There’s an ongoing discussion on Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish about the nature of religious discourse, and the role an “atheist” plays in this discussion.

I do not reflect upon religion, or deities, on a daily basis. And I do not harbor any resentment toward those who do – that is their own choice – and I try, or at least have tried as I get older and less foolish, to be more understanding when believers bring their religion into conversation. I think their mythology is very curious, a fascinating artifact of human evolution, full of beautiful art and music, telling histories, and compelling moral fables. I see great acts by wonderful people, performed in the name of and stirred on by their love for their religion.

But I am truly tired of people using the term, atheist, to describe people who don’t believe in God, gods, the flying spaghetti monster, et al. I grew up in a family built on several generations of people who did not attend church and had no spiritual interest in religion. Academic, yes, but spiritual, certainly not. In our family’s affairs, any and all religions were comparable to Tolkien and CS Lewis: dramatic stories, imagined and written by man, no more.

The term atheist is particularly offensive because it implies I deny something’s existence, that I don’t believe in something. No, far from it, I believe in so many things. Air, trees, flowers, earth, space, gravity, physics – and my apologies for being glib here. God and Jesus and Allah were simply never on the table to believe in, like unicorns and elves. They were mythology, like Athena and Zeus, Apollo and Aphrodite.

But for so long, anyone who chose not to believe in one mythology or another was labeled – for convenience’s sake – a heretic, a non-believer, and now, an atheist. It’s a term applied to these people, not chosen, even though in these modern times many atheists (Harris, Dawkins) have taken the word and attempted to empower themselves by owning it. But I do not care for their venomous clique either, hell-bent on destroying the stories of others.

No, I say. I am no atheist. I am no secular humanist. I reject these terms. As far as I’m concerned, this is the same as referring to me as a fictionalist – that I read and digest works of fiction – or more accurately, that I don’t. Please refer to me as a human being, an intellectual buffoon, a progressive Independent, anything but atheist. That’s history’s word, not mine. I do not need a label for an argument in which I have no stake. In terms the young may understand, when asked what team – Team Edward or Team Jacob – I’m rooting for when the movie, Twilight, came out, I simply say, neither.

When you look at that $825 billion bailout, what do you see? Massive government spending? Necessary infrastructure changes? Something shiny? It’s like a Rorschach test for political dogma. So if you’re confused by Rush Limbaugh’s explanation – who isn’t? – here’s a balm: stop listening to self-involved blowhards and listen to people who actually studied economics! Listen to Ali Velshi, CNN’s top business correspondent and author of the new book, Gimme My Money Back. He joins Wilshire & Washington hosts Ted Johnson, Maegan Carberry, and Teresa Valdez-Klein for a spirited discussion on Obama’s big bailout, nationalizing the banks, using new media and social networking, the difficulties of explaining such complex financial issues to the public, and what people can do to improve their own financial position in this struggling economy.

Maegan introduces her new bipartisan project with MediaLizzy (found here), The REAL 100 Days, which will track the media’s coverage of the Obama’s first few months in office and highlight common ground between Republicans and Democrats. Ted, Maegan, and Teresa also tackle Rush as the Republican opposition (they can do better), the hilarious media blitz put forth by Governor Rod Blagojevich (Oprah, really?), and the difficulty of filling open Senate seats (where’s the special election, people?). Join us for this fascinating episode of Wilshire & Washington.

Listen to the show here, subscribe to the iTunes podcast, or use the Blog Talk Radio player:

Wilshire & Washington, the weekly Blog Talk Radio program that explores the intersection of politics, entertainment, and new media, features co-hosts Ted Johnson, Managing Editor of Variety; conservative blogger Teresa Valdez Klein (www.teresacentric.com), and liberal blogger Maegan Carberry (www.maegancarberry.com). The show airs every Wednesday at 7:30am PST on BlogTalkRadio.com.

The general consensus on the new Whitehouse.gov has been positive, with a bunch of people concentrating on the new robot file, the new copyright license, and the blog. All good stuff. To the site’s critics though, cut the IT guys some slack. Putting up a sophisticated, interactive website is tough. They just went live, and it’s already got people talking about communication with the White House. That’s a big improvement over what came before.

My main concern is that on the blog, none of the posts have authors. This is problematic because it means these posts are being put up anonymously, and with anonymity comes a lack of accountability. If we want an accountable government, someone’s name has to be put by every post. Someone has to claim responsibility. This has to change. I also want multiple authors contributing, each with their own focus on the Office of the President. Hey, we can all dream.

We have a new white house website, updated with a blog, and you can even subscribe to a feed. Oh, yeah, and there’s a new president there too, but back to technology. Really, can anything be official until the website changes over? But with Obama in charge, will the website be anything more than just PR? Can it help people organize and work together, like his campaign did?

But that Inauguration: it sure was something, eh? What happened with Justice Roberts? Did screwing up in front of millions of people maybe remind us all that Obama wasn’t born in a manger and to temper our expectations accordingly? I had my eye on some gold and myrrh, but I can wait. And with all this “hope” and “good feeling” in the air, is this really going to be the end of consumerism, when we put away our childish things? Uh, no. We’re going to go with, “No, Americans love pizza and hamburgers and plasma TVs.” And did people really have to give ol’ Bushie the metaphoric one-finger salute as he flew off into the sunset? I mean, he did come to work every single day – except for a few holidays, anyway…

Still, yesterday was a highly impressive feat. Two of our hosts, Ted and Maegan, were in Washington DC for the festivities and they offer their own personal perspectives from the ground, even though they’re recovering from late night “networking.” Teresa talks about volunteerism, and how people have already started to get involved in her part of the country, volunteering at local charities. Technology is also a big topic of the day, with twitter, CNN Live, and Facebook being huge winners in one of the internet’s biggest days ever.

Listen to the show here, subscribe to the iTunes podcast, or use the Blog Talk Radio player:

Wilshire & Washington, the weekly Blog Talk Radio program that explores the intersection of politics, entertainment, and new media, features co-hosts Ted Johnson, Managing Editor of Variety; conservative blogger Teresa Valdez Klein (www.teresacentric.com), and liberal blogger Maegan Carberry (www.maegancarberry.com). The show airs every Wednesday at 7:30am PST on BlogTalkRadio.com.

Today, we celebrate one of the greats in our history, Martin Luther King, Jr. It’s a day when we as a country reflect on our past and how far we’ve come from our beginnings. We listen to his speeches and remember the marches, we remind ourselves of King’s achievements as well as our society’s past sins.

Tomorrow is, of course, about the future. A new president. A new administration. A new hope. But, what of the past? What of the carnage of the last eight years? How can we move forward without reflecting, as we’ve done today on King’s birthday, on what we have made of our illustrious country?

“Someone will have to measure the wreckage. Someone will have to walk through the ruins. Someone will have to count the cost.” – Charles P. Pierce, Esquire

Barack Obama will be sworn in as President of the United States on January 20, 2009, becoming the first black person to ever hold that highest office. Yet, the mess we’re handing him is unrivaled. No team of rivals is fixing this. Our nation lost its way on so many fronts, and people act surprised. But many of us have been screaming of the moral failing of the United States for a long time. We told you so.

My mother often says, in that unimpeachable British way, “You have so little history.” And she’s right. All we have is Christopher Columbus, the American Revolution, the Constitution, Slavery, the Civil War, WWI, the Great Depression, WWII, Vietnam, and the Cold War. And that’s if, somehow, our public school system does its job. And that’s a big, big ‘if.’ But that’s all we know. That’s all we think about – big tentpole events that hold up our country’s honor and dignity for everyone to see. We forget the awful, quiet moments of horror, judgment, and hubris.

But that’s what we need now – a little hubris. We need to be shaken to our very core, and confront what has happened. But we won’t.

As much as we need a confession, a penance, a moment of American hubris, we won’t have it. We don’t. We don’t look backward as a country, only forward, to the next horizon. But like slavery, our hubris will fester like turgid meat crushed at the bottom of a trashcan, slowly releasing fumes and bacteria that will infect everything built above it, all of good faith. We are that, a country of good faith. We mean well, even if we mean well for ourselves first.

We have this great ability as a people and a country of always looking forward. And you’d be right if you said, “That’s what makes us great!” It is what makes us so different from nearly every other country on earth. It’s what drives us, pushes us, makes us all believe we can achieve. It’s what brought us a man like Obama as a presidential candidate. Ten years, it would not have been possible. But in our hurry, we don’t bother with reflection. It’s just not in our nature. Not until years later, at least, not until the history books are written and judgment is delivered, as Bush is so fond of reminding us. When offered the chance to take the next step forward into a more hopeful time, we elected Obama and have chosen to close the door on the last eight years of American history. “Forget it, we’re done, let’s move forward,” that’s what we’ll say.

And while that may be the best way forward, it’s moral cowardice. We should confront what has happened here. Torture, wiretapping, war, economic disaster, educational collapse, ecological failure… It’s all there. It’s like a quagmire of sins, beckoning to our consciences.

But as Hamlet told us, conscience does make cowards of us all… We can’t let our country fall back into that pit of despair. No. Forward, then. We won’t look back. Never look back. And that’s how we’ll survive.

Normally, my multiple personalities don’t intersect online but now and then, fate has other ideas. While I just posted photos from the dineLA press conference, I also got to cover it for the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel’s Manager Blog. In the immortal words of the star of “Army of Darkness” and “Evil Dead,” my name is Bruce… As always, take what is written here with a pint of salt, and maybe a nice glass of bourbon.

Yesterday, I covered the press conference for dineLA restaurant week 2009 for various clients. Mayor Villaraigosa was there and he got stuffed with a kobe Philly cheesesteak. Yes, in this recession, chefs in LA have decided the Philly cheesesteak doesn’t cut it. It needs to be more expensive and much, much smaller. (It was delicious, though.) Here are some photos from the event: