The Future of the US - Flowers for Assassins?

Rose petals thrown for assassin of Salman Taseer as he heads to court. NYT

Sociometrics: Using God and Morality as a Weapon and a Defence to Get and Maintain Control

"My wife and I are Christians and the Pearl system is one of the most anti-Christian systems I've ever heard of," says Mathers. "Part of what unnerves me is how many Christians I've encountered in the past week who either follow the Pearl system or step around it, saying, 'They may be a little extreme, but there's some good principles in there.' It scares me that there are people walking around with such things being acceptable in their heads. It scares me that people who call themselves Christians are willing to be so mean and merciless, or at the very least, that they feel OK condoning people like that." (Mathers is also not alone in believing that -- long hermeneutical story short -- the Pearls’ entire ministry is based on flawed, even heretical, theology.)  Salon

Sociometrics: Recommended Reading

It's intoxicating to be told it's okay to embrace your weaknesses and not bother with building yourself, on your own, with trust that you were given the necessary skills by some abstract and complex process.  Republican Gomorrah explores this as it's applied to a political process. The Republican Party was about independent thinking and pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps and small government. It almost seems as if that were a fairy tale considering what has been occurring in politics that last few decades.  Fern Phan

About the book:

Republican Gomorrah is an intimate portrayal of a political,
social, and religious movement defined by an “escape from freedom.” As Erich Fromm explained, those who join the ranks of an authoritarian cause to resolve inner turmoil and self-doubt are always its most fervent, rigidly ideological, and loyal members. They are... often its most politically influential members as well. President Eisenhower described the “mental stress and burden” that animates such movements. His admonition to beware the danger posed to democracy by those who
seek “freedom from the necessity of informing themselves and making up
their own minds concerning these tremendous complex and difficult
questions” should be as memorable in history as his caution about the
“military-industrial complex” in his farewell address. Republican Gamorrah