One hand clapping for Pope’s homosexuality stance

That silence you hear is my one hand clapping for Pope Francis on his decade long outreach to the gay community. He recently earned kudos for being the first Pope to declare that gay activity is not illegal. He stated “Being homosexual isn’t a crime” in opposing laws in 67 countries that deem it so, including 11 that can execute folks who are.

But he hedged his bets with centuries long Catholic dogma demonizing gays by saying homosexual behavior is still a sin as well as well as its Catholic corollary, ‘disordered’.

While I generally oppose conversion therapy, I remain hopeful Pope Francis undergoes a full conversion to complete respect for the gay community. Then my clapping will be heard far and wide.

Mainstream media has been a complete failure covering US perpetual wars

Once again the US has embarked on perpetual war, this time its proxy war with Russia over Ukraine.

And once again US media has completely failed to adequately and accurately cover the latest which may be heading to nuclear confrontation with Russia.

Closing in on 11 months tomorrow, war coverage has largely disappeared from our electronic and print journalism. That alone is a disgrace, preventing the nurturing of an informed electorate on a potentially catastrophic issue. The media is much more interested in providing entertainment and distraction with endless hours on a football injury, a dysfunctional House parliamentary procedure, year’s old and largely irrelevant government documents found at presidential homes, and the latest in America’s weekly mass slaughter from machine guns.

But it’s worse than that. When they do cover the war, mainstream media has spent the last 11 months omitting 8 years of America’s anti-Russian provocations which made Russia’s illegal invasion virtually inevitable. They’ve erased out successful US efforts to sabotage the 15 point peace agreement brokered by Turkey with Russia and Ukraine in March that could have ended the war early on, saving thousands of lives.

Even worse, mainstream media has concocted a false war narrative focusing on imaginary Ukrainian victory amid near total disarray of Russian military operations and internal war opposition. This coverage is so outrageous it brings to mind a mimicking of the infamous ‘Baghdad Bob’, Iraqi Minister of Information who made hilarious announcements of impending Iraq victory in the 2003 Iraq war, while his country was being demolished by American invaders.

Mainstream media cares not a whit about informing the public on matters that could lead to nuclear Armageddon. Honest, responsible war coverage does not bring in the endless millions in advertising needed to sustain media moguls’ lavish lifestyles. Additionally, say or print one word which challenges the government’s false narrative of the war, and lose all access to government officials, the lifeblood of any news organization.

If mainstream media were truly honest, they’d change the name of every news show to: Entertainment Today.

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From 1,020 seconds to 90 seconds in 32 years spells potential doom for peoplekind.

 From 1,020 seconds to 90 seconds in 32 years spells potential doom for peoplekind.

I’ve followed the ups and downs of the Doomsday Clock for 60 years. I first learned about it as University of Chicago freshman in 1963, that it was created there in 1947 by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 

What a neat metaphor to convey how close humanity is to destroying itself. The Clock has become an international symbol of the world’s vulnerability to catastrophe from nuclear weapons, climate change and disruptive technologies.

Every January the Bulletin announces the yearly setting. After 3 years at 100 seconds, the closest in its history, no one following the Clock’s countdown to Midnight was surprised today when it was moved 10 seconds closer to Doomsday. The Bulletin’s Science and Security Board cited the potential US Russian nuclear confrontation over Ukraine as the leading cause for the ominous move forward: “The US government, its NATO allies and Ukraine have a multitude of channels for dialogue; we urge leaders to explore all of them to their fullest ability to turn back the Clock.”

For those of us who believe in inexorable human progress, the past 32 years have been anything but. In 1991 the Clock was backed off from 12 minutes to Midnight (Doomsday) to 17 minutes (1,020 seconds), the furthest away in its first 44 years. This resulted from recognition of the heralded end to the Cold War with the Soviet Union, and advances in nuclear disarmament agreements.

But the Cold War simply went into hibernation as the US looked for new enemies to expand its gargantuan military arsenal, including nukes.  Twenty years of reckless Islamophobia channeled American military adventurism throughout the Middle East. When that adventurism faded after two decades, the US decided to re-light that flame under that dormant Cold War with Russia by doubling now obsolete NATO right up to Russia’s borders. ‘Don’t worry about those troops and missiles on your doorstep Mother Russia. We just want to keep you the hell out of Western Europe’s political economy’.

What could go wrong? Just Russia, after 8 years of endless provocations in Ukraine, with thousands of Russian speaking Ukrainians dead from Ukraine brutality, invading 11 months ago Tuesday. And in America and Russia today….all nukes are on the table.

What’s equally distressful about today’s ominous setting at 90 seconds to Midnight? Our government, our media, our citizenry took little note, going about their lives of noisy desperation oblivious to the danger to existence we face. As Chicago once famously sang, “Does anybody really know what time it is?”