Accidental Blogger

A general interest blog

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Category: Ethics, Morality & Religion

  • Health Care Reform: The party that tried and the one that lied

    The health care reform bill passed the House and was signed into law by President Barack Obama this morning. There is much background news, ups and downs, the determination of some and display of ugliness by others in the run up to this historic event. Here are some of the principle features of the bill and how it came to…

  • You go girls!

    Defying the Catholic church's traditional hierarchy, US nuns have come out in support of the health care bill. Their numbers and influence may be declining, but American nuns demonstrated Wednesday what generations of schoolchildren already knew: They are a force to be reckoned with. By sending a letter to Congress in support of the Senate health care bill, a wide…

  • The Pompous Path Of Moral Superiority

    Although he figures in the story, Tiger Woods is not the subject of this post. Self indulgent personal foibles of celebrities do not interest us. What strikes me as more interesting are the liberties that others take in spinning and analyzing the all too common clueless conduct of the privileged, in order to make agenda driven cultural points. The media…

  • The Miraclemongers of the Media (Sujatha)

    Around the Thanksgiving break in last November, was one of the Feel-Good, Miraculous stories of the season: Rom Houben, a comatose Belgian who had been bedridden for over 23 years, was actually communicating with the use of helpers, even without the benefit of normal faculties like speech or much muscular effort. From the BBC article:…

  • Journalistic Ethics vs Common Decency – A False Choice

    With earthquake devastated Haiti as the backdrop, I was surprised to come across this strange question posed by a journalist: Are reporters with backgrounds in medicine being show-offs when they simultaneously report on a disaster and administer care? The particular reporter whose actions provoked this journalistic soul searching is Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the chief medical correspondent for CNN. Gupta administered…

  • Walking in our neighbor’s shoes

    A sobering historical perspective on Haiti by Morgan Meis of The Smart Set and 3 Quarks Daily.

  • Gentler and more Humorous (Sujatha)

    atheism than the Ditchens: This is despite the much-discussed op-ed he wrote last year for the Daily Mail, which had some theists arguing that he had found God. But as he states it, he found the place(s?) in the brain where gods come from, not God.

  • A Practical Atheism (Sujatha)

    Since Ruchira has already proclaimed her (Ir)Religious Manifesto, I thought that I might talk briefly about mine. Some of the time, I fit somewhere on the continuum between Atheism and Agnosticism. It's like the flavor of the month. If I feel in a mood to be 'mysterian', I claim Agnostic leanings. If I feel mystery…

  • My religious manifesto

    In my recent post on Kathryn Lofton's take on the New Atheists (NAs) and their "misogyny," I dismissed Lofton's arguments on that point as more projection than proof. The post has now been linked at a couple of other blogs where some lengthy discussions have ensued. In one of my comments in response to another reader on the 3 Quarks…