I don't believe in hell and neither should you

I'll just say it out loud: I don't believe in hell. I don't care what the Bible may or may not say on the matter. I don't care what the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches. The concept of hell is monstrously absurd -- and no sane person should believe it.

I don't need to argue my point of view by citing this or that scripture, or some or other famed theologian. I arrived at my conclusion that way most sane people do: By the use of reason and a dash of common sense.

The doctrine of hell -- the concept, the idea, the premise -- is that a loving God created a place of eternal torment for people (and angels) who refuse to love Him. To avoid this dreadful fate, evangelical Christians talk about taking Jesus as one's personal savior. Muslims talk about making their submission to Allah. Catholics stress the need to be baptized and die in communion with the Church in order to be saved. The basic idea is the same: Unless you jump through some hoops, you will spend eternity in a "lake of fire."

It's important to understand the idea, to dig deep into it, to genuinely comprehend it.

Firstly, it cannot be stressed enough: Hell is an utterly monstrous idea. It is a shocking creation. It's twisted. It's sick. The psychology beneath it is deeply abnormal.

Eternal punishment is ... eternal. And that's a very long time. No matter how many eons might pass in such a place, it would still be only the beginning. Millions of years could pass ... billions ... trillions ... trillions upon trillions of years ... but still , it would only be the beginning. The torment, the agony, the dreadful pains, would never end. Never. No matter how much time passed, the agony would go on and on for eternity. What could a finite human being do to deserve such an infinite punishment?

If you don't grasp the full horror of it, spend some time with it. Chew on it. Think about it. Dig into it. Immerse yourself fully into the idea of it. The more you think about it, the more you realize what an insane idea it is.  And not insane with a small case i, but INSANE. Sick. Twisted. Preposterous. Literally beyond belief.

But the really insane thing is to attribute the creation of hell to a "loving God." A great many Christians will tell you flat out that if you don't accept Jesus as your personal savior, you will go to hell. And they believe it. And they are genuinely distressed at the idea that you would prefer such a fate when all you have to do to "save yourself" is accept Jesus as your personal savior. They are quick to point out that this isn't their idea, that this is God's plan, that it's all there in the Bible.

As indeed it seems to be.

Here's the rub. A loving God created you, but if you don't love Him back, He will destroy you forever in the lake of fire.

How is this love?

You have to ask yourself. If I stood in front of you with a knife to your throat and insisted that you "love" me, how would you feel? If your safety and well being depended on loving me, would it be love? It's ridiculous, is it not? Yet we are asked to believe this is what God expects of us. This is "God's plan." Unless you agree to "love" this all-powerful entity, you will be utterly destroyed.

This is not love. It's insane to even have to point it out. This is not how love works. This is not how you treat someone you love. This is deeply unhealthy. This is perverted, sick, twisted, abnormal. And to attribute it to God is complete foolishness. It's insulting.

I'm not the first to arrive at this conclusion by any means, but it's always been a well-kept secret.

Something in us wants the idea of hell to be true. Right? We feel that people like Adolf Hitler deserve a place of eternal torment in the afterlife. We feel his crimes deserve it. We want him to be punished. The Jehovah's Witnesses have an interesting solution to this dilemma. They believe that people who have rejected God will simply wink out of existence when they die. God will remember them no more, and they will exist no more. No need for a place of eternal torment. Just a respectful acknowledge of a choice that a person made.

Different demonstrations have different ideas.

Hardliners will tell us that without the threat of the punishment of hell, people will not be good. What I've found is exactly the opposite. When you come to the realization that you are indeed loved by God, you will want to respond to that love, not from a place of fear, but out of a genuine sense of gratitude.

Our psychology does not allow us to love someone we fear. We cannot mix fear and love. It doesn't work that way.  And this attempt to try to force people to either love God or face eternal punishment, has done enormous harm.

Don't take my word for it. Look to your own experience. Can you love someone that you are afraid of? Does it work? Is it healthy? Or don't you get tired of being afraid?

• Nick Wilgus is an award-winning author based in Tupelo, Mississippi. Check out his latest novel from Dreamspinner Press, RAISE IT UP, available in paperback and ebook formats.

What's Up with Mississippi?

In the realms of chutzpah, it was a bona fide keeper. Mississippi Speaker of the House Philip Gunn said he was disappointed that a judge had ruled against House Bill 1523, which would have allowed discrimination against LGBT folks under the guise of religious liberty. Federal judge Carlton Reeves put a stay on the bill, which was to take effect on July 1, 2016.

Gunn said, "We felt like it was a good bill, protecting religious beliefs and the rights of LGBT community."

He did not explain how giving religious people a free pass to discriminate against the gay community would "protect the rights of LGBT community." He also did not explain his aversion to the use of a definite article.

Perhaps he was trying to one-up his boss, Governor Phil Bryant, who received the Samuel Adams Religious Freedom Award from the Family Research Council (categorized as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center), for signing the bill in the first place. During the award ceremony, held in Washington, D.C., Bryant said, "They don't know that Christians have been persecuted throughout the ages. They don't know that if it takes crucifixion, we will stand in line before abandoning our faith and our belief in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So if we are going to stand, now is the time and this is the place."

As Judge Reeves noted in his dissent, the bill was clearly a reaction to last year's marriage equality ruling that made gay marriage legal throughout the United States. Bryant and his friends in the Mississippi legislature thought they had come up with an end run around the ruling with a so-called "religious liberty" bill. After all, who doesn't want to protect "religious liberty"? 

Proponents argued that unless the bill was signed, pastors in the state of Mississippi would be forced to marry gay couples whether they wanted to or not. They provided no evidence for this claim, and were apparently unaware that not one pastor or priest or anyone else wearing a funny hat in this country has ever been forced to marry a gay couple against their will. 

Not to be outdone, the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer posted this on his Facebook page:

He also said the "homosexual agenda is the greatest threat to religious liberty in our nation's history."

Fischer's overheated and over the top rhetoric is one of the reasons why the American Family Association was also categorized as a hate group  by the Southern Poverty Law Center. 

The only sensible statement from a public official in Mississippi on this matter came from Attorney General Jim Hood, who said, "The fact is that the churchgoing public was duped into believing that HB1523 protected religious freedoms. Our state leaders attempted to mislead pastors into believing that if this bill were not passed, they would have to preside over gay wedding ceremonies. No court case has ever said a pastor did not have discretion to refuse to marry any couple for any reason. I hate to see politicians continue to prey on people who pray, go to church, follow the law and help their fellow man."

The challenges faced by Mississippi are many and well known. How its opposition to gay marriage and gay rights in general will help the state with these challenges is a complete mystery. HB1523 has actually hurt the state. Many main street groups and chambers of commerce asked the governor not to sign the bill, as did major corporations like Nissan, Toyota, Levis, Tyson Foods and many others. The governor ignored all these folks and signed the bill anyway. 

Now that a stay has been issued against it, there is talk of an appeal. 

Why, Mississippi? What's up with that?

Are radio stations in Mississippi self-censoring the gay-friendly country song 'Follow Your Arrow'?

Kacey Musgrove's gay-friendly Follow Your Arrow was named Song of the Year at this year's Country Music Awards -- but a lot of us in the Magnolia State had never heard of it.

How could this happen?

How could folks who listen to country music each and every day on the radio draw a blank over a song that was named Song of the Year?

Here's how:

Some radio stations down here won't play it. Musgrove's Merry Go Round gets routine play, but the gay-friendly Follow Your Arrow? Not a chance.

The media is Mississippi is known for timidity. Radio stations are apparently no exception. Very often what's not reported is far more important that what we see in our newspapers and televisions or hear on our radios.

For most of the media in Mississippi, gay people do not exist. Far easier to pass over the matter in silence (and, conveniently, not have to worry about offending advertisers) than to be forthcoming.

By self-censoring, the media hope to ... what? Spare viewers and listeners from having to consider the fact that gay people exist in their midst? Do these media outlets believe the people of Mississippi are too stupid or too childish to be able to cope with this information? Do they believe they are doing us a public service by keeping silent?

Do Mississippians want their media to treat them as though they were children who need to be protected from the realities of the world?

And why, knee deep into the 21st century as we are, do the media in Mississippi feel the need to censor themselves?

What are they afraid of?

Win a free audio book version of SHAKING THE SUGAR TREE

SHAKING THE SUGAR TREE, about a gay single father in the South whose deaf son helps him find a boyfriend, recently became a best-seller, and to celebrate I'm giving away two copies of the AUDIO BOOK.

But first, some news:

The press in Mississippi, where I live, has finally noticed.

Writing for the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Leslie Criss says:

 "Clearly, the author has a flair for storytelling. He also possesses an ability to weave words together in a way that makes his work not only readable and interesting, but also powerful. I can’t say this about all authors whom I’ve read, but Wilgus has an amazing ability to write life into his characters. I immediately felt a connection with most, if not all of them. I cared about them, and I thought about them long after I’d finished the book."

R.H. Coupe, writing for the Jackson Free Press, says: 

"I read his most recent book ... on a flight to and from New Jersey. At times it had me laughing so hard I woke up the drooling drunk who had fallen asleep on my shoulder. Later, the flight attendant brought me some tissues to wipe my eyes and asked me if I was all right. The book is terribly painful at times—the kind of pain that comes from the helplessness of seeing a parent rejecting a child."

SHAKING THE SUGAR TREE has picked up numerous five-star reviews on book review blogs like The Tipsy Bibliophile, who says:

"There were many things I loved about this book. I loved the writing and I loved the setting. I completely enjoyed the raw and fierce love Wiley had for his son. All good, GOOD things. But Wiley himself, man, that guy went straight for my soul. I could relate to him in such a deep, and basic level it was staggering at times." 

See also reviews on:

Prism Book Alliance - "I have never read a book like this!" 

Gay List Book Review - "Absolutely loved it!"

Mrs. Condit Reads Books - "One of the most amazing books I've read in a while."

The Novel Approach - "My introduction to Mr. Wilgus's work was nothing short of extraordinary."

In other news, the AUDIO BOOK format of SHAKING THE SUGAR TREE was recently released. Narrated by Wayne Messmer, you can find it on Audible.com.

Fans of SUGAR TREE will be happy to know a sequel is on the way. It's called STONES IN THE ROAD and it's all about what happens when Jackson Ledbetter's parents from Boston pay a visit. Here's a little taste:

FREE AUDIO BOOK GIVEAWAY

To win one of the two audio book versions of SHAKING THE SUGAR TREE up for grabs, find your way to my Facebook page and leave me a message or a comment stating that you want to win. (If the link doesn't work for you, search Facebook for "Nick Wilgus" or "Wilgus World".) 

I'll put your name in the pot. The two winners will be selected by a random drawing this Friday evening (August 1, 2014) at 8pm (my time!). I'll post a status update with the names of the winners so be sure to check back to see if you've won. If you have, you'll have to provide your email address so I can email you a code and instructions for Audible.com. 

Good luck!

And thanks for reading!

Are the media in Mississippi sitting out another civil rights battle?

As I paid for my newly-printed super-duper press kit announcing the release of my latest book, I knew I was wasting my money - and I was not wrong.

The press release was intended for publications and media outlets in the state of Mississippi where I live. I hoped to announce to my fellow citizens the release of SHAKING THE SUGAR TREE, a romantic-comedy novel about a gay single father whose deaf son helps him find a boyfriend.

Here's how it works: When a company or an individual wants or needs press attention, one writes a press release and attaches appropriate documents - an author's photo, a photo of the book cover, graphics, whatnot. As a former newspaper editor, I am quite familiar with the flow of press releases that come over the transom. Editors must pick and choose, of course, because there's simply not enough room to print all of them. Some press releases are more newsworthy than others. Some have clearly been put together by deranged lunatics. Others announce new services in the community of interest to readers, company expansions, new restaurants, art shows, the latest releases at the cinema.

I knew, going in, that the competition was fierce, but I had to ask myself: How many Mississippi authors have released a novel lately? Doesn't Mississippi pride itself on its authors? And wouldn't newspapers in my own backyard -- even the one in my home town -- want to share my happy news with their readers about a local who did good and got a book published?

A month has gone by, and thus far, the answer seems to be ... "apparently not."

Does it have anything to do with the main character being gay? Is the great state of Mississippi not ready to cope with the fact that gay people exist? Do these media outlets believe that ignoring the lives, struggles and achievements of gay people will make the whole "gay thing" go away?

I spent a year editing a small newspaper in Mississippi. I know the answers to my questions. Most newspapers and media outlets here are so dependent on advertisers to survive they are reluctant to run stories that might offend people, that might challenge the status quo, that might raise uncomfortable questions or issues. They are extremely cautious and not a little timid.

Perhaps their survival depends on it. I understand that. What bothers me is the perception created among readers when the news media shies away from controversy. If we don't talk about gay people, it's easy to pretend they don't exist, or they're not important, or that they have nothing to say. If we don't talk about gay people, how are we going to deal with bigotry and prejudice and move Mississippi into the 21st century?

More generally, if newspapers are not allowed to talk about the realities on the ground, how can their readers consider themselves informed? What's the point of buying a newspaper if all it does is confirm the status quo and refuses to educate readers about the issues of the day?  Are Mississippi media consumers content to be spoon-fed this daily diet of the status quo, or do they, perhaps, want something more?

Not all media outlets are so timid, of course. Mississippi Public Broadcasting (MPB) is a good source for news, and I'm quite fond of the Jackson Free Press and blogs like Deep South Progressive. We need more media outlets like these. A lot more.




I mailed out twenty press packets to media outlets near and far. I also emailed some personal contacts in the media business -- people I've met, people I've worked with, people I've encountered on Facebook.

Thus far, I have heard back from two people.

One fellow somewhat sheepishly told me that the owner of his publication was a fundamentalist Christian who wouldn't touch my press release with a 200-foot ice pick.

The other agreed to have a look at a review copy of my book, which I supplied at my own expense. If this person liked the book, I might hope for a review or perhaps a small mention.

And what of the folks at the newspaper where I worked for a year? They didn't respond at all.






So. 

Is my book, perhaps, so awful, so poorly written, so utterly lacking in any literary merit whatsoever that no decent person would dare mention it in polite company?

Apparently not. Not if the folks leaving reviews on Amazon.com and Goodreads.com are anything to go by. The vast majority of my reviews have been a solid five stars.

Here's what Susan65 on Amazon said:

"Nothing I can say will ever come close to adequately describing the brilliant awesomeness that is this book. I feel like I hit the reader’s jackpot and am a better person, a better reader, and a better reviewer for having the privilege of experiencing the life that is Wiley Cantrell, and by extension, Jackson Ledbetter and their son, Noah. It’s not very often a book gets a strangle hold on me but this one grabbed me from the get-go, and wow, what a strong grip that wouldn’t let go." 

Many readers have gone on in similar veins. Even Jonathan Odell, Mississippi author of The Healing, was enthusiastic:

"I LOVE Nick Wilgus’s touching, hilarious, heart-breaking, over-the-top but totally believable gem of a novel. These characters, and the perfectly lyrical language they speak, won’t quit you just because you finish the book. They’ll move into your heart and take up residence."

The kind souls at The Tipsy Bibliophile were very kind:

"Recommend it completely and it is solidly in my all time favorites list. Wiley, Noah and all their people are unforgettable." 




Since the media in Mississippi are holding their tongues, allow me to use this blog post to announce the release of my new novel, SHAKING THE SUGAR TREE, published by DreamSpinner Press. 

Here's a peek at the cover:

Here's the blurb:

Wise-cracking Wiley Cantrell is loud and roaringly outrageous—and he needs to be to keep his deeply religious neighbors and family in the Deep South at bay. A failed writer on food stamps, Wiley works a minimum wage job and barely manages to keep himself and his deaf son, Noah, more than a stone’s throw away from Dumpster-diving.

Noah was a meth baby and has the birth defects to prove it. He sees how lonely his father is and tries to help him find a boyfriend while Wiley struggles to help Noah have a relationship with his incarcerated mother, who believes the best way to feed a child is with a slingshot. No wonder Noah becomes Wiley’s biggest supporter when Boston nurse Jackson Ledbetter walks past Wiley’s cash register and sets his sugar tree on fire.

Jackson falls like a wet mule wearing concrete boots for Wiley’s sense of humor. And while Wiley represents much of the best of the South, Jackson is hiding a secret that could threaten this new family in the making.

When North meets South, the cultural misunderstandings are many, but so are the laughs, and the tears, but, as they say down in Dixie, it’s all good.

SHAKING THE SUGAR TREE is available in both print and ebook formats.

Order here.




Just because my book features a gay character doesn't make it a bad book. SHAKING THE SUGAR TREE is all about family, love, needing someone, meeting someone, struggling to survive, raising a special-needs child. It's funny. It's heart-breaking. It's universal.

I don't fool myself into thinking that the publication of one book in the state of Mississippi is an earth-shaking event that demands the attention of the media. It's not. Many books have been published over the years, and have no doubt received the same indifference.

My point is this: Mississippi has a choice. If it wants to know about gay people, it can do what it has always done and tune into Bryan Fischer and the American Family Association and be told how horrible and disgusting we are.

Or -- here's a thought -- it could let its gay residents speak for themselves.

It could pay attention to filmmaker Diana Salameh, who is working on a documentary about gay people in Mississippi called A RAINBOW OVER MISSISSIPPI.

It could write about Papa Peachez, a gay rapper and musician in Jackson who recently released an album called ALLONE.

It could spare a few column inches now and again for Mississippi writers like Kevin Sessums, who wrote MISSISSIPPI SISSY.

And, on the rare chance that a Mississippi writer bases a novel in Tupelo and writes about being a gay parent, it might consider setting aside one of the paragraphs in the news briefs column for a small bit of recognition. It might even want to do a book review.

After all, we're here and we're Mississippians, and our lives, struggles and accomplishments are just as important as our neighbors. And we're perfectly capable of speaking for ourselves.

To its shame, Mississippi sat on the back bench during the Civil Rights struggle in the 1960s.

Will it do so again as another battle rages? 

Protesting the American Family Association

Carla Hale (Photo Credit: Brooke LaValley, Columbus Dispatch)

Joining the ranks of the recently unemployed is Carla Hale. She was fired from Bishop Watterson High School in Columbus, Ohio after 19 years for the crime of listing her lesbian partner as one of the survivors in an obituary for her mother.

The American Family Radio's Bryan Fischer is proud of the school district for taking this action. He believes it's time to "reclaim the D-word" - discrimination. 

“They were absolutely right to do it…. It is right to discriminate against people who engage in aberrant sexual behavior, we should discriminate against people like that.”

He compared this form of discrimination to the way we discriminate against shoplifters, as though listing your life partner in an obituary for your mother was criminal.

Fischer has a long history of bigotry against the gay community, which is why a small group of us recently protested the American Family Association. On April 19, 2013, we gathered outside the AFA headquarters in downtown Tupelo, Mississippi. 

AFA Protest on April 19, 2013.

One of our members informed the general manager that we were there to protest Bryan Fischer's inflammatory and often inaccurate remarks about gay people. Specially mentioned was the discredited research that Fischer uses to give weight to his claims.

One part of that discredited research is the so-called "ex-gay" movement, led by Evangelicals who believe homosexuality can be cured. One of those leaders was John Paulk, the former chairman of Exodus International, who has just released a statement apologizing for his misguided efforts to "cure" gay people.

Paulk says:

"For the better of ten years, I was an advocate and spokesman for what’s known as the 'ex-gay movement' where we declared that sexual orientation could be changed through a close-knit relationship with God, intensive therapy and strong determination. At the time, I truly believed that it would happen. And while many things in my life did change as a Christian, my sexual orientation did not. Today, I do not consider myself 'ex-gay,' and I no longer support or promote the movement. Please allow me to be clear: I do not believe that reparative therapy changes sexual orientation; in fact, it does great harm to many people."

The whole point of our protest was exactly this: Anti-gay bigotry "does great harm to many people."

I asked the general manager why, if he was so concerned about the family and the moral fabric of society, they didn't target fornicators and adulterers, and murders and thieves on their radio programs. I received little more than an embarrassed smile.

If gay people are fair game because of what the AFA considers sinful sexual behavior, why not target fornicators, couples living in sin, adulterers? Fornication and adultery are clearly sinful, according to the scriptures that the AFA claims to follow.

If Bryan Fischer is allowed to rejoice that an older lesbian woman was fired from her job for listing her partner in the obituary for her mother, why not "out" known adulterous teachers and have them fired? What sort of moral example are they setting for school children?

Why is it okay to target one group of "sinners" and not others? Why the hypocrisy?

Consider the following:

The AFA was listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) for its "propagation of known falsehoods and demonizing propaganda."

• The SPLC says: "For years, until 2010, the AFA had a section on its website that supposedly exposed 'The Homosexual Agenda.' There, a reader could find articles and other AFA publications that claimed LGBT people were trying to force the acceptance of homosexuality on children through sex education programs in schools; condemned companies like Disney for supporting LGBT rights and programming; and, also until 2010, featured a particularly noxious booklet the AFA had published in 1994. That booklet, Homosexuality in America: Exposing the Myths, included the bogus research of thoroughly discredited psychologist Paul Cameron as a source. One of the publication’s authors, Richard Howe, used Cameron’s 'research' to claim that LGBT people don’t live as long as heterosexuals, that they’re more promiscuous and that the 'disgusting details of the homosexual lifestyle explain why so many diseases are present in the homosexual community.' Another claim was that '[p]rominent homosexual leaders and publications have voiced support for pedophilia, incest, sadomasochism, and even bestiality.'"

Previous statements by Bryan Fischer and the AFA:

• “Homosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and six million dead Jews.” — Bryan Fischer, AFA director of issue analysis for government and public policy, 2010
• "Now the Bush Administration is opening its arms to homosexual activists who have been working diligently to overthrow the traditional views of Western Civilization regarding human sexuality, marriage and family… AFA would never support the policies of a political party which embraced the homosexual movement. Period."— Don Wildmon, AFA Press Release, April 16, 2001
• "Over the years, AFA has consistently addressed the homosexual movement's obsession with infiltrating the public school system. Its eye-opening video 'It's Not Gay', which presents a heartbreaking look at the physical and emotional consequences of the homosexual lifestyle, has been the most popular video ever produced by AFA." ("Homosexuals push for control of schools," May 2001)
• "Nothing disappointed the [American Family Association] more than Disney's enthusiastic embrace of [the homosexual] movement that rejects everything that is sacred to Christians about human sexuality, marriage and family." ("Why the Disney Boycott Shouldn't Go Away," April 2001)
• "Under homosexual activists' political agenda, our children would face a future in which traditional marriage and families have been legally devalued, while state government— despite the severe threat it poses to personal and public health— not only legally endorses but uses our tax dollars to subsidize deadly homosexual behavior."— Gary Glenn, Director of AFA Michigan (Press Release, February 17, 2001)

Wikipedia says:

• "In May 2010, Bryan Fischer, the AFA's director of Issue Analysis for Government and Public Policy, wrote a blog post on the AFA website detailing purported allegations that Adolf Hitler was a homosexual, and concluded by claiming that the Holocaust (which actually included gay victims of Nazi persecution) was caused by homosexuals in the Nazi German military: "Nazi Germany became the horror that it was because it rejected both Christianity and its clear teaching about human sexuality. These are mistakes no sane culture should ever make again."
• "In August, 2012, AFA Director of Issue Analysis Bryan Fischer compared the children of gay parents to slaves, tweeting that "we need an Underground Railroad to deliver innocent children from same-sex households".
• "The Southern Poverty Law Center, through its Teaching Tolerance program, had encouraged schools across the U.S. to hold a "Mix It Up" day in order to encourage children in schools to break up the cliques that tend to dominate children's school lives and to prevent bullying. The program, started 11 years ago, has been held in more than 2,500 schools. But in the autumn of 2012, the AFA falsely branded the project "a nationwide push to promote the homosexual lifestyle in public schools," even though the program makes no mention of homosexuality, and urged parents to keep their children home from school on October 30, 2012, and to call their children's schools to protest the event. "I was surprised that they completely lied about what Mix It Up Day is," Maureen Costello, the director of the center's Teaching Tolerance project, which organizes the program, told The New York Times. "It was a cycnical, fear-mongering tactic." Severson, Kim (2012-10-14). "Seeing a Homosexual Agenda, Christian Group Protests an Anti-Bullying Program". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2013-02-10.
• "Former AFA California leader Scott Lively is a co-author of The Pink Swastika, which claims that many leaders in the Nazi regime, including Adolf Hitler himself, were homosexual, which drew criticism from historians. He has since co-founded Watchmen on the Walls.
• "Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), in a 2005 report, stated that the AFA, along with other groups, engaged in hate speech to "help drive the religious right's anti-gay crusade." Mark Potok of the SPLC determined that the turning point was 2003's Lawrence v. Texas, in which the Supreme Court struck down Texas's anti-sodomy laws. After that, the Christian right spent millions on advertisements, and on pastor briefings organized by activists such as born-again Christian David Lane. Lane helped AFA put constitutional opposite-sex marriage amendments on the ballots of 13 states.
• "In November 2010, the SPLC changed their listing of AFA from a group that used hate speech to the more serious one of being designated a hate group. Potok said that the AFA's "propagation of known falsehoods and demonizing propaganda" was the basis for the change." 

I've listened to Bryan Fischer on the radio myself. One day he stated that there was absolutely no scientific evidence whatsoever to suggest that homosexuality was anything but a choice. He was quite clear: There is absolutely no scientific, genetic, medical or biological evidence to suggest that homosexuality is anything but a choice. Therefore, because it's a "choice" and not a matter of genes and biology, it is perfectly okay to discriminate against homosexuals just as we would discriminate against drug addicts or murderers who make the choice to take drugs or murder other people.

This is astonishing ignorance. Contrary to Fischer's claims, there are mountains of evidence to suggest that homosexuality is NOT a choice. There are millions of gay people Fischer might have spoke to who would tell him quite convincingly that no one makes a choice to be gay. And there are numerous studies and copious amounts of research in all sorts of fields suggesting that homosexuality is a natural condition that occurs quite consistently in a small percentage of any population, anywhere in the world, at all times throughout human history.

How can someone go on the radio and make such blatantly false statements? Has Fischer never heard of "Thou shalt not bear false witness"?

The general manager of the AFA was quick to point they take no responsibility for Fischer's statements. He reminded us that they run a disclaimer at the end of his radio program stating that the AFA is not responsible for the content of Fischer's program.

While they may not take responsibility for his statements, they seem to have no trouble using his homophobia and falsehoods to prop up ratings and earn money.

Doesn't seem very Christian to some of us.

A SMALL BEGINNING

There were only about a dozen of us at the AFA protest, which included LGBT activists, family members, and heterosexual supporters of LGBT rights.

The only media attention we received was this report by the Daily Journal, which noted:

Activist Amelie Hahn of Tupelo chose AFA as the site for the demonstration on the claim that the organization is one of the biggest bullies toward the gay community.

“AFA is a religious organization and that’s fine, but they shouldn’t be able to discriminate,” she said.

She accused AFA of using debunked studies and falsified reports to back up its claims against homosexuals. Among them are claims that same-sex parenting is a detriment to children and the Nazi war machine of Adolph Hitler was made up of gay officers.

“More than anything I hope we can impact the listeners of AFA’s programs and encourage them to check the facts, not just take in what they hear,” she said. “Because these people say they are Christian, listeners can’t believe they would lie.”

Like other protesters that day, I expressed the idea that the AFA has every right to its spiritual beliefs concerning homosexuality. I told them as much that day. This is not, and has never been, in dispute. If they believe the Bible speaks against homosexuality, they are completely free to hold that belief. No one is suggesting they abandon their beliefs. What we are suggesting is they get the facts straight and stop knowingly and willingly misleading their listeners with myth and misinformation.

We are suggesting they stop using discredited research and needlessly inflammatory statements, such as comparing homosexuality to shoplifting, or suggesting that the children of gay couples should be kidnapped and spirited away to "save" them. It was for these sorts of statements that the AFA was classified as a hate group. It is these sort of statements we will continue to protest until the AFA gets the message.

And we will protest the AFA again. Next time, I hope many more people show up to tell the AFA that their bigotry and falsehoods are disgraceful and will not go unchallenged. 

Trans student in small town Mississippi sparks debate

"Leah," a transgendered senior in the Panola School District.

There's a remarkable story playing out today in the small town of Batesville, Mississippi. A male-to-female transgendered high school senior identified only as Leah decided to finish out the rest of the year wearing female clothing.

Angry parents, reported to be concerned their religious liberty was being violated by the presence of a transgendered student in their high school, set up a Facebook page called Prayers for South Panola School District bearing this message:

"This page is set up to form a Christian based group to pray for our school's administration, board members, principles, teachers and students. It's time to STEP UP and put CHRIST back in our schools where he belongs!"

As word spread, the Mississippians Support Leah page was set up in response bearing this message: "Mississippians Support Leah respects the rights of ALL people to live the lives they are meant to live, free from abuse and discrimination. We insist on DIGNITY and RESPECT for ALL Mississippians including our LGBTQ family and friends."

The page put up by the parents currently has 540 likes.

Leah's page currently has 1,723.

Both pages were set up yesterday (Tuesday, February 26, 2013).

Facebook has been ablaze with posts about the matter and suddenly, by one student daring to be honest about what she feels to be her true gender, Mississippi finds itself having a statewide conversation on the rights of a sexual minority.

According to a post on Leah's page:

"It's been reported that some South Panola High School students are wearing shorts and sweatpants - dress code violations - today to protest Leah's "breaking" of the dress code. The concern is, of course, for the feelings of Leah (who is at school), but also that the school's actions may be influenced by the students' protest. It's probably pretty important right now to let South Panola High School know that support for Leah is pouring in from across the state, from all over the country, and around the world. All communications of support for Leah should be VERY VERY polite and courteous, focusing on support of Leah not frustration or anger with the "other" side. You might try sending a Letter to the Editor to The Panolian - send to publisher@panolian.com."

A student who posted a comment on this blog post adds:


"People who supported Leah wore pink and green. The students wearing sweatpants were protesting *against* Leah, claiming that she receives special treatment by being allowed to break the dress code (which she hasn't, as a female). These students stood in front of the school this morning and were allowed to enter after they went home and changed into regular clothes."

The page administrator for Mississippians Support Leah page wrote a post on that page, saying: "The support Leah has received from her classmates and friends at South Panola should give all Mississippians hope that the times they are a changin! Mississippi has a long way to go but considering our history, our state has probably undergone more change than any other. It takes is people like Leah (and her supporters) staying here, taking a stand, and saying, "This is who I am!" to start changing perspectives. It can and will get better!"

The page also posted a picture of Leah sent in by her mother. (See picture above.)

On the parents' page, this message was posted:

"The intent of this page is to get Chriatians (sic) together to pray for our school district. To all the trolls and the ones 'against; this page, we will gladly PRAY for you also! This page was never intended against or toward any student directly. We are PRAYING for the school as a whole. Please keep our chidlren in your prayers today. Pray for our teachers. STAND UP FOR JESUS!!"

• This post was updated February 27, 2013, at 6:42pm.

The new nameless, faceless me

At work today, as a never-ending stream of groceries flowed over the conveyor belt and through my scanner, and onto another conveyor belt to be ferried down to the bagger, I realized that I am literally a cog in a giant, impersonal, uncaring machine.

I always knew that, of course. Knew it intellectually. Knew it theoretically. But today, at work, I suddenly knew it in my gut, in my bones, in my feelings, in my heart. 

I am nothing but a cog in a machine, of no more importance than a bolt in an engine, a staple in a stapler, a piece of carpet in a giant condo. Nameless, faceless, impersonal, I am easily substitutable,  easily replaced, no more important in the grand scheme of things than a shopping cart or a roll of paper towels. 

As the groceries poured down the conveyor belt, it occurred to me that they were the end product of many other conveyor belts in all the many factories and distributions and warehouses they have traveled to get to my line. How many nameless, faceless hands had touched these products, had manufactured them, had labored over them in silence? How many miles had they traveled to wind up in Tupelo, Mississippi, birthplace of Elvis? 

Perhaps words aren't enough to explain the horror I felt. As a writer and journalist, I had been safe from this nameless, faceless world of the poorly paid worker. As the editor of a newspaper, I was not easily replaceable at a moment's notice. As the author of murder mystery novels, I was used to having a sense of identity and purpose and meaning. 

Now, in my old age, I am reduced to running your purchases through a scanner and telling you how much money you owe the nameless, faceless corporation that I represent.

A great weight despair and helplessness has settled over me. I fight it, of course. As an American, I was always taught -- and I always believed -- that if you were willing to work hard, you would get ahead. Now I see that's not always true. Now I see that so many people work very hard indeed, and barely tread water. They certainly never get ahead. How can they?

Regular customers are starting to use my name, having read it from my name badge. It annoys me, to be honest. These customers don't know me. We're not on a first name basis. I am a servant. I am paid to be polite. When you use my first name, I feel slightly patronized. You don't know me. When you look at me and read my name off my name badge, you are reminding me that I am not a person: I am a thing. An easily interchangeable thing. We have an entire raft of cashiers who can replace me at a moment's notice. You would not know the difference, You would not care. 

As a cog in the machine, I am expected to serve a purpose, and I do. I am standing at my register at all times. I am not allowed to chew gum, or drink water, or eat anything, or engage in personal conversations with my fellow employees. I cannot answer my phone if it rings. I cannot rest no matter how much my back or legs might be hurting. 

Every minute is accounted for. If I work a four-hour shift, I get precisely fifteen minutes to take a break -- and no more. Every other minute I am standing there, ready to go, running your purchases through my machine, serving, constantly in motion like a fan belt in an engine. I cannot stop. I cannot pause to use the bathroom. I cannot pause to get a drink. I'm being paid the mighty sum of $7.35 an hour, and the company wants its $7.35 worth. 

After I got off my shift today, I sat in my car for many minutes, smoking a cigarette, somewhat dazed. I am not used to be treated so impersonally. It feels brutal, harsh. I am not used to being a cog in a machine. I feel like I lose something of myself each time I work a shift. I come away feeling less than what I used to be, less of a person, less of an individual.

I sat in my car today and wondered what the future could hold. Am I to be yet one more American with a college degree and professional skills who is now "underemployed"? Am I stuck in the world of low-income workers who have no hope for the future? 

When the company puts $131 dollars in my bank account like it did this past week, which of those $131 dollars am I supposed to save for my retirement? What am I going to do about health care, which I don't have? What am I going to do if I get sick? What am I going to do if my brother kicks me out of his home and I have nowhere to live except my beat-up car?

How is it that so many millions of Americans have, like me, fallen into this abyss? At forty-nine years of age, am I expected to go back to college and get another degree? Do I need to leave Tupelo, Mississippi, and my family and friends, and seek my fortune elsewhere? 

I am a writer. That's what I do. That's what I know. There's not many jobs for writers. My dumb luck, I guess. 

Americans like to pride themselves on their "exceptionalism."And we are indeed exceptional. We're the richest country in the world, and yet we have homeless people on our streets, and millions of nameless, faceless working poor barely getting by so that stockholders and CEOs can wallow in unimaginable wealth. We have millions of kids who are "food insecure." We have politicians who mock the poor, who dismiss them as takers, who sneer at their bitterness and anger and call it "the politics of envy."  We have prominent Christian leaders who care more about zygotes than actual human beings, who have firmly aligned themselves with our heartless form of survival-of-the-fittest capitalism.

Billions of dollars are spent on war - but we can't raise the minimum wage.

Billions of dollars are wasted on subsidies for the oil industry - but we can't raise minimum wage.  

Billions of dollars wind up in the hands of folks like the Walton family, owners of Walmart - but we can't raise minimum wage.

From Occupy Democrats

We have a political party that can't seem to lick the boots of the job creators enough and who have passed legislation over the past thirty years that have left the wealthy a whole lot wealthier than they used to be, and the poor a whole lot poorer. This same political party tells us we can't raise minimum wage even as it wonders why it lost the presidential election so badly. 

We are exceptional, all right. In any other country in the civilized world, there would be riots in the streets. Only Americans would allow themselves to be trampled in this fashion, and we only do so because the wealthy elites have poured millions of dollars into advertising campaigns to convince us that the system is just and fair and more than we deserve. We are like dogs happy for the scraps thrown from the table.

I don't think much about the future now, because there is no future for me, and there's no future for the millions like me stuck in dead-end, low-wage jobs. 

If America were truly exceptional, it would find a way to do better than this. 

Welcome to the world of the working poor

From Occupy Seattle.

I use the self-checkout terminal at the grocery store where I work to pay for my own purchases because I don't want fellow employees to know that I use food stamps. At the self-checkout terminal, you can discreetly swipe your EBT card with no one the wiser.

I suspect I am not alone, though I have seen a fair number of my fellow workers go through my line and use an EBT card, even full-time employees who have worked for years at this company.

They, like me, are the working poor.

How poor do you have to be to be eligible for "SNAP benefits" in the state of Mississippi? You need to be at or below 130 percent of the federal poverty level.

For a single person, your monthly income cannot exceed $1,211 (the amount before taxes and deductions are taken out, usually about 15 percent, which means this figure is actually $1,028).

A single person receives $189 in food stamps monthly. That's amounts to $47.25 weekly. For a grown man to survive on that is not impossible, though weight loss is guaranteed (and indeed, I have been losing weight, an unintended benefit).

For a mom and dad with a child, your combined income cannot exceed $2,069 per month.  For a single mom with three kids, income cannot be more than $2,498 monthly. If you're a single mom living with your parents, you're not eligible until you're 24 years old.

I don't think I've ever met a single mom with three kids making $2,498 dollars a month, but that's another story.

To receive food stamps here, you must provide the following:

1. Proof of residency in the state of Mississippi.
2. Proof of American citizenship (birth certificate, driver's license, social security card).
3. US Citizenship and Immigration Service document if you are not a citizen. 
4. Notice from out-of-state-agency if you have received assistance in another state. 

At the food stamp office where I went, I was greeted by this sign:

A request for assistance in the state of Mississippi is a request for a job. 

Some facts and figures.

The federal poverty level is $11,490 yearly, roughly $950 per month. Take 15 percent off the top for taxes and you're talking real income of $807, about $200 weekly. 

A minimum wage yearly salary is $15,080, roughly $1,250 per month, at $7.25 an hour. Take 15 percent for taxes and you're talking $1,062, or $265 per week.

Out of these figures come all the usual expenses: Rent or mortgage payment, car payment, insurance, utilities including heat, water and the like, gasoline for the vehicle, haircuts, clothing, medical bills, what to speak of luxuries like cable television, Internet access, cell phone payments, dining out, going to the movies, etc. 

For a minimum wage worker bringing home $1,062 dollars per month, how are these expenses to be met? 

There's another report in the news today about how the CEOs of fast food companies make more in one day than their workers do all year. There have been many such reports. The CEO of Walmart is said to make more in one hour than his employees do all year. Some CEOs make more in one minute than their employees do all year. 

The Walton family, who own Walmart and Sam's Club, are valued at $93 billion dollars. Clearly someone is making a profit at Walmart, but it's not the one million workers that Walmart employs, whose wages are so pitiful that many rely on food stamps and Medicare.

We need to consider this very carefully. A person working full time at Walmart is still so poor they have to rely on government assistance to get by. Who pays for that government assistance? Taxpayers, of course. While the CEOs and the stockholders and share-owners are doing very well, thank you, the government must subsidize Walmart because it pays its employees so poorly. 

When we talk about "the government," we're talking about American taxpayers. It's the taxpayers who subsidize Walmart, who make it possible for this company to pay its employees so poorly. 

An interesting dynamic, don't you think? 

From Wal*Mart 1 Percent

You can join the workforce, work forty hours a week or more, and still be so poor that you need food stamps and government-supplied health care to survive. 

Walmart apparently provides health care insurance for its full time employees, but it's so expensive that many employees can't afford it. 

Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan reduced it all down for us with his "makers and takers" dichotomy. The Walmarts of the world are the makers, the job creators; Walmart employees who need food stamps are takers, even though they work full time. 

Another very interesting dynamic, to work every day of your life and not be able to pay your bills, to be a "taker" sucking off the government's tits because your corporate masters are so cheap they won't pay you a living wage even while their CEO and executives and stockholders have so much wealth they can't possibly spend it all. 

There are many calls these days to raise minimum wage. It should be a no-brainer, but our Republican friends are aghast and have vowed to torpedo any efforts to raise it. 

Let me make sure I get this straight. The party that routinely demonizes the poor, whose vice-presidential candidate dismissed the poor as "takers" (even those working full time), is firmly against raising the minimum wage because it would "hurt" the job creators like the Walton family sitting on their $93 billion dollars. 

This party would rather encourage government dependence, in the form of food stamps and Medicare, than ask job creators to pay people fairly and decently. To add insult to injury, they then heckle President Obama and call him the "food stamp president," as if he's to blame that so many working poor have to rely on the social safety net.

Mississippi is a solidly Red State, and our folks in Congress routinely vomit up the Fox News talking points for the day like the faithful lapdogs they are. If Republican economic policies are so wonderful, why is Mississippi the poorest state in the Union? Why is Mississippi drowning in the working poor? Why are we the largest beneficiary of federal largess, the hugest drain on federal tax dollars? Why is the rest of the country subsidizing us? 

I long for the day when Mississippians begin to make the connection between policy and reality, between the policies put forward by the Republican party and the disastrous reality all around us. Are we not the fattest, the poorest, the least educated? Do we not have the highest number of teen pregnancies? Are we not the height of mismanagement and stupidity when it comes to our public policies? Have we not earned our place at the bottom by constantly voting for the wrong people? 

When will Mississippians realize that other states do well because they're smarter and they elect officials who work hard to improve the quality of life for residents in their state? 

The answer, of course, is that when Senator Roger Wicker, or Congressman Alan Nunnelee, go off to Washington, they don't much care about people like me. They don't care that I furtively use the self check-out lane so that my fellow employees don't know I'm on food stamps. They don't care about the problems of the working poor because there's no future in it for them. 

The working poor cannot afford to hire high-priced lobbyists who dump mountains of cash in their campaign coffers in exchange for their support of policies that favor the Walmarts of the world over the working poor who live in their states and whose interests they are supposed to be representing. 

To make up for their disregard for our economic well being, they throw out red meat for the masses in Mississippi -- asides about abortion, gay rights, veiled racism directed at a black president. They offer up a governor hell bent on shutting the state's only abortion clinic. They shudder at the thought that gays in Mississippi might get married.  They fear-monger about socialism and federal intrusion into the "sovereignty" of the Magnolia state. They accidentally hoist the Confederate flag at a court house. As if any of that will help the working poor, or get folks off the food stamp roll, or help kids graduate from high school. As if any of that will solve the "fattest, dumbest, poorest" thing.

Eventually Mississippians will get mad enough to start demanding more of their elected officials. 

Are there no prisons?

The Associated Press

I received my paycheck the other day and it turns out that working a part-time minimum wage job is not particularly profitable. I knew it was going to be a painful moment of truth. I was not disappointed. Twenty-two hours at $7.35 ... well, you do the math.

I take comfort in the fact that I'm not alone. Indeed, according to a widely-circulated figure, about half of Americans are either at and very close to the poverty level. Report after report and figure after figure show that while the wealthy have indeed gotten much wealthier over the past three decades, the poor have gotten much poorer. The chart to the right is just one of many showing this trend.

While wages have stagnated, everything else has gone up - rent, utilities, phone bills, the price of milk, a can of pop, a hair cut, health care, gasoline. Up, up and up. Which means that low income folks  have far less money for the basic necessities than they used to have.

There's a reason why the rich and huge corporations keep getting richer. It takes money to hire an army of lawyers and lobbyists to send to Washington to relentlessly campaign for their interests. It takes money to constantly fight attempts to raise the minimum wage and give workers a living wage. It takes money to get all those tax loopholes and sweetheart deals.

It also takes a lot of money to convince poor people that voting for a certain party is in their own best interests, when it clearly is not. This past election saw a flurry of reports on the subject. Why do the poor keep voting for the Republican Party when its policies are so clearly aligned with the wealthy at the expense of the poor?

One reason, perhaps the major reason, is the culture wars over abortion and gay rights. Since the time of Reagan, Republicans have seized on these divisive issues, promising "change" if elected. This has helped fuel a steady supply of Christian and conservative votes. That Roe vs Wade still stands and gay rights are much farther along than ever does not seem to matter. As long as the wealthy can continue to keep the masses up in arms over these issues, and angry enough to turn out reliably at the polls, that's all that seems to matter.

Along with those culture war issues are a slate of more anger-inducing claims and paranoid whatnot: That the Democrats are Socialists. That Obamacare is socialism. That the president is not even a US citizen. That the "government" is going to take away all our guns. On and on with a tide of nonsense that is never factually based which low-information voters suck it up as Gospel truth - and, most importantly, vote accordingly.

We face an onslaught of spurious reports about how Social Security is going bankrupt, how it's an "entitlement" that needs to be curbed or perhaps even ended.  Unions are the problem. Union workers are thugs who need to be taken down a notch.

An entire war against the poor was rolled out last year by Republicans. Newt Gingrich went around calling Obama the "foodstamp president." The poor were demonized. We were told that people on foodstamps are what's wrong with this country. Point out that 26 cents of every federal tax dollar is spent on defense while a mere .52 cents is spent on "welfare" - well, these folks never let facts get in the way of a self-righteous diatribe.

Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan reduced it all down to "makers and takers." Ryan, poster boy for both Ayn Rand (an atheist) and supposedly a devout Catholic, introduced a budget that professors at a Catholic University felt compelled to denounce as "immoral" for its attacks on the poor. Mitt Romney called the Ryan Budget "marvelous."

In the eyes of folks like Paul Ryan, I'm a taker. Since my pay last week was $137, I'm more than eligible for food stamps, which I use to help make ends meet. To Paul Ryan, I am the problem. Not minimum wage. Not the fact that so many jobs being created by the "job creators" are minimum wage, part-time jobs that do not allow a person to pay their bills. Not the fact that the defense budget eats up the vast share of each federal tax dollar. No. The problem is folks like me.

from Time magazine

Folks like me. No house. No savings. No health insurance. No future. I'm the problem. I'm the taker who's draining the poor taxpayer and impeding economic recovery.

I wonder what Paul Ryan suggests I do? Commit suicide? Live on the street? Does he imagine that good-paying jobs are just throwing themselves at folks like me down in the Magnolia State and that we're just too lazy to go out and grab one?

Like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, I can hear Ryan's response:

Are there no workhouses? 

Are the prisons full?  

And here's the rub, the final kick of sand in the eyes: Paul Ryan's father died while Ryan was a teenager and his mother collected government checks to help them survive. The government also generously helped Paul Ryan get an education. But now that he's a maker and not a taker, well, all bets are suddenly off.

Again, don't let facts get in the way of a self-righteous diatribe against the poor. Paul Ryan wasn't the problem. The single mother and her hungry kids down the street sucking up foodstamps was the problem.

Me, I'll take my $7.35 and do the best I can. If I'm unable to save for retirement, I hope Ryan understands.

Rage against the machine

My new life as a lowly cashier proceeds apace and today I learned about The Numbers. Specially, the numbers that I am being judged by, which are the IPM (items per minute) that I'm scanning through the machine, the CPH (customers per hour) and the TTPC (tender time per customer).

To be successful in my new career as a minimum-wage worker bee at a grocery store, I must meet certain acceptable standards for these numbers.

I am currently scanning 20.86 items per minute. That number needs to be 26 or higher, I've been informed. And my "tender time per customer" - the amount of time I spend scanning your purchases and taking your payment - must be decreased to 60 seconds or less. I'm currently at 61 seconds.

What this means in the real world is that if you show up at my check-out stand with 100 items in your cart, I need to scan all of those items and have your payment in my hot little hand in less than a minute. Failure to do so will result in a lower TTPC score!

Bugger!

As I tried to digest this information, it occurred to me that each time a customer waits until all the items are scanned before starting to dig into their wallet or purse for payment, I'm being punished for their lack of foresight. If they spend 30 seconds digging around for change in the bottom of a purse, my numbers are going south. If they present a handful of coupons, woe is me.

What the machine doesn't measure is whether you smile, and whether you're polite, whether you make eye contact, whether you seem genuinely interested in your customers - or not. It doesn't measure personality, or whether you're in a good mood and treat customers right. All it measures are the raw facts of the transaction, as if the cashier was also a machine and not a human being.

The machine doesn't measure accuracy when giving change and handling payments, though it records each and every split second you have the till drawer open. The longer it's open, the worse your numbers are. Does the company not want me to be careful when I give change?

(An interesting aside: I was taught a cashier trick today to get around this: You let the drawer pop open, then immediately slam it shut, fooling the machine into thinking that your transaction is complete. Then you can go back and make change without fear of being punished.)

My supervisor informed me today quite gravely that if I don't improve The Numbers, the company will have to let me go. Apparently they're not getting their $7.35 cents an hour's worth.


My life has been reduced to a set of three numbers.

Four numbers, actually. The other number is that $7.35.

How much can a company rightfully expect out an employee for so little money? I'm currently serving about 31 customers per hour. How much higher could that number possibly be? Many of those customers have a hundred items or more in their cart. I'm not sure it's physically possible to move much faster than I already am. There are some areas where I could improve my time (learning produce numbers by heart would help). Even so, those items will only go through the scanner just so fast.

It's not the mechanics that bother me. It's the fact that I'm being judged by an impersonal machine. Yet, we're all being judged by these impersonal machines in one way or another as companies seek to extract increasing amounts of labor out of smaller parcels of time, all in the name of efficiency and higher profits. If the employees could share in those profits, perhaps that would motivate them to care more about The Numbers. But they don't share in the profits.

If it should turn out that I'm incapable of moving faster, there's plenty of others standing in line, waiting to get their foot in the door, waiting to do my job better and more efficiently and give the company what it wants.

It's a brave new world - and not for the faint at heart.

The silence in Mississippi

One of the first things I noticed when I moved to the Magnolia state a year ago and took a job as a news editor at a small newspaper was the silence -- the deep, profound silence -- about things that matter. Silence in the media. Silence among the people I met. Silence among my new Facebook friends and co-workers. Politics and religion were strictly off-limits, it seemed, what to speak of Mississippi's past. There was no talk of issues. No debate. No discussion. No exchange of views. All very polite, safe, non-offensive, let's-talk-about-the-weather because we don't want anyone to be offended.

At first, I attributed this to the fact that I was a Yankee outsider. I wasn't from the South. I couldn't possibly understand what was going on. I had no right to offer any criticism. Or perhaps my involvement in the media made people skittish and fearful. Perhaps they were afraid to tell me what they really thought for fear they might find themselves quoted in the newspaper.

Whatever the reason, there was a profound, noticeable silence.

This type of silence is not unknown to members of a dysfunctional family. Anyone who talks to outsiders about the truth on the ground in such a family is automatically a traitor. I've had a fair bit of experience with that, too. And, as I began to live in Mississippi and meet folks, I was often reminded of that feeling because, let's face it, Mississippi is a dysfunctional state. It's the poorest, fattest, least educated, with the highest number of teen pregnancies, a lot of shameful historical baggage -- everyone knows the deal. Reminding Mississippians of these facts of life is quick way to become highly unpopular.

So, the silence.

In the media. In the newspapers. On the local television news.

During the height of a presidential election, with fierce debates among Democrats and Republicans on all kinds of issues, during the Trayvon Martin shooting, during any number of crises and controversies, there was barely a peep from any Mississippian of my acquaintance about anything at all.

Silence.

And fear.

In Mississippi, it's assumed that everyone is firmly on board with the God, Guns and Gays thing. It's a solidly Red state. One doesn't dare talk about gay rights, or abortion rights, or restricting access to machine guns. One doesn't walk around thinking that Obamacare might be good for Mississippi. Our political leaders have set the tone; our job is apparently to follow and not question.

When you browse the local media, you will find mostly conservative, religious voices. You'll find editorial pages padded with press releases from Republican congressmen. You'll even find sermons from preachers in some of the back pages. What you won't find are many dissenting voices or alternative points of view, at least not in the northern part of the state where I live. You won't find Sunya Walls on the WTVA evening news talking about abortion rights. You won't find editorials or columns in the Daily Journal calling for gay rights. What you do find is lots of talk about the weather -- literally -- with healthy doses of crime and high school sports and any possible bit of business news that makes the state of Mississippi look good.

With regard to politics and the issues of the day, there seem to be only one set of "answers" in Mississippi, one set of "truths," and there is little coloring outside the lines, and very few voices willing to speak up and go against the grain. In many ways, it's a Fascist state whose citizens have been frightened into silence, who fear the reprisals that might come of being different or expressing opinions that stray from the party line. I've heard stories about business people with liberal leanings who keep their mouths shut lest they lose their customers or their jobs.

Mississippi is paying the price for this silence. It routinely sends officials down to Jackson and over to Washington who don't seem to have the best interests of the people of the state in mind. There's a reason why Mississippi is the poorest and least educated and whatnot -- and that reason has a lot to do with the elected officials who make decisions that consistently lead to poverty and backwardness.

Case in point: Governor Phil Bryant has made it a priority to shut down the state's one remaining abortion clinic. One of his stated goals is to make abortion a thing of the past in the state of Mississippi. How that will help poor women here escapes most intelligent people.

Bryant has also been publicly musing about not following any new regulations on weapons that might come down from Washington and Congress. How the governor arrived at the conclusion that he is free to disobey federal law also escapes most intelligent people.

Bryant presides over a state that only last year began to require sex education among students. Chew on that for a while, if you will. The state with the highest number of teen pregnancies has just now gotten around to thinking about sex-ed classes for its kids. And because of the conservative, religious voices in the state, the sex-ed that is now provided is either Abstinence Only or Abstinence Plus. These two programs have shown themselves to be all but useless when it comes to driving down the number of teen pregnancies, but there you are.

The Mississippi legislature is currently drafting a "sovereignty law" (House Bill 490) to ensure that the federal government does not infringe on the rights of Mississippians. The last such law was enacted in the 1950s to stop the tide of civil rights. It ended very badly for Mississippi. This new attempt has virtually no hope of succeeding, but there you are.

The state is also determined to block expansion of Medicaid, which is part of the Affordable Care Act, and which would bring in billions of federal dollars to help insure all Mississippians. We are told again and again by the governor on down that Mississippi can't afford it. One suspects the real reason behind this foolishness is the desire by politicians in this state to thumb their noses at Obamacare, the consequences to the people of Mississippi be damned. The governor even told a reporter that "no American" lacks health care insurance.

But there's not much talk in the media here about such things. Occasionally a newspaper will get bold and print a fiery letter to the editor. That's about it.

It's not that all Mississippians are Republican or even religious. Far from it. About 40 percent of the state voted for President Obama in this past election. And 58 percent of voters here rejected the personhood amendment to the state constitution, a stunning defeat for what was considered a done deal.

I have been finding an increasing number of pockets of resistance. The Jackson Free Press does good work. MPB (Mississippi Public Broadcasting) offers much thoughtful commentary, as does the Clarion-Ledger. One can find "left leaning" pages on Facebook where like-minded souls can hang out. I have met many progressive Mississippians on such pages, many activists, many thoughtful commentators.

What's needed, it seems to me, is for the average Mississippian to find his or her voice - and start speaking up. Democracy depends on a healthy exchange of ideas. Issues ought to be debated. Decisions that affect all our lives shouldn't be left to politicians who have their own agendas and who are far too busy thumping their chests and their bibles to much care about what happens on the ground.

Mississippi needs to shrug off the plantation mentality and get with the spirit of the times. We don't need to sit around waiting for word from the Big House about what we can believe and what we can do and how we ought to vote.

In the past, Mississippi politicians valued "strong backs and weak minds," which kept voters right where the politicians wanted them. If Mississippi wants to move ahead, that dynamic has to change.

Yet, in a state where those holding liberal views can be -- and indeed are -- punished if they express those views too loudly, the silence here is not surprising. I've heard of elected officials who lost re-election because they had an extra-marital affair. I heard of a woman serving as alderman for a small town who was voted out after it became known that she was gay. I've heard of businessmen who have lost customers and/or their business because of their support for abortion rights.

In this deeply religious state, with a large church on every corner, one does not question religious belief too openly. One does not campaign for gay rights, or abortion rights. One does not discuss gun control. One does not even, as I discovered for myself, talk too openly about supporting President Obama. You either get with the Gods, Guns and Gays thing, or you keep your trap shut.

That's how Mississippi rolls, apparently. Conformity -- or else. To which I would say: It didn't work in the past, and it won't work now. Not forever. What with Facebook and blogs and instant communication, trying to silence differing points of view is ultimately futile.

Until Mississippi learns that lesson, its talented sons and daughters, including Elvis, Oprah, Jimmy Buffet, Morgan Freeman and so many others, will continue to chase their dreams elsewhere.