My Thai friend Sith starts a lot of sentences with "Maybe America have, maybe America no have."
I love America, and so should you.
American Atheists, a more-than-40-year-old organization that advocates for the civil liberties of atheists and the complete separation of church and state, flew aerial banners over several public locations across the country Monday that read phrases such as "God-LESS America" or "Atheism is Patriotic."At beaches and parks in 26 states, people saw these words fly across the sky.
On CBS' "Face the Nation" this past Sunday, John Kasich, the Republican governor of Ohio, did something that, for a politician on the Sunday political talk circuit, seems anathema: say something that not only sounds human but also makes sense.
Newspapers have had a centuries-long love affair with the First Amendment. Exercising our freedom of speech, after all, is our bread and butter. Whenever our favorite section of the Bill of Rights gets a shout-out in the news, we'd be stupid not to throw our two cents in.
This Monday, millions of Americans will gather in backyards, ballparks, churches and parade routes all across the country to celebrate the 235th birthday of the United States. For many of us, the Fourth acts as just another excuse to jet-stream unholy amounts of ethanol into our systems as we butcher another Lee Greenwood song and blow shit up. And why shouldn't we? It's American.
In summer of 2008, I walked into my first Senate meeting. Fresh out of high school, I thought I had found a good place to get involved. What I found instead was a disaster.
It's 6 p.m., and I'm on my way to the gym on a typical weeknight (I had tanned and done laundry earlier). I know there is nothing too peculiar about this, but there is one minor detail I should mention: My car had been on its reserve gasoline for a bit. By "a bit," I mean two days. Forgive me, but I hadn't time to stop for gas. Such is the life of a college student. And - I swear to you - the fuel gauge wasn't that low.
There are many ways we can describe the New York Senate's decision to pass a measure making same-sex marriage legal. We could lay out rustic philosophical arguments as to why such a move for our country was the prudent and rational thing to do. We could also build a 50-foot-tall "straw man" adorned in the ever-patented relics of religious bigotry and set it ablaze with bumper-sticker slogans and rally cries.
I hate "Jersey Shore."
For some of you, it's part two of a sweltering summer in Gainesville. Halftime is over. Hang in there and drink a lot of water. Summer B is a little more lively around here.
We pretended nothing happened. Five of us shared whiskey and a joint and just stared at the fire.
What a six weeks it's been.
I'm about to begin a journey into a jungle. This isn't your typical jungle. Here, habitats range from indeterminate bars to packed apartments. Sustenance is in the form of ethanol. The male animals are characterized by Polos, reversed hats and the use of the word "bro."
With every passing day, it becomes clearer that nothing will stop the Republican Party from living up to Jack Kennedy's "circus elephant" characterization. On the national level, a clown car full of jokers, white sepulchers and those named Michele Bachmann continue to wallow in their own intellectual feces.
You think he would have learned from his countless role models.
In 1946, George Orwell said that political language "is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
About 40 years ago, a herd of reporters gathered in a Democratic politician's office for a casual, off-the-record Q&A session. However, the only "Q" the reporters were concerned with that day was the war in Vietnam and why the United States was still involved. They kept pressing the politician for a definitive answer, something they had tried to do repeatedly in the past to little avail. The members of the press would finally get their answer when the politician whipped out his whoopee stick, pointed to it and proclaimed "This is why we're in the Vietnam!"
"Sith, get one of your boys to cross the Mekong. Bring back a couple of shopping bags full of pot."
"I am become Death, destroyer of worlds."
Solutions by The State News
