Not quite sure why Donald Trump is suddenly pushing all my buttons. I mean he’s always been ridiculously full of himself. Maybe its the whole “birther” thing, culminating in Obama revealing his long-form birth certificate and Trump saying he had never been more proud of himself for making that happen. Or maybe its the fact that he has waltzed his way into the 2012 Presidential nominating process and is sucking oxygen out of a needed political dialog about America’s path forward, particularly among the potential Republican candidates.

Just give me a ten second audience with the guy so I can convey my thought that he seems like the biggest asshole on the planet! He probably would take that as a compliment, or at least tell me so, because I don’t sense that he gives a flying fuck. Okay, sorry!… I’m done swearing, but it felt good!

Muammar Gaddafi would probably be considered by some as a contender for that title, but Gaddafi seems to at least truly believe he is the messiah of the Arab world. I’m hard pressed to identify what if any convictions Trump has, deluded or otherwise. Please let me know if I’m missing something!

(more…)

The last five hundred years of Western history have been all about championing the worth, dignity, rights and responsibilities of individual human beings in the context of increasingly egalitarian institutions. Not that it hasn’t been three steps forward and two steps back at times. I just hope that as we settle into this new century, this third millennium of the “common era”, that we try to take a breath, relax, find our balance and our internal compass, and continue to “move the needle” in our egalitarian embrace of “all of us” rather than the millennia of hierarchical “us and them” thinking that we are coming out of.

(more…)

Our fellow travelers on the conservative side of the political spectrum are generally great champions of the principle of liberty, though it seems they often advocate for applying this principle inconsistently in favor of the rich and powerful and their rights to use property and conduct business as they wish, even at the expense of the rest of us. Unfortunately, we on the progressive side are just as guilty of inconsistency in applying humanistic principles like the Golden Rule.

(more…)