Plato’s Revenge: Socrates Meets Sarah Palin

My latest piece on PoliticusUSA: Plato’s Revenge: Socrates Meets Sarah Palin

Ben Quyale’s Conservative Values as Non-Existent as His Rent-a-Family

My new post on PoliticusUSA: Ben Quyale’s Conservative Values as Non-Existent as His Rent-a-Family

An Interview with Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation

My new article at Pagan + Politics, the blog of the Pagan Newswire Collective, can be found here.

Glenn Beck’s Faulty CPAC Math

My new piece at Politicus USA Glenn Beck's Faulty CPAC Math

Conservatives Argue Against the Constitution When They Oppose Gay Marriage

My introductory piece on Politicus (www.politucususa.com), Conservatives Argue Against the Constitution When They Oppose Gay Marriage

Revivalism and the Progressive Heathen

My new piece as part of the PAGAN+politics blog at Pagan Newswire Collective: Revivalism and the Progressive Heathen.

An American Name

My new piece on NewsJunkiePost: An American Name

Choice is Not Hate - It is Freedom

My new article appearing on GodsOwnParty, Choice is Not Hate - It is Freedom

What is Progressivism?

My recent article at NewsJunkiePost: What is Progressivism?

America the Progressive

I've begun a new blog to replace Restitutor Orbis. It was a choice of trying to change the direction of that blog or outright replacing it and I went with the latter option. I feel the only real hope at this point for America is a return to the Enlightenment - a Progressive Renaissance - thus the name. The call for change has gone missing, as has change itself, except incrementally.

My new article there is America the Progressive, a refutation of claims put forward by The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History.

We're Taking Back Our Nation

My new guest-post is up at God's Own Party? - We're Taking Back Our Nation.

Back to the 30s: National Socialist and Republican Discourse 5

Part 5 of my series examining the similarities between Republican and National Socialist Discourse is now up on NewsJunkiePost.com

Note: Part 4 was published yesterday here

Back to the 30’s: National Socialist and Republican Discourse 3

Part 3 of my series, Back to the 30's: National Socialist and Republican Discourse, is now on NewsJunkiePost.com.

Back to the 30’s: National Socialist and Republican Discourse 2

Part II of my examination of the similarities between National Socialist and Republican discourse is now on NewsJunkiePost.

Redux - Back to the 30’s: National Socialist and Republican Discourse 1

This piece, previously appearing on ProgressiveNation is now, for technical reasons, appearing on NewJunkiePost

The second and third parts of the series will appear over the next couple of days - Thursday and Friday morning.

Mythical America

I have written a new piece, Mythical America. It has been posted at Gods Own Party (the title above will also link you to it).

Back to the 30’s: National Socialist and Republican Discourse 1

My new piece, "Back to the 30’s: National Socialist and Republican Discourse 1" has been published by ProgressiveNation. It is the first in a series of articles examining the similarities between National Socialist and Republican discourse and making a comparison between tactics used by the Brownshirts (Storm Troopers) and the Tea Party movement.

Update 12.9.09 5:53 AM: ProgressiveNation is temporarily out of service due to the same technical issues that put A Heathen's Day down. I have created a mirror site for this post at RestitutorOrbis until the issue can be resolved.

Let them eat cake...and we'll...er, eat it too!

The Nation is reporting a brilliant little piece of statesmanship by Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). I haven't gotten too much into the healthcare debate here but something this precious can really make your morning.

The story concerns two Republican senators outsmarting themselves. It's like the plot from a novel. Intended to put Democrats who support the Public Option on the spot, they instead put themselves on the spot thanks to the quick with of Sherrod Brown, who was Johnny-on-the-spot when the idiocy hit the floor.

As the Nation reports, "Regal Republicans Senators who willingly accept government pay, government staff and government-organized and funded health care benefits are so sure that Americans would not want to enjoy the perks they have come to expect are sponsoring an amendment that would require members of Congress to sign up for whatever public option that is developed under health care reform legislation."

Fair enough. They seem to be saying, "put your money where your mouth is." It never occured to either of the bill's sponsors, Oklahoma's Tom Coburn and Louisiana David Vitter, that they might be the ones forced to stick their feet in their mouths.

They just figured that the Public Health option "would suck so horribly that no senator or congressman would want to be a part of it."

Riiiiiight.

Here's what Vitter said: "The idea, broad-brush, is that whatever government option is in the bill, every senator and every representative should be enrolled in it. No other possibilities, no other choices."

And Coburn: "It's called leadership. If it's good enough for everybody else, we ought to be leading by example."

Enter from stage left, Sherrod Brown: "A key Democratic senator, Ohio's Sherrod Brown, contacted the two Republicans and said he would be delighted to cosponsor their bill and live by its requirements."

He's not alone. Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden said "he was inclined to do the same."

As The Nation reports, "Coburn and Vitter weren't counting on that kind of support."

"I've called their offices four times (trying to sign on as a supporter of the amendment)," Brown said Thursday. "I'm proud of the public option, I think it would be great and we ought to join it and show the country how good it is. I think my interest may be more genuine than theirs, but I'd like to work with them if they'll let me. If they just want to score partisan points, I still want to work with them."

You can bet they wish they'd never opened their mouths. They were too sure of themselves, and now the best they can do is to try to pretend Brown doesn't exist. Being studiously ignored, Brown did the only thing he could do:

On Friday, Brown went to the floor of the Senate and asked for unanimous consent to have his name added to the Coburn-Vitter amendment as a co-sponsor.

The Republican masterminds who had so deftly outsmarted themselves were forced to accept him. As The Nation says,if the other Democrat senators jump on board, we will be gauranteed a "robust, well-operated and closely scrutinized by policymakers."

Sometimes life throws you these little gems. It's left to us to savor them.

Brilliant Climate Campaign

Aged Obama Poster Says "I´m Sorry" For Not Doing More in Copenhagen

They're After Our TV's!

Environmentalism impacts our lives in many ways - sometimes unexpected. We many of us recycle - some more than others, with it being understood that different communities can hinder or advance efforts at recycling. It can be particularly difficult in apartment buildings, as I've discovered. Where I am now, recycling reduces my garbage output by a good 33%. It makes a noticeable dent in what I throw out, even being limited to type 1 and 2 plastics.

We're also all familiar with the need to not leave all our lights on, and vampire-energy and so forth, and the evils of big SUV's and other gas-guzzlers.

But now they're after our TVs. I just read on Saturday that "California assails TV power usage" and that a "one-third cut" has been mandated by 2011.

The problem is that the big new flat-panel TVs, though lighter and easier on my back, suck up more power than the old fashioned cathode-ray tubes of yesteryear. TV's account, they say, for 10% of household electrical use if you include "related devices" like digital recorders and game consoles.

Egads, they'll be after our games next, and my gods' given right to record programming for later viewing. The Consumer Electronics Association, as might be expected as an outfit representing manufacturers, disagrees with the 10% figure and says 3% is more reasonable.

Personally, I'm more worried about my back than the power.

Even so, I wasn't consulted and California has decided that there be limits on TVs over 58 inches wide.

So they're shooting for a one-third reduction by 2011 and a one-half reduction by 2013. Those that can't meet the standards won't be allowed in CA. I wonder if they'll stop you at the border when you're moving into the state and make you throw your TV into the desert if it's too big.

And that's not all. Washington, Oregon, and Massachusetts, along with Canada and Australia, are considering similar measures.

My biggest TV is 42 inches. Just upgraded from 27. So I'm set even in California, but it's not about me.

Well, okay, it's about me, but it's about a lot of other things as well - where do we draw the line, for instance, between consumer rights and the needs of the environment? What becomes necessary? And how much can we justify in the way of government interference?

The environment is a precious thing. We only have one. I'm a Heathen - a Pagan if you will - and Pagan religions are nature religions, as all original religions were. We have a good healthy respect for the environment. That's perhaps natural when you understand that we live in a world filled with the divine.

As such, I try to be careful. I try not to drive when I don't have to. I don't leave unnecessary lights on. In short, I follow Solon's advice: Nothing in excess. Or, as it is put in the Icelandic Sagas, "A wise man does all things in moderation" (Thorkel in Gisli Sursson's Saga).

If everybody lived according to these rules, we could go a long way towards voluntarily resolving some of the problems we are now seeing legislated against. As we go on, we may see more extreme measures taken to protect the environment.

And they will likely be necessary. The problem is, most of the burden falls on the individual in this country. Very little in the way of regulations control what industry does to our environment. They have power lobbyists in Washington. They practically own members of Congress.

So industry pollutes and we lose our big TVs.

Now being a moderate guy, I can probably live without a TV bigger than 58 inches. Honestly, I don't have the wall space for more than that unless I finish my basement.

Will that be next? You can't finish basements because the construction process pollutes? Or will it harm some heretofore unknown microbe that dwells in the cracks of the concrete.

Excess, you see, can go many ways, not only in individuals who might be careless environmentally, or in businesses which remain unregulated, but in governments - even environmentalists, who resort to extreme solutions where moderation might suffice.

I'm not trying to discourage California. After all, they've always been at the forefront of environmentalism. Environmental Heatlh Perspectives (EHP) tells us that

According to a 2006 survey conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), a San Francisco–based research organization, 65% of Californians don't think the federal government is doing enough to combat global warming.

That certainly seems above the curve, and I applaud them for that.

I'm just saying I've seen some crazy things over recent years. Crazier even than wanting to take away our TVs (and you don't see an NRA-like group protecting our TVs do you? If they come to take them, are we just going to throw them at them, and wouldn't that be counter-productive?).

I would just like to see common-sense, moderation prevail.

I don't think that's too much to ask, or to expect - from all sides.