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006
The Vote Protectors
In the midst of the chaos, dirty tricks and possible fraud, a principle emerged from the 2006 election that will be our salvation: The fairness of the election is more important than the results.

Wednesday, November 8, 2006
The Drama of Empty Numbers
(1 comments) There are reasons to be joyous about the midterm election results, but the celebration should be brief and tentative. We haven't quite reclaimed the country yet, or restored democracy's integrity.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006
The Cry of Our Inner Gandhi
A lot of Americans are aching to do something with their lives that matters. Working to establish a Department of Peace may be just the ticket. The entreched and powerful are scared of it.

Thursday, October 19, 2006
A Few Corpses Past 'Whatever'
(4 comments) A study in The Lancet puts the death toll in the Iraq war at "worse than Saddam" levels. The first conclusion we must draw is that nationalism and the pursuit of national self-interest are hellishly obsolete.

Thursday, October 12, 2006
Naked and Afraid
(4 comments) Who are these "experts" who have nothing to say in the wake of every psycho-terrorist rampage in an American school? Why do we pretend not to know what we must do to protect our children? In a heavily armed, fear-ridden society, the greatest fear of all is disarmament.

Thursday, October 5, 2006
The Headless Crisis
We can't count on being rescued from the predations of the Bush administration by the Mark Foley scandal. Ensuring a fair election in 2006 and defeating the Party of Torture and Hypocrisy will require an unprecedented degree of citizen participation.

Thursday, September 28, 2006
'This Cannot Be'
Judge Bedford's anger and incredulity still reverberate. The Republicans are rolling back the civil rights movement.

Thursday, September 21, 2006
Reclaiming Omelas
(1 comments) Bush's arrogance is slowly forcing the nation into a moral debate about the paradox at the foundation of its prosperity. Does fear trump empathy? What about the child in the mop closet?

Friday, September 15, 2006
THE WORST OF THE WORST
Holding innocent prisoners indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere is a grotesque violation of the true spirit of 9/11.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Semper Why?
Part of the toxic waste of war embeds itself in the emotions and the soul of the combatants. That Guantanamo energy, that gusto to terrorize helpless detainees, to humiliate unarmed civilians, isn't so easily contained, and begins corrupting the whole system. When a designated enemy isn't available, anyone - a new recruit, say - will do.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006
The Smell of Fear
(1 comments) What to do, what to do? Rather than think about changing course, in recognition of the fact that it's losing its base, the Bush adminstation, through calculated and highly sophisticated fear-mongering (no incompetence here), is pushing us deeper into more of the same. If the U.S. Constitution were color-coded, we'd be in code red.

Wednesday, August 9, 2006
Smiling Buddha
(1 comments) In other words, we're trying to develop usable nuclear weapons. Who's running the show here, Kim Jong Il? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? What the U.S. is up to is, in my opinion, far scarier.

Saturday, June 24, 2006
Shushing Big Money; Ending Corporate Personhood
(1 comments) corporate personhood is an abomination. Humboldt county just got rid of it.