The news has been rife with sex scandals lately–something you’d think our society would finally be mature enough to shrug off.

The affair of General David Petraus, and the somehow related affair of General John Allen, don’t make sense to a lot of us. It’s true that high testosterone guys who like to take risks, such as politicians and soldiers, often get caught up in this sort of thing, but I, for one, can’t figure out what this has to do (in Petraus’ case) with an ability to lead troops abroad or head the CIA. It’s not as if he was bedding some jihadist spy.
read more

Here’s something to think about when you go to some of those holiday blockbusters (NOTE–Subscribers can still listen to this show): Movies COST lots of money, but they MAKE lots of money too–they’re one of this country’s major exports. Since filmmaking is such a high dollar business, you’d think films would show capitalists as heroes, but they don’t–most money men in movies are villains.
read more

A fragile ceasefire has been brokered by the US and Egypt between the Hamas government in Gaza and Israel. But how long will it last, and what are the consequences if it breaks down and Israel invades Gaza? Could this be the equivalent of Austria invading Serbia, the seemingly small conflict that triggered World War One? Given that three different extremist groups, fundamentalist Islam, fundamentalist Christianity and ultra-conservative Judaism all believe that a war in the area would cause their various messiahs to reappear, any violence that happens there is extremely dangerous. Believers from all three groups actually want war. Will they get their wish? What does John Hogue think?read more

 A fragile ceasefire has been brokered by the US and Egypt between the Hamas government in Gaza and Israel. But how long will it last, and what are the consequences if it breaks down and Israel invades Gaza? Could this be the equivalent of Austria invading Serbia, the seemingly small conflict that triggered World War One? 
read more