Photo courtesy of TIME Magazine

A recent cover of TIME Magazine shows a woman breastfeeding her three-year-old son. Apparently this is supposed to shock me. It certainly seems to have shocked the culturemakers in the media, who can’t stop talking about how controversial and provocative it is. Even The View, a show of, for, and by women (trust me: most men would rather have a testicle removed with a dirty steak knife than watch it) chose to blur out the cover when they did a discussion about it. The question I have is, why? Why does this image bother people? Does it bother people? And if it does, what does that say about our culture?

There’s little doubt in my mind that TIME purposely chose an image that would garner people’s attention (and sell magazines). Just look at it and it’s obvious. The woman on the cover is one hot mama, the vast majority of her left breast is showing, and the kid she’s nursing in the picture is clearly old enough to be on a tee-ball team. But in much the same way as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, this image can only be considered provocative if there’s something within us that such an image could provoke.

As a culture, we’re not used to seeing women nurse their children. If we see it, we think they should “at least be” covered up. Ideally, we would have them run off to some private place somewhere, like a bathroom, a dressing room, or the grass behind the shed.

We’re especially not used to seeing women nurse children as old as three. In fact, many of us have ideas about nursing having certain boundaries. We think kids should stop doing it once they’re old enough to ask for it, or at the who-came-up-with-it age of 1. The truth of the matter is these boundaries are based on nothing remotely human or natural, and are altogether cultural. The World Health Organization recommends children breastfeed at least two years, and in many countries around the world—where children routinely nurse for three or four years, and nobody bats an eyelash—that recommendation is actually conservative.

So why doesn’t that happen here?

America has decided that the female breast is nothing more than nature’s sex toy. And because it’s nature’s sex toy, any woman who allows us to see one—or the hint of one, or even the suggestion of a hint of one—while nursing must obviously be doing something voyeuristic. This is like the modern day equivalent of saying that women on their period are possessed by the devil. The decision to breastfeed is cemented during the first days of a child’s life. I may be wrong about this, but I’m pretty sure in those first few days after giving birth, sex is just about the last thing on any new mother’s mind. To assume that breastfeeding becomes something sexual in the weeks or months or even years that follow is outlandish. Some women choose to bottle-feed their babies; does that become sexual after six months, too?

The other problem is that our culture has other ideas of what a kid should eat. When they’re newborns, doctors and hospitals are all too eager to push baby formula, tempting new moms away from the hard work of nursing (and make no mistake: it is hard work) before they’ve even given it a chance. And once those kids are old enough for solid foods, the switch is made from Enfamil and Similac to Chicken McNuggets packaged with toys served by six-foot clowns. We talk so much about health in this country, so much about our children being overweight. Are we really perplexed as to why it’s like that? The bombardment begins the day a kid is born, often just hours after it comes out from its womb.

The cover of TIME flies in the face of all of this, in the face of the horrible food culture we’ve designed for our children (and ourselves), and the face of our shame—which is grossly misplaced—over women nursing as nature intended. When we see this cover, we are looking in a mirror. But instead of seeing what we are, which is artificial, we see what we’re supposed to be, which is natural. And it disgusts us. We call it extreme. Because why search our souls, why make changes, when being offended is so easy and compelling?

There is nothing weird about a woman breastfeeding her three-year-old son. There is nothing weird about breastfeeding, period. Around the world, the fact that we find it weird would be considered the weirdest thing of all. But I’m not surprised the media doesn’t want us to see it this way. Because the moment we realize breasts are for feeding children, not selling cars, movie tickets, or copies of TIME Magazine, a lot of people in the media—the people who profit off of selling sex—will be screwed.

Jonathan David Morris is the author of “Versus Nurture,” available now for Kindle and Nook, as well as in paperback.

It’s easy to forget sometimes, what with the roughly 8 billion wars and conflicts our country is involved in all around the world, that when the federal government means to do war, they do war best right here at home.

Case in point: Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and her unbridled effort to obliterate family farms.

Last August, the Department of Labor looked around, scratched its head, and decided the new thing it should focus on was applying child labor laws to agricultural settings. Offhand, you’re thinking, “Well, shouldn’t they be applied?” Well, sure. In a corporate feed lot. What we’re talking about here is the use of children on farms that those children’s families own. Put into practice, these laws will, in the words of a Department of Labor press release, prohibit children under the age of 18 from “being employed in the storing, marketing, and transporting of farm product raw materials.”

Furthermore, the laws would designate a number of farm-related places as completely off limits to children. Dangerous places like country grain elevators. And silos. And… livestock auctions?

Our country isn’t as loaded with family farms as it used to be hundreds of years ago, but such farms do, indeed, still exist, and these child labor laws would do nothing short of hurt them.

According to Secretary of Labor Solis, the reason for this move is simple. “Children employed in agriculture are some of the most vulnerable workers in America,” she says. “Ensuring their welfare is a priority of the department.” It doesn’t take a genius to know that any time the government cites the children as a reason for an action, all of us should be extraordinarily nervous.

So let’s look at what these laws would accomplish, before we determine why.

Off the top of my head (where all great ideas come from), I can think of at least two ways the application of these laws would be detrimental. First off is the fact that any family farm which relies on its children to help pick up the slack will now be forced to hire outside help, which, like any kind of hiring, is going to cost some money. Many farms barely make enough money to stick around without hiring outside workers; it’s easy to see where adding this expense would be enough to shut those kinds of farms down.

Secondly, this move will cut children off from the family business in an obvious, substantial way. For what would probably be the first time in human history, we would suddenly see a number of children managing to grow up on farms without having any clue whatsoever how they run or how to run them. This isn’t notable just for its absurdity; its notable because, without a generation of educated farm kids, we will undoubtedly soon be lacking in educated farm adults.

And that’s the thing. Why, you may ask, would the federal government make such a move, if not, in fact, for the reasons of child safety? It’s because family farms don’t work for our government. Haven’t in a while. And anything that can squeeze such farms out of the picture is a-ok with our dear elected leaders.

The vast majority of “farm fresh” food in this country is neither fresh nor comes from a farm. Most of it comes from corporate-owned lots, where they churn out mass-produced foods of very low—and sometimes even dangerous—quality. Some of this stuff is barely food at all. It’s science experiments. Chemicals. Toxins. The irony of it is, while Solis goes on about child safety, this is the crud we’re feeding our kids.

The companies that produce these “foods” are well known to have ties to various creatures in our federal government. It’s a nice little system for those involved in it. The government squeezes out the family farmers, and their friends in the industry—friends with money—benefit from it. They get to sell cheap food that’s horrible for our health, and because they have less competition on the supermarket shelves, most of America remains none the wiser.

And, of course, there’s something larger in play here, too. That’s the simple fact that family farming is a little too independent for Washington’s tastes. If you’re not a large corporation in this country, the people in charge don’t want you. Larger is better. It consolidates things. Puts all the power in the hands of the few. If too many family farms or other small businesses are allowed to grow and thrive, people will start getting bad ideas about being free and being able to succeed in life on their own. This doesn’t work for the people in Washington, where whole careers and power structures depend on America thinking it needs help.

It would be disingenuous for me to sit here and tell you that every family farm in America pumps out quality food, and that no kid has ever been hurt on such a farm. I don’t know that. I haven’t been to every farm in America. But I do know this move by the Department of Labor has nothing to do with any of that. It’s all just a part of the greater effort to squeeze out the small and independent in favor of the large and well connected.

Jonathan David Morris is the author of “Versus Nurture,” available now for Kindle and Nook, as well as in paperback.

When I was a kid, I knew a lot of people who were Chicago Bulls fans. I don’t mean people who rooted for the Bulls when the Bulls were on, or who simply wished for the Bulls to do well. I mean people who wore Chicago Bulls hats, Chicago Bulls Starter jackets—people who, if you happened to ask them, would’ve told you the Bulls were their favorite basketball team.

None of this would have seemed strange if I’d grown up anywhere near Chicago. I didn’t. I grew up in North Jersey.

But I also grew up in the Michael Jordan-Scottie Pippen era—thus explaining the Bulls and their widespread fandom.

Throughout my life, wherever I’ve gone, I’ve noticed variations of this phenomenon. Most people like to root for their local sports teams, regardless of how good or bad those sports teams are, because it makes them feel like they’re a part of something. But every now and then you’ll run into that geographical anomaly like the occasional Dallas Cowboys fan living outside Philly.

“Oh, really?” I’ll ask them. “You root for the Cowboys? What do you, come from Dallas?”

“No, I’m from here.”

“But I guess you’ve been to Dallas?”

“Never in my life. But listen to me, man: Five Super Bowl rings!”

My favorite is the people who are somehow, against all geographical odds whatsoever, magically fans of both the New York Yankees and Pittsburgh Steelers. The winningest teams in their respective sports, a seven hour drive away from each other—and somehow you “grew up rooting” for both of them?

I don’t begrudge these people their right to root for whoever they want. It’s a free country (allegedly), and if they want to be frauds, they are free to be frauds. But let’s not mistake their fandom for anything other than what it is. These are not people who grew up in some isolated area where they didn’t have pro sports, where people simply chose whatever teams were on TV. No, these are people who only want to root for a winner, people who, for whatever reason, put winning on such an unreachable pedestal that the very idea of following a team with the occasional down season would turn them off the sport altogether.

Unfortunately, these people exist in politics, not just sports.

Later this month, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania—the state where I’ve lived for the better part of a decade—will (finally) hold its presidential primary. I purposely registered as a Republican this year so I could participate in that primary and vote for Ron Paul. Even though we are now at a point where Mitt Romney’s nomination seems to be inevitable, and Ron Paul’s chances of overcoming him seem impossible, I still plan on pulling the lever for the man I have always believed in.

Some people will undoubtedly read that last sentence and think I’m either nuts or stupid. I am probably both, but I’d rather be nuts and stupid and vote for Ron Paul than do my part to condone Mitt Romney as president. And not only do I feel this way now, but I intend to feel the same way in November. If the general election comes down to Romney versus Barack Obama, and Ron Paul has chosen not to run against both of them as an independent, I will likely vote for a third-party candidate, if there’s one who comes close enough to what I believe in, or I will simply not vote at all.

You have to understand—and that’s my point here: not enough people do understand—that any time someone asks you to choose the “lesser of two evils,” not choosing either is a perfectly valid choice. I don’t like Romney. I don’t like Obama. Neither of them is any less evil to me. I can’t imagine being comfortable with either man as president, and I certainly can’t imagine being comfortable taking a chance that I would be. So why would I waste my time and energy going to the voting booth to vote for a man who I don’t intend to like?

Every time I have a discussion like this one, someone inevitably calls me an idealist or accuses of me of being willing to throw my vote away. To that, I say: Good. I wish more people would throw their votes away. Maybe then this country wouldn’t be so screwy. We’re so busy going to the polls every four years believing there’s only two guys who can win at any time. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, and it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. If more people went to the polls believing they should vote for who they actually believe in, maybe we’d have better choices, and the two sides of the same coin masquerading as our “parties” wouldn’t have such a stranglehold on our country.

Unlike some people, I don’t need to root for the Steelers to enjoy my football. I certainly don’t need to gain some kind of personal validation at the voting booth, voting for whoever I think is the “lesser of two evils” just because I think he can win.

I like Ron Paul for a variety of reasons. Not the least amongst those reasons is the fact that he not only claims to respect the Constitution but has a record I can generally make heads or tails of to prove it. I have no idea what Romney believes in. He changes his mind on most of his issues faster than scientists flip-flop on whether eggs are good or bad for you. And Obama? I’ve already seen what that guy’s capable of doing. I seem to remember an anti-war theme to his campaign in ’08. I’m sorry, have we stopped bombing people? Or have we actually bombed more people since he got in office?

So the next time someone tells you not to throw your vote away, just remember this: The only vote that’s thrown away is the one that you regret. If you don’t like Romney and don’t like Obama, don’t vote for either of these people.

Otherwise, when these guys are screwing everything up for us, you’ll have no one to lay the blame on but yourself.

Jonathan David Morris is the author of “Versus Nurture,” available now for Kindle and Nook, as well as in paperback.

Immediately after Mitt Romney won Maryland, Wisconsin, and D.C. this week, I started hearing people who identify themselves as Republicans or conservatives calling for Romney’s rivals—Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul—to drop out. This sentiment echoes what I’ve been hearing from these people for several months now, since long before Romney won enough states to make a Santorum, Gingrich, or Paul comeback mathematically uncomfortable. The thinking here goes that the nomination is Romney’s, we already know the nomination is Romney’s, and the longer these other guys continue to challenge this foregone conclusion, the more time, energy, and money will be wasted focusing on the primaries instead of Barack Obama.

I get this viewpoint. Really, I do. But I also get that two things are implicit within it:

1. that the only thing that matters is putting in someone who can beat Barack Obama, even if that someone essentially is Barack Obama; and

2. that even though these primaries are part of a democratic process, and some states have yet to participate in that process (I’m sitting here in Pennsylvania, where there hasn’t been a primary yet), it’s okay to let the few decide for the many, because, after all, November is getting closer, and we need Barack Obama-B to concentrate on beating Barack Obama-A.

It’s this second point that truly intrigues me. And even though we’re currently seeing it from the pro-Romney population, I don’t think it’s some genetic abnormality specific to that group. If Santorum was in the lead here, and Romney was playing catch-up, we’d be seeing all the Rickheads out there imploring Mitt Romney to tap the mat three times and waddle off into the sunset. If Republicans held the White House, and Democrats were mired in this primary instead, we’d be hearing similar sentiments coming from that side of the aisle as well.

Of course you know what all of this means, and it’s that the presidency doesn’t really matter. Oh, we think that it matters, we say that it matters—sometimes we even go to sleep dreaming that it matters. But it doesn’t matter, it hasn’t mattered in some time, and until some highly unusual individual wins the office and changes everything (Ron Paul), it probably won’t matter again in our lifetimes.

This whole thing is one giant game of capture-the-flag. All of us know it, but we choose to pretend otherwise, because telling ourselves it is what it is would take all the fun out of rooting for a side. The closer we get to this election, the more we’re going to hear about how essential it is to the running of our country, and how our democracy is tied up in it—but as we’re seeing with these calls for Santorum, Gingrich, and Paul to drop out, the democratic part of this democratic process isn’t as important as win, win, win.

There’s going to be a number of people who are going to disagree with me on this. Some of these people will be Barack Obama supporters who see Mitt Romney and think the sky will fall if he gets elected. Others will be Romney people who think the sky has already fallen under Obama and Romney’s the Atlas who’s gonna pick it up for us. It’s cute when people believe in politicians. When I was a kid, I believed in Santa. But before you send me that nasty email (which I welcome), try to believe in this: No matter who wins between these two, there’s going to be more war. It may come in Iran, it may come elsewhere, but it will come, as it does under every president. No matter who wins between them, our economy will continue to struggle. And no matter who wins between them, our wasteful government will continue to grow.

I know these things and can rest assured in them because America long ago gave up the idea that the job of a politician was to restrain the government. If that was what we thought, then we wouldn’t be discussing whether Rick Santorum should “let go and let Romney,” because we’d be too busy talking about which one of these guys is actually good for the country. But we don’t care which one is good for the country. Our guy is good for the country. End of story. And when you already think your candidate’s goodness is a given, you can get away with justifying anything they do, even when their actions defy all reason.

Jonathan David Morris is the author of “Versus Nurture,” available now for Kindle and Nook, as well as in paperback.

He was sitting on an upside down bucket with his chin on his fist like Rodin’s Thinker.

“Chris?”

He looked up.

Karen was standing on the rickety basement staircase, her left hand wrapped around its rounded railing, her right hand splayed across her belly.

Christopher Ransom had heard his own name probably four billion times to that point in his life. At least two of those four billion had been from the mouth of Karen—usually followed by some kind of instruction, like Chris, take out the garbage or Chris, don’t drive so fast. There was something different about the way she said it now, her voice pitching up and rising at the end. She sounded almost surprised to see him, like she’d just ripped off the villain’s mask at the end of a Scooby-Doo.

“What are you doing?” she asked her husband, descending another step. Her feet slapped the wooden stairs like a round of lethargic clapping.

The basement floor was made of dirt. Not dirt on top of another surface. Dirt from underground. The house was about 150 years old (it was hard to tell; the town hadn’t started keeping records until 1900, and all the houses built before that year were simply attributed to that year), but in all that time, only one family besides the Ransoms had lived there, and amongst the other things they never thought to do—like installing cable or hooking up a washer and dryer—they’d never gotten it in their heads to pave the basement floor.

Chris and Karen had talked about paving it when they bought the place five years ago. Five years later, they still hadn’t. Karen, who always walked around barefoot (she didn’t like socks; they felt too restricting), hadn’t made it past the bottom step a single time since the day they signed the deal.

“I’m looking for it,” Chris told his wife, reiterating why he’d come down to the basement. Chris was surrounded on all four sides by unpacked cardboard boxes.

Karen descended another step—the final step before the dirt floor. “Any luck?”

“Not a lot, no.”

“You want me to help you look?”

A bluff if ever there’d been one, he thought. “Sure,” he said, not about to call her on it.

Instantly, as if it was no big deal, as if her entire history with this basement—or non-history with this basement—had never occurred, she descended the final step and trotted barefoot across the earthen floor. She walked normally—not with the tiptoed stance Chris might have reasonably expected. She knelt down before the cardboard box that sat in front of his upside down bucket. Photo albums sat inside it, surrounded by a moat of unopened yellow envelopes, each of them sporting red Kodak logos.

“What’s it look like again?” she asked her husband as she sifted through the box.

“Green and blue,” he told his wife. “And two of its edges are tattered.”

She removed a pair of identical brown albums, placing them on the floor. Chris didn’t need to look through them to remember what was in them. It was photos of the year they first met in college. He could still see a few of those photos in his mind, still see the moments—all the parties and the hangouts—those photos were attached to. There would be one of kids giving fingers to the camera. Another one of Chris and his buddy Stoltzfus sealing a perfect game of beer pong. Half a dozen of Karen puffing on cloves with half a dozen different people. Good times. Old times. Times that could never be repeated. Too many things had changed since then. And tonight had changed most everything.

She looked at him as if to wonder why he wasn’t helping. It was his idea to come down here, after all—his idea to grab that tattered-on-two-sides blanket.

Say something, he thought. He had to say something.

“Do you remember that philosophy class we took senior year?” he asked.

Not finding the blanket, that green and blue blanket, Karen replaced the photo albums and packets of photos in the cardboard box between them. “The Simonson one? Yeah. Why?” She tugged at the flap on a box to Chris’s left, pulling it closer so she could look through.

She was beautiful, he thought. It was late and Karen was in her pajamas—the oversized purple ones with the cartoon ducks in galoshes with umbrellas, which did her body precisely no justice. Her makeup had been removed for the evening, and her brown hair was pulled back in a tail. This was love. Because she was gorgeous like this. Because she was Karen. Because she was his.

Karen removed a crumbled wad of yellowed newspaper from the second box. Her one eyebrow crept up high on her forehead, as if to wonder, Is this what I think it is?

“I remember this one time in that class,” he said, “when we had this whole discussion on the idea of nature versus nurture. Are we already who we’re always gonna be on the day we’re born? Just a product of our DNA? Or does the world get to shape us? Do we get to learn and grow?”

She began peeling back the crumbled newspaper.

There were dozens of others just like it in the box.

“I remember Simonson turned to me,” said Chris, “and said, ‘Mr. Ransom, which one do you think it is?’”

Having peeled back the newspaper all the way, Karen now sat there holding a mug, which was white in color with blue words upon it: WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER. She reached in the mug and pulled out a silver-colored peace sign pendant, with four layers of fishing wire running through the hole, making it a necklace. “And what did you say?” she asked her husband. She placed the mug on the floor beside her, then dropped the pendant in her right pajama pocket.

“I said, ‘I don’t know,’” Chris went on, “‘but I’ll put ten bucks on the underdog.’”

“Why are you bringing this up?” she asked.

“Because tonight,” he said, “all bets are off.”

Something creaked, and they both looked up, staring at the old wooden joists that ran the width of the basement ceiling.

A moment passed, and they both remained quiet, awaiting a follow-up noise that never came.

Karen broke the moment. “Have you even started looking for this blanket?” she asked.

“No,” said Chris.

“Then what have you been doing?”

“Taking care of some business. And thinking.”

“About the blanket?”

“About my dad. I’ve just been sitting here thinking how there was this thing he always used to tell me. ‘Chris, there comes a time in every man’s life when he has to make a decision.’ I guess I never really got what the guy was trying to say, because as many times as I heard it, I always just rolled my eyes or shut the door and told him to stop annoying me.

“Tonight, I just wish the guy was still around. I just wish I could call him and tell him he was right.

“Or maybe ask him what he would do.”

The ceiling creaked again, and both of them eyed it. And although neither Chris nor Karen spoke, Chris could feel a certain energy between them—that both of them knew what this creaking sound meant, that they were running out of time.

“But then I think, ‘Chris, you know what to do. You know because it’s in you.’ Maybe it’s in my DNA. Or maybe it comes from life experience. But it doesn’t matter how it got there. It matters that it’s there. And now is the time when I need to use it. Now is that time in every man’s life.”

Karen moved the box between them to the side, and scooted closer to her husband, taking his hands in her own and resting them on his knees. “There is no blanket… is there…” she asked, her voice so resigned, so matter of fact, that when Chris visualized her words in his mind, he couldn’t find the question mark he knew in his gut belonged there.

“There is,” he said, “but not down here. It’s upstairs in my dresser.”

“Then what did you come down here for?” she asked.

“The solution to our dilemma.”

There was one other thing Chris’s dad used to say. It was the reason why he never kept a gun in the house. “Because guns are answers to questions,” he had said. “And once you’ve got a gun in the house, it answers every question there is.”

Chris pulled his hands out from inside Karen’s, shifted his rear end off the bucket, and lifted the bucket off the floor. There on the dirt, beneath where he’d been sitting, was a silver 9mm handgun. Loaded. Chris loved his father. Respected him. Looked up to him. But that didn’t mean they agreed all the time.

There had been a time when Chris never would have used this gun, when the simple fact that he kept it in their home wouldn’t have made sense even to him. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that the weapon was here. Now was the time when he needed to use it. Now was that time in every man’s life.

“Tonight we have a problem,” he said, “and I’m making a decision. My hope is that, whatever you think of it, you’re going to choose to support me.”

Karen gulped as she looked the gun over.

The ceiling creaked, and they both looked up.

“You’re gonna kill us, aren’t you,” she said.

“I am,” he said, in perhaps the most solemn and reasonable tone he had ever said anything in at any point in his life. “Are you okay with that?”

She looked at the boxes sitting around her. She nodded and she blinked. “I am,” she said, her voice as solemn and reasonable as his was. It was almost as if she knew all along he was making this decision. Like she’d come downstairs playing it out in the theater in her mind; her only hope, Chris could tell by her voice, was that her dear husband would write the same ending. She paused to consider the consequences of her agreement, then looked her husband in the eyes. “But Chris,” she continued—his name sounding normal, as if she was using it properly this time, using it in an instructional context—“just do me a favor and make it efficient.”

Jonathan David Morris is the author of “Versus Nurture,” available now for Kindle and Nook, as well as in paperback.

And let’s just assume, while we’re looking at numbers, that all but 10 of those people watched this year’s Super Bowl.

Of the 299,999,990 people who saw the New York Giants edge the New England Patriots, roughly half were probably trashed before kickoff; half of that half by the end of the first quarter; and half of that half by the end of the second.

This leaves us with roughly 37,499,998 citizens who made it to halftime in the neighborhood of sober.

And let’s just say that when the Pats took a 10-9 lead to the lockers, a third of those sober folks got up to pee.

If my calculations are correct—and certainly, they aren’t—this means there were roughly 24,999,998 able-minded, empty-bladdered Americans left on their couches to watch Clint Eastwood’s Chrysler commercial.

I wonder how many of those people realized it was bunk.

The big controversy this week—because this is America, and there must be a big controversy every week—is whether Eastwood’s commercial was a veiled endorsement of President Obama’s economic policies. The commercial talks about it being “halftime in America” (a metaphor I still only sort of get), and suggests that if the people of Detroit were able to band together to make it through tough times, so could all of America.

I’m not surprised people are seeing politics in this message, because some people see politics in everything. Unfortunately, there is a political statement being made here, but it has nothing to do with Democrats, Republicans, or bailouts.

The real political statement being made is that, for our country to succeed in our so-called second half, it’s going to take billion-dollar car companies and other similarly sized businesses to help us thrive. I don’t buy that for a second. And if that were true, it would be a terribly sad day for this country, because it would represent the exact opposite of what we all like to believe is the American ideal.

People in this country always like things big. Big trucks. Big steaks. Larger-than-life celebrities. It’s been this way at least since the days of Manifest Destiny, and probably before that. We reach for the stars. And this is a good thing.

But there is a point when bigger isn’t better. And we’ve seen it in this country. Largeness often comes at the expense of competition, innovation, and cultural diversity. For every Barnes & Noble, there is one less independent bookstore. For every Starbucks, there’s one less local coffee shop.

Some people believe this is free enterprise, and to some extent it is. But to some extent, it also isn’t, because the more big boxes our society relies on, the more homogenized and centralized our culture—and our thinking—becomes.

Just take the concept of job creation. We love discussing job creation these days. Politicians love to discuss it. Companies like Chrysler love to discuss it. But why are we content to live in a country where some central authority or institution needs to create jobs for us? Shouldn’t we be creating jobs for ourselves? Creating our own businesses? Shouldn’t America’s comeback, or second half, or whatever we’re calling it these days, be focused less on the too-big-to-fail and more on the small-but-just-smart-enough-to-work?

That is the true heart of capitalism and free enterprise: people having dreams, not working for the weekend; people finding their own way, not working for someone else.

The brand name politicians and their brand name political parties don’t endorse these ideals, because they don’t benefit from them. What they benefit from is a culture of need and reliance and dependence, instead of a culture of go-out-and-do-it.

Which is why it doesn’t matter if Eastwood’s commercial was endorsing Obama, because no matter which party takes the White House this November, we’re still likely to have that top-down sort of culture. And that sort of culture is antithetical to liberty. It’s the culture of the bland and the lazy and the helpless.

You really want inspiration for America’s second half? Imagine some number, some really large number—let’s make it 24,999,998 able-minded, empty-bladdered Americans—waking up tomorrow and realizing everything about this country is completely out of whack.

Imagine 24,999,998 able-minded, empty-bladdered Americans demanding a climate where giant corporations can’t buy politicians and write their own laws, at the expense of competition.

Imagine 24,999,998 able-minded, empty-bladdered Americans thinking two parties is way too few.

Imagine 24,999,998 able-minded, empty-bladdered Americans realizing when Thomas Jefferson talked about pursuing happiness, he meant them.

Jonathan David Morris is the author of The Honest Truth About Honest Abe, now just 99 cents for Kindles and Kindle Apps everywhere.

I owe my life to the Internet. Well, maybe that’s dramatic. But inasmuch as writing is the number one thing I like to do in life, the Internet, as much as anything else, is responsible for the fact that I’m able to do it. I’ve been writing online in various forms since 1996. That’s sixteen years. I’m 33-years-old. I’ve been writing online half my life. I’ve been fortunate enough to see my stuff published on sites as far from home as Russia and Germany. I’ve spoken with people all over the world, on every single continent, except Antarctica.

People who’ve been following me long enough know that one of the first forms of writing I did was on boxing. Back in the day, that was the main thing I wrote about—not the political stuff that I eventually became known for, and not the fiction I would rather be known for. In the mid-to-late ‘90s, when chatrooms were big (remember chatrooms?), I spent a good amount of time in the ESPN.com boxing chatroom talking about my favorite sport. (This sounds pathetic, but you have to remember, in the mid-90s, before the MMA explosion, fellow boxing fans were hard to find in real life.) We formed a little community in that chatroom, and I, being the entrepreneurial spirit that I was, chose to design a website where regulars of those chats could post their articles on boxing. At the time, it seemed fitting to include an ESPN logo at the top of that website.

Boxing being the relatively small deal that it was, ESPN never found us, and their logo was eventually replaced by one that was made specifically for the site. But had they found us, even back then, we—and especially me—could have been in a boatload of trouble. It was right around that time that corporate media entities began sending out their lawyers to shut down unofficial fan sites on the grounds of copyright infringement (use of logos, fan fiction, things like that). At the outset, this probably sounds reasonable to people. If a company owns a brand, they’re within their rights to want to control it. Well, maybe in a legal sense they are, but it’s contrary to the processes of human culture, and it’s also counterproductive.

Human beings have always shared stories. Human language itself, at least in part, is an outgrowth of this desire. Long before people wrote things down, tales were passed from person to person, generation to generation, and ultimately culture to culture. The story of Noah’s flood, for example, is not unique to the Judeo-Christian tradition; at least 200 cultures around the world, and possibly as many as 500 cultures, share or have shared a similar legend (some with amazingly similar details). Robin Hood, King Arthur, the stories of Homer—the list goes on of great human stories transcending the ages and their original storytellers because the audience made them their own.

Today, many stories, and brands for that matter, are created or distributed through large, corporate entities. That may sound soulless, and sometimes it is, but that in no way stems the deep human impulse to deconstruct art, derive meaning from it, and apply it to your life. When we discuss Internet censorship, we need to discuss this. We need to discuss the realities of human culture, because those realities are at odds with the corporate behemoths who seek to create and control that culture. They don’t want us creating online shrines to our favorite shows, movies, songs, whatever. They don’t want us writing fan fiction, if we feel so inclined, and they certainly don’t want us using copyrighted media as we create media of our own on sites like YouTube. What they want, in no uncertain terms, is to control what they’ve created, because they believe—make that wrongly believe—that this is the best way to make money from it. At the end of the day, they are not concerned with art. They are concerned with the commodity of art. They are concerned with money.

As an artist myself (and I use that term loosely, but for the sake of discussion, I think it’s fitting), I am wholly unconcerned with the prospect of people appropriating my work for their own purposes, because that only helps me. Piracy is a problem; don’t get me wrong. If I’m selling something, I’d obviously rather see people pay for it than steal it. But I also know that the best way to make money from what I’m doing is to let people take ownership of it.

A few years ago, for instance, someone I never met, and never spoke to, created a website literally for the purposes of commenting on my articles. This was all the site was. Just a weekly commentary on my weekly commentaries, because he so enjoyed reading them. I don’t know whatever happened to that guy, but just imagine what would have happened if I had sent him a letter telling him to shut the site down. First of all, I would have lost a fan. Second of all, I may have lost many fans, because who knows how many people found my site by first finding his? Finally, who knows what that guy was capable of? Maybe he was going to be the greatest writer who ever lived, and I was just his starting point. If Marvel Comics were to go around suing any fifth grader who traces a drawing of Spider-Man (not something that’s ever happened, to my knowledge), they could easily deprive themselves of one of the world’s next great comic book artists.

There’s an impulse to say that art and money cannot mix. I don’t believe that’s true. I believe art can be created for art’s sake, while still having an eye on making a profit from it. Like with anything in life, you need to find the balance. And that means not supporting any legislation which further entrenches us in a corporate-owned culture at the expense of a user-shared one. This may not be the focus of SOPA and PIPA, the legislation which inspired yesterday’s Wikipedia blackout, as well as this article. But it’s all a part of the larger struggle for freedom within our culture—especially the online part of it.

The neat thing about the Internet is that it’s allowed guys like me, writers like me, to make a name for themselves in a corporate-controlled world where breaking in, even when you have talent, even when you have something interesting to say, is difficult. The Internet has given me the opportunity to promote myself and my writing in ways that I might have otherwise struggled to do, because the news and publishing industries were too busy creating a professional wrestling-like atmosphere in politics and promoting Snooki as a New York Times best-selling author. I may not owe my life to the Internet, but I owe at least a portion—a large portion—of my career to it. If not for the relative freedom of the online environment, my whole writing career could easily be as blank as yesterday’s article.

Jonathan David Morris is the author of the novella, VERSUS NURTURE, available this February on Kindle, Nook, and other eformats.

1. the McRib, and the fact that it’s so popular, in spite of being so mediocre;

2. Klondike bars, and the fact that no one eats them anywhere but the zoo;

3. what it feels like to have canker sores on both sides of your mouth and nothing to eat but a bag of potato chips;

4. those Brawny commercials from a couple of years ago, when Brawny replaced the Chuck Norris-looking Brawny man with the metrosexual-dad-picking-up-his-daughter-from-soccer-practice-looking Brawny man, and introduced the change by having two rolls of paper towels talk to one another; and

5. my new novella, VERSUS NURTURE, available this February on Kindle, Nook, and other fine ereading devices everywhere.

Strangely, no one seems angry that the president failed to mention these things (except for me with the last one; I was hoping for a plug), or most of the millions of other things he failed to mention. But half the world is apparently in a buzz over the fact that he failed to mention God.

Ben Shapiro, the World’s Greatest Writer in the World, for example, took to Twitter after the president’s address, labeling him a “militant atheist” for his omission (which is great, because usually it’s the true believers who get the credit for blowing stuff up; I’m glad to see all the atheists out there finally getting in on all the hot militant action). And a website called Medical Daily, which I can proudly say I’ve never heard of before and can even more proudly say I’ll never hear of again, entered the fray with perhaps the single greatest headline I have ever seen in all my years of reading the news: “Sadness, Concern for Some as Obama Omits God from Thanksgiving Speech [VIDEO].”

You had me at “Sadness, Concern for Some.”

If you were in a coma for the last four years and woke up to see this story on TV, you’d jump on your hospital bed in a panic, wielding an IV stand at the nurses, demanding the doctors to knock you back out. If you were God Himself, you’d be up in Heaven right now, writing a blog post that ended with the abbreviation, “SMDH.” Like most of the things Americans find a way to get angry about, people are going to need to get over this. And it shouldn’t be difficult to do that, because it doesn’t matter.

First of all, let’s start with how this story became a story, which is perhaps the most mindblowing part about it. In order for something to become a story, someone has to know that it happened. So what you’re telling me is, Obama made a speech about Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving… and somebody actually watched it? Why? Were you just looking for something to complain about? Of all the things you could’ve been doing that day (eating food, watching football, having it out with family), what hell could you possibly think you deserve to put yourself through a speech by the president? What president has ever said anything about a holiday—any holiday—to warrant watching a speech about it? I don’t care what the president thinks about Thanksgiving. Or Christmas. Or New Year’s. Or that one with the furry animal. And if you watch these speeches (please don’t watch these speeches), you’ll learn that they’re not really about what the president thinks anyway. They’re just another chance for a president to repeat the same Go America bullet points as always.

In fact, watch this speech. Watch all three antiseptic minutes of it. This thing is so bland, if a couple of people with nothing better to do didn’t find a reason to be angry about it, you would’ve forgotten you heard this speech before you were done hearing it.

Which brings me to my second point, which is the general uselessness of presidential speeches. I can’t remember the last time a president managed to inspire me with his words. More importantly, I can’t remember the last time I hated myself so much that I actually wanted a president to inspire me. Presidents are not inspiring people. By the time they reach the highest office in the land, they have been stripped of all humanity, like Anakin Skywalker when he becomes Darth Vader. It is impossible for them to speak as humans and only possible for them to speak as well-oiled robots (or, if that old creak John Kerry had ever become president, poorly-oiled robots). Barack Obama’s life is one long string of speeches at this point. In fact, his whole life is one long speech. And not a very good one, either. People make such a big deal about this guy being a great speaker, but the last time someone spoke with a more affected voice than Barack Obama, it was Scott Stapp doing vocals for Creed.

When Kevin Smith first introduced Silent Bob in Clerks and Mallrats, the character was interesting because he only said one thing per movie. When someone rarely says a word, the words they do say count. Presidents say more words in public in one day than all the words in all of Kevin Smith’s movies combined (and that’s a lot of words, for those not familiar with his work; Kevin Smith’s movies tend to be wordy). Until we elect a president who elects to speak once a year (and at that point the guy could read the copyright page off an old Funk & Wagnalls, and all of America would rightfully be hooked), reading too much into any one speech is like finding a grain of sand in your car and concluding you’ve brought the whole beach home with you.

Finally, this story doesn’t matter because Obama mentioning God doesn’t matter—not to you, not to God, and certainly not to America. What’s the insinuation here? That Obama not saying God on Thanksgiving means you’re not thankful for the blessings in your life? If you’re so thankful, thank God yourself. What’s the matter? Are you not talking to Him? We’re not living under a pharaoh. Our politicians aren’t our conduits to God.

And considering how lousy most of our leaders are, that’s something we should be thankful for—not just on Thanksgiving, but every day of the year.

Jonathan David Morris is the author of the novella, VERSUS NURTURE, available this February on Kindle, Nook, and other eformats.

“Good afternoon, Mr. President,” the Man of Steel says as he places the U.S. flag back on the roof of the White House. “Sorry I’ve been away so long. I won’t let you down again.”

With all due respect to the vastly superior Richard Donner version of this movie, which axed this return-to-the-White House scene altogether (no more spoilers; just see it), this is my personal Superman II moment. I’m sorry I’ve been away so long. And to all the readers who were helping me reclaim America in the name of commonsense, sanity, and awesomeness, I pledge, like the aforementioned Son of Jor-El before me, never to let you down again.

As many of you know, but it bears recapping anyway, in 2001, I began writing columns on everything from the news of the day to the world of sports to all those strange little quirks of American society that drive neurotic, self-obsessed, and self-aware people like me crazy. I am very proud to say that, by early 2002, those columns became a weekly institution, drawing readers from literally all around the planet, and attention from such lofty places as MSNBC and Fox News. During the course of my column-writing days, I interviewed not one but two different guys who ran for president (I didn’t prove to be good luck for either of them), and saw my columns appear on more websites than I can possibly remember, and in print publications from New Jersey to California and all sorts of neat little stops in between. I developed friendships with a number of my readers, and absolutely loved the dynamic of responding to hatemail with love (and occasionally to lovemail with love). At its height, my weekly column, JDM vs the World, was nothing short of a stinking, steaming pile of success.

But vs the World was not enough.

In August ’07, I abandoned my weekly column like Benjamin Button on a nursing home doorstep. I did this to pursue my original goal of writing fiction—which I succeeded in writing, but not in publishing (for reasons I would love to go into, but not here, because the story is longer than the novel it’s about). Things happened along the way. Opportunities. The birth of my first child. For a while, I tried to convince myself that I didn’t want to write anymore—that it was something, perhaps, I was never meant to do. As an Op-Ed writer, you get used to being wrong from time to time, but I was never more wrong about anything in my life than that. Writing is now, as it has always been, and will always be, an inextricable part of me—as much a part of me as my nose or my fingers—a fire that all the water in the world could not put out. And it is with that knowledge that I return to you today, Superman references tucked beneath my arm, to tell you:

I am back.

This announcement is triple-tiered, so let me start at the bottom and work my way up. For starters, yes, the column is coming back, but in a different form. It will no longer be weekly (at least for now), and when it will start is anybody’s guess. The first one could come tomorrow, or a week from tomorrow, or sometime next month. But I promise it’s coming, so thanks for your patience.

That’s part one.

Here’s part two. I am establishing a new presence on Facebook and Twitter. I’ll be using these sites to make announcements on things such as the availability of new columns, as well as to spout off on stuff that doesn’t warrant column-length treatments, but seems worth mentioning anyway. I invite everyone who’s reading this to follow those links and either Like me on Facebook or Follow me on Twitter so you can stay up to date on all the doings in the world of JDM.

Which brings me to part three. And this is the part I am truly stoked about:

VERSUS NURTURE.

“VERSUS NURTURE?” you’re asking yourself.

That’s right. VERSUS NURTURE.

This February, I will be releasing my brand new novella, VERSUS NURTURE, exclusively in ebook formats. What this means is that, for the first time ever, you will be able to take me with you wherever you go. So whether you own a Nook or a Kindle (or one of the other fine ereading devices out there), or simply have the free Nook or Kindle apps for your Mac, PC, tablet, or smartphone, you will be able to download this story for a popular price, read it, enjoy it, and read it again.

VERSUS NURTURE is a literary/science fiction hybrid about a couple who meet in college during the days leading up to the war in Iraq. Still together nine years later, they unexpectedly receive the biggest news of their lives. But before they can so much as sit back and consider it, they suddenly find themselves facing the single biggest decision anyone’s ever made in history—a decision so big it will surely affect every future person on the planet.

That’s all I can say about it for now, but more information will be revealed as we get closer to its February release. (I’ll use Facebook and Twitter to communicate much of that information—including how to read sample chapters once available, as well as how to win a free copy—so don’t forget to take the three seconds to follow those links).

To all the truly amazing people who have liked me and followed me since the beginning—since long before “liking” and “following” were buzzwords, and back before every American with two eyes and a set of hands had a blog—thank you. Thanks for your support, thanks for your belief, and thanks for all the times you kept me on my toes. You are the people I am most excited to share VERSUS NURTURE with, because without your support over the years—and without your occasional pokes and prods and suggestions of a comeback—I’m pretty sure this announcement wouldn’t be possible.

So, until next time, thanks for reading JDM, and thanks for all your continued support.

I’m sorry I’ve been away so long.

I won’t let you down again.