The Skeptic's Itinerary

    We Americans sure like our freedom--or at least we talk a good game. The topic is addressed with some regularity in the news media, and makes frequent appearances on television shows and in the movies. It is even cropping up more and more often in casual conversation as we opine, thrust and parry with our friends and neighbors about the latest real and/or imagined usurpations of our rights by an ever-expanding federal government leviathan and its more petite state and local siblings. Although governmental kneecapping of its citizens has always been--and will always be--a valid and fertile point of discussion amongst concerned citizens, I was thinking of addressing here a somewhat overlooked and seldom enunciated dimension of the whole "freedom" discussion. Our default connotation of freedom is now and has forever been positive. We in this country have always bestowed upon the term the utmost reverence and respect. It is sacrosanct--and not without reason. So many o

  Transitions There is a movement afoot. Those with an ear to the ground can hear it coming. If your daily routine includes even the most cursory perusal of the day’s headlines you probably have noticed its increasing presence in the print media.  What I’m speaking about is the growing transgender movement, heralded by the LGBT movers and shakers as a necessary forward step in our evolution—an overdue and much needed affirmation of not only the rights of what has been termed “the trans community,” but also a demand for unquestioned acceptance of its legitimacy as an alternative and moral lifestyle choice. Those of us old enough to remember Phil Donahue and Sally Jesse Raphael’s daytime talk shows can recall the titillating episodes that featured transgenders, and how the hosts always did their level best to portray this psychosexual deviation in the most glowing and positive light.  Donahue and Raphael were high-visibility cheerleaders for this new wave of so-called g