Yep, It's Over...Today was my last class after 40 years of teaching!

I had four wonderful retirement parties: one with the ERFT teachers' union; one with the English and Visual and Performing Arts department; one at the El Rancho High School end of year party; and one at our home last Saturday. Each was very flattering and deeply moving. I am humbled and gratified by the outpouring of heart-warming accolades and best wishes. If you read the previous blog, much of what follows will be redundant, but these are the words that I had written down during the day to share with the folks at the ERHS faculty end of year party:

I have a huge number of people to whom I am indebted. I started teaching in the Whittier Union HS District in 1971. I am indebted to Roger Weeks, former El Rancho Administrator, for hiring me at Sierra High School. He hired me because I told him that I thought reading was the single most important skill that kids needed, and when he asked, “How will you get kids to read?” I answered, “Any way I can…If they’ll read comic books, then I’ll have them read comic books.” He hired me on the spot.

I retired from teaching after 3 years in the Whittier District in order to play music, but a series of fortuitous coincidences found me returning to Southern California with Carolyn, the love of my life, and returning to teaching. I subbed daily for Whittier, Rowland, and Whittier City districts, but my first call from El Rancho came the first day of the infamous El Rancho strike. I worked that day, but I refused to return until the strike was over.

I have Tom Cunningham to thank for convincing the Principal at the time, Bill Payne, that despite my long hair, I seemed to be a good teacher.

Dick Reinbolt, who had created a class called “Murder, Mystery, and Science Fiction,” was quitting to write screenplays and run a Pioneer Chicken stand, and he insisted to the administration that I be his replacement.

Anne Sonnefield (later Anne Eichman) tapped me to help create a new American Studies Junior Honors team with two of the finest teachers I have ever known, Doug Anderson and Carolyn Clemons. Several of the people in this room matriculated through that team. The three of us taught for nearly twenty-years, and Doug and I have taught together for over thirty years.

I am indebted to my friend, Ben Rich for getting me more directly involved in the ERFT and for suggesting me for the bargaining team, and I am indebted to former Union Presidents Sid Apley and Marcia Hall for trusting me to work with the bargaining team.

To my good friend, Grace Nakamura, one of the most effusive personalities I ever met, for her dedication to the GATE program and to the continued improvement of all students.

I am very deeply indebted to my good friend, Julie Ellis, for putting great faith in me on many levels and for working so diligently to improve the quality of education at El Rancho.

Finally, a special nod to one of my heroes, my friend, Ralph “Jim” Kane, the instructional manager of social studies for many years. He used to walk briskly around campus with his thin tie swinging in the air and a little hint of Maalox on his lips; he took the Maalox to quell what he thought was indigestion, but which he didn’t take enough time for himself to figure out that it was, in fact, pancreatic cancer and that it would eventually do him in. After his passing, I wore a tie for quite a few years in his honor before reverting to my official uniform. Jim and I had many lengthy conversations about education and learning. Jim insisted, “Every kid can learn! But not at the same speed, and not in the same way.” He was dedicated to trying to find different methodologies that could meet the needs of different kids.

Sadly, in this day of matrices, pacing guides, and high-stakes testing, we have lost sight of what teaching and learning really are. Teaching and Journalism used to be two of the most respected and revered professions. But over the last forty years, the job and goal of journalism has been distorted and perverted; Orwell’s double-speak has increased exponentially into at least quadruple-speak. We now live in a world that makes Alice’s looking glass world seem quite rational in comparison. Unfettered greed has fomented an assault on workers in general, public workers in particular, and teachers most specifically.

Efficiency and Productivity have become perverted into “make people work much harder for much less compensation.”

Schools are not factories, and kids are not products to be stamped out by assembly lines. Teaching is an Art—and like other arts, it takes a mixture of talent and skill—different artists use different techniques, skills, passions, and sensibilities. More importantly, and a thing we forget when we see “business” as the goal of our “product,” is that our works of art are our students—and they are truly unique works of art because they must be empowered to be participants in their own creation. Cookie cutter curriculum turning out cookie cutter kids cannot be our goal. Sadly, and too often, good “workers” are not necessarily good people; however, good people are always, necessarily, good workers.

I thank all of you for all the dedication and hard work that you give to so many children who are not your own but whose lives you help change for the better. Keep being the artists that you are!

The Greatest threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!

For those who didn't get this note at Christmas here was the preview:

Well, it looks like it’s time to hang up the old piece of chalk...

Teaching at El Rancho circa 1981

I mean the “low-odor, chisel-tipped, dry-erase marker!”

Yep, after 40 years of teaching, “Mr. McMullen” is calling it quits. 

I spent most of those forty years thinking that I might never retire, yet there clearly comes a point when the scales tip and the unimaginable becomes the inevitable and then, in short order, the imminently desirable.

For those of you who don’t know, I already retired once after only three years of teaching. That time it was to play music, and who knows, it might be part of the reason this time, too. That last time, though, I came back fairly quickly for several reasons, but the main one was that I really enjoyed teaching. I am very proud to say that, after forty years, I still truly enjoy it. 

My first year of teaching at Sierra HS, my second year at Santa Fe,  and my third year at La Serna

I have had an incredible career. I have taught over twenty-five courses, and I have had the unique opportunity to conceive and create at least fifteen different courses including Advertising, Mass Media, Speech, Romantic American Lit, Fantasy and Sci-fi, Intro to Poetry, VISTA, and most recently, Creative Writing and Video Production. I have been privileged to work with creative administrators and directors like Roger Weeks at Sierra and Anne Eichman, David Verdugo, and my good friends, Julie Ellis, Ben Rich, Felicity Swerdlow, and Grace Nakamura at El Rancho, who repeatedly gave me these creative opportunities. 

Even more remarkably, I have spent over thirty years of my career team-teaching; that is, I have been allowed to work directly in the classroom with fellow teachers, fantastic teachers like John Crone, Diane Kuramoto, and my American Studies team-mates: my dear friend and master teacher, Carolyn Clemons, for twenty years; and my inseparable partner and incomparable teacher for all of those thirty-plus years, Doug Anderson. As an Honors Team teacher, I have been honored to work with several generations of the most gifted and motivated students. 

As a speech teacher, newsstaff advisor, creative writing teacher, and video production instructor, I have had the privilege to work intimately with hundreds of terrifically talented and creative young people. When the Academic Decathlon was first introduced to our school, under the direction of my friend Doug Anderson, I was offered the opportunity to coach the decathlon team in Language and Literature. I have been alllowed to work with some amazing students for the last twenty-five years, and though I take no credit at all for their achievements, I couldn’t be prouder of their accomplishments.

Teaching Murder, Mystery and Science Fiction at El Rancho

I was a Mentor Teacher for sixteen years, the entire duration of the program, so I had the chance to work with many young and gifted teachers. Many of my students have returned to El Rancho to become my colleagues and truly outstanding teachers, a fact that makes me very proud. 

When I started kindergarten at four years old, people began asking, “What do you want to be?” Even by that young age, my father was encouraging me to consider being a lawyer (an aspiration of his, thwarted by the realities of a stint in the military and the raising of a family). So, whenever I was asked the question, I said, “A lawyer or a teacher.” You can see whose dream won that one, but my parents have always supported my choices, and at 86, when they pause for a moment from their globe-trotting (seriously...they are awesome), they still support those choices, including this one. [It’s one thing to grow old, but what must it feel like to have your kid retire? Since we don’t have kids, I won’t have to feel that one!] 

As for the lawyering? Well, over twenty-five years ago, my good friend, Ben Rich, invited me to become a Union Rep, then a year or so later, he asked me to be on the bargaining team. I have been proud to represent the El Rancho Federation of Teachers ever since then. It may not be lawyering, but it is certainly interesting and challenging. I have had the pleasure of serving under four ERFT presidents: Nancy Miller, Sid Apley, Marcia Hall, and Rico Tamayo (five counting Laura Rico’s brief tenure), and I am grateful for the trust that they have put in me for these remarkably tumultuous years. My first day of subbing for El Rancho in 1975 was the first day of the El Rancho strike (and it was my last until the strike was over—they didn’t tell the subs that the teachers were on strike). Now, as I prepare to leave, I hear that the La Habra teachers are out on strike...Gee, maybe I should try to sub there—when the strike is over; there might be a career in there somewhere. I also especially thank my fellow reps, Lilia Carreon and Jim Halley, for all that they do for the union and the teachers; and I thank the teachers of El Rancho High School and El Rancho Unified School District for their commitment and for their support through all these years.

I want to thank Natalie Zucker and her late husband for creating the Zucker Teacher of the Year Award and for selecting me, along with Rosie Aragon, as the first co-recipient. Her decision to give back to the teachers who taught her children continues to be a significant inspiration.

I am also the last remaining active “Charter” member of the ABA, the teachers and coaches who have played basketball at lunch for the last few decades. I can’t thank enough all of those players, past and present, who have given me some of the most joyous thirty minutes of the last thirty years. I couldn’t have made it without that little bit of daily respite; and especially in these last few years, thanks for putting up with the knees and my top of the key to the top of the key, walking game. I really appreciate the camaraderie and the play. It is a tradition worth keeping.

A recent "teacher" photo from El Rancho

I want to thank those dear friends and colleagues who retired and those who moved on: Ralph “Jim” Kane, Maureen Hourigan, and Barbara Miller; Grace Nakamura and Dan Vandevier Yoshimoto; Carolyn Clemons, Diane Kuramoto, Ben Rich, and Marcia Hall; Nancy Lawrence, Steve Kennedy; Dick Reinbolt, Gary Barton, Connie Diaz, Jim Dyson; Sandra Espinoza and Cheryl Milas; Carolyn Martens, George Sturr, and Diana Malazian; Paul McKillop and Mako Tashima. I want to thank all those classified staff, past and present, who make the school and district run. Unfortunately, I will leave out scores more than I can include, but I want to particularly thank those special folks who are still at The Ranch, those people who have made the drudgery disappear and have made my time at El Rancho such a pleasure, including Doug Anderson, Lil Carreon, Jim Halley, Stan Wlasick, Charissa and Paul Zeko, John Crone, Jim Sorenson, Dawn Lam, Claire Katsumura, Val Kiralla, Christina Padilla, and Belinda Larrache, I say to you all, as Emerson said, “...Nor knowest thou what argument/Thy life to thy neighbor’s creed has lent.” Now you know!

And, there you have it—the big (or should I say, “long-winded”) retirement announcement (and life story). I hope this season finds you well and enjoying the things that you have chosen for vocation and recreation. All the best, Tim 

Demand that the President "Seek Truth" & Corporations "Speak Truth!"

To the President of the United States:

"The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!"

Please use this ban on stealth dollars as the beginning salvo to rein in the distorting and destructive abuse of corporate dollars on our political process.

Thirty years of corrupt "free market" fraud has brought us to the brink of disaster. You serve the American people, and they deserve your concerted effort on their behalf as opposed to the continued collusion between government and the private sector that has created the greatest disparity of wealth in this country's history and that has driven us to become the fourth worst country in the world regarding wealth distribution and income disparity.

Thirty years of the morally (and legally) corrupt and corrosive falsehoods of Milton Friedman and Arthur Laffer's "Reaganomics," the band wagon boondoggles of the "New Democratic Clintonomics," and the outright destruction of America's working class during ten years of unfettered, deregulated rape of the world economy and the unmitigated destruction of the social safety net by the "Bush Doctrine" (Anyone who we perceive to be a threat—with or without evidence—we have a right to take out!)

That doctrine, as absurd and patently hypocritical as it is (i.e., it is the precise rationale for committing acts of terror), was barely used in military terms, but it was used consistently and repeatedly to attempt to wipe out 100 years of progressive reforms and protections for the American worker and citizen against the unconscionable abuses of a corrupt and criminal corporate capitalism.

You were elected to stop the hemorrhaging of the economic and social structures of this country caused by unchecked corporate fraud and greed. You have not yet succeeded. This would be an important step in restoring sanity and justice to the country.

Please bring the abuses of government contractors to an end now, by demanding transparency in their spending of taxpayer dollars to subvert the taxpayers' interests.

"The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!"

Tim McMullen

Check out this video and this call to action from MoveOn.org

http://pol.moveon.org/militarycontractors?id=27605-15276185-tWdV60x&t=5

Through the Looking Glass—The Irrational Assault on America

You know, sometimes it really does feel like we are living in a Looking-Glass world. The frantic deregulation and merger frenzy of the last thirty years, stoked by the unfettered greed of banks, insurance companies, giant accounting firms, pharmaceuticals, media organizations, energy companies, and the Chamber of Commerce (to name but a few) nearly bankrupted this nation; the anti-tax policies and upward redistribution of wealth of the Bush years unquestionably brought on the greatest economic meltdown since the depression; colossal, criminal, corporate fraud and malfeasance have been exposed repeatedly, yet no real political or legal response has been forthcoming.

Instead, the "know-nothing" Tea Party swept politicians into power with the craziest campaign imaginable. Take all the things that nearly destroyed us—unfettered corporate greed, no public accountability for private or public corruption, an orchestrated attack against the regulation of criminal corporations, unlimited secret political spending by corporations wedded to an all-out assault on public and private unions and their political power—and reenergize each of these assaults on the middle-class ten-fold.

This illogical, delusional, self-destructive, Mad-Hatter Tea Party craze has now consumed the entire Republican’t party (as well as a few putative Democrazies) who are now clamoring and clambering over each other in a race to dismantle the last remaining shreds of the social, economic, and political safety nets of the diminishing pool of middle-income workers and the ever-increasing ocean of lower-income and unemployed workers.

Instead of attacking the obvious causes of our economic woes (including two illegal wars costing us over three billion dollars weekly), these elected representatives (read corporate political shills) and their deregulated media mouthpieces have mounted legislative campaigns to extend tax cuts and corporate subsidies for the wealthiest 1% while denying even minimal economic protections for workers; they are attempting to entirely eliminate funding for all public media, the only entities providing real, even-handed journalism in this country; they are attempting to severely curtail or destroy workers rights and protections with an unprecedented assault on collective bargaining; they have introduced a full-fledged campaign to decimate women’s rights by radically redefining rape, criminalizing miscarriages, allowing hospitals to refuse to save a woman’s life if doing so requires an abortion, and authorizing the legal murder of abortion providers; they have continued attacks on the rights of LGBT community; they continue their attempt to demonize immigrants and undocumented workers; and they have begun to decimate or eliminate environmental protections while legislatively denying scientific evidence and disallowing that evidence to affect our environmental policies.

The unimaginable harms of these initiatives, considered separately or collectively, is truly mind-boggling. As I learned from more than twenty-five years of collective bargaining, “once you give it up, you never get it back.” Just envision the havoc that any one of these proposals will wreak on our society, and then try to imagine what it would take to fix it once it is in place.

If we don’t get involved, NOW, in private conversations, in public demonstrations, in political campaigns; if we don’t immediately inform our elected representatives, both local and national, of our positions on these vital issues; if we don’t write our local newspapers and media outlets with rational, focused responses to the vitriolic distortion and lies of wacky political demagogues and crackpot pundits, the cause of democracy here and around the world will be setback for generations, perhaps many generations, to come.

“The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!” Tim McMullen  

This One Really Did Crack Me Up (Because it's so true!)

Most political ads during this season have been disgusting for their grotesque distortions and mindless reiterations of fear-mongering; they have no wit and no style; just gutter-sniping. However, when I saw this piece from the Brown campaign in which they give the Daily Show treatment to Meg and Arnold, it cracked me up enough that I just had to pass it on.

"The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!"

Tim McMullen

The Sudden Return of HOPE!

Suddenly, I HAVE HOPE again! To see why, check out this video from the Daily Show!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Elizabeth Warren
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

As a devout liberal (from Merriam-Webster: of or befitting a man of free birth,  broad-minded, nontraditional, open-minded, progressive, radical, unconventional, unorthodox), it is impossible not to be disappointed with Obama’s performance so far. His compromises have severely handicapped his noble goals with flawed results (in each case, the result of pandering to the worst impulses of the corporate and political opposition of those both in and out of his own party). Finally, however, we have a straightforward accomplishment and a true glimmer of HOPE.

If you have not seen Jon Stewart, then you may not know Elizabeth Warren. She is the real deal. As a feminist, when I look at the Sarah Palin clones, the tea party-supported women candidates who spout meaningless and ridiculous clichés or downright ludicrous fantasies and fabrications, I am disheartened, but when I see Elizabeth Warren, I am uplifted.

She is extremely articulate, deeply passionate, terribly witty, truly knowledgeable, and thoroughly rational. None of your reality-distorting, think-tank talking points for her. Watch her video clips, and have a little hope that just maybe, with our strong and continuing support, she might just be able to bring down some real control on the wall street thieves and corporate marauders that have blighted our lives for the last thirty years.

I remain, faithfully yours, the Hopeful Cynic.

Tim McMullen
“The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!”

The Failure and Fraud of the Tax Cut Philosphy

The Bush Administration's direct tax cuts for America's wealthiest cost the government critical funds for infrastructure and other necessary government functions while heaping tons of tax breaks and deregulation on corporate America.

Our near-depression economy, decimated infrastructure, and crumbling public institutions are all part of these patently failed policies.

These tax cuts should end this year, as they were intended to do, especially since they had just the opposite effect that Cheney, Bush, and Fox News said they would have!

Nevertheless, the Republican’ts now smell Democrassic blood. Their immoral, but politically effective, plan to make everything worse and then blame it on the Democrassts appears to be working.
By opposing all solutions to America’s problems, and by sabotaging the democratic process with an archaic senate rule (filibuster) to consistently thwart the super-majority and the will of the people—remember most of those failures and flawed compromises were the work of a 59 to 41 derailment of democracy—the interests of the wealthiest 1% continue to be served and protected while the life-savings and retirement accounts of ordinary Americans are destroyed, and their homes and farms are foreclosed.

The Republican’ts have been aided and abetted by the complicity of a craven and corrupt corporate media. Now the party of ”Just Say No to the People’s Needs” threatens to destroy any small gains that have been made in the last two years, and replace them with an even more rabid anti-public, “feed the rich and starve the workers and the poor” philosophy that is further laden with anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-public servant, anti-worker, anti-government, anti-immigrant demagoguery.

Allowing the legislatively-mandated end to the tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% is the right thing to do. I encourage you to support Patrick Leahy’s petition to allow the cuts to expire.

Why I am Voting in the Next Election...An Answer to a Democratic Query

Today, the "Democratic Party," in an obvious fund-raising ploy, asked me to commit to voting in the next election, and, if I wanted, to add a brief explanation as to why I was voting. Their example was: "I'm voting because I want to move America forward." My explanation, the one that follows here, may have been a bit more than they expected, but I really do think that we could all help to bring about more substantial and positive changes if we committed ourselves to a more conscious and thoughtful political life. I encourage you to contact your representatives, your party, and yes, to give money to the causes that advocate for your beliefs.

I am voting in the next election and in every election because "The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy!" I want the United States to regain a commitment to its original vision, and I want the Democratic Party to return to its own most important principles. The writers of the Declaration of Independence removed "the protection of property" and replaced it with "the pursuit of happiness" because they realized that the defense of property and the inevitable domination by wealth would trump all of the other more fundamental rights and principles.

Since the 80's, the Democratic Party has been complicit in elevating the interests of corporations and the wealthy while decimating the interests of workers. Milton Friedman's proudly immoral stance on the lack of corporate responsibility, and the fact that his philosophy has been ruthlessly championed by both parties, has lead us to our present precipice. Recent and repeated capitulation by Democrats has gutted each piece of legislation intended to help the people.

Capitulation on principles over the last forty years has ultimately led us to the bald-faced absurdity, though perfectly Friedmanesque decision, of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Democrats and the American people have allowed unfettered media deregulation and general political discourse to be dragged so far to the right that it is no longer about evening the playing field; it's about allowing workers and the common man to even be in the game.

Corporate tax breaks, tax shelters, deregulation, unchecked fraud and corporate handouts have allowed trillions of dollars to be taken from the working class in the form of unprotected job loss created by outsourcing and so-called "improved efficiency"; by the elimination of pensions and reduction or elimination of healthcare; by laws designed to allow and encourage union busting; by the creative use of "bankruptcy" to break union contracts and to reduce workers' rights and benefits; by unconscionable CEO compensation; and by reductions to basic governmental protections and services, ad infinitum, while putting these trillions in the hands of a miniscule percentage of the wealthiest.

It is important to vote and to speak out on these issues in order to allow America to regain its moral integrity and reclaim its international stature.

I reiterate my motto, “The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!”
Tim McMullen

End Credits from "The Other Guys" are Brilliant Satire

Stop the Unscrupulous Corporate Power Grab! NO on 16!

Help defeat the liars! Tell everyone you know in California to VOTE NO on Prop 16!

Right there on the unsolicited "ad section" of my own homepage on Facebook is evidence of one of the most scurrilous, cynical, and corrupt corporate power grabs in years. The Headline is "Taxpayers Right to Vote" on top of a cute little picture of a red, white and blue "VOTE" button, followed by the words "Join us to protect your right to vote on projects that put your money at risk. Yes on 16." PG &E has spent an astounding amount of money on this ad campaign (their customers' money—customers who have no say in how their increases in utility costs are used to undermine their own public interests while protecting the private, deregulated industry giants).

In fact, this reprehensible anti-democratic proposition would do just the opposite of what it claims. For years Californians have witnessed the crippling effect that such an anti-democratic approach has had on our state budget: A small minority can thwart the will of the vast majority. As a result, our schools, fire departments, police departments, health services, libraries, all public services have been decimated by an entrenched and recalcitrant minority.

Proposition 16 is an absolute fraud perpetrated on the cash-strapped public by a predatory and often criminal corporation (remember the true story of Erin Brokovich? Remember Enron, deregulation and the PG& E public bailout?)

We should not only oppose this scurrilous abuse of the initiative process, but we should be actively working to break up the stranglehold that this private corporation has on more than half of the State of California!

Voters are sometimes convinced to do themselves irreparable harm in this era of partisan, unanalyzed sound bites. "It's your money" almost always works. "You have a right to vote" sounds appealing, but when it is used to perpetrate a fraud, those of us who know better, should be saying loud and clear to everyone with whom we come in contact:

"NO to corporate misdirection!"
"NO to the abuse of the initiative process for private gain!"
"NO to PROP 16!"

"The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!"
Tim McMullen

To the FCC: Stop Media Giants & Corrupt Politicians from Hijacking the Internet

The FCC has recently made several important and courageous decisions that have begun to reassert the right of the American people to protect their access to information and to end the unregulated abdication of the people's authority in deference to the whims and greed of corporate control.

A blatantly hypocritical, actively reactionary, politically motivated, and newly-emboldened Supreme Court recently handed down a bizarre and logic-twisting decision taking away a fundamental right of the citizenry to control their own political process as well as their right to regulate corporations while handing corporate America the ability to completely subvert the democratic process and dominate, if not destroy, free and open elections in America.

Not being satisfied with having spent forty years purchasing this morally and intellectually corrupt Supreme Court, these ever more rapacious corporations and ruthless ideologues have taken their game plan one step further.

Having decimated our public media and turned it into patently partisan infotainment through the thoroughly discredited process of deregulation and consolidation, they now have their eyes set on the latest and last bastion of open information and communication, the internet.

Dozens of elected politicians who have been further terrified or emboldened by this crass carte blanche handed to some of America's most morally corrupt corporations, have been cajoled, as a result of the peddling of influence, into supporting the further erosion, decimation, and perhaps elimination of this last venue for honest intellectual and political discourse.

These politicians, whose campaigns and loyalty have been purchased by corporate spending, due to our perverted system of campaign finance now further distorted by the most recent judicial fiat of the Supreme Court, do not speak for the people of the United States. They clearly represent only the interests of their financial backers.

No reasonable, fair-minded person purporting to represent the interests of their constituents or the American people could pretend that the complete control of the internet by media giants and communication conglomerates serves the needs of the populace or of a democracy. Perhaps it does meet the needs of the "constitutional republic," as the Texas State School Board now insists it be called in order to overtly denigrate "democrat" in favor of "republic-an" in another example of the flagrant distortion and politicization that can be wrought through the control of information and the power of publishing.

As you well know, this tiny minority of Congressional shills does not speak for the millions of Americans who have participated in a lengthy, hard-fought, uphill battle to convince the FCC and Congress to protect an open Internet and to facilitate universal access.

Once again, the FCC must stand up to these crass and corrupting commercial interests, assert its Title II authority, and fulfill its duty by protecting the right of the American people to an open and democracy-empowering Internet.

“The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!”

Tim McMullen

Consider adding your voice to the campaign at http://www.savetheinternet.com/

We Have Been Two April Fools

This song is from my CD, I Could Write You A Song.

It was written for our 10th anniversary. We are now

celebrating our 35th year together and our 27th wedding anniversary.

April Fool by Tim McMullen

April Fool

Although this is a simple song—

A song of love I wrote for you—

I do not fail to comprehend

Complexity in all we do,

For I would be an April Fool

On this our anniversary:

I offer more than flower or jewel

To show how much you are to me.

I’ve loved you more than half my life;

I loved you long before you knew,

And when you promised to be my wife,

I felt no doubt in my own “I do.”

For I would be an April Fool

On this our anniversary:

I offer more than flower or jewel

To show how much you are to me.

Although this is a simple song—

A song of love I wrote for you—

I offer more than flower or jewel:

I said it all when I said, “I do!”

For we would be two April Fools

On this our anniversary:

We offer more than flowers or jewels

We said it all when we said, “I do.”

©1995 Tim McMullen All Rights Reserved

"If God Wanted Gay Marriage...": A Response

In the Democratic Party “partybuilder Blog,” James Ryan said, “I am totally against Gay marriage in this country. My feeling is if God wanted Gay Marriage than [sic] majority of married couples would be gay and not staright [sic]. Instead God made us to be anything but Gay. I can't not [sic] see why someone would want to support Gay Marriage. As it is only 5 States legalizes [sic] Gay Marriage. California, Florida, NY, NJ, AZ Governors have vetoed Gay marriage at least twice.”

What follows is my answer:

James—I am assuming that you are not being ironic with this post, that you really are against gay marriage and that you are baffled by people who support it; therefore, I am going to attempt to answer you seriously.

First of all, the "if God meant us to" premise is an intellectual dead end. It has been used to justify every kind of injustice perpetrated by man and to condemn every form of progress, but it just doesn't work logically, even on its own terms. If you actually believe in Divine Providence, then ask yourself some simple questions. Does God want us to drive cars, fly in airplanes, cure diseases? If so, then why did it take mankind hundreds of thousands of years to develop these things? Why didn't He/She just give them to "Adam and Eve"?

If, on the other hand, He (I will use the politically-inspired grammatical convention of adopting the male pronoun when the gender is unknown) meant for these things to develop naturally through man's righteousness, ingenuity and quest for knowledge, then why do you assume that he condemns the variety of ways that man has contrived to live in social settings? Did he mean for us to live in gigantic metropolises? There certainly aren’t any of these in the Bible. So, do we do wrong by building these cities? Is the telephone evil? Or the computer? Or modern medicine? None of these things were even imagined, let alone discussed, by the men who wrote the holy books of any of the great religions, so they give no guidance on these subjects. This fallacy of “the unmentioned” can also be seen in the hypocrisy and intellectual absurdity of Justice Scalia’s “original intent” doctrine to which he adheres when it is convenient to his ideology.

If you believe that God created love, then why don't you accept that he created various kinds of love, including self love, erotic love, platonic love, filial love, parental love, divine love, and yes, even homosexual love? Homosexual love is not a recent invention!

If you base your prohibition on the Bible, then you are stuck with only a few passages, most of which come from the Old Testament, many of the tenets of which I guarantee you do not actually follow. Read “Leviticus” and tell me that you accept all those admonitions and rules.

If you look to the New Testament, then you have only Paul's letters; and although Paul’s letters are, in some cases, given equal status to the Gospels, his lectures and doctrinal edicts must be seen as personal opinions that do not necessarily reflect views found elsewhere. Many scholars argue that they directly contradict the message and teachings of Jesus. They certainly do not reflect the views of Jesus as articulated anywhere in the New Testament.  They could not, of course, because Paul was not witness to any of Jesus’s utterances, except in his self-proclaimed discussion with a light from heaven. Jefferson, as documented in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, called Paul the "first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus."

Nevertheless, in most cases, when reading the Old or the New Testaments in English, we often face grotesque mistranslations and sometimes flagrant misrepresentations of the original Greek. Nowhere in the Bible did Jesus speak of homosexuality. If Jerry Falwell could identify and condemn a Teletubby as gay, then what would our modern day Pauls, such as Falwell, Robertson, or Dobson, honestly say of a group of men in today’s society who were as close and insular as Jesus and the Apostles, men who generally shunned the companionship of women and kept only to themselves? (I certainly acknowledge that a line of research goes well beyond Mary Magdalene to refute this male exclusivity, and I applaud that scholarship; I only point out that today’s homophobes would certainly have found Jesus’s “men’s club” suspicious and probably worthy of condemnation).

Catholic doctrine is adamantly anti-homosexual in its public declarations, yet most Catholic school boys and school girls and all adult parishioners know that many of their priests are homosexual. I am not talking about the alarming number that are sexual predators; I just refer to the hypocrisy of decrying homosexuality while being fully aware that many of their priests, their monks, and their leaders are gay. Homosexuality in the priesthood is tacitly accepted while being “publicly” condemned. The hypocrisy of the church during the recent sex scandals all across the US was clearly evident in the innumerable examples of predatory priests who were shuttled from diocese to diocese because of their flagrant behavior and because of the incredible number of complaints. More importantly, the anti-homosexual agenda of the Vatican, like its anti-contraception dogma, is not even supported by a majority of Catholics.

The same hypocrisy is obvious in the never-ending string of Evangelical preachers and “Christian” politicians caught with their pants down in both straight and gay liaisons.

Let me come back to your original reasoning. By your analysis, no one should be left handed because if God had wanted us to be left handed, a majority of us would be left handed. Surely you can see that this view is not reasonable. This handed-ness, including ambidexterity, is a natural proclivity. Yes, the individual can be forced to subdue and hide this proclivity, but it takes a great deal of denial (often accompanied by physical abuse) to counteract this natural inclination, and usually the individual is damaged by the effort.

Left or right handed-ness and sexual orientation are natural inclinations, but marriage laws and prejudice are not. They are man-made. Two hundred years ago, a majority of Americans were blatantly racist towards blacks. Are you willing to suggest that they were racists because God wanted them to be? Or would you rather assume that due to the battle that was begun by a few stalwarts who were willing to decry and condemn the hypocritical and ignorant injustice of the majority, the majority opinion was finally changed. If you think that God makes things happen, then don’t you attribute this shift in the majority opinion and this extension of justice to God’s will?

Pick out any other majority behavior you want. The “Divine right of Kings” was used to justify the wickedness, debauchery, cruelty, and injustice of tyrants. In other words kings ruled because God wanted it that way. We have devised more humane, more just, more rational systems of governing ourselves over the past centuries although we still have a number of issues to work out. “The Divine right of Kings” was superseded by the assumption “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The Declaration of Independence doesn’t say “heterosexual men.” Can anyone doubt that marriage, whether it actually procures it or not, is certainly one of the means of “pursuing happiness”?

True love is a fairly rare commodity. Certainly, participating in sex (whether heterosexual or homosexual) neither proves nor guarantees love. Neither does marriage. However, the ability of individuals to have a committed, loving relationship with a same sex partner has existed since the beginning of time. Check out David and Jonathan in the book of Samuel, especially in a faithful translation. In that book, God certainly did not condemn them.

As for marriage, in our society marriage confers specific legal rights—rights of custody, visitation, inheritance, etc.—that are not granted to the unwed. To deny these rights to individuals who love and cherish their "homosexual" partners just as much as "heterosexuals" do theirs is a gross miscarriage of justice. These rights are not predicated on whether one has sex or not, nor with whom. In fact, the rights conferred by the marriage rites are not accompanied by any guarantee of fidelity or love or longevity. Marriage simply acknowledges that the two people have consented to be wed. That’s it. The fact that homosexual males or females can find partners in whom they hope to find love, commitment, and longevity of a relationship should be rewarded for the same reasons that anyone else is allowed to marry.

Let’s face it, the “one man-one woman, till death do us part” premise has been a hypocrisy since its medieval conception. Witness the sanctioned, extramarital proclivities of males since time immemorial. Read Pearl Buck’s “The Good Earth” for an alternative version of marriage—one that is devastating to the woman—but one that had (and in some circles still has) wide acceptance. In “Ist Chronicles 3” and beyond, David’s many wives (at least 8) are enumerated. Marriage for Solomon and his hundreds of wives was purportedly for political convenience; in other words, the women were given (sold) to him to consummate political alliances.

Clearly, in most societies, certainly in this society, we have “evolved” beyond these archaic conceptions of marriage. Now we embrace a pledge of mutual love and devotion as criteria for marriage, not political plunder or male prerogative. Certainly these criteria of love and devotion can be met through both opposite-sex and same-sex marriage.

How individual churches choose to address the issue of same-sex marriage is a matter of religion. Those religions that are openly hostile to gays will clearly begin to lose members as gay marriage proves to be identical to non-gay marriage. Those churches who embrace gays will not only earn gay devotees, but they will also gain converts who turn from those bigoted and backward, exclusionary, patriarchal denominations.

Superstition, groundless and spurious fears, and meaningless prejudice should not be allowed to forbid gays the basic legal rights and protections given to other consenting adults. Neither should illogical or irrational arguments be allowed to hold sway in the arena of public opinion.

Jonathan, I encourage you to read the Bible and the other holy books of the great religions with a careful and thoughtful eye and ear and heart. I encourage you to keep questioning the things that confuse you about the position of those with whom you disagree, and I encourage you to truly try to seek out the answers to your questions. If your question was, in fact, sincere, perhaps, as you examine the issue further, you may eventually arrive at a conclusion different from the one that you now hold. Rest assured, a majority of this country and the world will soon look back on the systematic persecution of gays and the denial of their civil rights as a gross and unconscionable miscarriage of justice.

The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!

Tim McMullen