Random Notes from a Crank

I guess one of advantages of living in a small town is that you're likely not to serve on jury duty. 

I got summons last month, and I was supposed to be ready to serve on jury duty the past two weeks ending this Friday. I didn't have to show up. 

As a Vikings fan, I had some dark thoughts running through my mind for the first three quarters of the Monday Night Football game. The McCarthy era did not get off to a great start for that portion of the game. 

As fantasy football GM who drafted Jordan Mason, I was happy to see that guy running hard. 

The touchdown by Aaron Jones was bittersweet because the team I was playing started Jones. Before the TD I was winning. After the TD I lost. 

In not surprising news, the reading skills of possible incoming college students is at an all-time low: "Reading Skills of 12th Graders Hit a New Low." 

I don't understand the statement by the Education Secretary at the end of the article. She's just a flunky of Moscow Don. 

Reading and learning by reading is one of the joys of life. It is one of things that make life worth living. 

I've watched lots of videos of farmers complaining about how they're going to lose their farms because of tariffs. But I don't know about the veracity of these videos. 

I do know I wouldn't want to be a farmer who grew a lot of soybeans because China isn't buying any from the U.S. 

I wish the political cartoon was reflective of reality. But I don't know. Most of these idiots are still supporting President Adolf.

Random Notes from a Crank

I read an article in Mother Jones about Rep. Maxwell Frost: "Why Maxwell Frost Wants Democrats to 'Get Caught Fighting.'"

Later that day he was on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He's sharp as hell. 

When he turns 30, he needs to run for the U.S. Senate to kick out one of the GOP douche bags in Florida--hopefully that penis-look-alike Rick Scott. 

Lately I've become irritable about the drivers where I live. They drive so damn slowly. 

So this past weekend I was in Muncie, Indiana for a baseball tournament, and the drivers around there might be even morse. 

People were driving so slow, especially around corners. It's like I was in the Deep South again with all these slow-ass drivers. 

What's the deal with people calling sports stars/personalities by their first names? My in-laws do this with professional golfers they follow. Or most notably they use when they talk about Caitlin Clark. They call her "Caitlin" in casual conversation. 

I just find that weird because using the first name connotes a personal connection. 

Well, the U.S. under President Adolf is back to bombing brown people because of "weapons of mass destruction." 

We've seen that move before. The president's poll numbers are in the crapper, so the administration gets into some kind of military intervention based on shoddy intelligence. 

There are some consequences here. First, Congress is the only entity that can wage war, not the Executive Branch. Moscow Don has basically involved us in a war because he's just doing what Israel wants. 

Second, one can assume Iran is going to react in various ways, whether it's related to the Strait of Hormuz or sleeper cells inside the U.S. doing terrorist activities.

The Trump administration is making America poor and making American less safe again. 

Random Notes from a Crank

After watching Elizabeth Warren's appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, it's pretty clear to me that she is the President of the United States that the country should have had. 

She was my first choice, and Kamala was my second choice. 

Thursday's word of the day on my word-of-the-day calendar was "superbity," which is a noun meaning "haughtiness or arrogance." That's a new one on me, but it's a word that can applied to current conditions in the U.S. for sure. 

I saw a guy on Tik Tok talking about a "joke going around the White House this week." It's "What do all the universities that Trump is targeting have in common? Baron didn't get into them." 

It's probably true. He's attending NYU.

The Washington Post has reported on the proposed cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services: "Internal Budget Document Reveals Extent of Trump Program Cuts." 

Apparently they plan to eliminate Head Start, and there are severe cuts to the hospitals in rural areas. As the article states, "Rural programs formerly under the Health Resources and Services Administration appear to be hard-hit. The rural flexibility grants, state offices of rural health, rural residency development program and at-risk rural hospitals program grants are listed as eliminations under AHA." 

Rural America, FAFO. You nitwits voted for this idiotic goon. 

Random Notes from a Crank

Rachel Maddow covered the imbecility of the Secretary of Education extensively in one of her shows, but the marketing gurus took it a step further with this Instagram post. 

That's some pretty good satire right there. 

I happened upon an interesting article from the BBC that talks about how people are using brewers spent grain. They're experimenting will turning it into food products and an alternative to leather. Check it out in "How Beer Sludge Is Being Turned into Vegan Milk and Leather." 

My word-of-the-day calendar shows that today's word as "mala fide," which is an adverb or adjective meaning "with or in bad faith." That word sums up a lot about the current administration in D.C. 

My club, Tottenham Hotspur, have a huge away game tomorrow. 

As much as I like Ange, if he doesn't win it all in the Europa League, I think he's going to get sacked. 

The team went through a dreadful spell for about three months when they had all kinds of injuries, but with the way he has turned again or criticized the fans, I don't think he'll survive for next season. 

But I hope to be proven wrong by him winning a trophy and Spurs doing well in the remaining games in the Premier League. 

Random Notes from a Crank

President Adolf and his goons and charlatans are planning even more tariffs to happen on April 2 according to The Washington Post: "Trump Aides Prep More Tariffs for April 2 on Imports Worth Billions."

He's wanting to do something similar to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which helped deepen the Great Depression. History often rhymes. 

Here's a political cartoon from Nick Anderson that shows what's going to happen. 

As expected, Putin is playing Moscow Don like a fiddle: "Trump-Putin Call Seen as a Victory in Russia." 

The only positive I can see from a trade war is that the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, among other such entities in Canada, have pulled US products from their shelves. I wonder if these moves could reduce the price of bourbon here in the US. 

The prices of bourbon are ridiculous. I used to be able to get all kinds of different bourbons at decent prices, but the flippin' hipsters have latched on to the liquor, which has driven up prices across the board. There are some YouTube bourbon guys who consider "budget" bourbons to be a bottle under $50. 

WTF?

There are some bourbons I used to be able to get on a regular basis, such Very Old Barton 100, Early Times Bonded, and Eagle Rare, that I can't find anymore. 

So if there's an excess of bourbon (supply), perhaps the demand will start getting met more effectively. Hopefully by me. 

Regardless, the hipsters need to become more interested in a different spirit, such as rum or gin. 

At the nudging of Mrs. Nasty, I've joined Tik Tok. I'm using my same pseudonym. 

Random Notes from a Crank

You know it's bad when an article from The Onion is strikingly accurate. 

Check out "Trump Says Recession Unfortunate But Necessary Step to Get to Depression." 

In unsurprising news, the latest polls done by CNN show the majority of Americans disapprove of how President Adolf is handing the economy: "New Poll Crystallizes Trump's Self-Inflicted Wounds on Musk and Tariffs." 

Unfortunately, his approval rating is still 45%, which is preposterous. What a bunch of morons and clowns.

Yet the Wall Street Journal opinion page has described what's happening as "the dumbest trade war in history." 

I suspect those 45% aren't reading the Wall Street Journal. 

I've been watching The X-Files lately because there isn't much on in the evening. The series has reminded me that the GM products of the 90s were pretty damn ugly. 

I wonder if there are any people who got out ahead of all this nonsense and are hoarding alcoholic beverages from abroad since Moscow Don is threatening to put a 200% tariff on alcoholic beverages from the European Union. 

Although I'm not a regular buyer of Ouzo, I do like it from time to time. No "Opa!" for me.

Random Notes from a Crank

I have a couple of favorite Norm Macdonald jokes (1) The moth who went to the podiatrist and 2) The unconventional doctor's solution to a husband whose wife is in a coma), but one of his small observations is spot on. 

I wonder if there is a similar deal with the abbreviation of "number," which is "No." as in No. 2. 

Why the heck is an "o" used instead of "Nu. 2" or "Nr. 2"? But some cursory research shows that it's my old friend the Latin language making an appearance on the linguistic scene because the Latin word for number is "numero."  

This week's Existential Comic is one of my favorites: "The future will have stupidity beyond our wildest imagination." Indeed. "Stupidity will multiply and spread, and new advanced forms of stupidity will emerge that we cannot even begin to conceive of." 

As Stephen Colbert noted in Tuesday's monologue, Moscow Don didn't even say the car company's name right in his photo app. He called it "Tesler," which is probably a Freudian slip since it seems to be a mash-up of Tesla and Hitler. That's on brand because Musk supported a far-right Neo-Nazi-like party in Germany's recent election. 

After watching the first two episodes of Daredevil: Born Again on Disney+, I am wondering if there are plans for a move to San Francisco in the series because we find out that Karen Page is in the Bay Area, and in the comic books under Mark Waid's run, Murdock moved to San Francisco. In fact, I think I have a number of those issues/books down in the basement. 

As Moscow Don cuts the Department of Education, the smallest federal agency, by half, it remains to be seen how these cuts will affect the funding for K-12 education and the FAFSA. I doubt the cuts will improve matters. 

Random Notes from a Crank

I got these stats from some dude on social media. I'm pretty sure it's from the Jon Cooper who is a Democratic strategist. Since Moscow Don has openly talked about how his policies might create a recession, it seems appropriate to share.

The dipshit is affecting markets worldwide apparently. 

In related news, Canada got a new Prime Minister who has harsh words for President Adolf as reported by the BBC: "Canada's Next PM Mike Carney Vows to Win Trade War with Trump." 

 

On most weekdays I've been sharing a word-of-the-day post from The Dictionary of American Slang on social media. I've been discovering all kinds of words I never knew about, and some of them are quite old timey. 

Today I shared a V-word, the "visiting fireman." But the one I thought about sharing was "voos," which is a plural noun signifying "Human female breasts, esp. of a sexually attractive young woman." 

I've heard of all kinds of words used for tits, such as "cans," "headlights," and "ta tas," but voos is a new term for me. I would guess it came about because it rhymes with "boobs"? 

Happy National Napping Day.  

Random Notes from a Crank

If you like a good fact checking like I do, read "Fact Checking 26 Suspect Claims in Trump's Address to Congress" from The Washington Post.  

Journalists need to stop calling what he's doing as "false claims." They are LIES. I do like how the author calls one of his assertions "absurd" though. 

I learned in January issue of Harper's that the "word 'huh' or its equivalent seems to exist in every human language, for unknown reasons." That fact makes sense to me. 

Here are some interesting gleanings from the February and March Harper's Indexes:

• Rank of November 6, 2024, among the days with the most account deactivations on X since Elon Musk acquired the company: 1
• Factor by which the average wait to receive approval for federal disability benefits has increased since 2019: 2
• Estimated number of Americans who died in 2023 while waiting for such approval: 30,000
• Percentage change since 1973 in the average American's carbon emissions: -36
• Factor by which per capita U.S. carbon emissions exceed the global average: 3
• Average percentage by which the opening of a Walmart Supercenter causes nearby household incomes to decrease: 6
• Percentage of U.S. solar-power capacity growth last year accounted for by Texas: 31
• Percentage by which Texas's new solar-power capacity exceeded California's last year: 358
• Chance that an American believes they have undiagnosed ADHD: 1 in 4
• Chance that they do have ADHD: 1 in 17

I wonder how many more deactivations have happened on Twitter because of Musk's work with DOGE? I hope there have been a lot. 

And I imagine the number of Americans who will die while waiting for approval for federal disability benefits will skyrocket this year because of DOGE cuts to the workforce. 

I'm surprised about the solar growth in Texas. However, it makes sense that the state could harness solar power. 

Like ADHD, I think there is a similar difference in Americans who think they have an anxiety disorder and those who actually have an anxiety disorder. 

The U.S. is a well medicated nation because of Big Pharma. 

Random Notes from a Crank

I have a Word-of-the-Day calendar at work, and the word today is compunctious, which is an adjective meaning "1. arising from remorse or regret 2. feeling remorse or regret." 

With President Adolf's tariffs against Canada and Mexico starting this week, a lot of Americans can be described as that. American voters fucked around again and will be finding out. 

Members of the GOP have no spine. 

I'm not all that concerned about out the markets usually, but they didn't respond favorably to the tariffs with both Canada and China set to retaliate with their own tariffs right away and Mexico set to announce how they're going to respond by Sunday. 

I rejoined Facebook mainly because I want to keep in touch with my family members who are on there along with friends and fraternity brothers. I'm no longer using my real first name because I'm paranoid. 

Also, I'm going to be more judicious in who I accept friend requests from. If you're a supporter of Moscow Don, you're no virtual "friend" of mine. 

My plan is that I'm going to share my viewpoints on this blog and Bluesky and share  personal stuff on FB. 

Here's the cover photo I'm using on FB. 

Zappa is an artist I've always been interested in, but I have never bought any of his work. I did watch a great documentary about him simply titled Zappa. It's worth a watch. 

Now I'm pondering getting Freak Out! by Mothers of Invention. 

Random Notes from a Crank

In what has become normal for the GOP, they focus on stupid issues. 

For example, the Texas Lieutenant Governor, instead of focusing on the measles outbreak in his state, is more concerned about renaming a cut of beef to be called "Texas strip" instead of "New York strip." 

Read about this lunacy in The Guardian: "Texas Republican Focuses on Rebrand of 'New York Strip' amid Outbreak." 

It will always be Gulf of Mexico, people. 

Distractions keep people focused on the wrong issues. 

I know a guy who works in some kind of government program that's linked to Veterans Affairs. He's a big supporter of Moscow Don. I wonder if he lost his job. That'd be ironic.  

The Executive Branch is clearly a puppet of Russia. At least that's what the Kremlin is saying: "Washington Now "Largely Aligns" with Moscow's Vision, Kremlin Says." 

I got a package today from this company. 

As a Star Wars fan and as a big fan of the character Chewbacca, I dig it. 

Random Notes from a Crank

A while back one of the words of the day was "kakistocracy," which means "government by the worst people."

With Adolf's number of executive orders and with the GOP having majorities in the House and Senate, that is the country the U.S. is living in, unfortunately, 

It's all very depressing. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert helped get me through his first administration, but I haven't girded up my emotional loins to watch the program since Adolf took office. 

But what can we expect with 54% of Americans reading below a sixth-grade level?

One of the better editorials I've read is from Bernie Sanders in The Guardian: "What Trump Didn't Say in His Inauguration Speech." 

Here are the last two ¶s of the opinion piece, but I recommend reading it all. 

Bottom line: as we enter the new Trump presidency, we have got to remain focused. We can’t panic. No matter how many executive orders he signs and statements he issues, our goal remains the same. We have got to educate. We have got to organize. We have got to bring people together around an agenda that works for all, not just the few.

Now more than ever, we have to fight to create an America based on economic, social and environmental justice. Let’s get to work.

He's right. 

But what's happening is damn depressing. 

Nothing like "backing the blue" when you release the Jan. 5 insurrectionists.

And repealing civil rights protections. 

Music Friday: "Until the Day Is Done"

After the results of this Tuesday, this song seems appropriate. 

"The battle's been lost. The war is not won./ An addled republic, a bitter refund." 

Keep fighting for what's right and all people's rights. 

Random Notes from a Crank

My home state of Iowa has become what my nephew, who is a political consultant, describes as "cold Alabama" from a political standpoint. It's been a red state for way too long in presidential contests, but I realized recently that Mississippi is more progressive than the Hawkeye State in one way. 

The Magnolia State allows medicinal marijuana, whereas Iowa does not allow it. Good Gods, even Missouri allows recreational use of cannabis.   

I'm not a smoker of the Mary Jane, but weed policies seem to be a bellwether of political leanings. And Iowa is going in the wrong direction. 

Out of nowhere, which was a surprise to fans and pundits, Tottenham signed Wilson Odobert as a winger in the transfer window. The young Frenchman is likely to play on the right wing behind Brennan Johnson. 

If the window is closed for Spurs, it's been a good one. However, I'd like to see them sign a center back who can also play left back because I assume Ashley Phillips will go out on loan somewhere even though I think Ange should keep him around with the first team. 

Random Notes from a Crank

There's an interesting guest essay in the New York Times by a conservative who is voting for Harris because the MAGA crowd has basically taken over the GOP and turned it into a non-conservative party: "To Save Conservatism from Itself, I Am Voting for Harris." 

In another guest essay, Roxane Gay's provides the positive energy with "The Harris-Walz Ticket Is Our Opportunity for Political Imagination." 

Let's hope the voters that matter take that opportunity. I'm still concerned about the polling in all of the swing states: Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. 

I didn't know Margo Price had a new album out. I found that out from a brief article in The Washington Post: "Country Star Margo Price Says What She Means -- And Sleeps Well at Night." 

In other good news, the USMNT hired Pochettino as its head coach. I look forward to seeing what he does with that group of players. 

Musing of the Moment: Harris as Presidential Candidate

The big news over the weekend was that Biden is no longer running for President. 

And the Democrats, surprisingly, put their support around Kamala Harris quickly. 

I have been surprised about the speediness of the support because historically the Democratic Party usually isn't that organized or disciplined. That's more of the modus operandi of the Republican Party that has become the brain-dead GOP. 

So in the presidential contest, we have a convicted felon who cannot even run a hot dog cart in the state of New York who is also a convicted sexual assaulter versus a former prosecutor and Attorney General. 

Who is the "Back the Blue" cohort of voters going to vote for? 

The answer probably isn't what it should be. 

As Rage Against the Machine sang, "Those of those that work forces/ are the same that burn crosses." 

Possibly not literally but figuratively...

But in some cases literally.

The race-based dog whistling has already started with Moscow Don's allies calling Harris the "DEI candidate." 

More of that shit is coming. 

Random Notes from a Crank

On a mainly weekday basis, I've been posting definitions from the Dictionary of American Slang, which was published in 1967, in alpha order on my FB feed. 

Today I was on the letter M in the alphabet, so I posted this definition from the dictionary:

"meatball meat ball n. 1. A dull, boring person; an obnoxious person; anyone regarded with disfavor, esp. one of flat or uninteresting character; a creep, a drip, a square, a wet blanket. 2. A tactical signal flag bearing a black dot on a yellow field; also, the Japanese national flag. #. A swelling of or on the face, cause by a blow in fighting. 4. In baseball, any pitched ball that can be hit readily by a given batter. v.t. 1. To strike someone with a fist. --ism n. 1. Anti-intellectualism; the state of willing ignorance or mediocrity. 2. A state of, or instance demonstrating, decreasing standards of integrity, ethics, intelligence, and individualism in culture, politics, education, and the like; democratic rule by an uneducated, non-thinking majority."

I'm particularly fond of the term "meatballism" because I think it properly describes the U.S. for quite some time. It's an anti-intellectual country, and it's been like that for centuries. 

The amount of willful ignorance is astounding, and the if you follow politics for any amount of time, the "decreasing standards" will make you depressed. 

I think the U.S. is currently engaged in "democratic rule by an uneducated, non-thinking majority." 

I guess there are glimmers of hope though with the Labour Party coming back into majority power in the U.K.: "How Ken Starmer Overwhelmed Britain's Conservatives."

And over in France, Macron's gamble to call an election turned out better than expected since left-leaning folks flocked to the polls and put down the right-wing idiots trying to take power: "France Electioin Results: Far Right's Rise Suffers Unexpected Blow as Left Surges." 

But what does this mean for November? 

At least if you're going by a flash poll by YouGov that I took today Trump hopefully is in trouble. At the time I'm writing this post, 36% of people polled think Moscow Don is mentally fit to be President, 5% think he was mentally fit to be president in 2020 but is no longer mentally fit to be president, and 54% believe he was not mentally fit to be president in 2020 and is not mentally fit today. 

At least on that last answer, Biden only clocks in at 31%. 

In better news, the people polled were asked about their opinion of the GOP's "Project 2025," and 53% have a very unfavorable opinion of it. 

The biggest challenge before Biden is that he has to hit the swing states hard since we still live under a system that relies on the idiocy that is the Electoral College.

Musing of the Moment: Harper's Indexes

Here are some interesting stats and numbers from the November and December Harper's Indexes:

• Percentage by which U.S. women are more likely than men to have a tattoo: 41
• Portion of U.S. adults with tattoos who regret getting at least one of them: 1/4
• Increase since 1984 in the median age of first-time U.S. home buyers: 7
• Portion of prospective U.S. home buyers who say they consider climate change when evaluating where to live: 4/5
• Percentage change this year in sales of Bud Light: -16
• In sales of Modelo Especial: +11
• Factor by which beer imports from Mexico have increased since 2013: 2
• Percentage by which beer imports from other countries have decreased: 29
• Percentage change in the divorce rate between 2008 and 2020: -31
• In the divorce rate between 2020 and 2022: +2
• Percentage of millennials who are not planning to get married: 21
• Of adult Gen-Z-ers who are not: 7
• Percentage of U.S. adults who say the political system is working "very" or "extremely" well: 4
• Who express little confidence in the future of the political system: 63
• Who say there is too little attention paid to the important issues facing the country: 78

I have noticed women tend to have more tattoos than men these days. I had a student write a paper years ago that went against the conventional wisdom that tattoos people get are there to show one's individuality. His take was that getting a tattoo was more of a herd mentality issue with many people getting the same kinds of tattoos (certain trends), especially women. 

The so-called conservative war against Bud Light because of a transgender spokesperson is so stupid. Apparently many of these Bud Light drinkers are switching to Modelo, which is humorous because during the Trump administration that company ran TV ads that were clearly trolling Moscow Don and his hateful speech about Mexicans and immigrants. That's some serious irony. 

The rise in the divorce rate obviously has a number of factors, but it's possible the pandemic was a significant cause--and possibly the support of a certain presidential candidate. But then again, that increase should have happened in 2016. Maybe it was because certain people voted for that charlatan a second time?

With the GOP having an advantage with having two Senators for dinky population states and the stupidity of not giving Puerto Rico and D.C. statehood and an uninformed citizenry voting for candidates for stupid reasons, it's no surprise 78% think the political system is not paying attention to climate change, economic inequality, pollution, the wage gap, educational issues, good jobs in the U.S., and other concerns. 

The House, for example, has done next to nothing for years under GOP leadership. Many members of Congress are more concerned about winning elections and raising campaign funds than actually doing something to make the country better. They just want to do some political hokum to get votes. 

The GOP asserts that the "government" doesn't work. Then they get control of a significant branch of it and show everyone that it doesn't work because of their leadership. A dog chasing its own tail. 

Random Notes from a Crank

I don't know why all these razor blade companies are making razors with five blades. The cartridge is just too large to get around the small spaces on one's face, such as around the nostrils. I had to use my son's razor a while back when I forgot mine when we rented a lake house when visiting my daughter in Southern Illinois, and I much prefer my Mach 3 razor. 

I can't find the article because the whole GOP fiasco to nominate a new speaker has taken so many twists and turns, but one of the reasons Moscow Don and other GOP clowns opposed his nomination to be the next Speaker of the House is because Emmer apparently supports the movement to move to a majority vote for the President of the U.S. and eliminating the arcane and stupid Electoral College. 

I'm a huge proponent of moving to a majority vote for President. 

If you're voting for a Republican candidate for President, say, in Illinois, your vote doesn't count. If you're voting for a Democratic candidate for President, say, in Alabama, your vote doesn't count. 

Those votes don't really count because of the outdated Electoral College, which should have been thrown in the dustbin of history, screws the minority voters in certain states. They should have moved to the majority vote for President sometime in the early 20th century. 

It's ridiculous. 

Sure it's our tradition. But it's, as Thoreau wrote, a "foolish consistency." 

As traditions go, it's DUMB. 

Unfortunately, going to a majority vote for President doesn't address the other problem in our country: two parties don't really represent the political leanings of most voters. 

For someone like me who is strongly liberal on a number of social, educational, and environmental issues but is kind of middle of the road or somewhat fiscally conservative, I almost always side with the Democrats because the views of GOP candidates on various aforementioned issues are abhorrent. 

I'd like most Democratic candidates to be more frugal about some economic issues even though there are some lines I won't cross for GOP talking points about publicly funding private education and their "voodoo" economic theories that make no flippin' sense, among other legitimate concerns about their asinine trust in the so-called free market. 

For example, even though a number of people were taken with the ideas of Bernie Sanders, I backed Hillary Clinton because she was actually asking, "How are you going to pay for that?" Grandpa wanted to let the kids eat whatever they want, but Mom wanted the kids to eat a nutritional meal and then have dessert. 

My work this semester has made me become quite jaded about students' willingness to do the work that's necessary to improve. As much as some people have grading contracts or labor-based grading (based on Marxist principles, which is problematic), it's hard to give people grades on work when they turn in their work. 

Stay Positive: Embracing Agnosticism & Atheism

I read an opinion piece in The Washington Post today that I had to share.  

It's titled "America Doesn't Need More God. It Needs More Atheists" (gifted article) It's an article reformulated from Kate Cohen's book We of Little Faith: Why I Stopped Pretending to Believe (and Maybe You Should Too). 

The article speaks to me in many ways. 

If I had to describe myself from a faith-based standpoint, I'd call myself a skeptical agnostic or, if you go by the bar Cohen has in the article, I'm basically an atheist. 

I guess it's possible that there's something going on with the "thousand faces of the hero" (Joseph Campbell's work) and the similarities of many different religions, but the likelihood of there being some divine being or set of beings who created the universe and have a hand in what people do in their lives is highly improbable. 

Slim chance. 

If anything, if we consider Jung's archetypes and Freud's idea of wish-fulfillment, perhaps myths/religions are simply a manifestation of some massive human wish-fulfillment that there's something after we die and that there is some kind of higher meaning to everything. 

I doubt it. 

Cohen has some great points for her thesis that the world needs more atheism and less religion. 

Here are some good points to be positive about being an agnostic or atheist:

• "My children know how to distinguish between fact and fiction - which is harder for children raised religious. They don't assume conventional wisdom is true and they do expected arguments to be based on evidence. Which means they have the skills to be engaged, informed and savvy citizens." 
• "We need American who demand - as atheists do - that truth claims be tethered to fact." 
• Researchers have done the appropriate data crunching, and it seems the percentage of atheists is around 26%. 
• "In some ways, this [being atheist] makes life easier. You don't have to work out why God might cause or ignore suffering, which parts of this broken world are God's plan, or what work is his to do or what is yours." 
• "But you also don't get to leave things up to God.... Atheists believe people organized the world as it is now, and only people can make it better." 
• Apparently atheists are "more politically active" and "about 30 percent more likely to vote than religiously affiliated voters." 
• Basically, instead of relying on a divine being, atheists think people need to do good in the world. 

Cohen does an excellent job of providing the perspective that many atheists are unlikely to share their dispositions because they are a minority in a world where lots of people want to share their religious ideas and force their religious/political viewpoints on others. 

As a result, we need to rebuild the "wall of separation between church and state" that Jefferson talked about and Cohen references.  

And like Cohen relates, people should embrace their agnosticism/atheism because there are a lot of us out there.