http://irregulartimes.com In a time of the fall, old paths close and new paths open. In these irregular times, we offer the incredulous, the heretical, the treasonous, the out of sight. Our news is unfit to print. Irregular Times Irregular Times Staff (mailto:retorts@irregulartimes.com) Copyright Irregular Times politics anti-bush george w. bush constitution buttons bumper stickers political progressive alternative news irregular times local elections liberal Tue, 15 Feb 2005 11:11:11 GMT

Analysis and Opinion George W. Bush Election 2006 Election 2008 Liberal Atheist Atheism Progressive Political Politics Election 2004 Environmentalism Blogs Web Logs Bumper Stickers Anti-Bush Republican Satire en-us http://irregulartimes.com/itimessmallban.gif http://irregulartimes.com/index.html http://www.irregulartimes.com/outragecircles.html Tue, 15 Jan 2005 11:11:11 GMT When we look at the big picture of what Republican rule has brought to America, what do we see? http://irregularnews.com/index.php/archives/2005/02/09/progressives-and-control-of-online-political-languange/ Mon, 14 Jan 2005 11:11:11 GMT What would the results of a search for the term progressive show? We have conducted such a search, and tallied the results, which are shown in the chart below. The most startling finding of this analysis is that... http://www.irregulartimes.com/socialhomelandsecurity.html Fri, 11 Jan 2005 11:11:11 GMT Republicans are happy to pay for excessive spending by the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security, but can't seem to tolerate it when the Social Security fund, after decades of bringing in surplus money to be spent by the military and intelligence agencies, is now breaking even and might need a small amount of assistance in a few decades. Why? Well, the simple answer is that Republicans owe their political success to a combination of the votes of anti-government right wing radicals and huge financial contributions from extremely wealthy individuals and military contractors like Haliburton. The Republican Party doesn't get much support from average American workers, the people who benefit the most from Social Security. So, Republican politicians give away huge amounts of money in pork barrel for defense contracting corporations and special giveaways to rich folks, but couldn't give a damn about defending Social Security. How can we hope to change this political dynamic? How can we defend Social Security from Republican greed? The solution is simple. We can protect Social Security from Republican attacks just by changing its name to reflect the vital role that Social Security really has in keeping Americans secure from disaster. Let's stop calling it Social Security. From now on, we'll give this vital program in the defense of work Americans the new name of Social Homeland Security. http://www.irregulartimes.com/superbowl.html Thu, 10 Jan 2005 11:11:11 GMT A few years ago, in a kitchen somewhere between Van Nuys and Bar Harbor, a hurried teenager conducted a secret experiment with the dinner she had promised to cook for her little brother. Government scientists refuse to release details, but it had something to do with... http://irregularbooks.com/carvillehandbook.html Wed, 09 Jan 2005 11:11:11 GMT When Carville wants to share his considerable experience as an organizer and strategist, I'll be happy to read another of his books. Until then, I'll listen to my Great Auntie Gertie's dinnertime sermons when I need to be told what to think. http://irregularnews.com/index.php/archives/2005/02/04/liberal-and-conservative-who-controls-the-language-online/ Tue, 08 Jan 2005 11:11:11 GMT Although negative uses of both **liberal** and **conservative** are low in the top 50 Google rankings, **conservative** gets a much higher percentage of positive representation in the top 50 rankings than **liberal** does. 70 percent of web pages in the top 50 results for a search of the word **conservative** promoted the idea that to be a conservative is a positive thing. Only 34 percent of the web pages in the top 50 results for a search of the word **liberal** were positive in a similar way. http://www.irregularnews.com/2005/02/fighting-cartoon-culture-wars.html Thu, 03 Jan 2005 11:11:11 GMT Who would have thought that the religious right wing radicals would gain so much power after the re-election of George W. Bush that America would be reduced to fighting about the morality of cartoon characters? I never would have guessed it myself. But here we are, on Groundhog's Day 2005, and the Republicans have gotten themselves up in such a frothy tither about their Crusade for fundamentalist values that the Republican base is now waging war on cartoon characters. Yesterday, I got an email from the American Family Association. Now, I'm not a member of the American Family Association, and I was more than a little bit bothered about that when I received the email. I mean, after all, I am an American, and I do have a family. What's more, my family is made up of a husband, a wife, a son and a daughter. How could you get more Ozzie and Harriet than that? But, then, I read the rest of the email and I understood. You see, you only get to be an official member of the American Family Association if... http://www.irregulartimes.com/2005/02/alberto-gonzales-republican-dream-for.html Wed, 02 Jan 2005 11:11:11 GMT These days, an immense amount of praise is coming from Republicans, both in Congress and in the White House, for Alberto Gonzales, the White House chief counsel and the man that President Bush has picked to become the next Attorney General of the United States. It is the constitutional duty of the United States Senate to review presidential appointments for cabinet-level positions such as Attorney General, and to deny those appointments if the nominees are found to be professionally or ethically wanting. So, while a few senators have been directing their staffs to investigate the career of Alberto Gonzales, the majority of Republican senators seem to have focused their efforts on finding reasons to praise Mr. Gonzales, and defend him from any possible criticism. As a result of their defensive efforts, senate Republicans seem to have come up with a battery of standard talking points that they are intent upon repeating, over and over, until the public accepts them as irrefutable facts. Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, for example, declared that the achievements of Alberto Gonzales are the "manifestation of the American dream". Then on the same day, several other Republican members of Congress repeated these exact words, each declaring that the work of Alberto Gonzales for President Bush has been the "manifestation of the American dream". Well, what exactly do we know about the work of Alberto Gonzales in the Bush White House that could make him a manifestation of the American dream? http://www.irregulartimes.com/gopcigarelite.html Tue, 01 Jan 2005 11:11:11 GMT Somehow, the Republicans have whipped themselves up into a frenzy of outrage because Americans are drinking lattes. They say that it proves that liberals secretly control everything. To be fair, there's also Volvo. And sushi. Republicans say that anyone who drives a Volvo, even if it's got over one hundred thousand miles on it, must be an elite. The same goes for sushi. If you've ever been to a Japanese restaurant, the Republican Party has you marked as a dangerous elitist. Consider the backside implications of the Republicans' model of liberal elitism, and you'll see how ridiculous their whining about liberal elites really is. What the Republicans really mean to imply is this: Anyone who doesn't drive a Volvo and prefers to drink their coffee black must be a powerless outsider. In the Republican model of elitism, people who prefer to eat steak are the victims of liberal elites. It doesn't matter if these people drive Lexus luxury sedans, or eat at five star restaurants, or have thousand-dollar coffee machines at home -- Republicans insist that these people as persecuted dissidents, raging against the powers that be. They say that liberals have it lucky, because liberals eat sushi, and Republicans have it tough, because they eat filet mignon. Who are the real elitists? Two can play that game. If we are to decide who the elites are according to the artifacts of people have in their lives, what can we say about members of the Republican Party? Well, if one web site we recently found is any representation... http://irregularnews.com/index.php/archives/2005/01/24/progressive-heroes-hr-40-establishing-a-commission-to-study-slavery-and-collective-culpability/ Sun, 30 Jan 2005 11:11:11 GMT In his inaugural address, George W. Bush reminded the nation that "no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave.... The great objective of ending tyranny is the concentrated work of generations. The difficulty of the task is no excuse for avoiding it.... We will persistently clarify the moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right.... The United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors.... Our country must abandon all the habits of racism because we cannot carry the message of freedom and the baggage of bigotry at the same time. From the perspective of a single day, including this day of dedication, the issues and questions before our country are many. From the viewpoint of centuries, the questions that come to us are narrowed and few. Did our generation advance the cause of freedom? And did our character bring credit to that cause?" These are nice words. While we wait for Mr. Bush to take those words and develop a policy stance that reflects them, we can take comfort in the fact that some members of Congress have written a bill that, in very practical ways, addresses the issues that Mr. Bush paid lip service to in his address. http://www.irregulartimes.com/ratnerguantanamo.html Sat, 29 Jan 2005 11:11:11 GMT A directory of progressive political resources -- including organizations, alternative news sources, political parties, bumper stickers and buttons -- for the tumultuous state of Florida. http://irregularnews.com/states/florida.html Sat, 22 Jan 2005 11:11:11 GMT Over the turn to the new year, we kept our eye on the political ball by reading Guantanamo, a fascinating book that cuts to the heart of the current crisis in American identity: Can the rule of law be maintained in a time when the primary source of power in politics is fear? Written by Michael Ratner, president of Center for Constitutional Rights, and Ellen Ray, director of the Institute for Media Analysis, Guantanamo makes its case plainly and clearly - by referencing the foundations of American law. There's no Michael Moore hype to this book, no stagey devices, and no hyperbole. It's just the facts, but in the case of what's happening in the American prisons at Guantanamo Bay, the facts themselves are so riveting that there is no need for embelishment. We got the chance to talk with Michael Ratner just two days before... http://www.irregulartimes.com/granersentence.html Wed, 19 Jan 2005 11:11:11 GMT This morning, Americans awoke to celebrate a national holiday in memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a man who promoted nonviolent resistance in response to injustice. They celebrated the holiday mostly by turning over in bed and going back to sleep. In Iraq, the situation is much different. On the streets of Iraq, the sentencing of Army specialist Charles Graner has provoked a new wave of anger and outrage at the Americans who have invaded and occupied the country for almost two years. "When Saddam created the mass graves, we thought that it was a savage thing," one Iraqi told an American reporter. "'But when we saw the Americans and what they have done at Abu Ghraib, I was astonished because America came here carrying slogans of freedom and democracy." The Bush Administration has called Charles Graner the "ringleader" of the widespread practice of torture against Iraqis held at the American-run Abu Ghraib prison. During his prosecution, the facts were made plain. Charles Graner tortured prisoners over and over again. Graner sexually humiliated prisoners as well, stacking them naked on top of each other, forcing them to masturbate while American soldiers and other prisoners watched. Witnesses testified against him. Photographs of him in the process of committing acts of torture were shown. Graner's only defense was that he was ordered by officers to torture the Iraqis under his guard. Graner's crime is serious because his actions did much more than... http://www.irregulartimes.com/titanlifesatire.html Tue, 18 Jan 2005 11:11:11 GMT In what will certainly be remembered as the most remarkable discovery in the history of astronomy, and perhaps in the history of all science as well, the Cassini-Huygens mission team announced that the Huygens probe on the surface of Titan has discovered signs of intelligence life. Mission scientists described the evidence as "incontrovertible". Along with photographs of unexpected lakes and riverbeds, the Huygens probe has also sent a photograph of patterns in the Titan soil that could only be created by life, and by life with an intelligent purpose. "We've landed probes on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids, and done fly-by missions close to comets," said Benjamin Lukin, director of the mission's radiometric engineering team, "but we have never seen any geographical formations like these." An anonymous source within the Italian Space Agency has informed Irregular Times that there are reasons to believe... http://www.bluequestions.com Mon, 17 Jan 2005 11:11:11 GMT Here at Irregular Times, we offer two arenas for political debate. On our forums, everyone gets a crack at posting points of political contention and knocking each other down with smart retorts. But often those retorts aren't so smart, but consist of interlopers coming in and sprinkling discussions with canned cut-and-paste rants written by someone else, or revolve around increasingly minutae that miss larger points. Our blog posts include links for people to respond with comments of their own. These comments are often illuminating but at times generate more heat than light. We have a strong commitment not just to free speech but, more than that, to using our own resources to actually sponsor arenas for vigorous, energetic, rough-and-tumble debate. Democracy needs these sorts of places. But I must admit that more than occasionally I enter these arenas with a sense of trepidation. Trying to keep debates on track and responding to the emotional currents of persistent posters is at times exhausting and overwhelming. Participants seem so eager to defend their positions and attack the positions of their opponents that I wonder to what extent new understanding emerges from the process. It's easy to conclude that the vitriol of traditional online political discussion boards is a result of vitriolic personalities coming together. But if it were simply a matter of personality, then we'd expect to see sparks fly in off-line political discussions -- and with the exception of staged cable TV shows, this doesn't tend to happen as much. So I've asked myself whether the structure of the online discussion board might have something to do with it. If so, might a differently structure forum result in a different kind of outcome? I decided to give it a try, and the result is a new forum called Red Questions, Purple Questions, Blue Questions... http://www.irregulartimes.com/onclimatechange.html Sun, 16 Jan 2005 17:07:07 GMT One of the most dismaying aspects of the new power of Republican cultural fundamentalism is the impact on science. On every front, the Republican Party seems intent on undermining the healthy role that science has played in American culture. Under the authority of the Bush Administration, scientific reports have been suppressed, edited, and downright censored in order to fit with the industrial, cultural, and political agenda of the extreme right wing. Nowhere is the deformation of proper science by Republican pressure groups more devastating than with the issue of global climate change. As long as there has been research into global climate change, there have been Republican attempts to squelch and distort its findings. That effort has reached its zenith with the Bush Administration, which seems intent upon pushing a tradition fossil fuels economy for America no matter what facts get in the way. We at Irregular Times have encountered plenty of Republican efforts at distortion ourselves. Among our readers are Republican partisans who seem to get extremely nervous about the mounting evidence of the negative impact of global climate change that is already taking place. Unfortunately, their nervousness is not about the impact of climate change itself, but rather a fear that the facts about climate change could make the Republican Party look bad. As a result of this political fear, we have had many Republicans come to Irregular Times and attempt to overwhelm the information we provide about global climate change with inaccurate propaganda. This article is being written in order to set the record straight, and provide mainstream readers who are not mentally imprisoned within the politically correct talking points of the Republican Party with reliable information about global climate change... http://www.irregulartimes.com/dayofmourningresources.html Sat, 15 Jan 2005 07:07:07 GMT A few days ago, we read a little item on another progressive blog, complaining that not enough is being done to plan for counter-inauguration protests against the policies of George W. Bush on January 20, 2005. Our first reaction was to groan. We've found that the best way to deal with a lack of preparedness is to prepare. When you want action, you have to act - even if it seems that no one else is doing so. Our second reaction, more fruitful, was to question. The claim that there is not a lot of activity in preparation for protests on Inauguration Day sounded suspiciously uninformed. After all, we've heard quite a bit about people in our own communities organizing buses to bring protesters to Washington D.C. to take part in anti-Bush protests on January 20. We've seen quite a bit of hub-bub online around the idea of a National Day of Mourning. The sales of our National Day of Mourning bumper stickers, buttons, and posters and shirts has been quite heavy. So, we decided to take a second look around, and find out what we could about counter-inaugural activities going on around the country. We've assembled what we found, so that we could present it to our readers to encourage their involvement. After all, Inauguration Day offers the first big opportunity for progressive Americans to express their resistance to the Republican agenda of nationalism and greed since Election Day of 2004. http://irregulartimes.com/tracking2008.html Fri, 14 Jan 2005 07:07:07 GMT If you read the newspaper or watch television news, you know that the "experts" have already started naming "favorites" to be the Democratic Party nominee for president in 2008. How do these "experts" know who the "favorites" are? They've asked party insiders. How do the party insiders know? They pay attention to the buzz of media experts. So what you're really getting in newspaper and television reports is a snapshot of an insular feedback loop, ever elevating the speculation and spin of Democratic Party bureaucrats and talking heads into received reality. But what do the rest of us really think? To answer this question, we'll track trends in three patterns from month to month all the way through 2008... http://www.irregulartimes.com/thequietdictator.html Thu, 13 Jan 2005 11:11:11 GMT It was revealed this week that the Bush Administration is planning to keep people as prisoners for their entire lives, even though there is no evidence that those people have committed any crime against the United States. The lack of evidence against these people is so striking that the American government does not even have enough grounds to bring them before a form of military tribunal that has been set up by George W. Bush precisely for the purpose of evading the standards of justice set by the United States Constitution. Furthermore, it has been determined that these prisoners are of no use to American spies. As Reuters news service puts it, these are people the government believes have no more intelligence to share. In the old, pre-Homeland, United States of America, a person had to be convicted of murder, by a jury of peers, in a public, open trial, on the basis of evidence without a reasonable doubt, and with the opportunity for fair representation and appeal to the justice system to rule out mistakes and prosecutorial fraud. Oh, but that was before The Homeland was created, and as we're told over and over again, in the Homeland, everything changed. At first, it was a scandal that the President of the United States had claimed the power to set up his own courts, outside of the judicial branch of government, to force people through military tribunals that would be little more than kangaroo courts. Now, it appears that Mr. Bush, the Master of our Homeland, has decided that he does not have to give prisoners any trial at all, ever. He can just lock them up, forever. On what basis does George W. Bush justify his seizure of dictatorial powers? The Bush Administration says that the people it is imprisoning are suspected terrorists. This claim is a strange one, given that the American government admitted that it has no evidence that these prisoners have committed any crime against the United States. If there is no evidence against these prisoners, how can they be suspected terrorists? Is this just another thing that George W. Bush feels in his gut? Do they just look guilty? http://www.irregulartimes.com/renzireeks06.html Wed, 12 Jan 2005 09:11:11 GMT Rick Renzi is a Republican multi-term incumbent in the U.S. House of Representatives who represents Arizona's first district. Over the years, Renzi has become well known for his willingness to to give favors to big corporate donors for the sake of electoral success. Recent revelations, however, indicate that Renzi's habit of selling out at the drop of a hat has hit a new low. The Federal Elections Commission has announced that Rick Renzi committed several violations of elections law during his 2002 re-election campaign. These violations include the following... http://irregulartimes.com/tortureinvestigation.html Tue, 11 Jan 2005 12:11:11 GMT Recently, we have learned of yet more so-called isolated incidents of torture by yet more bad apples in the American security squads. The newest allegations of torture come from FBI agents who visited the American base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where people designated enemy combatants, many of whom it turns out never committed any crime against the United States, are being held without trial, access to lawyers, or protection by the Geneva Conventions. Among the newest isolated incidents of torture reported at Guantanamo: - Leaving prisoners for prolonged periods exposed to the elements without food or water - Attacks by guard dogs - Forcing prisoners to shit on themselves instead using a toilet, and then allowing the prisoners to sit in their own shit for long amounts of time before cleaning them up - Restraining a prisoner, wrapping him in an Israeli flag, and blasting loud music into his ears - Freezing prisoners until the prisoners feel great pain - Exposing prisoners to extreme heat for long periods of time - Chaining prisoners in bound fetal positions to the floor for long periods of time What was the result of all this torture? FBI agents report that the prisoners were so mentally destroyed by the American torture in the Guantanamo Bay prison that these tactics have produced no intelligence of a threat neutralization nature to date. Meanwhile, FBI agents report that American interrogators place lit cigarettes in... http://www.irregulartimes.com/dayofmourningj20.html Mon, 10 Jan 2005 12:11:11 GMT We've heard quite a bit about people in our own communities organizing buses to bring protesters to Washington D.C. to take part in anti-Bush protests on January 20. We've seen quite a bit of hub-bub online around the idea of a National Day of Mourning. The sales of our National Day of Mourning bumper stickers, buttons, and posters and shirts has been quite heavy. So we decided to take a look and find out what we could about counter-inaugural activities going on around the country. We've assembled what we found, so that we could present it to our readers to encourage their involvement. After all, Inauguration Day offers the first big opportunity for progressive Americans to express their resistance to the Republican agenda of nationalism and greed since Election Day of 2004. http://www.irregulartimes.com/iraqleadingsecurity.html Mon, 10 Jan 2005 11:11:11 GMT Reacting to the attacks, and the plans for next month's elections, outgoing Secretary of State Colin Powell stated that there should be no illusion that suddenly right after the election, the Iraqis are going to be able to take over their own security. This statement by Secretary Powell is interesting to me because it provides a kind of twisted mirror image of a claim frequently made by George W. Bush to justify his domestic security policies: The first duty of the President is to protect the American people. The reason Bush makes this statement about his duty to protect the American people is to convince Americans to go along with his draconian security policies. Bush's security policies undermine the right to habeas corpus, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to peaceably assemble, the right to petition the government for redress, and the protection from unreasonable search and seizure. Bush's basic argument is that security comes first, and only after security is achieved can full freedom be allowed. Yet, at the same time, Bush's Secretary of State is arguing that for Iraq, the reverse is true: A free election must take place, even when there is not enough security to prevent voters from being killed. Furthermore, Colin Powell insists that even after a free election, Iraqis cannot be expected to handle their own security. Thus, what Bush has referred to as the central aspect of sovereignty - security - will not be present in Iraq either before or after the elections there... http://irregularnews.com/index.php/archives/2004/12/15/the-foreigner-worth-index-december-13-15-2004/ Fri, 17 Dec 2004 11:11:11 GMT One marker of the moral imbalance of the system of American slavery was the rendering of slaves as worth three-fifths of a free person. Textbooks assure us that Americans wouldn't engage in the sort of devaluation of human life now, because we're so much more moral and civilized. We've grown out of that tacky phase in our history, we're told. But is it true? One way to assess the extent to which we value one life over another life is to measure the attention given to death, the end of a life. In pursuit of such a measurement, we introduce the Foreigner Worth Index... http://www.irregulartimes.com/theirpeopleourpeople.html Thu, 16 Dec 2004 11:17:32 GMT Today, as I read the news, I am reflecting upon a phrase we have all heard used many times by America's leaders: "own people". Its usage usually runs something like this: "Saddam Hussein killed thousands of his own people!" Expressions of outrage about what Saddam Hussein did to "his own people" ran rampant through the American media in the months leading up to the American invasion and occupation of Iraq. Every time I heard the phrase "his own people" being used, I wondered why it was being used. I guess the underlying, always unspoken, idea was that Saddam Hussein was an especially bad man because, not only did he do bad things, but he did them to "his own people." The obvious implication of this is that it's not so bad when you do awful things to people, so long as they are somebody else's people. The conservative Americans who use this phrase "own people" apparently have a basic world view that divides humanity into... http://www.irregulartimes.com/homelandminigolf.html Wed, 15 Dec 2004 08:17:32 GMT At the end of last week, I was dismayed to find out that the official list of locations in the United States vulnerable to terrorist attack, which was supposed to have been completed by the Department of Homeland Security by the end of this month, is far behind schedule, and may take many more years to complete. If there's one thing I've learned since September 11, 2001, it's that we cannot hope to feel secure until we create a cabinet-level department in the federal government with a staff dedicated to listing all the many locations at which we might blown to pieces without a moment's warning. So the Homeland Security guys haven't quite gotten their act together. Aw, shucks - who am I to criticize. I'll tell you one thing: I'm really glad that those guys are working on this list of locations in America vulnerable to terrorist attack. Oh, sure, it's a confidential list, so none of us are officially supposed to know if we're living or working close to a vulnerable location. Nonetheless, parts of the list were leaked out to the press this week, and the implications are pretty darned startling. According to the top secret Homeland Security list, waterparks and miniature golf courses are especially vulnerable to terrorist attack. The implications of this discovery are profound... http://www.irregularnews.com/states/nevada.html Wed, 15 Dec 2004 07:07:07 GMT In the minds of many Americans, Nevada is nothing but The Strip, Sin City, an unreal place to go and have a good time without having to worry about the consequences. Well, in real life, the people of Nevada wake up in the morning, get to work, and deal with all the grinding aspects of everyday life that other Americans do. Nevadans do not live in some kind of gigantic Candyland. They live in a state where the harsh realities of life are echoed in a struggle between the dominant conservative power and a scrappy progressive opposition that survives by moving faster than the fattened Republican elites who hold most elected offices. Nevada has space, that's for sure, and sprawl casts out into the desert night. So, in a place as spread out as Nevada, it can be a special challenge for progressive folks to find each other and organize. That's why we created this special directory of progressive organizations currently active in Nevada. http://www.irregulartimes.com/howcanyoumonastery.html Mon, 13 Dec 2004 07:07:07 GMT Before I came to the monastery and attained enlightenment, I was in the habit of asking many questions. I expected that with enough work, I could find answers to all of these questions. I was so arrogant that I expected the world to make sense, and to submit to my demands for understanding. I was, as my master would later tell me, a slave to the dancing monkey of my own mind. Since that time, I have come to realize that logic is nothing more than a trap, a beguiling seducer that keeps us chained to the world of causation. Rational argument, I know now, is a grand illusion. It took many years to break me of my attachment to facts and reasons. My master was forced to use all the tools at his disposal in order to liberate me. Of all his spiritual tools, the most powerful was the koan. A koan is like a great spiritual riddle, a master's challenge to a student who has become overly fond of intelligent consideration. In response to a koan, a student will struggle to come up with a solution, but will discover, time and time again, that the solutions do not work. The moment of epiphany that a koan is designed to provoke comes with the realization that there is no solution but to abandon the structures of the mind's rational consideration of the world. My master tried all the koans he knew with me. He started with the most famous koan of all: "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" I was too clever for that one. I just answered the challenge by raising one hand in the air and clapping the fingers against the palm. "That's not right," my master said. "It is too," I responded. "Is not," retorted the master... http://www.irregulartimes.com/geraldallenbooks.html Mon, 13 Dec 2004 11:15:37 GMT The next time you hear a Republican rave on about "moral issues", ask a question: What's moral about censorship? Don't let that righteous Republican guffaw and humph a denial that the Republican Party stands for censorship. Ask a follow-up question: Why is the Republican Party's leadership refusing to take a stand against the bill to censor books in Alabama? Take advantage of your Republican friend's confused silence. Use the opportunity to provide some information about one aspect of the dark underside of the Republican Party's post-election agenda. In the red state of Alabama, Republican state representative Gerald Allen has introduced a bill that would ban a huge list of books from libraries, universities, and schools. Specifically, Allen has proposed a law that would prohibit "the purchase of textbooks or library materials that recognize or promote homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle." It's not just political books advocating freedom for gays and lesbians that would be banned. Any book with a gay or lesbian character would also be banned. Also, any books that discuss homosexuality without condemning it would be forbidden. If the Republican politician has his way, students at Alabama colleges and universities would not be allowed to read biology textbooks that discuss the role of genetics in the development of sexual preference. University theatre groups would be unable to outlawed from performing Tennessee Willliams' play "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof". Alice Walker's book "The Color Purple" would become contraband. Even reading "Bridget Jones' Diary" would become illegal. John Irving's "The World According to Garp" would be confiscated if found on library shelves, and students would not be allowed to discuss "The Portrait of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde. Even Stephen King's book "It" would be categorized as illegal. In public schools, the law would make it illegal for teachers, administrators, or adult visitors to say anything about homosexuality other than to condemn it as wicked. But it's not just books and speech that include references to homosexuality that would be outlawed by Allen's law. Any mention of sexual activity prohibited by the sodomy and sexual misconduct laws of Alabama would be censored as well. So, even nonfiction books that refer to the practice of oral sex between married heterosexuals would be put on the list of banned books. Gerald Allen says that the removal of banned books from libraries and schools would not be sufficient. He says that his law would also require that all outlawed books be destroyed. "I guess we dig a big hole and dump them in and bury them," Allen suggests... http://www.irregularnews.com/states/nh.html Sun, 12 Dec 2004 07:07:07 GMT Alternative news sources, progressive and liberal political organizations, candidacies, bumper stickers and buttons -- all about and for green, mountainous New Hampshire. http://www.irregularnews.com/states/newjersey.html Sun, 12 Dec 2004 05:32:17 GMT What is it about New Jersey in particular that makes it the butt of so many jokes? Some say that New Jersey is too far outside the New York City scene, but then what does that say about a state like Wyoming, which is fifty times further away, culturally and geographically? Some say that New Jerseyis too polluted, but what state in the Union isn't? Some say that New Jersey is nothing but a big highway, or a big shopping mall, or a big suburb, but New Jersey is bigger than all that. Oh, New Jersey definitely has problems. The sprawl in parts of the Garden State is disgusting, and it's continuing to spread. The traffic is not simple and fast enough to describe it as a snarl. There is dirt, and dirty dirt, in New Jersey to be sure. But, I know a bit about New Jersey. I've gotten lost in Hoboken, and I've travelled the state from bottom to top. Some of my fondest memories of childhood play are of an afternoon I spent out on the beach at Sandy Hook, where I first found the curious secrets of mole crabs. I've got family in the state, and have done a lot of business there, and I've found several different faces for New Jersey to wear. There are huge suburbs in New Jersey , but there are also lovely small towns and defiant wildernesses. Most of all, I've found a great variety of people in New Jersey, not just the NYC refugees of popular imagery. I've never met a mobster in New Jersey, but I have met a lot of great progressive people there, and this directory of liberal political resources in New Hampshire is dedicated to them. New Hampshire swings, and a state that swings finds many good people willing to keep up the struggle for liberty, fairness, and a more decent future for America. Unfortunately, we can't find all the progressive groups in New Jersey all on our own. We have found a good core of liberal organizations to place on this directory, but we'd like to expand our list to include even more. If you know of any progressive information resources, organizations or candidates in New Jersey that we don't have listed here, let us know and we will consider adding links to them through this growing directory. http://irregulartimes.com/bushbeatingmandatereaffirmed.html Sat, 11 Dec 2004 07:07:07 GMT In the year 2000, we asked ourselves whether George W. Bush's mandate might be one of violence. Mind you, we had no idea Mr. Bush would take it upon himself to prosecute two wars. No, we had a domestic sort of violence in mind, one by the name of "corporal punishment." Corporal punishment, for those of you who aren't familiar with the term, refers to physical forms of punishment (not to be confused with capital punishment, which refers to forms of punishment which involve a person being put to death). Most people still use colloquial terms to talk about corporal punishment, and you may be familiar with these: spanking, paddling, caning, lashing, popping, smacking, whupping, beating and so on. Each of these words refers to a certain kind of corporal punishment and carries special connotations, so most professionals use the general, more neutral term corporal punishment, and we'll do so in this article as well. What a lot of people don't know is that corporal punishment is still in common use in public schools in the United States. Most states have outlawed the practice, regarding it as outdated, cruel, and ineffective. However, a large minority of states (22 out of 50) have refused to pass legislation banning corporal punishment in public schools, and in most of these states, the corporal punishment of students is rampant. What follows is a state-by-state map showing the distribution of laws on corporal punishment as of 2004... http://www.irregulartimes.com/creepingtheocracy.html Fri, 10 Dec 2004 09:09:08 GMT In another sign of the broad creeping theocracy that has set in across the United States under the watch of the Republican Party, there has been a dramatic increase in sectarian religious instruction in American public schools. In just one instance of this trend, the principal of Cedar Shoals High School in Athens, Georgia used the school's intercom system to preach an angry religious sermon to the entire school during instructional time. The principal, Tommy Craft, read an evangelical Christian poem he had found on the Internet and praised the Ten Commandments and "the word of God". As part of the announcement, the principal attacked non-Christian spiritual practices, including Native American beliefs and Wicca. The announcement went on to condemn birth control, then took the paradoxical twist of lashing out against pregnant students. From there, the principal characterized non-Christian students as "freaks", and demanded that mandatory prayers be recited by all students... http://www.irregulartimes.com/methylstrawberries.html Thu, 09 Dec 2004 08:08:08 GMT It has often been said that the Republicans in charge of the federal government are bent upon dragging America back into the past, to dwell upon long-forgotten battles and repeat old mistakes all over again. This week, the Bush Administration lurches America backwards 17 years, to 1987 - a time when the Cold War was still raging, personal computers were little more than places to organize family recipes, and inefficient industrial technologies were still the standard. Back in 1987, the United States joined an international agreement called the Montreal Protocol. The Montreal Protocol made it illegal for member countries to use methyl bromide, a deadly neurotoxin originally developed during World War II as a chemical weapon. This chemical weapon was to have been completely banned by January 2005, but under the leadership of the Republicans, it has continued to be manufactured in American factories at an astonishing rate. Seventeen years later, the Bush Administration is claiming that it is exempt from the requirements of the Montreal Protocol. The Republicans in the White House have developed a plan for 9,379 tons of the chemical weapon methyl bromide to be manufactured and used in 2006. The obvious irony is that George W. Bush invaded Iraq upon the pretext that Iraq was building huge stockpiles of chemical weapons and was not honoring its international obligations. Yet, the Bush Administration itself is manufacturing thousands of tons of chemical weapons, and refusing to honor the international treaties previously agreed to the United States banning those weapons. What excuse do the Republicans have for manufacturing huge stockpiles of this chemical weapon? Strawberries... http://irregularnews.com/index.php/archives/2004/11/29/the-bush-mandate-racial-segregation/ Wed, 08 Dec 2004 08:08:08 GMT Using data from the Office of the Alabama Secretary of State, we show a clear relationship between support for George W. Bush and support for policies of official racial segregation. Counties where George W. Bush did poorly supported the effort to remove racial segregation mandates from the Alabama Constitution. Counties where George W. Bush did well voted to keep policies of racial segregation on the books. http://irregularnews.com/index.php/archives/2004/11/25/congress-watch-putting-guns-in-the-hands-of-the-violent/ Wed, 08 Dec 2004 07:07:07 GMT There is room for legitimate debate on the meaning of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and what it implies for the right to bear arms. But most politicians and members of the public have agreed that some restrictions on gun ownership are reasonable. For instance, it has been agreed upon that young children should not be able to purchase guns and ammunition on their own, since they are not yet proficient at the rational control needed to use a gun properly. Similarly, most reasonable individuals agree that those convicted of violent crimes should not be trusted with guns, since they are most likely to use them in a violent fashion against other people. I write "most reasonable individuals," because apparently not everybody agrees that keeping guns out of the hands of violent criminals is a good idea. In the 108th Congress that is now waning, a group of members of the House of Representatives pushed for the passage of H.R. 276, a bill which would make it legal for individuals convicted of domestic violence to own guns. H.R. 276 would put guns back in the hands of domestic violence convicts... http://irregularnews.com/index.php/archives/2004/11/24/tennesseans-to-watch-out-for/ Thu, 25 Nov 2004 07:07:07 GMT In the election of 2004, Republican-leaning areas of the country reported they voted their 'moral values.' But what, exactly, are the 'moral values' they supported? Eugenics, the notion that who gets to reproduce, and with with whom, should be a matter of policy under the control of technocratic politicians, is commonly thought to be an idea of the past, consigned to the days when interracial relationships were against the law and women of the "wrong sort" -- black women, disabled women -- were forcibly sterilized. This year, however, the red state of Tennessee demonstrated that the politics of eugenics is still alive and represented by the Republican Party. In the race to represent Tennessee District 8 in the House of Representatives, the Republican Party gave its official endorsement to candidate James Hart. Which areas of District 8 most strongly supported Hart's candidacy? Which parts of Northwest Tennessee, in other words, are best avoided? Read on... http://www.irregulartimes.com/ivotedforbush.html Wed, 24 Nov 2004 09:09:09 GMT Oh, I'm a good liberal. I believe in freedom and fairness and all that. I let all my friends and family know all about how liberal I am all the time. So, the people I know were very surprised when I told them that I voted for George W. Bush. I'll bet you're shocked too. It's okay. I understand. The thing is that I want you to understand too. What most liberals just can't get through their heads is that there are certain things in life that are more important than our liberal ideals. George W. Bush protects those things, decent man that he is, and that's why I, and so many other liberals, voted for Bush. Still don't understand? Okay, I'll spell it out for you. I voted for George W. Bush because... http://www.irregularnews.com/states/oklahoma.html Wed, 24 Nov 2004 08:08:18 GMT Oklahoma is not the state cheerily depicted in the Oscar and Hammerstein musical. Oh, sure, there's plenty of corn, but in all the time I've spent in Oklahoma, I've never seen a barn dance, nor a surrey with the fringe on the top. Curly, where have you gone? Curly's gone and opened up an anti-abortion clinic, it turns out. On a return trip to Oklahoma, I ran into a physician who had found the Lord and decided to practice medicine on the basis of religious authority instead of scientific research. The trouble was that he didn't bother to tell any his patients about his conversion to medieval medicine. There's a shadow upon Oklahoma, to be sure. Fear grips the citizenry. Oh, not fear of fundamentalist Christian extremists of the kind who blew up the Federal Building there a few years back. No, the people of Oklahoma have been thrown into a tizzy by the threat of foreigners, and atheists, and rampant lesbianism - and the Republican political elite in Oklahoma is encouraging their fears. Luckily, there are some minds that have remained free of fear, and can still tell the difference between a food fight and fire and brimstone. There is a beleaguered yet defiant progressive minority in Oklahoma. They're fighting hard to defend freedom and knowledge against the onslaught of the fundamentalist right wing. We created this page of progressive resources for Oklahoma because we want to help the progressives of Oklahoma in their struggle. We're looking for help in expanding out listings, so, if you know of any progressive candidates, information resources or organizations in Oklahoma that we don't have listed here, let us know so that we can consider including them in our growing index. http://www.irregulartimes.com/freemarketsystem.html Wed, 24 Nov 2004 07:07:07 GMT The idea of market-based solutions comes from the Republican belief that problems of all kinds are best solved by allowing the mechanisms of a market-based economy to operate without restriction. Republicans believe that, just as appropriate prices for different sorts of merchandise are set by the forces of supply and demand, so too can social problems be addressed by allowing people in a free market to decide how much it is worth for those problems to be addressed. For example, instead of outlawing the pollution of America's air and water, the Republicans in charge of the federal government believe that it should be legal for big corporations to pollute as much as they like, so long as they pay fees for the privilege. According to this Republican theory, cleaner corporations could earn money by selling pollution permits to corporations that wanted to dump big amounts of pollution into America's air and water. The people who live near these huge polluters could then make the market-based decision to sell their contaminated houses at a greatly reduced price and then pay a premium price for houses on land free of PCBs, acid rain, coal dust, arsenic, mercury, lead, dioxin and DDT. The same people would also be free, of course, to make the market-based decision to remain in their homes, and give birth to three-headed children before dying at the age of 28. "It's a simple matter of supply and demand," explains Dr. Grant Appardon, President Bush's special White House advisor on market-based solutions. "Finally the people will have big government regulations off their backs, and they will be free to choose for themselves. Now, when it comes to pollution, there won't be some bureaucrat in a government office deciding what's illegal and what isn't. The American people can choose: It's your money or your life. That's the American way."