As the song says, "The Times They Are A Changing". Back in the fall of 1969 the Jefferson Airplane was singing about the young generation in the song "Volenteers" when in fact Grace Slick herself was already close to turning that dread age of thirty. Now we have another generational situation arising over this proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. This one to me would seem like a slam dunk. Why is in favor of gay marriage? If you listen to FOX news, it turns out anyone under forty seems to favor gay marriage and would vote against this constitutional amendment. It's hard to believe but gay marriage is seen in the same light as interracial marriage was forty years ago. It's something that conservatives were against but "enlightened" Americans were all for. It could be that forty years from now gay marriage, between two women or two men, will be as accepted as interracial marriage is today. The times they are a changing. It would seem that the era of conservative republicans in the White House, an era which began in 1969 is now coming to an end. I think George Bush has slipped to 29% approval rating in the nation-wide polls and is now 28% in the field poll in California. I think the only other president to sink that low was Richard Nixon the week before he resigned. It seems that no matter what George Bush does to bolster his ratings, it backfires. He wants a flag burning amandment. Congress will be debating both flag burning and the gay marriage thing in the next few weeks. Many liberals consider both of these pursuits a waste of time. If the majority of Americans come to believe it's a waste of time it could bode badly for the Republicans in November.

Immigration may be another area where conservatives on the right are fighting a losing battle. They used to have about five hundred aliens storm the gates near San Diego all at once knowing they couldn't catch all of them. This was an embarrasment to the Clinton adminestration and so now they have all the major cities fences off and the aliens have to trek through the desert and about 540 have died out there in the past year. And when they tried to round up illegal aliens in Iowa at a meat packing plant they drove the plant out of business and neighboring state Nebraska said to the feds, "Don't impose your rules in our state". This illegal aliens problem may have advanced to the state where nothing can be done about it.

Of course now Bush is doing these "signing statement" adendums to bills. That means he won't veto a bill; he'll sign it but he'll also write out a provision as to what he think the bill actually means. So when torture of POW's is banned, Bush will simply exempt himself. Just recently the pentagon deleted some language from an army manual having to do with humane treatment of POW's. Now I guess you're free to torture. Bush has done more of these signing addendums to bills- - twice as many as all other presidents of the US combined. I guess the trend began under Ronald Reagan but has gotten worse and worse over the years. Now the Bush adminestration is refusing to prosecute doctors who illegally give out information about their patients violating the doctor-patient confidence. I think what the next Democrat needs to do is just point to the constitution and say "These are our guidelines and they won't be violated". Just say "We won't have secret torture. We won't hold people illegally without charging them, and we won't wiretap without a warrent". Let's just keep our fingers crossed.

The Iraq War is coming along miserably now. Clearly we are in an escalating Civil War and are unable to stop it- - even if we had twice as many troops. Clearly the government is not as stable as I, for one, thought it was. Things are not "stabelizing" but constantly getting worse. The violence is escalating and spreading to other areas. Basically the Iraq War has been the centerpiece of the eight year Bush adminestration. As John Kerry says, "It's not a record to run on; it's a record to run from". You can "think good thoughts" but reporters are still getting killed. I would personally like to say to the leader of Iran, "The President's popularity in this country has nothing to do with the morality of what you're doing over there". It would be really nice if we got more moral support from Europe, but of course we won't.

I still haven't seen "An Inconvienient Truth" but two of the most shocking scenes are that "The snows of Mt. Killemonjero" are all but disappeared now. Also there is a glature in southern Argentina that has all but melted now, like a Simpson's cartoon. When the ten hottest years of all time are within the last fourteen years, it's hard to argue that Global Warming is not taking place. But of course Conservatives do. They won't admit they're wrong because this is too much of a sacred issue with them. It's one of the corner stones of their Belief system. "Industry is good; Government regulation is bad". My only complaint is that I looked up the movie schedule in this area on the internet and I didn't see the Gore movie listed anywhere.

Christianity too is changing with the times. Billy Graham is likely to kick the bucket any day now and Franklin Graham doesn't have the carisma of his father to attract new people. These Billy Graham crusades have turned into news magazines talking about world events. You have to water the gospell down to make it pallitable to today's pallette. Religion should be, I suppose like fine wine. It contains alcohol, yes, but it also contains the juice of the grape. I am like a person who has drunk of the straight distilled religion and it's not palletable. Religion was never meant to be drunk straight. I suppose pure distilled religion would be the Jesus Christ show on KFI. Religion being drudgery, tedious, boring, and without inspiration. I look at role models and I would not care to model my actions after any Born Again pastor. Some may say "Well, you can both fellowship in the idea you both hate gays". That's not true. First of all I don't hate gays- - it's just that gayness profanes the whole concept of marriage. Although in my case it might as well have been "Adam and Steve" and not "Adam and Eve" because my experiance is "dating the opposit sex" is kind of a "gateway sin" that leads to worse sins, in the same way that marijuana is a gateway drug. Just a few months ago I expressed intrest in a Christian female and her response was "I don't date". Unless God told you she's the one you're destined to marry, about all romantic contact with the opposit sex is outside their law. The only way to make a Christian pastor happy if you're single is to be utterly asexual. But like I say I would not even want to pattern my life after these shallow, frightened, neurotic, pathetic people. I have seen no role model for myself in the church.

It is said the reason why we need blood atonement for our sins is because we have all sinned ans "come short of the glory of God" I don't know anyone on the planet who remained a Christian for as long as I did with so little in return. If I don't have the "faith" to believe- - nobody does. Faith in the first place is "The substance of things hoped for". I don't have this. Some say "No, faith is being trustworthy and faithful to a relationship you have with someone". The trouble is there is no "evidence" that God and I have ever had a "relationship" Shockingly I could not model myself after Jesus Christ, either. Jesus did not become God because he was perfect, he was ruled perfect because he was already declaired God. I believe in the golden rule. If Jesus believed in it too he would physically heal everyone in the world of their deseases and malodies. This hasn't happened. Jesus felt free to openly criticize religious people in high places in a way you or I would never dream of doing making all sorts of accusations against them. If you or I were today to engage in the same behavior as Jesus did we'd be locked up, perhaps in a psycho ward. Jesus lived thirty years in an ordenary life minding his own business. I didn't do that because I became a Christian at age twenty-five. Jesus didn't have to worry about whether or not to "become a Christian". Think about that. But significantly, and I picked up on this about fifteen years ago- there's one thing we humans do that Jesus never did in the Bible, and that is to follow orders or directions. Many of us are told "shut up" "get in line" "stand over there" "show respect" or whatever. Jesus being God had the unique life of being the center of his own world and didn't have to "humble" himself to anybody. But just think- - for the first thirty years Jesus had an ideal life and he had one without having to become a Christian. I find that fact just totally trippy.

Not only on the subject of gay marriage but also on religion in general- - I suspect there is a great devide between those over and those under forty. I'll reming you that in no "future scenario" in any movie that I am aware of does Christianity even exist. Either everybody is wrong, or everyone is "seeing the obvious". (Selah)