It is important we do our best to catalogue moments of joy.  We must write joy down and  proclaim joy to those who will listen.  We need records of joy, monuments of joy, places of joy we can revisit.  We must contend for joy, or the bitter water will overwhelm us all. Last night my two little boys turned joy into a dance.  Nathaneal is seven and Samuel is three.  Each boy has his own personality.  They...

Photo Credit: Ben Sklar/Getty Images Investigators and journalists are now slowly fleshing out some details about yesterday’s Fort Hood military-base massacre that left 13 people dead and dozens wounded — and about accused shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. The big question is “why” — a question increasingly asked as more tidbits slowly emerge. The detail that is and will get the...

“An Uncommon Love,” sung by Carole King and K.D. Lang

Pro-regime demonstrators lampoon President Obama at the site of the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran on the 30th anniversary of the storming of the facility. Continuing with our coverage of the 30th anniversary of the storming of the American Embassy in Tehran, this editorial from the state-run Web site of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting responds to the question of why it occurred. Laying out it’s position...

There have been multiple shooting attacks at Fort Hood according to MSNBC, KCEN-TV and KTVT-TV. At least 7 people are dead and 30+ are wounded. One shooter is in custody and 1-2 more are being sought. FBI is on the way. Both the shooters and victims are believed to be military rather than civilians, at least the shooters were wearing military fatigues. 4:30 pm EST: More shots just reported according to MSNBC-TV. 4:40...

Pakistan, rightly or wrongly, is generally described as an “exporter” of terrorism. Now it is trying to export something different – its famous Murree beer produced at the nearly 150-year-old Murree brewery, Pakistan’s sole producer of beer. “Understandably, making beer and whiskey in a Muslim country, where 97 per cent of the population is officially banned from enjoying your...

I didn’t vote on Tuesday in Phoenix, Arizona, my residence for almost the past 4 years though I voted in the National Elections last year. I was pleased to see that the local school funding and bond issues all passed with comfortable margins across the metro area. Had I voted, my other choice would have been for a city council position wherein I did not know either candidate. ARIZONA Heavily Democratic...

Two of the 53 American Embassy workers being held hostage with the approval of the Iranian regime, after the facility was stormed on November 4, 1979. Thirty years ago today, the American Embassy in Tehran was stormed by followers of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. It is a day that the current regime commemorates every year as a celebration of victory over what the leaders of the country like to call...

Eric Roux, a ‘legal representative’ of the Church of Scientology in France, seems relieved after the Criminal Court of Paris returned a verdict of fraud against the church – without imposing dissolution. Days ago, a long-awaited verdict was handed down in the French criminal trial of the Church of Scientology. In the opinion of German columnist Dietrich Alexander of the newspaper Die Welt,...

It looks like marriage equality is going to hold up in Maine — obviously not guaranteed yet, but Politico reports that voter turnout greatly exceeds expectations, and that’s probably going to work against the Mainers who want to repeal the state’s law allowing same-sex marriage.

He and his wife don’t think it is. But it’s all water under the bridge now, because he’s resigned.

Imagine for a moment that a segment of the Southern Baptist Church was supporting the idea of parents killing their teenage daughters for going out on dates. The public reaction would be swift and severe (and properly so). Media figures like Bill Maher would go ballistic, labeling the entire Christian Church with such behavior. And yet when this exact thing is happening within the Muslim community the reaction...

President Obama must understand that foreign wars are the undoing of U.S. Presidents and most domestic agendas. If he hopes to concentrate on getting us out of this deep recession, he cannot spend any more time in Iraq and in particular, enlarge or continue our dead-end involvement in Afghanistan. Perhaps he’s trying to find a way to break the news to the U.S. Military and the American people that we must...

Another freedom has been taken away from him:

LA Times: Synagogue shooting in North Hollywood leaves 2 wounded By Times staff writers | 7:56 a.m. Two men, shot in the lower torso as they were about to enter the temple, are taken to a nearby hospital. Police are treating the shooting as a hate crime. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/10/shooting-at-la-synagogue-investigated-as-hate-crime-man-arrested.html

It’s now nearing three weeks since three people died and 21 were injured and hospitalized in a “sweatlodge” “wealth-making” five-day event at a ranch near Sedona, Arizona. The joint was run by James Ray who teaches people how to become wealthy. It appears that a huge ‘lodge’ was constructed at the event, many times the capacity of a real sweat lodge. By some reports...

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés and I have been posting on a Texas criminal justice case that has now become an issue of national interest. It is the now infamous case of Todd Willingham who was executed almost six years ago for the 1991 arson related death of his three children at his home in Corsicana, Texas. The Texas Forensic Science Commission was reviewing the case and hired the noted fire scientist Craig...

From a 3 page statement distributed by the local Catholic Archdiocese on the island of Guam in opposition to Bill 185, which would would allow same-sex couples to enter into legal domestic partnerships: The culture of homosexuality is a culture of self-absorption because it does not value self-sacrifice. It is a glaring example of what John Paul II has called the culture of death. Islamic fundamentalists clearly...

I predict that the “public option” in healthcare reform will be a completely useless Rube Goldberg concoction in order to please and displease everyone simultaneously. However no one on the left or right should fear it because it will never come into existence even if it written and passed into law. The public plan that will emerge from the joint conference committee between representatives of the U.S....

James Ray who has a mega-spirituality business that revolves around ‘wealth getting,’ held a retreat in Arizona two weeks ago. For reasons not clear, he allegedly built an ungodly large 20×20 “sweatlodge,” and purported to be copying Native American sacred practices. He crammed 50 people into that skeletal structure covered by plastic tarps, and then, with the rocks smoking hot...

The Samaritans were a despised and denigrated tribal group in ancient times. Yet, who was it who had the eyes to see, the heart to act when all others avoided the battered and ran away? It was a Samaritan. As the ancient story is told… a poor soul lay by the side of the road, beaten to a bloody pulp. Men of the priestly classes crossed to the other side of the road to avoid helping the bleeding man....

Has Malaysia gone Islamic? Maznah Mohamad, visiting senior research fellow at the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore, looks at the issue on RealClearWorld. Here’s how he begins his piece: In Malaysia’s current political climate, it is no longer possible to distinguish Islamic radicals from Islamic moderates. Despite official boasting about the country’s diverse...

Just talking myself through the news of the day. Again. the way one does in a trauma/ triage situ. Most minds dont follow a straight path when learning the news. They veer into old memories. They look for patterns. They try to understand, so they can see, what can be done to help. Today, I’m saying to myself… Don’t go numb like it’s the farm report, pork bellies up, oats and soy down. Don’t...

A Saudi Arabian court sentenced a female journalist to 60 lashes because she worked for a television station that aired the sexual confessions of a Saudi man, she and her attorney said today. The Reuters news agency said the woman, who requested only her first name used, was unaware her Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. did not have proper authorization to operate in the Islamic kingdom. “The verdict was just...

It would appear from this angry article in Iran’s rigidly state-controlled Kayhan newspaper, that when it suits its own interests, the leadership in Tehran condones listening to the music of the Rolling Stones. With allusions to the all-seeing-eye of the Freemasons and a section on how Americans abuse women, this is the regime’s latest verbal assault on the United States. The author, Kian Mokhtari,...