BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

With difficult state elections and a crucial military decision looming, President Barack Obama sat down with his wife Michelle last month to give an in-depth magazine interview about a subject that has hitherto not ranked highly on the White House political agenda — the state of the first couple’s marriage. The president used the occasion to complain that when he recently hopped aboard Air Force One to fly his wife to New York for dinner and a Broadway show, “people made it into a political issue”. Obama went on to insist that his marriage was “separate and apart from a lot of the silliness of Washington”. He then proceeded to discuss his romantic ups and downs in startling detail with a reporter from The New York Times Magazine. Publication of that unusually candid interview highlighted an intriguing contradiction that has begun to haunt the Obama White House. The president’s family has become one of his most valuable political assets. Yet the attempts by the Obamas to shield their pr...

Republican Sex Scandals a Sign It's Time to End the Family Values Wars Republicans and Democrats should keep private lives private and divorce politics from "family values" By Robert Schlesinger An Oklahoma state legislator recently divined the cause of our economic funk. We are paying the price, according to a resolution state Rep. Sally Kern is sponsoring, for becoming a "world leader" in pornography, same-sex marriage, divorce, and other "forms of debauchery." It will come as no surprise that Kern is a Republican (a "Kern-servative" at that, according to her website). If the states are indeed the national parties' farm teams, the Sally Kerns of the world will doom the GOP. Republicans can no longer afford to lustily fight the culture wars, and it's time for them to sue for peace on the marriage front. The phrase "family values" first entered the political lexicon in the 1976 Republican platform, according to William Safir...

Are you as fed up as I am with the Obama campaign calling the McCain campaign RACIST? Using some of the most misogynistic and vile tactics ( CLICK HERE and HERE - WARNING: ADULT CONTENT) against McCain and Palin? And then, turning around and saying that McCain is RUNNING A DIRTY CAMPAIGN? It's depraved. But since October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month I have a chance to throw out some information and education for everyone. Obama & his Cult are BLATANT NARCISSISTIC ABUSERS . They revise history , twist the truth and then launch hate-filled, sarcastic attacks when anyone calls them on it. These "McCain's a Racist" comments are a little something called PROJECTION. What's Projection? excerpted from "T he Abuse and Misuse of Language " I think it's time for a bipartisan plea for a couple of words to be respected. Some words tend to get thrown around in political (and other) debates with scant regard for how they might actually be us...

We've all heard the jokes about bad women drivers, women who talk on their cell or put on makeup while driving... but seems the Religion of Peace has found a good Sharia answer to all that.... Don't let women drive AT ALL! Here's just TWO from a list of "28 Signs of an Abuser" (I will post the whole list on my other site) : Controlling Behavior . Controls where you go, what you do, with whom and for how long. Controls money and money decisions, won't allow you to share expenses or refuses to work and won't share expenses. Protective to the point of controlling. Says he's angry when you're "late" because he "car es." Takes your car keys, won't let you go to church, work, or school. Won't allow you to drive. Rigid Gender Roles . Expects a woman to stay at home, serve and obey him. Gets angry if you don't fulfill his wishes and anticipate his needs. Speaks for you. He thinks it...

A new study in Qatar shows that 42% of women support the use of violence against them, prompting calls for an education campaign in the Gulf emirate with the popular tribal saying that "A sister is one hair in her brother's beard." The study conducted by the Supreme Council for Family Affairs in Qatar revealed that 41.97% of Qatari women believe they deserve the physical abuse at the hands of their male relatives. "Many of these girls have suffered rape and sexual harassment, but violence also includes beating and psychological abuse," said Kulthum Al Ghanem, Professor of Social Sciences at Qatar University and author of the study. The study revealed that husbands rank first in the list of abusers, followed by brothers and fathers. Beating and physical assault is the most prevalent form of domestic violence (65%), followed by insults and name calling. The study also registered other forms of abuse, such as deprivation of basic rights, rape, forced pregnancy, div...

Kudos to T.A.P.S. I wanted to give a big thumb up to TAPS, the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors who help the families and loved ones of Military Personnel who have died in the service to cope - long after the military is out of the picture. Here's more: The Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, Inc. (TAPS) was founded in the wake of a military tragedy -- the deaths of eight soldiers aboard an Army National Guard aircraft in November 1992. In the months and years following the loss of their loved ones, the survivors turned to various grief support organizations for comfort; but when they turned to each other for comfort and to share common fears and problems, they found strength and truly began to heal. They realized that the tragedy they shared, losing a loved one in the line of military duty, was far different from other types of losses. They shared pride in their spouses' service to America, and tremendous sadness at the ultimate sacrifice their loved ones made. ...

LEFT "JUST NOW" DISCUSSING FAITH? CNN = WRONG! I no longer belong to any party but I am more left on affairs at home and more right on affairs abroad. How can any media outlet, particularly CNN - say the Dems never discussed faith. I was at the Spiritual Progressives Conference in Washington, DC last year and I have been a news-junkie for years. Faith is discussed ALL - THE - TIME. This is part of the neocons still trying to frame Dems (and anyone who doesn't drink their kool-aid) as godless, golden calf worshippers and priviledged pretty boys. At least they aren't hijacking it like the Bush campaigns did - and calling the US a "CHRISTIAN NATION." And it's dead wrong. CNN reporters falsely suggested Democrats are only now talking about religious beliefs and values Summary: On June 4 and 5, several CNN correspondents suggested that, until recently, Democrats have largely been silent on their religious beliefs and "values," ignoring the f...

When the Right Breaks the Barrier, How Should a Spiritual Left Respond? Rabbi Michael Lerner, Editor of Tikkun Magazine At the private, progressive, Christian grammar school called Far Brook Country Day in Short Hills, New Jersey to which my parents sent me in the early 1950s, there was a beautiful Christmas play each year in which all of us students reenacted a New Testament account of the birth of Jesus. In early grades I was one of the “townspeople” who came to worship the baby Jesus, and then later a shepherd who heard the angels proclaim the imminent birth of “our savior.” As one of the very few Jewish kids in this school, I knew better than to complain, and in any event the story seemed beautiful and inoffensive. Each student was also asked to paint a religious scene on our classroom window, and my fifth-grade teacher, a progressive and tolerant Christian, suggested I do a Chanukah scene. As I was completing it, my classmate Dickie Holden came over to me and slugged me in the fa...

RELIGION AND SEX The Immoral Majority: Finding sexual ethics in the godless masses - Don Lattin Our nation's self-anointed arbiters of public morality love to point their fingers at San Francisco and "the '60s." And many of us have gotten all too comfortable in this role as the hedonists and heretics of an otherwise God- fearing nation. OK, we're not perfect, and neither were those wild times, but can't the pundits of piety find another decade to bash and a new city to trash? According to some evangelical observers, the youth of America came here in the '60s with flowers in their hair and lust in their heart. Infected with the sins of the flesh and the wisdom of the East, they went forth across the land to spawn the first "post-Christian generation." But don't worry. True believers across the Bible Belt are praying for the poor lost souls of all those "unchurched'' twentysomethings and thirtysomethings born in the late '60s ...