Douglas Whaley

One of my favorite comedy routines is Bill Cosby’s “Chickenheart.”   It is magically funny and when I first heard it in my 20s I laughed as hard as I ever laugh.   Even after repeated hearings over decades (I introduced my son to it in 1976 and he loved it) it remained a comedy favorite.   Listen for yourself: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Bill+Cosby%E2%80%99s+%E2%80%9CChickenheart.%E2%80%9D&view=detail&mid=5B1D6E640384D6583BC45B1D6E640384D6583BC4&FORM=VIRE .   But once Cosby was accused by 58 women (to date) of sexually abusing them (typically by drugging their drinks and then making love to their limpid bodies) I dropped my attachment to “Chickenheart.” Its humorous bubble had burst and this once funny routine had no appeal shorn of the innocence that made it so endearing.    I’m a liberal Democrat and I’ve admired Al Franken first as a very funny member of Saturday Night Live and then as an enlighten...

Charleyne Fitzgerald and her son Clayton Whaley In this blog I’ve often written posts about my fascinating ex-wife Charleyne (see Recent Posts below).  We were married in 1971, had one son, Clayton Robert Whaley, and, sadly, divorced in 1976 when I finally faced the fact that I was gay.  We’ve always been great friends, and that is true to this day when she is married to her high school sweetheart, John Fitzgerald, with whom she reconnected at a reunion some five or six years ago.  Clayton is now married to Maria, and they live in a suburb of Seattle. Clayton and Maria vacationing in Australia Charleyne turned 70 on August 7 th of this year (a Sunday) and Clayton and Maria decided to have a birthday party in her honor, so Charleyne and John flew there from Indianapolis, their home, and David and I made a couple of horrific connecting flights from our home in Columbus to be there for the whole weekend.  Charleyne and her husband J...

Free Inquiry Magazine, published the Center for Inquiry, is the leading Humanist publication in the United States.  I am pleased that this month’s issue (December 2017/January 2018) contains an essay I published on this blog in 2011.  It is the second piece I’ve published with Free Inquiry , the first being “Creating the Bible: Water Into Wine,” http://douglaswhaley.blogspot.com/2017/01/ive-published-article.html .   A third article is scheduled for publication next year.  My latest article is below, with pictures added from the original 2011 post.                                                AN ATHEIST INTERVIEWS GOD Atheist:  I know you rarely do interviews, so thanks for sitting down for...