Obama is not Satan

Photo source: VH-1

The hashtag #ObamaIsNotSatan exploded on Twitter this week, thanks to the accidental(?) resemblance between Barack Obama and the actor who played Satan on the History Channel series The Bible. Folks on the right side of the political divide, including me, had a great deal of fun with it. Here's what I came up with (and stole shamelessly):

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com

Thoughts about evolution and religion

When someone tells you they don’t “believe” in evolution, ask them what they mean by that.

If they mean that some species evolved from other species in a process that took billions of years, but that God kicked the process off, and perhaps guided it along the way, then if you're an atheist you may disagree with them, but they’re not actually contradicting anything that science tells us. Even Darwin admitted this possibility in The Origin of the Species:

I see no good reason why the views given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of any one…A celebrated author and divine has written to me that “he has gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms, capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe that he required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His laws.”

Indeed, since God’s role in creation is not a falsifiable hypothesis, science has nothing to say about it one way or the other. Of course, that being the case, it does not belong in the science classroom.

If, on the other hand, when they say they don’t believe in evolution, they mean that God created all species in their current forms during a one-week period some six thousand years ago, and that man and dinosaurs roamed the earth side by side, then they’re flying in the face of a large body of scientific evidence, and someone needs to sit them down and explain very gently that the Flintstones aren’t real.

Flintstones image used according to the Fair Use provisions of the US Copyright code.

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com

In the fight for freedom, never sleep

Book Review: Henry Brown’s Radical Times

Radical Times is a short novella – only 45 pages – but it’s long on story. The story is that of Pick Garver and his return to his Arkansas home after the Civil War. The town of Tanner’s Grove had changed during his absence and he knew that, as a Southern boy who had fought for the Northern army, he could expect a chilly reception.

But not from everyone. Two people in particular are happy to have him back. Huddy and his sister Venus had been slaves – and Pick’s best friends – when the three of them were growing up on a plantation owned by Pick’s uncle. Now they were free and Pick would soon find out if that would change his friendship with Huddy – and whether his secret love affair with Venus could resume in a country that had emancipated its slaves, but still did not accept them as equals.

Indeed, many in Tanner’s Grove are determined that would never happen. The Confederate Army may have given up, but they had not. If necessary, they would use torches and pistols to guarantee that blacks remained second-class citizens.

Pick recognizes a difficult road ahead. He tells a meeting of (mostly black) Republicans:

Those who agree with me just won a war so that all Americans will be free.…But it’s not enough that we won a war with rifles and cannons. If we want freedom to last, we have to win a war with words, ideas, and ballots. I hope you don’t think it’s going to be easy.…Yes, we won this war. You can sigh; just don’t sleep.

It’s a message that is as clear and relevant in 2013 – when freedom is once again under attack - as it was in 1865.

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com

Dr. Paul Goes to Washington

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) stood up to the Obama administration today. He launched a filibuster opposing the nomination of John Brennan, Obama's choice for CIA chief, and demanding that the Obama Administration explain its drone policy. He says he'll sit down if the President or the Attorney General clarifies that the drone program will not be used to kill non-combatants in America.

The filibuster is continuing as I write this, but for those who haven't had the chance to listen, here are my live tweets of the highlights through 5:00 PM.

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com

Your Tax Dollars at Work

Martin Scorsese welfare king?

Photo source: Wikipedia

The National Endowment for the Humanities announced recently that Martin Scorsese, director of such films as Taxi Driver and Hugo, would deliver the 2013 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities at the Kennedy Center in Washington on April 1. According to the NEH press release, “The annual lecture...is the most prestigious honor the federal government bestows for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities.”

But what got my attention were these words near the bottom: “The lectureship carries a $10,000 honorarium, set by statute.”

TheRichest.org estimates Mr. Scorsese’s net worth at $70 million. I do not begrudge him that - in fact I voluntarily contributed to it by going to see his movies. His segment "Life Lessons" in 1989's New York Stories helped make it one of my favorite movies of all time. But with all due respect to Mr. Scorsese, I question the appropriateness of paying him thousands of dollars that were taken involuntarily from the taxpayers at a time of sequesters and budget cuts. When I asked NEH media contact Paula Wasley (who was very polite and professional, by the way) for comment, she confirmed that it is set by law. “We don’t have any control over that,” she explained.

In spite of all the whining that President Obama has been doing about the sequester, if we’re taxing the middle class to give grants to multimillionaires, then IMHO we haven’t cut enough.

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com

Here we go again

John Kerry's appointment as Secretary of State has created a vacancy in the US Senate, so once again we will have a special election here in Massachusetts. I caught up with the three Republican candidates yesterday at the Boston Republican City Committee. Not the best quality video I ever shot (stupid Reggae Brunch upstairs), but a good introduction to three gentlemen who want to be the next Scott Brown (who, by a remarkable coincidence, was on the TV is the background).

Businessman Gabriel Gomez. Check out my challenge for Mr. Gomez at 4:18.

Former US Attorney Michael Sullivan

State Representative Dan Winslow

The primary is April 30 and the winner will face off against either Ed Markey or Stephen Lynch in the special election on June 25. Please check out all the candidates and support the one you think will do the most to advance the cause of freedom

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com

Celebrating Andrew Breitbart

The faithful gather at J.J. Foley's in Boston to toast the life of Andrew Breitbart (1969-2012)

Read about the time I met Mr. Breitbart here.

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com