D. Godby writes that pro-life as a womb-to-tomb belief.

Being 'pro-life,' according to Pop John Paul and church teaching, is a 'womb to tomb' belief. It's not just about being opposed to abortion. Being pro-life involves a consistent ethic of life. Church teaching is very clear in its opposition to the death penalty, almost all wars, poverty, and for such matters as stewardship of the Earth, health care and full employment. Pope John Paul II oculd not have been any more emphatic about his opposition to the current war in Iraq or to the death penalty.

Well said.

On Sunday November the 21st, during his pre-Thanksgiving sermon, the Reverend Jerry Falwell had this to say…

………"Let me talk to you about five good things of late ... for which this week I hope you and your family around your Thanksgiving table will praise the Lord. ... No. 5: America has alternative news media and is no longer held hostage by the major print and broadcast media. I remember a day when ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN and the major print media controlled all the news flow to the American people and we found ourselves getting warped and distorted news. I thank God now in the 21st century for talk radio, that three hours a day people like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and hundreds of others are telling the truth of what really is going on. I thank God for FOX News Channel [applause]. I thank God for the Internet bloggers and the news producers like NewsMax.com, WorldNetDaily.com, even The Drudge Report."………

Ask the Oregonian to cover Iraqi elections.

J. Houser asks the Oregonian to provide its readers with a series on the election campaign in Iraq. What a good idea! He asks:

How is the voter registration process progressing?
Who are the political candidates and parties?
What roles are the Bush and Allawi administrations playing in the upcoming elections?
Who is monitoring the election process?

I would really like to see this reported. All we have heard so far is that various Iraqi groups have asked for the election to be postponed until the country is calmer -- but Allawi just came back and said that they had to have the election as scheduled. Various Iraqi groups are urging Iraqis to boycott the elections. It's not clear that any elections can be held in insurgent areas of the country.

Overgeneralization error in Oregonian LTE, lists of cognitive distortions

In an Oregonian LTE 11/29/04 S. Jones says:

One negative comment heard on a TV interview following the election was, "I'm ashamed to be an American. I'm depressed." But what could be more depressing than watching a bunch of sore losers walking the streets of downtown Portland this month in protest of the election outcome?"

There are several problems with this. The first is an overgeneralization error. Many people are depressed -- a few people demonstrated. Even if the few who demonstrated were depressed, the actions of the few do not reflect upon the many. Her comments are not against the few who demonstrated, but against all of us who are depressed at the outcome of the election -- and that might include half the country.

This cognitive error is common. People see alcoholics on Burnside. They conclude that this small sample represents what alcoholics look like. They rationalize they cannot possibly be alcoholic because they have not reached this nadir of existence. They ignore their own problems with alcohol.

But the bigger problem is that she doesn't seem to get why people who voted for Kerry are depressed. What would she think about another effort to show our sadness, like http://www.sorryeverybody.com/ and the concommitant http://www.apologiesaccepted.com/index.html? I truly believed that this was an election between good and evil and evil won. More than that, I believe evil won through illogic. I'm looking for the logical people who voted for Bush, but everyone I've talked to so far has been depressingly illogical.

Getting back to S, in an even more ironic twist, overgeneralization is often a factor in becoming depressed. The fact that she is using this might explain why she ends her letter with:
I'm ashamed to be an Oregonian. I'm depressed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_distortion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases


Interesting new site at http://changingminds.org/

I've heard from friends and pundits of horrid Thanksgivings where ignorant Republicans gloat over Bush's victory in front of their Democratic relatives, knowing that we believe that this was the most important election in our lifetime. We lost. We lost, didn't we. One of my friends was in charge of the Coordinated Kerry campaign in our legislative district. He's 25 or so, so a young person. When he went to his mother's for Thanksgiving, his aunt mocked him. More family values.

If we had won, we would not have gloated. We would have rejoiced in a world suddenly gone rational again. These Republicans will never take responsibility. When it turns out that Bush is a genocidal monster, they willl still have no responsibility. They will have made no mistake.

The media is completely controlled. There will be no salvation there. The government now enforces a visa requirement to keep foreign journalists out.