The Unclad Soul

I would encourage every American to watch the Ken Burns series, The West. It is available on Netflix and PBS. What you learn from this extraordinary documentary is that the White Man has, from the beginning of his presence here, done everything in his power to prevent first, the Native American Indians, then the Mexicans, then the Blacks, then the Asians, from ever being given the right to be legally assimilated into the free function of American society. The White Man is an immigrant. Unless you have Native American blood in you, you did not come from this land. Your ancestors brought you here from somewhere else. Whites came to this country from Europe, Western Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, and North Africa. This land did not belong to them, they stumbled onto it and then they took it to be their own. Many came here fleeing religious persecution, poverty, disease, lack of economic opportunity, and the freedom to build a life for themselves and their families. ...

The new Star Wars movie, “The Force Awakens,” is in theaters this weekend. I was a huge fan of the first three movies. I tried to keep up with the following ones but eventually lost interest in them. This new one though I will see. It reminds me of the earlier films. In the second movie in the original trilogy, “The Empire Strikes Back,” Luke Skywalker crashes on the planet Dagobah with his mentor and guru warrior, Yoda. Luke is in training to be a Jedi Knight and at one point Yoda instructs him to enter a dark cave without his weapon. Luke looks at the cave and then looks around. He says, “Something is not right. I feel cold. Death.” Pointing to the cave Yoda says, “That place is strong with the dark side of the Force. A domain of evil it is. In you must go.” Luke hesitates, “What’s in there?” “Only what you take with you,” Yoda says. Once in the mysterious cave Luke is confronted by Darth Vader. He draws his light saber and comes at Luke. They wrestle and Luk...

A controversial new law co-written by a right wing policy group and a Christian legal organization and passed by the Arizona legislature is called the “Religion Bill.” Supposedly it’s about “religious freedom” for business owners who don’t want to serve or have any business dealings with gays because it offends their religious beliefs. It has other ominous features to it but its thrust is discrimination against those in the LBGTQ community. The legislation has not yet been signed by Governor Jan Brewer, a staunch Conservative and Tea Party advocate, but the fact it ever reached her desk is dismaying and alarming. The growing audacity and bullying tactics of radicals in the Christian conservative movement carries so many contradictions to the true spirit of Christianity and the whole idea of religion. These people have lost their way. There is nothing that identifies them any longer with the Jesus they claim to worship and serve. I personally find their schemes, their gimmi...