Category Archives: Culture

The True Measure Of A Great Man.

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Few people achieve great things in their chosen professions. Fewer still are capable of teaching others how to achieve those things. And it’s a rare individual who can teach others how to face difficulty, even death, with courage and grace.

Mike Hughes has done all of these things.

Mike is President and former Chief Creative Officer of one of the world’s great advertising agencies, the Martin Agency of Richmond, Virginia. I’ve really only had the privilege of meeting Mike once or twice, sharing stories over a couple of drinks. Nevertheless, I feel I know him well. You see, I’ve followed his work for decades. In the ad business, creative brilliance and integrity shine through the clutter of sameness like a dazzling beacon on the darkest night.

Now Mike is facing mortality with the same gentle good humor and thoughtfulness that he has so often imparted into his advertising. You can read his insights at unfinishedthinking.com. His doctors have told Mike that his illness is terminal. I know their diagnosis is correct…as mere humans, our death is certain. I just hope Mike’s doctors have the expiration date wrong.

There are far too few men on this Earth with Mike’s ability to make us see things clearly…be it the benefits of owning a product, using a service or dealing with the realities of life and death.

Long live Mike Hughes.

Guns And Bibles.

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Or is it Bibles and guns? The two now seem so inexplicably linked it’s difficult to know.

For example, many of the nation’s leading Bible-thumping states also have the largest percentage of gun ownership. And although I know of no studies on the subject, these same states would seem to rank high on a paranoia index.

It all seems intertwined.

Many churches quote the Bible to justify their hatred of gays, abortion rights activists, minorities and other faiths. When the government defends the civil rights of minorities and the right of women to control their own bodies, the faithful are given to paranoid delusions of an “attack on Christianity,” of a loss of “family values” and of a tyrannical government. That, in turn, leads to more gun ownership in order to fight the “jack-booted” (whatever that means) thugs who, according to the faithful, are coming to destroy their churches and take away their right to hate whoever they want.

All of this leads to despicable demonstrations such as those by the Westboro Baptist Church. Even worse it leads to violence against gays and minorities, and murders of abortion providers.

Hallelujah and pass the ammunition!

Although the faithful will be furious at my characterization, it has become reality. Moreover, such actions of the faithful are nothing new. Early Christians turned on the Jews who initially supported them (especially surprising given that Christ was a Jew). Christians fought Crusades against the Muslims. Catholics spawned the Inquisition to torture and murder anyone who displayed the slightest independence from Church teachings. Catholics also slaughtered the Cathars, Huguenots and more. Hitler claimed spiritual guidance as he exterminated Jews, Russians, Poles and Hungarians. And the Japanese believed that they were Divinely protected against all outsiders.

In our own nation’s history, the KKK toted Bibles and quoted scripture as they tortured, hung and burned African-Americans. Neo-Nazis have aligned themselves with “Christian” churches. So have many other militias and hate groups.

Even our once secular military has embraced Christianity to such an extent that it has trampled on the rights of soldiers who practice another religion or no religion at all. According to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, there have been numerous cases of religious discrimination at our military academies and at military bases around the world. The organization is understandably concerned about “a rapidly expanding and unconstitutional influence of religion over military operations and affairs that must (for both national security and service member civil and human rights) remain strictly and forever secular.”

I am not opposed to religion, but I am opposed to religious discrimination and Bible bullying. And I see absolutely no value in allowing religious zealots to push their beliefs at the end of a gun!

Vatican Exposed!

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John Dalberg-Acton, a British Catholic historian, politician and writer, once wrote of the Vatican and the Catholic Church, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

No statement could better describe the Vatican’s actions (or should I say inactions?) which were exposed like a priest caught with his pants down in Alex Gibney’s documentary Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God.  As you will see, the description of the Church as the House of God is most certainly in question. Did God teach priests to be sexual predators? Did God tell the bishops, archbishops, cardinals and Pope to cover up pedophilia?

Gibney’s film not only documents an extensive number of child abuse cases involving the clergy. It tracks the cover-up of these crimes all the way to Pope John Paul II and to the current Pope Benedict XVI. Indeed, as Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which was responsible for tracking all indiscretions such as child molestation.

According to the documentary, the “Holy See” saw all of the files documenting abuse yet did nothing to help the victims or discipline the offenders.

It’s not surprising.

Should we expect anything different from an organization that still refuses to admit that the torture and murder of thousands during the Inquisition was wrong? Or that the slaughter of Cathars and Huguenots was wrong? Should this behavior surprise us coming from an organization that enslaved indigenous populations around the globe in order to “save” them?

Should we expect more from a Church that officially accepted Mussolini’s fascist government in 1929 in exchange for being declared a separate nation? Should we expect better from a Church that helped Nazis escape prosecution by providing them with new identities and guidance from Europe following WWII?

The documentary also gave us a fascinating look at the Catholic clergy’s beliefs and behavior. For example, a former Benedictine monk and therapist conducted a 25-year study on sexuality in the clergy. He found that, at any one time, no more than 50 percent of Catholic priests were practicing celibacy.

You might say it’s hypocrisy of the highest order.

But the faithful are becoming less accepting of the clergy’s hypocrisy.  Following the exposure of massive abuse of Irish children and a Church cover-up, the percentage of Irish citizens who were practicing Catholics dropped from nearly 95 percent to just 4 percent!

Don’t misunderstand me. I believe that the institution, its clergy and its followers have also done a great deal of good. But given the Vatican’s on-going history of institutional crimes, should anyone give credence to the Vatican’s position on gay marriage? On abortion? On contraception? On the role of women in society? On politics? On anything?

I think not.

It’s time for the Vatican to live up to the best behavior of its followers. It’s time for the Vatican to repeal its archaic demand of celibacy for its clergy. It’s time for the Vatican to open its files, admit its crimes and beg for forgiveness.

We Not Only Have A Gun Problem. We Have An Anger Problem.

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Sometime in the mid-1980s, I heard a report on the radio of a road rage incident. I later found out that a friend had been involved. While my friend was stopped at a traffic light, another driver inexplicably attacked him. My friend got out of the car, picked him up, and deposited the attacker in the ditch.

Although it was the first road rage incident I heard reported on the news. It certainly wasn’t the last. Today road rage incidents are common events. And, unlike the one involving my friend, they often involve guns. (It seems there’s a road rage killing weekly in the Phoenix area.)

I believe such incidents are a glaring measure of the anger index in our nation. Likely caused by underlying anger and triggered by stress, it seems many of our citizens are one incident away from going “postal.” (For those of you who are too young to remember, the term originated following a number of workplace shootings in Post Offices around the country.)

Today, much of our anger is politically based. Following the housing crash, those affected were angry at the government for allowing it to happen. Worse yet, they were furious that the federal government bailed out the banks responsible. When a black president then bailed out the auto industry as I believe was necessary, old white men went ballistic. Egged on by Republican strategists who wanted to block any initiatives by President Obama, they created the Tea Party.

Their anger and the anger of those who oppose them has grown ever since.

As the Tea Party types have decried every step of the Obama administration, many have stockpiled food, guns and ammunition preparing for what they consider the inevitable battle against a tyrannical government.

Of course, much of the violence is the result of gang-on-gang turf disputes and the illegal drug industry. But since the Me Party, Fox News Channel, Rush Limbaugh and his equally venomous wannabes have ratcheted up their angry rhetoric, they must take responsibility for creating a rage that’s ready to explode at the slightest provocation.

Guns make that anger even more dangerous. And the most lethal kinds of military-style weapons allow the violence to create more victims.

The only real solution is for everyone to chill out. For the Mean Party to tone down its rhetoric. For the media to stop reporting manufactured controversies and to end the “if it bleeds, it leads” style of journalism. And for the government to treat us all like tantrum-throwing kids by taking away our most dangerous toys.

America’s Gun Culture.

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At halftime of an NFL game, Bob Costas incurred the wrath of gun nuts by raising the issue of this nation’s out of control gun culture. His comments followed a tragic murder/suicide committed by an NFL player. And he recently expanded on those comments during a guest appearance on The Daily Show.

Although Costas was much more eloquent in addressing the issue than I am, I will try my best to summarize it here.

Unlike those who blame gun violence on the availability of specific types of firearms, on the lack of gun registration, on mental illness, on movies and on video games, Costas points to a culture that glorifies guns; a culture of paranoia that causes ordinary citizens to carry guns; a culture that too quickly resorts to gunfire in order to settle disputes.

So how did we get here? How did we get from Mayberry RFD to Newtown?

Our gun culture is even older than our nation. We stole the land from Native Americans with the gun. We won our independence with guns. We conquered the continent with guns. And we’ve used guns to impose our will on the rest of the world.

Of course, our gun culture has evolved. In years past, every farmer and rancher had guns. But they were merely tools for hunting or for shooting predators that preyed on their livestock. Men…especially those who returned from World War II and Korea…viewed guns as tools only for hunting. They never considered using them to shoot another American.

Since movies tend to chronicle our culture, it’s easy to see how the role of guns has changed. In old-time movies the guns were primarily six-shooters, heroes were slow to anger and they only shot in self-defense. More important, the early movie and television plots used violence to teach lessons in ethics and morality. There was no gratuitous violence merely to whet the reptilian appetites of rebellious boys and frustrated, angry men.

But the movies of recent years feature ever larger and more lethal weapons. Violent scenes have become more bloody and more senseless. Our most popular video games focus on warfare and crime. Decades of war in which soldiers have been ordered to shoot first and ask questions later have impacted our psyche. So have poverty and social injustice.

Hip-hop music screams of violence and anger. Angry old white men carry firearms to fulfill their self-image of modern-day cowboy, Rambo or Dirty Harry. “Preppers” egged on by right wing radio hosts and politicians stockpile large caches of weapons and ammo so they’ll be ready to fight our government or their neighbors following what they consider an inevitable government coup or natural disaster.

Even churches foment paranoia by quoting the Book of Revelations and warning members of the “end times.” 

If we’re serious about ending mass shootings and reducing gun violence, we must accept that it won’t happen overnight. Gun registration, limits on ammunition clips and bans of military-style weapons will help. But these measures are only a start. Real change will only come from changing our entire culture.

Are We Willing To Settle For This America?

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There are those, particularly on the political right, who are satisfied with the way things are in the US. They truly believe that everything about the US is better than any other country in the world. And they believe it’s unpatriotic to criticize our faults.

But can we really settle for the way things are in the US?

Can we accept a nation where freedom and opportunity are still not shared equally? Are we willing to allow large, multinational corporations to buy elections, dictate government policy and send our jobs off-shore? Can we afford to watch our nation fall farther behind in education and technology?

Can we afford to allow our infrastructure to continue to crumble? Can we afford to have corporations devastate our environment in search of ever-larger profits? Are we content to allow military-style weapons to fall into the hands of the paranoid and the criminally insane? Can we watch more Aurora and Newtown-style massacres and do nothing?

Can we afford to be perpetually at war? Are we willing to accept that more of our soldiers now die from suicides than firefights? Can we settle for being the only advanced nation in the world that doesn’t provide healthcare to all of its citizens?

Can we accept ever-higher education costs and ever-lower salaries for our youth? Are we willing to cut pensions and retirement plans for our elderly in order for large corporations to avoid taxes? Are we content to put drug users and petty thieves in prison and let the bankers who stole trillions continue to walk free?

Can we any longer listen to those who demand “a return to Christian values” then turn their backs on the starving, the wounded and the infirm?

At his inauguration, President Obama spoke passionately of his vision for America. An America at peace. An America with freedom and equality for everyone. An America based on a growing and prosperous middle class. An America that provides opportunity for everyone. An America that is, once again, a true leader in the world.

It’s time to for all Americans to follow our president’s vision and stop settling.

Yelling “Fire” On Radio And TV.

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Many years ago, the Supreme Court made it a crime to falsely yell “fire” in a crowded room. It was deemed to be a threat to public safety and, therefore, not covered under the First Amendment protection of free speech.

At the time (1919), the Supreme Court decision could not have foreseen an even greater threat that would be amplified by electronic media.

Since the end of the FCC’s Fairness Doctrine in 1987, thousands of media outlets and dozens of radio and TV hosts have routinely committed equivalent acts by creating fear of our own government and of each other. Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and many other conservative hosts routinely cause panic over a variety of falsehoods such as proposed regulations against gun violence, tax fairness, voter fraud, the Black Panther(s), Fast & Furious, Solyndra…even the national deficit and debt.

The paranoia they foment has made millions of Americans suspicious of our president, federal agencies, law enforcement…even each other. Their evil rhetoric has led to massive increases in right wing militias, racist groups, gun collectors and doomsday preppers.

What punishment do these nitwits face for creating such panic? None.

Instead, they are rewarded with higher ratings and higher incomes. Their ratings bring in more advertisements for gold, silver and guns. They have become the defacto leaders of the Teapublican Party, having helped drive away most of the Republican moderates. And officials who are elected as the result of their media-driven fear carry their fear-mongering messages into state legislatures and Congress.

As long as they continue to have unfettered access to their electronic megaphones, there will be more political anger, more deadlocks in government, more fear and bickering, more stockpiling of guns, more mass shootings and more unnecessary wars. Of course, we can’t censor what these people say. But we can demand that they stop yelling “fire” and begin to act in the public interest.

It’s time to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. Tell your Senators and Representatives that you would like to see a return of civility, honesty and trust in our media. We can afford nothing less!

Contrary To NRA Claims, More Guns Equal More Violence.

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As Vice-President Joe Biden’s Commission examines ways to prevent another Newtown massacre, the NRA has continued to spew lies about guns. For example, the organization’s leader, Wayne LaPierre, stated that “only answer to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” He wants us to believe that we should all be armed.

To make the point, gun nuts often cite Switzerland as an example. Since virtually every able-bodied Swiss man is required to serve in the citizen militia, nearly every Swiss household has a gun. This, say the gun nuts, has resulted in the lowest incidence of gun violence in the world.

They couldn’t be more wrong.

As Switzerland’s gun ownership has increased so, too has its gun violence. Not only have gun murders increased, so have gun suicides. In fact, Switzerland’s murder rate from guns now ranks 4th in the world! And the country recently experienced its own mass shooting.

If that’s the NRA’s vision for America, get ready for even more mass murders and an explosion in gun violence. (As if an average of 32 gun murders a day and 34 mass shootings over the past year isn’t bad enough.)

A better example for ending gun violence in America is what has happened in Australia. After a mass shooting, the conservative government of Australia passed laws banning semi-automatic weapons. The government conducted gun buybacks and made it very difficult to purchase ammunition for semi-automatics. Yet Australians still have access to guns for hunting, target shooting and home defense. They simply no longer have access to weapons designed for mass shootings.

The result?

Gun violence in Australia has dropped dramatically and it’s still falling. Similar measures could work in the US, too. All we need to do is convince our elected officials to listen to us. Not the NRA.

To NRA, Guns Are More Valuable Than People.

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Literally! On the anniversary of the Tucson shooting which claimed the lives of six people and seriously wounded others, including Congresswoman “Gabby” Giffords, the City of Tucson conducted a gun buyback. The National Rifle Association not only objected. It vehemently opposed the destruction of the weapons collected. The NRA has even threatened to sue the city based on an AZ state law which has made it illegal to destroy guns that have been confiscated by law enforcement agencies.

Promoted by the NRA, this state law was recently passed by the nitwits in the AZ State Legislature to protect guns – even those used in crimes. The law directs law enforcement agencies to sell the guns to licensed firearms dealers within the state.

In other words, in Arizona, guns now have more rights than people!

If a person commits a deadly crime, he or she may be subject to the death penalty. But the gun used to commit the crime can live on to kill again. Does this make any sense to anyone outside the NRA leadership?

Since Tucson went ahead to destroy the guns collected in its buyback program, saying that they were not confiscated, the NRA has vowed to close the “loophole” in its state law so that no guns may be destroyed by law enforcement. This should tell you everything you need to know about the lunatics running the NRA.

The NRA leadership refuses to entertain any changes in our laws to protect people, like the 6-year-olds who were killed at Sandy Hook. Yet its leaders get their camoflauge panties in a bunch as soon as a gun meets a premature end.

Amazing!!!

NRA Exposed!

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The National Rifle Association began as an organization dedicated to preserving hunting and to support target shooting as a wholesome activity for young people. Its origins go back to a time when our nation was largely rural and hunting was more than a sport. It was a way to put food on the family table.

That NRA no longer exists.

Today’s NRA is merely an ideological lobbying group for gun manufacturers. The NRA’s opposition to a proposed international arms treaty is proof. The United Nations’ Arms Trade Treaty is designed to control the illicit trade of small arms to international terrorist groups and drug cartels. The text of the proposed treaty reaffirms the right and responsibility of any State to control the transfer of conventional weapons within its territory.

The treaty would have no affect on the sale of guns in the US or our 2nd Amendment right to own guns.

Yet the NRA is vehemently opposed to the treaty. In an attempt to block it, the NRA leadership has lied to its membership, saying the treaty is a “stealth attempt to circumvent the 2nd Amendment.” The NRA claims that it will result in black-shirted thugs breaking in your doors in order to confiscate your guns. According to NRA leaders, the treaty is the first step in allowing the new black Hitler (Obama) to take away all of your freedoms.

You may ask, “Why would the NRA make such outrageous lies?”

The answer is simple. The proposed treaty could conceivably limit the sale of expensive assault weapons around the globe. Of course, that would be bad for the large gun manufacturers that pay the salaries of NRA leadership.

While that may seem cynical, it’s nothing compared to the arms industry following mass murders in the US. Rather than view events such as Columbine, Virginia Tech, Tucson, Aurora, and Newtown as tragedies, the gun industry sees them as opportunities. Each massacre results in dramatic increases in gun sales…particularly for the type of weapons used for the killings.

After Tucson, the sale of 9mm Glock handguns soared. After Aurora, the gun sales in Colorado spiked. And after Newtown, gun sales are off the charts. The makers of high-capacity magazines for AR-15 assault rifles sold 3.5 years worth of clips in just 3 days following the massacre! And in 2012, Ruger broke its annual sales record by early August.

With its sponsors cashing in on every tragedy, is it really any wonder the NRA’s answer to gun violence is for more people to buy guns? With so much money at stake, and so many assault rifles and semi-automatic handguns already in the hands of Americans, any form of common sense gun control will be nothing short of a miracle.