BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

I'm with you Uppity my sistah - I'm with you! Okay, I’m probably going to get smacked here but, frankly, I am so sick of religious zealots, I could just spit. I have yet to meet ONE religious zealot who practiced what he or she preached at everyone else. Not one. Meet Sally Kern, Republican Theocratic Crackpot Religious Zealot. OKLAHOMA CITY — An Oklahoma lawmaker is once again drawing criticism from gay and lesbian groups from across the nation. State Representative Sally Kern, and a host of other lawmakers, civic and religious leaders, will gather at the State Capitol next month to sign the “Oklahoma Citizen’s Proclamation for Morality.” The proclamation urges Oklahoma residents to acknowledge the need for a national awakening of righteousness, but critics say Rep. Kern is again mixing politics and religion. Read the “Oklahoma Citizen’s Proclamation for Morality” These people don’t want to mind your business for you or anything do they? God, if I saw this wo...

by Dr. Babu Suseelan All of us know daily occurrences of Jihadi terrorism, Islamic homicide bombing, beheading of innocent kafirs, and organized, repetitive, regular and predictable slaughter of Muslims by Shias and Sunnis in the name of Allah. In recent months we have seen Islamic bloodshed, mass murder, beheading, and homicide bombing in all countries with substantial number of Muslims. We have seen Muslims on a murder march shouting Allah Akbar in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Georgia, India, Philippians, Sudan and Chechnya. These are not a phenomena defined by the news media. Our judgments of reality based on daily occurrences tell us more about Islamic terrorism. Indeed, we take these destructive events for granted. Beneath all the pictures and the prose on Jihadi terrorism, and Islamic violence, we are still struggling to understand what is going on in the name of Islam. With all the freedom to discuss the subject of Jihadi terrorism, intellectuals on the far left a...

Restoring Virginity Becomes Risky Business By Sandy Kobrin / WeNews correspondent Many women who seek hymen-repair surgery do so under threat of death if family members in religious fundamentalist households find out they are not virgins. Now, the U.S. doctors who help them are also being intimidated . LOS ANGELES (WOMENSENEWS)--Some doctors perform these specialized surgeries on women late at night when there's no one else in the waiting room. The patients are most often women of Middle Eastern descent, some with origins from countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia. They frequently give false names and pay in cash. They arrive alone, faces hidden, under elaborate hats, wigs, scarves and sunglasses and, afraid, say doctors. They are there for hymenoplasties, or the repair of hymens, which, when intact, are widely recognized as evidence of virginity. The surgeries could save their lives, noted the physicians who perform them, because, according to some interpretations of Islamic law...

SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVILS Why do we continue to have pity on these animals? I don't see Jews rioting in the streets over anti-semitism. Maybe we should! Having been in the U.K. not so long ago, I wonder why the British haven't taken to the street over being terrorized by this crew? All they are doing is having VIOLENT TANTRUMS to scare us all into capitulating. And its working! UGH! This week's riots are reminiscent of the 2005 youth violence outside Paris and other cities against unemployment, living conditions, and what the rioters call discrimination against young Muslims and those of North African descent. SOURCE Cry me a river. Their way of dealing with their pain is to hurt others? That speaks VOLUMES! ~~~~ Arab and black “children of immigrants” are rioting in France, and the AP Newswire seems to be sympathizing with the rioters, noting , “Youths, many of them Arab and black children of immigrants, again appeared to be lashing out at police and other targets ...

How to Fight the Religious Right A guide to defending yourself against Fundamentalist Christians By Brian Elroy McKinley "You're going to Hell!" "Satan has blinded you!" "If you support abortion, you are supporting murder!" Have you been assaulted with statements such of these? Have your political views, your religious beliefs or your behaviors been targeted by such verbal abuse? Have you found yourself defending your choices against individuals so bent on their own agenda that nothing you say makes a difference? Chances are you are being attacked by Fundamentalist Christians. Often called the "Religious Right," these people come from an extreme wing of the Christian Faith. Because of their growing number, many of them - as well as many non-Christians - believe they represent all of Christianity. Not true. These people represent a far-right position in a much larger spectrum of Christian believers. They are Fundamentalists. And by that defini...

A DEADLY MIX I was privileged to read Constantine's Sword about 5 years ago and I highly recommend it!! It's now a movie and I hope to get to see it. For those of us who love history, politics and insightful writing - it's a must. American Exceptionalism Meets Team Jesus: Interview with James Carroll By Tom Engelhardt He's a man who knows something about the dangers of mixing religious fervor, war, and the crusading spirit, a subject he dealt with eloquently in his book Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews . A former Catholic priest turned antiwar activist in the Vietnam era, James Carroll also wrote a moving memoir about his relationship to his father, the founding director of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency. Carroll essentially grew up in that five-sided monument to American imperial power. For him, as a boy, the Pentagon was "the largest playhouse in the world" and he can still remember sliding down its ramps in his stocking fe...

The Facts According to Fundamentalism (from 2005, still timely!) By Jeff Sharlet The New York Times is filled with ups-and-downs for Christian conservatives -- Ralph Reed lost his primary race for Lt. governor of Georgia, Bush vetoed stem cell research, and the Kaczynski twins, darlings of American Christian Right activists (though you wouldn't know it from the Times' coverage) are twisting Poland's crank rightward. But the Times seems most fascinated -- and confused -- by the Christian activists' imperviousness to research undertaken on its own behalf. First, there was last week's Department of Education study that revealed that private schools do no better than public schools, and that in most cases Christian conservative schools do worse. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings vigorously denounced the report, produced by her own department -- perhaps in an attempt to build a justification for vouchers -- and then boasted that she hadn't even read it, despite...