Two days ago, 76 year old Clarence Ray Allen was put to death  in California – the second oldest death row inmate in the US to die since the death penalty was re-introduced thirty years ago. Allen’s lawyers had pleaded with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the U.S. Supreme Court that executing an old and feeble…

The US Supreme Court upheld Oregon’s assisted suicide Law known as the Oregon Death With Dignity Act. The decision was 6-3 in favor of the law. The three dissenting Justices were Scalia, Thomas and Roberts (we can guess how Alito would have voted if he was on the bench).  The law came into effect after…

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. Mohandas Gandhi Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his idol Mahatma Gandhi, both long dead, remain relevant today for the simple reason that their warnings have not been fully heeded by subsequent world leaders. Today is the federally observed…

The Isaraeli – Palestinian issue is of special interest to the Christian right. Many have wondered why most of them, virulent anti-Semites at heart, are so pro Israel in their public policy pronouncements. The evangelicals’ love for a greater Israel has nothing to do with any affinity for "Israeli Jews". In reality, the unlikely alliance…

The Houston Chronicle plans to re-examine Texas death penalty cases where suspects have been convicted and executed using evidence that may have been shaky at best, and downright "dirty" at worst.  Ruben Cantu of San Antonio was executed in 1993 for a crime he allegedly committed when he was 17. Twenty years later, the sole…

Despite fire and brimstone, no global warming here.

The real conflict between science and religious orthodoxy through the ages has never been about truth. The ancient scientists understood their role as disseminators of rational empirical knowledge as a liberating force against the dangerous superstitions and politics of religion. Galileo, facing the humiliation and torture of an inquisition, famously asked the Pope to direct…

Pat Robertson, a proponent of retributive capitalist Christianity, who recently issued (and then retracted) his "fatwa" against Hugo Chavez, is taking aim now at the city of Dover, Pennsylvania, whose citizens voted out all their school board members willing to take up the baton from the Kansas school board and introduce Intelligent Design in Dover…

I just watched a segment on the CNN evening news about a disturbing practice that I was not aware of until today. Several fundamentalist churches operate Halloween Hell Houses in order to scare believers and non-believers (young and impressionable kids among them) into following the "righteous" path. Like all houses of horror, these are meant…

I first heard this story on Thursday, on the local news in Houston. It appears that with the bird flu panic in full swing, some unscrupulous individuals have seen an opportunity to cash in on people’s anxiety. More than 1000 employees of an Exxon Mobil plant in Bay Town, near Houston have been vaccinated with…

Natural disasters have a way of shaking up preconceived notions.  The tsunami in faraway Asia tugged at American hearts and pursestrings with an unprecedented urgency. The earthquake in Kashmir has Indians and Pakistanis talking to each other like neighbors and not mortal enemies. Katrina blew the cover off the Bush administration’s carefully constructed veneer of…

Religion, race and ethnicity are convenient excuses for fostering fascistic agendas.  Although the players are different, the game is played by the same simple, violent rule – deprive one group of its basic dignity and civil rights by appealing to the narrow identity pride and self interest of another. Substitute the name of one fascist…