I sent this off a few hours ago and since there is at best a fifty percent chance of its being printed I thought I would post it here too. Comments are welcome, as always.

While I agree with the first part of the Rev. Pritchard's Thursday letter that the state lottery, Christmas and kids is not the best combination that one can imagine, I have to take issue with his blaming the "secular humanist "do your own thing" crowd" for all of the societal ills of the last 40 years. The changes over that time have mostly concerned greater freedoms and expanded rights and yes that comes with a price. Perhaps we could figure a way to be selectively restrictive but I doubt that something like that is doable.

As to his idea that the secular humanists have tried to "put our God in mothballs and push their religion to have a monopoly in our government": it's supposed to be a government of, for and by the people; that's all the people, not just the religious ones, or the ones that believe in his religious dogma. Secularism is not a religion (look up religion in the dictionary) and they certainly don't have a monopoly in the government. One would be hard pressed to find a politician who doesn't at least pretend to be "God-fearing" and/or religious. We even have a president who claims to pray every day and believes that "God" wants him to bring peace to the middle east.

Lastly he asks: "What can we do about it at this stage in the game, except to pray that wiser parents may show some common sense?" There you go Reverend, do that.

The Bush Plan

The Bush plan, as regards Iraq, as nearly as I can tell, is to continue to insist that we were right to invade and our goal has not changed. According to National Security adviser Stephen Hadley that goal is to bring about "...a democratic Iraq that can govern itself, defend itself, sustain itself, be an ally in the war on terror...". That, he says, has always been the goal. I seem to remember some other stuff being said too but let's say that he's right about this, that this was and is the goal. Can we bring that about? Very doubtful, let's say less than one per-cent likely. What is likely? That eventually we pull out, slowly, rapidly, whatever, probably beginning in 2009 with a new President but perhaps sooner and the Bushies insist forever that they had us on the right course and congress/the new prez/public opinion gave up/quit causing us to "lose".

What does the word orthodox mean? How many of you know? How many kinda know?

According to Stephen Colbert tonight it means "right thinking". I had to look it up, of course.

I read three definitions and then looked at ortho- and dox. What I come away with is "correct belief" or "adhering to the correct opinion".

Which is what religion is all about, right? The "leaders" decide what the correct opinion on something is (doctrine) and the followers adopt this opinion as their own. Or claim to.

Is this true of all religions? I guess not. Western religions though, pretty much yes. Christianity? Oh yeah.

Do I miss this by not "having a religion"? Well I guess I miss it but I don't miss it, right? But hey, maybe some people prefer not having to think for themselves. OK with me but why would I want someone like that running things? Yet I have never heard a politician come out and claim to be an atheist, or even agnostic, or even just non-religious.

Is it a good thing to have pride in one's race? I can think of instances of people of color expressing such pride, in the movies anyway. In Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing", the character Buggin' Out says to Mookie (Spike) "Yo Mookie, stay black". Meaning, I guess, don't start acting too white (Mookie works for the white family in the movie). What exactly does this mean? Are blacks and whites supposed to act in different ways? Does the character think that whites should act like blacks? In what manner especially? What about Martin Luther King's dream of a color-blind society? What if a white character had said, "Yo Pino, stay white"? Stay white and what, hate blacks? Does staying black mean to hate whites?

Is it possible to have pride in one's race and respect for other races? Or are we all one race (human)?

If anybody knows the answers to these questions, speak right up. Please.

If you believe some people, "God" created the world and all the people and everything that happens is a reflection of "God's will". So I guess he wants a world torn apart by religious strife and racism because he certainly could have created a world in which all the people looked more or less the same. Or maybe he did.

Of course there are plenty of human reasons why different religions exist and natural explanations for the different races and, again, human reasons for racism. In fact, we really don't need the concept of "God" to explain any of it.