A Good World

Putting Your Faith in God...

2009-02-13T11:36:00.003-05:00

...or failing that, Smith and Wesson.

Via The Religion News Service, I see that the Arkansas State House has passed a bill specifically allowing for guns to be carried in churches:

'...The state House on Wednesday narrowly passed a bill to allow concealed weapons permit holders to bring their guns to church. Its fate will now rest with the Senate...

...House Bill 1237, the church-guns bill, won approval on a 57-42 vote.

The bill by Rep. Beverly Pyle, R-Cedarville, would amend state law to remove churches and other places of worship from the list of places where people with permits are not allowed to carry guns.

“Due to many shootings that have happened in our churches across our nation, it is time we changed our concealed handgun law to allow law-abiding citizens of the state of Arkansas the right to defend themselves and others should a situation happen in one of our churches,” Pyle told House members...'

This really doesn't speak well of the faith the Arkansas State Government has in Arkansas religious institutions to be a force for peace in this world. If the State House feels that churches offering messages of peace are ineffective without some serious packed heat to back up the message, then what are they doing funneling money to 'Faith Based Initiatives?'

Stimulus!

2009-02-10T16:48:00.002-05:00

Stimulus we can believe in, courtesy of the U.S. Senate:

'...Buried in the Senate version of the economic recovery plan — despite the "heroic" efforts of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), and other centrists to "fry the bacon" — is an allocation of $1 Billion to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) for “weapons activities.”...'

Appropriation here. I can think of few things more stimulating than nuclear bombs. If you're a Cylon. If you instead are trying to stimulate an economy, then building schools will most certainly lead to more job creation, to say nothing of block grants to states in financial straitjackets.

Of course, World War II is, by popular myth and story, the reason we got out of the Great Depression, so what do I know? Think of all those rebuilding opportunities on Caprica. Maybe we could nuke each other; or maybe the Moon.

Buh-Bye, Dubai

2009-02-10T15:08:00.003-05:00

Boom Times go Boom. From the London Times:

'...For many expatriate workers in Dubai it was the ultimate symbol of their tax-free wealth: a luxurious car that few could have afforded on the money they earned at home...

...Police have found more than 3,000 cars outside Dubai’s international airport in recent months. Most of the cars – four-wheel drives, saloons and “a few” Mercedes – had keys left in the ignition. Some had used-to-the-limit credit cards in the glove box. Others had notes of apology attached to the windscreen.

“Every day we find more and more cars,” said one senior airport security official, who did not want to be named. “Christmas was the worst – we found more than two dozen on a single day.”...'

What on Earth? Why, those sound like perfectly good automobiles. What's going on?

'...Now, faced with crippling debts as a result of their high living and Dubai’s fading fortunes, many expatriates are abandoning their cars at the airport and fleeing home rather than risk jail for defaulting on loans.

...Under Sharia, which prevails in Dubai, the punishment for defaulting on a debt is severe. Bouncing a check, for example, is punishable with jail. Those who flee the emirate are known as skips...

...Police have issued warrants against owners of the deserted cars. Those who return risk arrest at the airport...'

Oh, I see. Good luck with those airport arrests. They're not coming back. Here are the economic projections for that crazy boom town Dubai in the coming year:

80% of the entire population (about 4.5 million) is expatriate.

8% total population decline predicted this year, as expatriates leave

1,500 visas canceled every day in Dubai

62% of homes occupied by expatriates; 60% fall in property values predicted

50% slump in the price of luxury apartments on Palm Jumeirah

25% reduction in luxury spending among UAE expatriates

Predictions

2009-01-22T12:07:00.001-05:00

From the BBC Archives: Martin Luther King in 1964., talking about when America will have a Black President.

H/t: Religion News

Belief

2009-01-21T13:40:00.004-05:00

I watched the inauguration online yesterday, or, rather, as much as I could when the squirrels running the CNN servers were still working. But I got most of it. Including this part of his speech, as noted by Jonathan Cohn:

'...Using inclusive language about religion is pretty much ritual now. If you're a politician giving a speech and you're going to cite one faith, you have to cite many--i.e., not just Christians, but Jews, Muslims, and Hindus as well. And that's a good thing.

But if the standards of polite political discourse now require accepting people who pray to god in different ways, it doesn't require recognizing those who choose not to pray at all. At least not yet. That made this line in Obama's address significant:

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus--and non-believers.

Perhaps this is another barrier, albeit a rhetorical one, that Obama intends to tear down over the next few years...'

It is a rhetorical 'barrier,' that is true, but it's nonetheless important. As the saying goes, an atheist couldn't be elected dog catcher in this country. And when politicians start incorporating religious talk into their babblings, it invariably ends up being a Protestant formulation - hardly an inclusive act. So we have a long way to go and it's a small step, but an excellent one.

Be Seeing You

2009-01-18T12:19:00.002-05:00

R.I.P. Patrick McGoohan. Yeah, I'm a Prisoner geek. You have a problem with that? I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered.

Freedom of Choice

2009-01-16T15:39:00.002-05:00

Krispy Creme is celebrating the inauguration:

'...Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Inc. (NYSE: KKD) is honoring American's sense of pride and freedom of choice on Inauguration Day, by offering a free doughnut of choice to every customer on this historic day, Jan. 20. By doing so, participating Krispy Kreme stores nationwide are making an oath to tasty goodies -- just another reminder of how oh-so-sweet 'free' can be...'

Sounds like fun. But the problem with evil things is that they often appear innocuous. To wit:

'...KRISPY KREME CELEBRATES OBAMA WITH PRO-ABORTION DOUGHNUTS Washington, DC (15 January 2009)

The following is a statement from American Life League president Judie Brown:

"The next time you stare down a conveyor belt of slow-moving, hot, sugary glazed donuts at your local Krispy Kreme, you just might be supporting President-elect Barack Obama's radical support for abortion on demand - including his sweeping promise to sign the Freedom of Choice Act as soon as he steps in the Oval Office, Jan. 20.

"The doughnut giant released the following statement yesterday:

'Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Inc. (NYSE: KKD) is honoring American's sense of pride and freedom of choice on Inauguration Day, by offering a free doughnut of choice to every customer on this historic day, Jan. 20. By doing so, participating Krispy Kreme stores nationwide are making an oath to tasty goodies -- just another reminder of how oh-so-sweet "free" can be.'

"Just an unfortunate choice of words? For the sake of our Wednesday morning doughnut runs, we hope so. The unfortunate reality of a post Roe v. Wade America is that 'choice' is synonymous with abortion access, and celebration of 'freedom of choice' is a tacit endorsement of abortion rights on demand.

"President-elect Barack Obama promises to be the most virulently pro-abortion president in history. Millions more children will be endangered by his radical abortion agenda.

"Celebrating his inauguration with 'Freedom of Choice' doughnuts - only two days before the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision to decriminalize abortion - is not only extremely tacky, it's disrespectful and insensitive and makes a mockery of a national tragedy.

"A misconstrued concept of 'choice' has killed over 50 million preborn children since Jan. 22, 1973. Does Krispy Kreme really want their free doughnuts to celebrate this 'freedom.'

"As of Thursday morning, communications director Brian Little could not be reached for comment. We challenge Krispy Kreme doughnuts to reaffirm their commitment to true freedom - to the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - and to separate themselves and their doughnuts from our great American shame.

"American Life League was cofounded in 1979 by Julie Brown. It is the largest grassroots Catholic pro-life organization in the United States and is committed to the protection of all innocent human beings from the moment of creation to natural death."...'

Tough Decisions

2009-01-16T13:28:00.002-05:00

From the text of the final speech of the Captain of the Titanic:

'...You may not agree with some of the tough decisions I have made. But I hope you can agree that I was willing to make the tough decisions...'

To which IOZ responds:

'...It really is an extraordinary notion, isn't it? That the act of deciding exists independently of the decision itself, that the outcome is an invalid rubric for judging the appropriateness and rightness of the initiatory act...'

Yes it is. It's also extraordinary how much of a fetish our nation has for some vaguely defined notions of masculinity, such as 'decision making.' For some reason we now view careful deliberation as some sort of feminizing activity. Probably some sort of post 9/11 martial viewpoint.

Hey, Zeus, Christos

2009-01-13T09:12:00.002-05:00

We just finished watching ‘I, Claudius’ on DVD, and now are trying to complete season 4.0 of Battlestar Galactica before the next episodes start on Friday. An interesting narrative thread that runs through both is the division of their respective societies into polytheistic worship of ancient (Greek) gods, and monotheistic worship.

Just in time I read a post on GetReligion, linking to a two year old article in the Guardian:

‘…It was high noon when Doreta Peppa, a woman with long, dark locks and owlish eyes, entered the Sanctuary of Olympian Zeus…To the astonishment of onlookers, Peppa also began babbling Orphic hymns, before thrusting her arms upwards into the Attic skies and proceeding, somewhat deliriously, to warble her love for the gods of Mount Olympus. But, then, for the motley group of modern pagans coalesced around the temple's giant Corinthian columns, this was a special moment. Not since the late fourth century AD, when the newly Christian Roman state outlawed all forms of pagan worship, had a high priestess officiated on the sacred site.

Armed with white doves, Peppa, a former advertising executive, was not going to hold back - even if it meant defying the furious Greek officials and riot police gathered at the second-century temple's gates, unwilling to stop the ceremony for fear of provoking a violent confrontation. "Sixteen and a half centuries is a very long time to wait," she said. "After so many years of Christian persecution we were finally able to call on Zeus, our king-god, to bring peace to the world ahead of the [2008] Olympics. For us, it was a very, very big thing."

So big, that like a thunderbolt from the deity himself, the one-hour ceremony has achieved the near-impossible task of unnerving Greece's powerful Orthodox church. Since Peppa's performance 10 days ago, hierarchs have redirected the venom they usually reserve for homosexuals, Catholics, Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, masons and the "barbaric" Turks at the "miserable resuscitators" of the degenerate dead religion. In fire-and-brimstone sermons priests have slammed the "satanic" New Ageists and fulminated against their idols…’

While this sounds like something out of ‘American Gods,’ the YSEE, an umbrella organization that represents groups seeking a ‘restoration of the Polytheistic, Ethnic Hellenic religion,’ is trying to promote religious freedom in Greece, a country overwhelmingly run by Orthodox Christianity:

‘…For years, we the Ethnikoi Hellenes, i.e. contemporary Greeks who still respect and honour the rites and beliefs of our ancestors, the Hellenes, remained stoically patient when faced with the systematic (and not at all coincidental), negligence and degradation of our monumental and living ethnic heritage by a "Greek" State, which is obviously enslaved by an economico-religious giant whose cultural and logical interests promote the open scorn for our real (i.e. pre-Christian) ethnic Tradition…

Under this new and terrifying reality that we all see being formed against real Hellenism, and as none of the State Officials supposedly responsible for its protection seem sensitive enough, personalities from the community of the Ethnikoi Hellenes have decided to found the Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes, which shall aim at the protection and restoration of the real (pre-Christian) Hellenic Tradition. We shall work by all legal means necessary towards awakening the Greek people and securing respect, survival, natural and moral protection, restoration and honour of our monuments, symbols, ideas and living forms of ancient Hellenic Tradition in the forms of cosmoperception, philosophical thought, political perception, ethnic religion, arts, morals and customs, language, mythology, symbols etc…

…Honour and Glory to our Ancestral Gods’

Looks like the Old Gods are fighting back. With the help of a former advertising executive.

Election

2008-11-18T13:49:00.001-05:00

I meant to post these, oh, say, two weeks ago when it actually happened and was more timely, but I’ve been rather busy with all of this school and work stuff going on. But the above are shots of the line I stood in for 2 ½ hours to vote. My normal wait time has been 15 minutes or so; this time the line went out the door, down 6th Avenue, around the corner down Berkeley, and down to 5th Avenue, around the corner and towards Lincoln. It’s about a fifth of a mile.

What was also amazing is that the line was there just because of turnout. No problems at the polling place (it was all running relatively smoothly), just tons of people coming out for their franchise. And no one was discouraged by the line. They just got a cup of coffee and a paper and waited along with everyone else.

It’s been hard for me to get motivated about all of this, I confess. While I eagerly hoped that now President-elect Obama would win, most of my wish was based on a fervent desire for Senator McCain not to win. My aspirations for the next presidency have been simply a ceasing of the idiocy and destruction of the previous eight years of kleptocracy. In short, to stop digging the hole. I place no hope, however, on getting the hole filled in – I’m far too much of a cynical realist for that. I would love nothing more for a progressive agenda to be enacted, but that aint gonna happen.

And behold today: Senator “Obama is a socialist” Lieberman gets to keep his Chairmanship. Here’s the fun quote:

‘…Asked what it would mean if Lieberman kept his chairmanship, one Senate Democratic aide said bluntly: "The left has been foiled again. They can rant and rage but they still do not put the fear into folks to actually change their votes. Their influence would be in question."…’

Wazzup!!!

2008-10-24T18:37:00.000-04:00

More of This, Please

2008-10-03T13:20:00.002-04:00

The above is a speech Richard Trumka, the Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO, gave back in July to the United Steel Workers. Mr. Trumka is a third-generation coal miner from Pennsylvania. Watch the entire thing - it's powerful.

One Nation, Under God

2008-10-02T18:19:00.002-04:00

The debate's tonight. And just in time, Jeff Sharlet gives us a little update:

'...In 1932, James A. Farrell, president of US Steel, tried to persuade then Governor Franklin Roosevelt that economic depression was “caused by disobedience to divine law,” and that the only cure was a mix of spiritual revival and unprecedented powers for corporate leaders. In 1936, Frank Buchman, the founder of the Moral Re-Armament movement—a network of upper crust Christian clubs—announced, “Human problems aren’t economic. They’re moral, and they can’t be solved by immoral measures.” He suggested instead “God-controlled democracy, or perhaps I should say a theocracy.” Bruce Barton, a founder of advertising giant BBDO and the author of one of the 20th century’s bestsellers, The Man Nobody Knows (it was Jesus, whom Barton proposed as the greatest CEO in history), won a seat in Congress in 1938 by proposing to a nation battered by unfettered capitalism that it “Repeal a Law a Day.”

The most influential of these businessmen for God was a Norwegian immigrant named Abraham Vereide, founder of an annual ritual of piety and politics that survives to this day, the National Prayer Breakfast. In 1935, Vereide created a “fellowship” of Christian businessmen bound together by the idea that God hates government regulation because it interferes with a believer’s ability to choose right or wrong. He found receptive audiences in private meetings with Henry Ford and the president of Chevrolet, Thomas Watson of IBM and representatives from J.C. Penney. By 1942, he’d moved to the capital, where the National Association of Manufacturers staked him to a meeting of congressmen who would become students of his spiritual politics, among them Virginia senator Absalom Willis Robertson—Pat Robertson’s father. Vereide returned the manufacturers’ favor by telling his new congressional followers that God wanted them to break the spine of organized labor. They did...'

And thus was born the Family, which I've blogged about plenty of times before. Jeff Sharlet's book is a wonderful read on the subject. But what of Governor Palin?:

'...right now they’re loving Sarah Palin, a candidate who has excited the evangelical base like no other since William Jennings Bryan raged against the “cross of gold” at the 1896 Democratic convention, when fundamentalism and populism seemed like a match made in Heaven, not a bait and switch cooked up by the protégés of Karl Rove. Much has been made of Palin’s roots in Pentecostalism; not enough attention is being paid to her penchant for elite fundamentalism, a faith in which “a servant’s heart” is the power source for a politician’s perks and privileges.

Palin is an outsider moving in, rising up from the ranks of popular fundamentalism to join the movement’s leadership cadre. In Alaska, Palin has for the last two years presided over a “Governor’s Prayer Breakfast”—an offshoot of the Fellowship’s National Prayer Breakfast in Washington—which declares that its “mission” “is to reaffirm and promote in a Christ-like manner the idea that God has a purpose for and authority over human events.” Franklin Graham, Billy Graham’s far more militant son, has been the keynote speaker the last two years...'

Go read.

We Get Letters

2008-09-30T09:02:00.003-04:00

Another letter I received, with names redacted to protect the innocent.

'...Hello to you all,

Like many in our country this morning, I am extremely upset over this obscene bailout of the financial markets. The President and the Secretary of the Treasury have made the case that failure to rescue AIG and others with $700 billion will result in extreme hardships for thousands, maybe millions, of homeowners and investors. I am inclined to agree that we really have no choice, but I am very angry that not one word has been said about how the government is going to come up with the money! I have to assume that it will pay for it just like it has been paying for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq: by running up the National Debt. There has been some mention of the debt going up to $11.5 trillion.

Wait just a minute! This giant credit card the Congress is using has got to have a limit and now! If you think the consequences of not bailing out AIG are bad, do you have any idea of how bad things are going to get if Japan, China and foreign banks start worrying about the safety of the U.S. Treasury bills and stop buying them? That will quickly dry up almost all credit. This nation RUNS ON CREDIT! The result is going to be worse than the great depression.

The ONLY right thing to do is for Congress to start being honest with tax payers and tell them that this $700 billion MUST be paid for with severe cuts in programs and increased taxes. So they don't get re-elected? They have to do the right thing!

Finally, why am I so alone in saying this? I would think that there would be millions or our children and grandchildren protesting all over this nation against the huge debt that my generation is selfishly straddling them with...'

Apparently there are many congressman (as well as myself) that do agree with you. Sadly, we got into this crazy mess by turning over our financial system to a bunch of lunatics, and deciding not to regulate it. It's important to remember that the banks which didn't invest in mortgage securities are doing fine. It's the ones that dove in head first into that new and unregulated industry that are sinking the ship. There's a good explanation (with some off-color language) at the SubPrime Primer.

I would agree with you that in an ideal world, people would be protesting much more over this mess. Actually in my ideal world, there would be millions of people with pitchforks and torches heading to the canyons of Wall Street, the White House and the suburban lawns of Greenwich, Connecticut right now. Pillory stocks would be set up, with ample supplies of tomatoes, rotten lettuce and horse apples provided for the populace to hurl at the immoral drek that caused this mess.

Of course, that wont happen. And one of the main reasons, aside from an overall lack of understanding of how this mess came about (securitizing debt is a complex thing to understand), is that this mess really hasn't effected our economy just yet. Massive layoffs haven't occurred, and beer is still cheap and plentiful. Most people are pretty comfortable with their lot, which granted says a lot more about mankinds' unique capacity for self-delusion than anything else.

Still, if nothing's done about this, then the economy may very well be badly effected. And it's sadly true that in the end, the taxpayer funded government is going to have to step in to solve this mess. There are of course many ways to do that. One can buy the crappy securities (as the bailout bill proposes), or insure them (as the House Republicans want to do). But those aren't the only options. Since the securities that are the source of this problem are based on mortgages owned by families, one could set up a program to deal with the mortgages directly, rather than with the securities owned by Wall Street Investment banks. Fix the families' mortgages and the securities will stabilize. It would take time for the results to 'trickle up' but this is all a mess based primarily on a lack of confidence. Ensure confidence in the base of the mortgage securities, and the crisis should resolve itself pretty quickly.

The alternative is the proposed top-down bailout of the mortgage securities, which should never have existed in the first place in such an unregulated way. Support those through a bailout and ultimately you are just putting off the problem.

All Greek to Me

2008-09-25T16:20:00.002-04:00

A quick break from MDG blogging. I just finished my first Greek exam; I managed to ace it, Thankyouverymuch. But, alas, my knowledge of ancient Greek can’t help me parse this (via Sadly, No!):

‘…COURIC: Why isn’t it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries? Allow them to spend more, and put more money into the economy, instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

PALIN: That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, we’re ill about this position that we have been put in. Where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh, it’s got to be about job creation, too. Shoring up our economy, and placing it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade — we have got to see trade as opportunity, not as, uh, competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs created in the trade sector today. We’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation…’

Of course, I could be mistaken. Perhaps she’s speaking in tongues again. Here's the video:

Is our Children Learning?

2008-09-25T12:41:00.001-04:00

I have my first test in Ancient Greek today. Lucky me. Actually I am, as I was blessed with and excellent primary school education at St. Michael’s, which included classes in Latin in both 7th and 8th Grade. If I do well, it will be in large part thanks to the teachers there.

There are 570 million children enrolled in primary school around the world. 73 million children are not. One of the Millennium development goals is to change that number to zero. But what are the costs?

The World Bank did a calculation of the costs of achieving the goals, and it’s interesting reading. Their estimate is an ongoing additional cost of between $10 and $30 billion a year will enable every single child on the planet to go to school. Oddly enough, that’s the same number I mentioned in the last post of what one would get, in perpetuity, by investing the fabled $700 billion at 4% - $28 billion.

An oddly similar number can be arrived at by looking at the under reported bailout of the auto industries that was just announced an hour ago. $25 billion to the auto industry in loans. Which is, of course, ridiculous on so many levels.

It’s the buyout thing again. If my taxpayer dollars are going to do this, then let’s just buy the damn companies. Some more costs:

GM: $5.81 Billion
Ford: 11.27 Billion
Chrysler: This is a bit more tricky as they are no longer publicly traded. Cerberus (a private company) purchased 80% of the company in May, 2007 for $7.4 Billion, valuing it at $9.25 Billion. Since then shares in both GM and Ford have dropped by 65% and 40% respectively, so let’s value Chrysler at a 50% markdown – or $4.65 Billion.

This totals $21.75 Billion. So it’s actually cheaper to buy the big three outright, then loan them money. The World Bank estimates the annual cost of sending a child to school at $62. So with the leftover $3.75 Billion you could still send 7.5 million children to school for eight years.

The Millennium Development Goals

2008-09-25T09:43:00.002-04:00

It’s a beautiful day here in New York City, though I wouldn’t recommend driving anywhere in Manhattan this afternoon, as the United Nations is in full session, focusing on the progress being made to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

There are eight goals, defined at the Millennium Summit in 2001:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
7. Ensure environmental stability
8. Develop a global partnership for development

1.4 Billion People in developing countries live in extreme poverty (defined as living on less than a buck and a quarter a day.) Solving this problem and the others is going to take an enormous effort of will.

But not resources.

It’s astonishing to have the United States host this event in the middle of a political firestorm about how to properly deal with a $700 Billion dollar line item. Should there be oversight? Should it all go to Wall Street and banks, or should only most of it go there?

To put it in perspective, every day around 30,000 children die from hunger and disease in this world. If you invested $700 billion at 4%, you would get an annual return of $28 Billion in perpetuity. Forever. Split that equally among the 11,000,000 children who die every year, and you would have $2,500 per child per year to prevent that from happening. Food, primary education, vaccines.

Alternately, consider that the combined foreign debt of every country in Africa is $200 Billion. Eliminate that, freeing up billions a year for African countries to address these needs, and you still have half a trillion to deal with the Wall Street Shitpile. Half a trillion is still enough money to entirely purchase outright the following companies:

Citibank: $100 Billion Market Capitalization
Bank of America: $150 Billion
JP Morgan Chase: $140 Billion
Wachovia: $31 Billion
Wells Fargo: $114 Billion.

That’s $535 Billion to outright buy and own the five largest banks in the United States. Toss in a few more bucks and buy both Morgan Stanley ($30 Billion) and the part of Goldman Sachs that Buffet still doesn’t own ($45 Billion) and you’ve got a pretty dandy bailout package in the works.

And Africa is debt free.

Witchcraft

2008-09-24T13:42:00.002-04:00

If you watch the entire sermon by Bishop Thomas Muthee, you will hear him railing against witches in the educational system and in government (the payoff for the video, recorded by Max Blumenthal, is at the 7:00 minute mark, where Sarah Palin gets on stage and is given loud prayers for protection from the congregation and the bishop, with the laying on of hands, specifically protecting her from witches and witchcraft.)

Where to begin. This video was released today, shedding some light on the media-shy Wasilla Assembly of God Church that Governor Palin attended until 2002; though she still retains close ties. It's notoriously difficult to understand the faith of Governor Palin, and how it guides and motivates her, not only because she is not forthcoming about it but also because the nature of the thousands of denominations of Pentecostalism makes comprehension difficult.

But an excellent place to start is the Talk to Action Website, which has been publishing some helpful primers (part 1 here, covering an introduction to what is being referred to as the Third Wave movement, and part 2 here, covering Governor Palin's churches' relationships to the Third Wave movement.) I'm just getting started in understanding this rather pan-christian international movement, and I'll write more as I understand more.

Third Wave is a branch of dominionism, which mandates that members take 'dominion' over all aspects of society - hence the preacher in the video, Bishop Thomas Muthee of the Word of Faith Church in Kenya, focusing on the seven areas of society to take over. The Third Wave movement is not limited to a single church, either:

'...it is important to again note that this movement is not synonymous with the Assemblies of God or any other denomination. The burdensome terminology of Third Wave/New Apostolic Reformation is repeatedly used throughout this series of articles because the terms represent two slightly different meanings. The term Third Wave was coined over two decades ago to describe a loosely linked network of groups that remained or were reemerging from a movement called Latter Rain that was denounced as heresy by the Assemblies of God in 1949. In recent years these groups have coalesced into a much larger and more institutionalized structure. A central figure in the movement is C. Peter Wagner, founder of Global Harvest Ministries and the World Prayer Center in Colorado Springs. In the late 1990s Wagner gave the name New Apostolic Network to his organization which now includes over 500 Apostles under his authority, or Apostolic Covering, in the International Coalition of Apostles. Some of these Apostles also have hundreds or even thousands in their own networks. There are numerous other interconnected apostolic networks around the world tied to this movement by their common belief system and also interconnected activities, conventions, media, schools, and parachurch ministries...'

This movement is end-times oriented, believing that the almost ecumenical nature of this organization is actually the final church of the end of days. Among the activities of the movement is a strong focus on purging demons from societies.

The good Bishop Muthee has lots of experience in this:

'...Can the 'spiritual DNA' of a community be altered?" That's the question posed in a Christian video called "Transformations."

Kenyan pastor Thomas Muthee is convinced that it can be. In 1988, he and his wife, Margaret, were "called by God to Kiambu," a notorious, violence-ridden suburb of Nairobi and a "ministry graveyard" for churches for years. They began six months of fervent prayer and research.

Pondering the message of Eph.6:12 ("For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world..."), they prayed to identify the source of Kiambu's spiritual oppression, Mr. Muthee says. Their answer: the spirit of witchcraft.

Their research into the community revealed that a woman called "Mama Jane" ran a "divination clinic" frequented by the town's most powerful people.

After months of prayer, Muthee held a crusade that "brought about 200 people to Christ." Their church in the basement of a grocery store was dubbed "The Prayer Cave," as members set up round-the-clock intercession. Mama Jane counterattacked, he says, but eventually "the demonic influence - the 'principality' over Kiambu - was broken," and she left town.

The atmosphere changed dramatically: Bars closed, the crime rate dropped, people began to move to the area, and the economy took an upturn. The church now has 5,000 members, he says, and 400 members meet to pray daily at 6 a.m...'

More on the Transformations video:

'...The Transformation I video features the story of four cities that the narrator, George Otis, Jr, claims have been transformed through the power of intercessory prayer and the expulsion of demons. The video served the purpose of introducing the revolutionary new evangelizing methods developed by C. Peter Wagner and his colleagues. The use of Strategic Level Spiritual Warfare to expel territorial demons is facilitated by Spiritual Mapping and then intercessory prayer and fasting. The World Prayer Center in Colorado Springs developed by Wagner and Ted Haggard [yes, that Ted Haggard, of the gay prostitute fame] houses the computer systems for organizing the prayer intercessors as well as the Spiritual Mapping media...'

Bishop Muthee's is one of the four stories. Another 'success' story is the city of Hemet, California:

'...The third town featured in the movie is Hemet, California. Otis and two local pastors narrate the supposed transformation of this Hemet/San Jacinto area from a center of Satanism, witchcraft, Moonies, Transcendental Meditation, and Scientology. He reports that Hemet had serious gang and drug problems. In this segment Otis describes how Spiritual Mapping was used to direct the prayer intercessors in fighting the strongholds of the enemy. Pastor Bob Beckett of the Dwelling Place Church organized intercessory prayer to save the city. Otis reports,

"The Transcendental Meditation center was literally burned out. Shortly after the intercessors prayed for its removal, a brush fire started on the mountain on the west side of the valley. It burned only the Transcendental Meditation facility and didn't touch any of the buildings on either side."

Consequently Otis claims that the drug trade dropped 75% and many gang members as well as other residents have been saved. Beckett states that the city now has "a professing mayor, a professing police chief, a professing fire chief, and a professing city manager."

The mayor, Debbie Cornett, is interviewed and states,

I feel that God called me to this...I see him opening doors to more churches, more Christians, to really bring them together and say you want Christians in leadership."

Pastor Beckett adds that the city now has an exceptional number of high school teachers, coaches and principals that are believers and that now nearly 85% of staff candidates are Christians. (Beckett also authored a chapter in C. Peter Wagner's book, Breaking Strongholds.) Pastor Gordon Houston states that God has turned the school system around...'

Embedding has been disabled for the Transformations video, so I can't have it in this post, but you can watch the entire thing here.

419

2008-09-22T18:56:00.003-04:00

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully Minister of Treasury Paulson

h/t

Gender Card

2008-09-04T17:27:00.003-04:00

Above video: h/t (en)gender. Last Palin posting for a while. No, really, I promise.

I just finished my first Ancient Greek class at Fordham University today. I'm the oldest student in the class. Actually I'm the only student old enough to legally buy beer. Actually when I became old enough to legally buy beer, none of the other students had even been born yet. Yeah, I'm the oldest student in the class.

My professor said, "Unless you're Siamese twins with a bong this semester, it is impossible for you to fail this class."

I'm older than my professor, as well.

We Get Letters

2008-09-04T10:18:00.003-04:00

I just received this email, and rather than responding to it directly, I thought that I'd post it along with some of my thoughts. Names have been redacted to protect the innocent.

‘…OK, before I start just an observation. There is not a single nonwhite person at the Republican Convention. I have yet to see one…’

Before I start, another observation. One of the best lines from the Democratic Convention wasn’t spoken by Senator’s Obama or Binden. It was by Al Gore:

‘…Some of the best marketers have some of the worst products…’

‘…OK ...Some of this is the conversation we had when I was in Dallas when you said that Obama was going to win and I said while I hoped he would I had a bad feeling. I still have a bad feeling. Maybe it's that good old paranoia about your own team ... but as Johnny Fever says, "When everyone is out to get you, paranoia is just good thinking!" There was a great line at the end of Bill Maher's Real Time in the spring during his New Rules segment where the new rule was "nobody is allowed to say anymore that the American people are smarter than that ... they're not." You know me and know I'm an idealist but I have gotten to the point where I have seen too much not to agree with Bill Maher here. I think the turning point was re-electing President Bush in 2004. After all we'd been through and even though the candidate we threw up there was about as interesting and inspirational as a bowl of oatmeal, there should have been no chance of the president getting re-elected. It shouldn't have even been close. And yet, look what happened….’

Last night Kathy and I went to see The Phoenix Theatre Ensemble’s new production of Ibsen’s ‘An Enemy of the People.’ Here’s the plot synopsis:
‘…Dr. Thomas Stockmann is the popular citizen of a small coastal town in Norway. The town has recently invested a large amount of public and private money towards the development of baths, a project led by Dr. Stockmann and his brother, the Mayor. The town is expecting a surge in tourism and prosperity from the new baths, said to be of great medicinal value and as such, the baths are the pride of the town. However, as the baths are starting to succeed, Dr. Stockmann discovers that waste products from the town's tannery are contaminating the baths causing serious illness among the tourists. He expects this important discovery to be his greatest achievement, and promptly sends a detailed report to the Mayor, which includes a proposed solution, which would come at a considerable cost to the town. But to his surprise, Stockmann finds it difficult to get through to the authorities. They seem unable to appreciate the seriousness of the issue and unwilling to publicly acknowledge and address the problem because it could mean financial ruin for the town. As the conflict ensues, the Mayor warns his brother that he should "acquiesce in subordinating himself to the community". Stockmann refuses to accept this, and holds a town meeting at Captain Horster's house in order to convince the people to close the baths. The townspeople - eagerly awaiting the prosperity that the baths are believed will bring - refuse to accept Stockmann's claims, as his friends and allies, who had explicitly given support for his campaign, turn against him en masse. He is taunted and denounced as a lunatic, an "Enemy of the People." In a scathing rebuke of both the Victorian notion of community and the principles of democracy, Dr. Stockmann proclaims that in matters of right and wrong, the individual is superior to the multitude, which is easily led by self-advancing demagogues. Stockmann sums up Ibsen's denunciation of the masses, with the memorable quote "...the strongest man in the world is the man who stands most alone."…’

It’s actually the identical plotline to ‘Jaws.’ One of the best lines of the play came during Dr. Stockman’s trial, when he asks the town if “the majority of the people in the world are intelligent, or if the majority of the people in the world are stupid.” To answer his question, by definition half of the people in this country have an IQ below 100. Recognizing this is not an act of cynicism or reflective of a lack of idealism. It’s recognition of reality. It’s why President Bush could get caught in bed with the proverbial dead girl or live boy and his approval ratings still wouldn’t go down below 28%.

‘…There's something simply Orwellian about it. The Gingrich/Rove/Bush/Cheney and now McCain/Palin Republican Party creates alternate realities out of thin air and literally millions upon millions of American people fall in lockstep behind them despite the fact that not only are they nonsensical, not only are they factually inaccurate, but they often completely contradict what they have been saying about themselves. The Democratic Party is starting to get better about actually standing up and saying the emperor has no clothes ... but the really scary thing is that the people who believe this (and it's about 50% of the country) IT DOESN"T MATTER. They just shift the narrative. Create a new reality that reinforces their smug sense of superiority. Redefine life, the universe and everything and move on…’

Having worked in what is essentially an advertising position, I can honestly say that’s how it’s done. Never underestimate the power of cognitive dissonance:

‘…Two things bother me about Sarah Palin. The first is that she is so obviously not just Ferraro or Eagleton (the Quayle comparison doesn't work ... she's not substanceless, she's just made of real scary substance) but Ferraro and Eagleton wrapped into one. She is obviously a gimmick pick and a Hail Mary and she's obviously got multiple flaws any one of which could rise to the tragic level of Eagleton's shock treatments. But despite that we look at this pick as insulting and shameless, the fact is that these are shameless people and they have convinced millions of Americans not only that they shouldn't be ashamed of it but that those of us who are questioning this, who have the gall to stand up and connect some dots and say that 2+2=4 are sexist and mean and outright liars.

In the space of one week they have gone from crucifying Barack Obama on the cross of inexperience because he's only been in the Senate for 4 years to saying that Sarah Palin's experience as governor of a state 1/4 the population of Brooklyn and mayor of a town the size of some high schools (Oh, but it has a STRONG mayoral system) qualifies her to be VP for someone who actuarially has a 1 in 3 chance of not surviving 8 more years. And to this, millions of Americans nod like thoughtless bobbleheads…’

When your marketing is failing, change it. When your narrative is failing, change it. This will work in today’s political climate because the political media falls into the same category as the rest of us – ½ of them have IQ’s less than 100, and plenty of the rest are mendacious people whose only interest lies in being part of the Georgetown cocktail weenie circuit. One thing to note during this whole Governor Palin event is the RNC’s accusing the media of being unfair to her, more than accusing Obama of doing that. This has two results – first is the reflexive reaction that the media will have to avoid to be seen to be unfair. They will tack right as a result. The second is to tie the media to the ‘cosmopolitan elite,’ thus fanning the flames of the 1990’s culture wars, now being brought back.

‘…It was one thing when you had John McCain being a wolf in sheep's clothing and still trading off the straight talk express bullshit from 2000. Maybe people just haven't paid attention since then. I can forgive people for that. You watch Mad Max and you think Mel Gibson is some harmless, good looking action hero and you never noticed that he turned into a monomaniacal freakshow. But almost from the moment you were introduced to Sarah Palin it was obvious to anyone paying attention that there are serious problems here. And yet millions and millions of people believe any fact that interferes with their desire to love her was manufactured by a "biased, leftwing media machine." (They're probably thinking like Johnny Fever, too).

(BTW, I was listening to an afternoon drive show on KMOX yesterday when the host was going on about how if you didn't think the mainstream media in this country had an ultraliberal bias you weren't paying attention. I tried calling in to point out to him that when you are hosting a conservative drive-time radio show on the most powerful (by wattage) radio station in the whole middle of the country and your lead-in is Rush Limbaugh, you probably shouldn't be talking about left-wing bias in the news. Unfortunately, I didn't get through.)…’

Actually it was fortunate that you didn’t, as it would have been a complete waste of your time. That kind of media thrives on confrontation, and is much better at it than you or I. It’s actually an old debating strategy: by setting up those kinds of rules of dialogue, they are counting on the vaporlock one gets when agitated and angry. Nothing muddies the waters of discourse as much as a lie told loudly and proudly.

So what to do? I’ve found that humor and nonsense work the best. When I went to a Jerry Falwell prayer revival back in college, I didn’t scream at him (much as I wanted to), because he was a master at dealing with such confrontations. Instead, after his babbling on about militant gays, Nazis and communists, I calmly walked up to him and said loudly that I was a ‘Militant gay Nazi communist and I wanted to have his baby.’ He actually had no idea what to say to that – it was totally out from left field, and he actually babbled incoherently for a while, totally losing his audience. Then they dragged me from the church while I yelled, ‘Remember, Jerry, the Lord is forgiveness.’

Fun theater, but the larger issue is that in a debate when one side ‘goes nuclear’ with idiotic arguments, pretending to play by the rules of logic when actually flouting them, then the best strategy is to go guerilla. My pointless stunt made no damn bit of difference, but if instead it had been part of a more organized effort, it would have made his message look moronic. A good example is the photoshopped Governor Palin image of her head pasted onto the bikini clad woman with an automatic rifle. Pass that one on. It’s damn funny, because it’s actually true, even though it’s false.

‘…But the other thing that bothers me about Sarah Palin ... rather really frightens me about Sarah Palin ... is that this is more than just some bizarre political strategy to try to attract the radical feminists and the 700 Club in one fell swoop and keep the Republican Party in office. I truly believe this is part of something much bigger that doesn't even really involve the Republican Party except that it's the most convenient vehicle for this group to hold power.

The Christian right is as dangerous an entity as our nation has known in the past century. More dangerous than the Klan (and sharing similar roots) because the Klan is not subtle and the Christian right is. The Christian right wraps itself in the flag and in the "values" of "America" ... language that is code for white people feeling superior and comfortable. This is not anything you don't know. And you probably know this as well. The Christian right is funded by a small group of incredibly wealthy (and, to my mind, absolutely psychotic) people who believe in narrow interpretations of the Book of Revelation and are trying to secure luxury boxes for the rapture…’

The best recent book on this subject is Jeff Sharlet’s ‘The Family,’ which I read while I was in France, and I can't recommend highly enough. It covers the religious fundamentalists that have a power base in Washington, DC, and which I have covered in my blog in various ‘Family Circus’ posts. But Mr. Sharlet also contrasts them with the more mainstream fundamentalist churches, and goes into the civil war starting up between those who worship power (‘Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God…’ [Romans 13:1-7]); those who worship money (the prosperity gospel churches); and those who honestly worship god – the devout hardline Protestants who came to America in the first place and started forming thriving churches in the 19th century until the early 20th.

Fundamentalist churches have been in a schism since the Scopes trial in the 1920s drove a wedge between those who believed in political involvement and those who don’t in the movement. What’s happened since the 1980s is that those in the ‘power’ churches have essentially been using those other Fundamentalist churches as a source of labor and votes. But fundamentalism is far, far from monolithic.

‘…The whole schism that is happening in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion (of which Christ Church, Plano is an epicenter). Where do you think these African Anglican bishops are getting the coin to fly around everywhere? It's from this group of ultrafundamentalists who aren't even Episcopalian but see the Episcopal Church as an incredibly well-placed vehicle to instigate a worldwide ultrafundamentalist takeover of a mainline denomination. I know I'm sounding like Steve Carlton here, but there've been some really good "follow the money" pieces done here ... and there's also enough creepy stories about this stuff in the Bush White House to make me believe it…’

One thing to remember about that is that the power players, the Sciaffes and the other billionaire conservatives behind all of this, didn’t start the schism, but rather took advantage of one that already existed. The embers were there – they just fanned it. But like I mentioned – two can play that game. Fundamentalism has massive schisms – and the ‘power’ movement is being led by those with not enough honor to preach the gospel. It’s obvious to us – but I think it’s starting to become obvious to them as well. Hence…

‘…Well, horror of horrors for this group, not only are they poised to lose power but they are poised to lose it to a black man. Republican insiders have said that McCain was dead set on Lieberman until James Dobson and others came to him and then all of a sudden, Voila! Sarah Palin. She is the Hail Mary not of the McCain campaign but of the Christian right. They know she will be one heartbeat away and if you don't think they will be praying for McCain to die as soon as she takes the oath...’

Exactly. You don’t do a Hail Mary pass from a position of strength. The political religious right has more lying on this than McCain. Who do you think’s going to take the fall if McCain looses? It’s do or die time for them in the Republican Party. Senator McCain’s upsetting the game board happened because he looked at the pieces and saw that he was screwed. So did the religious right – their original position was to sit out the election so as to claim credit for McCain’s loss. Clearly they rethought their position, or at least Karl Rove did. And it’s the ultimate problem of Governor Palin – she was chosen to win votes, not to govern.

‘…But it's the combination that's truly scary. McCain's impulsivity and hair-trigger temper and tunnel vision and hawkish, ultraright conservative views and Sarah Palin's absolute psychotic perversion of Christianity and willingness to do anything to get what she wants. John McCain is right ... she is his soulmate. Together they are Satan.

In a sensible world, there would be no choice ... it would be as obvious to everyone as it is to you and me what is going on. But our nation has shown such an incredible -- and rapidly growing -- capacity for self-deception. It has gone beyond two parties with similar goals and two competing ideas of how to get there. It is to the point where you have one party dealing with reality and the other simply not. And millions upon millions of Americans are choosing to line up behind fiction rather than fact.

In a sensible world, I would be champing at the bit for the debates. But the debates don't matter. Bush-Kerry and Bush Gore proved that. What matters is the idiotic spin after the debates. Gore wiped the floor with Bush and the spin was that he was wooden. Kerry wiped the floor with Bush and the spin was that he was boring and even mean. Obama could wipe the floor with John McCain and the spin could still screw him. Biden could wipe the floor with Palin and the spin could be that he was condescending or mean….’

I agree with you on that one. However, knowing that will help Biden – The best strategy would be for him to debate her like a governor and not a hockey mom.

‘…I still have hope Obama will win. I still think it's a better than 50% chance he will. I get that hope from Zogby but mostly because if he can stay the Obama he showed last Thursday night then the power of his commitment and the power of his ideas and the power of his inspiration and charisma should carry the day. I went to an Obama organizing meeting tonight and I'm going to be working phones and registering voters in St. Louis all month. I'm not giving up. I'm fighting with every bit I have because I think with the Palin VP selection the stakes just got incredibly high.

I really wish I could say "the American people are smarter than this." But Bill Maher is right ... they're not…’

Yep, they’re not. I read an analysis on all of this relating the popularity of Governor Palin among the base to those fans of reality TV.: ‘Look at the hockey mom on the cooking show! Why, that could be me!’

‘Look at the hockey mom in the White House! Why, that could be me!’

America, where anyone can grow up to be President. We’re all taught that like it’s fucking scripture. The dark side of democracy – the crazy person on the subway has the same right to vote as you do, and will cancel out your vote to boot.

‘…Oh ... and Rudy Giuliani is just an asshole…’

I truly hope that this isn’t some new revelation to you.

Praying for Gas

2008-09-03T13:57:00.002-04:00

Oh, those many years ago, when YouTube first started, it became known as the go-to resource for bloggers who had no idea what to post on at that particular moment. Sarah Palin is turning into this month's YouTube, so I decided to kill two birds and start with a video of Governor Palin addressing the graduating class of commission students at her one-time church, Wasilla Assembly of God, back in June of this year.

I actually do have something to post on - I just finished my first class today at General Theological Seminary; I'm taking a class in the Old Testament, the first of two, and it promises to be an edifying time. Sadly, I have much to learn, as I am apparently too unaware of many things in the Bible. Such as the importance of natural gas to the Lord:

'...Religion, however, was not strictly a thread in Palin's foreign policy. It was part of her energy proposals as well. Just prior to discussing Iraq, Alaska's governor asked the audience to pray for another matter -- a $30 billion national gas pipeline project that she wanted built in the state. "I think God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that," she said...'

Later she goes on about the various wars in Iraq and Afghanistan being part of 'God's Plan.' For the full video of the speach, you can go here.

Also this year, the Good Governor decided that a state program benefiting young unwed mothers without a place to live for themselves or their new child was receiving too much money. So she used a line-item veto to cut its budget. By 20%. Atrios put it best:

'...Just think about this one for a moment. Palin is rabidly anti-choice, wanting it to be illegal in all cases except when the mother's life is threatened. This is a program which provides housing for teen mothers "in need of a place to live," presumably due to the fact that their parents and sperm donors are somewhat less than supportive. Despite this, these young women choose (that word!) to have their babies. And the program which might give them, and their newborns, a place to live is something Palin cuts the funding for. Maybe they can go live with the bears...'

Change we can believe in.

Palin

2008-09-02T13:32:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, Greg Sargent asked the question on everyone's mind:

'...What else will come out today? After all, there are still six hours left until September 2nd...'

This after posting the complete rundown of where things stand, Palin-wise:

'...On the same day that the Republicans were forced to dramatically cut back their convention activities, the Palin Meltdown unfolded with extraordinary speed. It's worth pondering the totality of what happened today, in a mere half day...

* The news that Palin once backed the Bridge to Nowhere went national.

* It emerged that Palin has links to the bizarro Alaska Independence Party, which harbors the goal of seceding from the union that McCain and Palin seek to lead.

* The news broke that as governor, Palin relied on an earmark system she now opposes. Taken along with the Bridge to Nowhere stuff, this threatens to undercut her reformist image, something that was key to her selection as McCain's Veep candidate.

* The news broke that Palin's 17-year-old daughter became pregnant out of wedlock at a time when the conservative base had finally started rallying behind McCain's candidacy.

* Barely moments after McCain advisers put out word that McCain had known of Bristol Palin's pregnancy, the Anchorage Daily News revealed that Palin's own spokesperson hadn't known about it only two days ago.

* A senior McCain adviser at the Republican convention was forced into the rather embarrassing position of arguing that McCain had known about the pregnancy "last week" -- without saying what day last week he knew about it.

* It came out that Republican lawyers are up in Alaska vetting Palin -- now, more than 72 hours after it was announced that she'd been picked.

* Palin lawyered up in relation to the trooper-gate probe in Alaska -- a move that ensures far more serious attention to the story from the major news orgs...'

Well today we have his answer. Courtesy of Time Magazine:

'...Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." The librarian, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire her for not giving "full support" to the mayor...'

Oh, and Harpers Magazine has done the apparently now-standard journalistic exercise of looking into Governor Palin's church and pastor:

'...Since becoming governor in 2006, Palin has attended the Juneau Christian Center, where Mike Rose serves as senior pastor. Her previous pastor was David Pepper of the Church on the Rock in Palin’s hometown of Wasilla — a church that “was kind of a foundation for her.”...'

Some choice quotes from her Pastors:

'...Mike Rose, senior pastor at Juneau Christian Center: From a July 28, 2007 sermon: “Do you believe we’re in the last days? After listening to Newt Gingrich and the prime minister of Israel and a number of others at our gathering, I became convinced, and I have been convinced for some time. We are living in the last days. These are incredible times to live in.”

David Pepper, senior pastor at Church on the Rock: From an November 25, 2007 sermon: “The purpose for the United States is… to glorify God. This nation is a Christian nation...'

Friday Cat and Sunflower Blogging

2008-08-29T18:03:00.003-04:00

Electra, Orestes and the sunflowers are in bloom. It's the last days of summer. Next week classes start, although I'm ready 'cus I got me my Trapper Keeper (a vintage late 1970's one from Ebay.) Also to keep up with all the young kids today, I got my iPhone and I'm now on Facebook.

So Governor Palin is the Repbulican VP choice. I think Tbogg sums it up pretty well, as only he can:

'...The selection of Palin strikes me as a "stunt" nomination and an admission that even in the misty recesses of former prisoner of war John McCain's mind, he knows that he is truly fucked. Therefore the campaign seems to be hunting for the PUMA vote; the PUMA being a mythical creature with the body of a middle-aged woman and the head of an idiot. Palin's main claim to fame is that she doesn't kill babies but instead gives them hippy names like Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, and Trig which falls in line with the Christian belief that we must suffer in this world before entering the next...'

Blogging Days

2008-08-25T14:15:00.002-04:00

'...Caught a large snake in the herbaceous border beside the drive. About 2’ 6” long, grey colour, black markings on belly but none on back except, on back of neck, a mark resembling an arrow head (ñ) all down the back. Not certain whether an adder, as these I think usually have a sort of broad arrow mark (^) all down the back. Did not care to handle it too recklessly, so only picked it up by extreme tip of tail. Held thus it could nearly turn far enough to bite my hand, but not quite. Marx interested at first, but after smelling it was frightened & ran away. The people here normally kill all snakes. As usual, the tongue referred to as “fangs”...'

Such is the first entry of George Orwell's new blog. From August 9th, 1938. Starting on August 9th of this month, The Orwell Trust is reprinting the entirety of George Orwell's diaries in blogging form, with each entry exactly 70 years after it's original date. Complete with footnotes and such, and it's open for comments as well:

'...Two legs bad, no legs good...'

'...When I see snakes I advise them to be more careful to avoid humans; other people will cut their heads off. From Orwell’s entry it seems he did not kill the snake, although I dislike picking them up because it seems abusive...'

'...Any herpetologists out there? What kind of snake do you think that might’ve been?...'

'...@Joe - would’ve been an adder (vipera berus) I’d imagine...'

'...What’s this “(ñ)” is that just my machines rendering? A drawing of the arrow?...'

'...The hyperlinks don’t show up clearly in the post. I’m using FF3 on a laptop running XP...'

'...Some blogs are more equal than others...'

Saturday Plant Blogging

2008-08-23T12:26:00.002-04:00

I've been doing a bit of the Farmer John thing on the front stoop of our brownstone this spring and summer. I started by planting seeds for spinach, lima beans, peas, tomatoes and sunflowers. The results were decidedly mixed.

The seeds did an excellent job of sprouting, but after that many things went downhill. The spinach looked like some kind of refugee from a famine plagued vegetable land. The peas didn't fare much better. In the end I got 16 peas out of the crop. They were damn tasty, but, still. The lima beans were also a complete disaster. They were doing very well, until every last one succumbed to a fungus unique to lima bean plants. Wiped out the whole crop.

This leaves the tomatoes and the sunflowers, which have proven to be relatively successful. There are 16 cherry tomato plants, and they are all doing pretty well, although next year I need to plant them in larger containers and with fewer plants per container. The sunflowers are the big success. They're now over eight feet tall, and are now starting to bloom. I'm going to get a good recipe for toasting the seeds, which look to be plentiful. Of course, I'll have to fight the birds for them.

Bacon

2008-08-22T16:22:00.003-04:00

Last night we went to Rosewater. For desert we had Bacon Ice Cream, sprinkled with pieces of Candied Bacon, served on a waffle cooked with Bacon Fat.

As Jeff Garlin would say, it was a big bowl of evil. But very tasty.

Androgynous

2008-08-15T14:04:00.002-04:00

‘…He might be a father, be he sure aint no dad…’

Following on a post I did earlier about complementarianism, I wrote an email to The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CMWM), a main complementarian organization, regarding gender definitions. I referred them to an Op-Ed in the New York Times by Jennifer Boylan regarding gender determination in the Olympics, and I asked them for their comments on this issue.

As you recall, complementarians believe in Biblically defined gender roles, with men in leadership positions. Of course, for this to work, logically one must define ‘male’ and ‘female.’ So I asked them if the Bible defines those words, and for their take on intersex issues. And they kindly responded:

Ian,

Thanks for writing and alerting us to this op/ed piece in the NY Times. Later today we will be posting on our blog about this very issue.

Briefly, the Scriptures speak loudly by what they do not say explicitly. God’s created order: “He made the [sic] male and female…” reveals God’s will as clearly as one could want, namely that He ordained two sexes for the sake of his own glory. Beyond that the Scriptures are clear that in rare cases (castration, intentional eunuchs, etc) reproduction is ended, but sexuality (ie: manhood and womanhood) continues. This is the way in which Galatians 3:28 can be understood as well. When it says, “There is neither male nor female….for all are one in Christ” it means that before the Cross of Christ no one can boast in their gender. It does not mean that sexuality ends as a part of God’s creation and formative for each person’s human identity. In fact, it is not the obliteration of gender distinctives, but the peaceful unity of the two distinct genders that brings glory to God.

Ian, your questions and participation on the blog are highly welcome. Thanks for writing. We look forward to more interaction as God leads.

With Kind Regards,

Brent Nelson
WEB EDITOR
THE COUNCIL ON BIBLICAL MANHOOD AND WOMANHOOD

A couple of things to note – first the letter doesn’t answer the question about definitions of male and female (though they address that in their blog post - more on that later). But they do correctly point out two parts of scripture that potentially address intersex issues. The Bible is quite specific through these interpretations on intersex – it doesn’t exist, as the quote from Genesis 1:27 (So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. [KJV]) attests. As well, the famous Galatians quote (There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. [KJV]) is not about dissolving gender distinctions in today’s context, but through the baptism in Christ. At least according to complementarians; egalitarians interpret that differently as I had mentioned earlier. But the Galatians quote doesn’t specifically allow for intersex situations.

Although definitions were not mentioned in the letter, CMWM did address the issue in the blog post they mentioned. Some relevant quotes:

‘…Amazingly, there is radical disagreement over a methodology for distinguishing a woman from man, and whether or not such differentiation is even possible…She [Boylan] concludes that "gender is malleable and elusive, and we need to become comfortable with this fact, rather than be afraid of it." She understands that gender can only be determined by the heart of the individual and how that individual lives in daily life.

Unfortunately, the Bible does not consider a sin-tainted heart to be a reliable guide; rather "the heart is deceitful above all things" (Jeremiah 17:9). A male athlete who feels in his heart that he is a woman should not trust his heart. Instead, he should rely on the Word of God and find some male opponents.

Scripture presents gender as a binary condition, not a shifting continuum from male to female. When God created man in his image, the Bible says, "male and female He created them" (Genesis 1:27). The Bible does not provide an explicit list of characteristics to distinguish a woman from a man, because it was understood to be self-evident (c.f. the reaction of Adam in Genesis 2:23).

Boylan's statistic is consistent with this divine truth and actually argues against her position: if 1 in 20,000 women carry a Y chromosome, then 19.999 in 20,000 do not. Any lab test that can objectively identify a female 99.995% of the time would be considered an extremely reliable guide to a binary understanding of gender. Even among the exceptional .005% of women who carry a Y chromosome, most are feminine in appearance and are able to bear children. Because this is a fallen world, there are birth defects that affect all parts of the human anatomy, but these extremely rare defects do not invalidate the binary nature of God's good design of manhood and womanhood…’

So the Bible doesn’t provide a definition of ‘male’ or ‘female’ as it is ‘self-evident.’ Genesis 2:23 (And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. [KJV]) is perhaps odd, as the definition of woman refers to being ‘taken out of man,’ and doesn’t seem to be a good example of ‘self evidence’ of gender definitions. But their point remains – no specific scriptural definitions exist for the definitions; instead it’s obvious what is male and female.

But I find this unsatisfactory, for it’s not obvious to me. And the problem with binaries is that they are by design universal, and must hold for all examples; one exception voids the concept of ‘binary.’ When scripture says that ‘all are male or female’, then there is no allowance for exceptions.

The Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) has a list of differing intersex conditions and their frequency, which range from ‘Complete gonadal dysgenesis’ at a rate of 1 in 150,000 people to ‘Late Onset Adrenal Hyperplasia’ at a rate of 1 in 66 people. According to the ISNA, the total number of people whose bodies differ from what are standard (‘self-obvious’) male and female patterns is 1 in 100. Now, to paraphrase the CMWM, that small number could be a reliable guide to a binary understanding of gender. Except that 1 in 100 people means that over 65 million people in the world fall into this category, or the equivalent of more than the entire population of France.

The issue of the ‘extremely rare’ defects that result from this being a fallen world ‘not invalidating the binary nature of God’s good design of manhood and womanhood’ fails to address this. For if the binary is to hold, then 65 million people need to be categorized as either male or female. Otherwise they cannot logically be assigned scripturally defined gender roles. So what are the standards? Genitalia? Chromosomes? Capability to give birth? If the Bible doesn’t provide the standards, then someone has to. I look forward to CMWM’s answer to this.

I'm Glad I Became an Architect

2008-08-15T10:01:00.002-04:00

This picture has been making the rounds a bit on the political blogs, starting here as best as I can figure it. Apparently it's an abstinence-promoting billboard from the State of Kansas. Some comments:

'...you could use it in a discussion of public service announcements gone awry. I have a feeling this billboard probably kept more kids from becoming engineers than sex ever did...' Via

'...That’s why you should become scientists, kids! (Because engineers don’t have sex. You want me to spell it out for you?)...' Via

'...It’s funny cuz it’s true. But it’s not funny...' Via

'...If anything, characterizing the sex-engineering link in this manner seems overwhelmingly more likely to reduce interest in engineering than to reduce interest in sex...' Via

This is going to be the 'New Coke' of the abstinence-only movement.

The Pressure's On

2008-08-06T15:45:00.006-04:00

There is something seriously whacked going on in this country regarding the pressure of peoples’ car tires. First Senator Obama gets criticized for a remark made on tire pressure as part of a speech on the importance of energy conservation. And now a military tribunal has just found Salim Hamdan (better known as Osama Bin Laden’s driver)guilty of ‘supporting terrorism’, although he was cleared of conspiracy charges. What’s the connection? From the July 26th New York Times, in an article on the Hamdan trial:

‘…There has been no testimony about shots fired or bombs detonated by Mr. Hamdan. Instead, the case is a mundane tour of terrorism, as seen from the driver’s seat. One sign that an act of terrorism was coming was that Mr. Hamdan would be told to get the truck ready, said the witnesses, most of whom were federal agents who had interrogated him.

Mr. Hamdan’s offenses are not enumerated anywhere, but appear to include checking the oil and the tire pressure…’

Pretty serious shit.

Back to School

2008-08-05T14:02:00.002-04:00

So I'm heading back to school this fall. I'm now registered for classes at both General Theological Seminary, where I'll be taking a class in the Old Testament, and Fordham University, where I'll be studying Classical Greek. The ultimate goal will be a new masters degree, this time a Masters in Arts in Theology. Of course I will need to make certain of a couple of things first, namely if I can still hack it in a classroom environment, and also if I can hack language study at my age. Also I need to make sure that I can do all of this while keeping up with studying the tenor banjo, and, oh, yeah, working.

Of course I'll be organized, as I will be getting my Trapper Keeper, which apparently has now been reissued by Mead.

Welcome to our Country

2008-08-04T19:09:00.002-04:00

The above video is from the New York Times, a companion piece to an article published back in May. It follows the sad case of Boubacar Bah, a tailor from Guinea who lived here in Brooklyn, and worked at a West Village boutique. After a Kafkaesque immigration experience, he ended up in a detention center in New Jersey. For unexplained reasons, he received a skull fracture, but was detained afterwords for 15 hours in shackles before an ambulance was called. His lawyer, his family and his friends were never told about any of this until he had already been in the hospital for five days. By that point he was in a coma – he died 4 months later.

The detention center is run by a private company, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), a firm ‘set up in 1983 in Nashville by a group of investors that included a former chairman of the Tennessee Republican Party...’: here's more from an article in the LRB:

‘…CCA describes itself as the ‘nation’s largest provider of outsourced corrections management’, with 70,000 inmates and 16,000 staff. Its website speaks proudly of ‘similarities in mission and structure’ with the US army and makes a special appeal to veterans in search of work: ‘How will you make the transition from military to civilian life? CCA features a paramilitary structure: a highly refined chain of command, and policies and procedures that dictate facility operations.’

Transparency is not one of those policies and procedures. On the contrary: according to Dow, CCA ‘has warned its shareholders of the dangers of public scrutiny’. So it’s no surprise that CCA still hasn’t explained how Bah fell, or why he was shackled and left untreated for 15 hours afterwards. US immigration officials haven’t said anything either. Indeed, ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] operates in almost perfect opacity: it’s not obliged even to keep track of deaths among detainees, much less to report them publicly. When an immigrant dies in custody, the recorded cause of death can be as vague and tautological as ‘unresponsiveness’ – something the ICE knows all about.…’

The stock of CCA (NYSE symbol CXW) closed up 32 cents today, at $28.74. It’s a high for the year.

Let My People Go

2008-07-30T08:56:00.003-04:00

If anyone has a spare $30,000 - $50,000 (estimated), and you're looking for a present to buy me, I found it:

'...Charlton Heston's Ten Commandments Tablets from The Ten Commandments. (Paramount, 1956) DeMille's greatest film, and his last, has joined the pantheon of epic films revered from generation to generation. It has become an annual staple of the Easter season, and the few items that have become available from it are dearly treasured but none more so than the actual tablets of the Ten Commandments, "written with the finger of God". There are few props in the history of film that are so easily recognizable, and so coveted by seasoned collectors of original Hollywood film relics...'

Complements

2008-07-29T19:10:00.002-04:00

What exactly does the Bible say about gender roles? It’s a question that’s been argued for millennia, but at least now we have the benefit of two rival religious lobbying organizations, each not only struggling with scriptural interpretation but also struggling on the P.R., coming up with friendly sounding names for their positions.

On the right side of things, we have what is know as complementarianism. This school of thought is represented by “The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood,” (CBMW) complete with a mission statement and even a blog, GenderBlog, which I link to under the religion section on the right. Their position:

‘…In opposition to the growing movement of feminist egalitarianism [we] articulated what is now known as the complementarian position which affirms that men and women are equal in the image of God, but maintain complementary differences in role and function. In the home, men lovingly are to lead their wives and family as women intelligently are to submit to the leadership of their husbands. In the church, while men and women share equally in the blessings of salvation, some governing and teaching roles are restricted to men…’

So men and women are equal in the eye of God, but only to a certain point. After that point it’s all about men leading and woman following.

The opposing religious position is known as egalitarianism. This school is represented by the organization Christians for Biblical Equality, which also has a blog, The CBE Scroll, also linked to on right. Their position:

‘…What is Biblical equality? It is the belief that all people are equal before God and in Christ. All have equal responsibility to use their gifts and obey their calling to the glory of God. God freely calls believers to roles and ministries without regard to class, gender or race. We believe this because the Bible and Jesus Christ teach it to us. That is biblical equality…’

The key scripture the CBE quotes is the famous one from Galatians, 3:28: 'There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, thee is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.' In her book, “In Memory of Her,” Elisabeth Fiorenza notes this to be an early Christian baptismal formula, quoted by Paul as opposed to written by Paul. She mentions this as part of her famous thesis that early Christian beliefs reflected a much more egalitarian outlook regarding the role of women in the church. Only later did a more patriarchal belief system develop.

And develop it did, for as the CBMW is quick to point out, later writings of Paul are not so egalitarian in their outlook of women. The famous phrase from Ephesians, 5:22: ‘Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord’, is one of about a dozen ‘subordination’ clauses in the letters of Paul. Complementarians latch onto this as scriptural backing for their views, and as reflects a recent development in fundamentalism, are becoming very academic about it. From the CBMW Journal, Spring 1998:

‘…Where the Bible says that wives are to "be subject to'' to their husbands (Col. 3:18; Titus 2:5; 1 Peter 3:1, 5; and implied in Eph. 5:22, 24), you tell us that the verb "be subject to'' (hypotassō, passive) is a requirement for both husbands and wives-that just as wives are to be subject to their husbands, so husbands are to be subject to their wives, and that there is no unique authority that belongs to the husband. Rather, the biblical ideal is "mutual submission'' according to Ephesians 5:21, "be subject to one another,'' and therefore there is no idea of one-directional submission to the husband's authority in these other verses (Col. 3:18; Titus 2:5; 1 Peter 3:1, 5; and Eph. 5:22, 24).

But we have never been able to find any text in ancient Greek literature where hypotassō (passive) refers to a person or persons being "subject to'' another person, and where the idea of submission to that person's authority is absent. In every example we can find, when person A is said to "be subject to'' person B, person B has a unique authority which person A does not have. In other words, hypotassō always implies a one-directional submission to someone in authority. So our question is this:

Will you please show us one example in all of ancient Greek where this word for "be subject to'' (hypotassō, passive) is used to refer to one person in relation to another and does not include the idea of one-directional submission to the other person's authority?...’

This is from a somewhat famous ‘Open Letter to Egalitarians,’ where the complementarians invite academic debate on the various scriptures. In this case their argument for Ephesians at least falls somewhat flat, as the phrase ‘be subject to one another’ actually is in Ephesians immediately prior to the famous subordination phrase, and so an egalitarian interpretation isn’t solely reliant on the nuances of the book’s original Koine Greek...'

I bring this up because I ran into another ‘Open Letter to Egalitarians’ written last week, this time addressing more prosaic and pragmatic issues. Ten questions were asked on a popular complementarian blog regarding what egalitarians view as the proper response to various situations where gender roles may be in play:

1. If the Titanic accident were to happen again, would you desire 50% of the seats on the life boats to be left for men?

2. If there is a robber who just broke into your house and you are married with children, would you want the man to go downstairs or the woman or would this be done depending on who had done it last time?

3. Would an egalitarian woman be offended at a man holding the door for her?

4. Do egalitarian parents allow their boys to play rough with the girls just like the boys play rough with other boys?

5. Do egalitarian parents train their boys that it is okay for them to be "stay at home dads?" If so, does a lot of domestic training happen for these boys?

6. Do you feel that women boxers should be allowed to fight in the ring with men?

7. Do egalitarian women desire to be protected by their guy (boyfriend, husband, father, etc.) or would they prefer to protect themselves?

8. Does an egalitarian female "pastor" get a maternity leave from her preaching responsibilities?

9. Does and egalitarian female "pastor" counsel men about pornography?

10. Do egalitarian pastoral staffs go on pastoral retreats together? If so, how does that work with having guys and girls together? Do the spouses feel strange about this?

I wont reprint my responses (I posted them here) to keep this post from getting any longer than it is. But one thing I didn’t mention in my response was how odd the questions struck me. They all really read as if the person who wrote them is completely flummoxed by how anyone could consider living a life any other way than with specific leadership roles defined along gender lines. What’s also interesting with these questions, and the posts on the CBMW blog, is the complete focus on ‘leadership’ as the only role for men. It’s like Al Haig founded a religious movement: ‘I’m in charge! I’m in charge!’ In charge of what is never addressed.

France

2008-07-24T16:18:00.000-04:00

Back from France, hence the long lack of posting. We were staying at a small place in Burgundy, where the internet access was similar to what I had in high school in the 1980s. It was nice, actually, to be in a techno-media free zone. All there was to do was eat, drink and read.

And so we did. We spent 6 days in Burgundy at our friend’s place, an old mill built in the 14th century, before going onto Paris. Here are the daily meals:

Friday, July 11th: Lunch was a small charcuterie plate, and dinner was a whole sea bass cooked in salt, served with seaweed, and followed by cheese.

Saturday, July 12th: Lunch was an omelet, and dinner was an appetizer of pork pate followed by a main course of braised beef cheeks, followed by cheese.

Sunday, July 13th: Lunch was a small charcuterie plate, jambon served on melon and beef tongue served on romaine lettuce hearts. Dinner was avocadoes with pistachio oil, string beans and beef. Followed by cheese.

Monday, July 14th: Lunch was more jambon served on melon, with leftover steak, pickles and tapenade on bread. Dinner was a village party where they served mussels, fries, and a tart. Oh, and cheese.

Tuesday, July 15th: Lunch was homemade salt cod. Dinner was heirloom rabbit served with eggplant, tapenade and tomatoes, followed by cheese.

Wednesday, July 16th: Lunch was leftover rabbit and an omelet. Dinner was pastrami sandwiches. And cheese.

And for the three of us, this was all washed down with 32 bottles of French wine and one bottle of cognac.

Then we went to Paris. Life sucks sometimes.

Banjo

2008-07-03T13:40:00.002-04:00

I just purchased my first banjo today, a Gold Tone Tenor. I started lessons last week and will be taking them through the summer at least to see how it all works for me. It's been a long time since I played an instrument (violin when I was a kid) and I'm looking forward to becoming musically functional again. Hopefully I will have enough time and motivation to devote to it; otherwise I'll sound like a pig squealing...

Gender Equality

2008-07-01T09:40:00.001-04:00

From CNN:

'...Muslim extremist women are challenging al Qaeda's refusal to include -- or at least acknowledge -- women in its ranks, in an emotional debate that gives rare insight into the gender conflicts lurking beneath one of the strictest strains of Islam.

In response to a female questioner, al Qaeda No. 2 leader Ayman al-Zawahiri said in April that the terrorist group does not have women. A woman's role, he said on the Internet audio recording, is limited to caring for the homes and children of al Qaeda fighters.

His remarks have since prompted an outcry from fundamentalist women, who are fighting or pleading for the right to be terrorists. The statements have also created some confusion, because in fact suicide bombings by women seem to be on the rise, at least within the Iraq branch of al Qaeda...'

I have some quibble with the wording in this article (‘pleading for the right to be terrorists’, etc.), though it is an interesting read. I also have a problem with the inherent censorship in this article, like others, which refer to online forums as sources without giving any URLs. Nonetheless it’s an interesting analysis of the role of the internet in allowing marginalized women’s voices to be heard.

Also of note are Shabana Mir’s comments in the Religion Dispatches blog:

‘…[al-Zawahiri’s] statement also works with the (Western and secular) Other’s single-dimensional notions of extremist Muslims—the men fight in the field and the illiterate women care for innumerable children indoors. In a sense, the statement upholds the Orientalism of the other. It reaffirms the binaries, the black-and-white ideas of self and difference on both sides…’

Marriage

2008-06-30T14:06:00.006-04:00

California has allowed gay marriage for a bit over a week now, and despite some good friends of ours taking advantage of the situation and getting hitched, so far at least my marriage hasn't collapsed. Of course I don't live in California, so maybe that's it.

But apparently the danger to my marriage is still there, as evidenced by the introduction in the United States Senate of S.J. Res. 43: A joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to marriage. Unfortunately the text is not yet available; however it is apparently the latest attempt to add an amendment to the Constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman. The fun part is the cosponsors, a veritable who's who of batshit insane republican lunatics including both of the top paragons of senatorial moral virtue, Senator Larry 'Widestance' Craig of Idaho and Senator David 'Diapers' Vitter of Louisiana. I'm not certain how far this proposed amendment is going to go with those two cosponsering it. It's like they are trying to write for the Daily Show themselves.

Along the same lines of lunacy is the American Family Association and their news website OneNewsNow. Let's let Carpetbagger explain their idiocy:

'...Auto-correct can be a very helpful feature of any word-processing program. But when conservatives use it, they run the risk of embarrassing themselves. Some far-right sites that subscribe to the Associated Press feed, for example, will use auto-correct to change “Democratic Party” to “Democrat Party.” This, of course, is because they have the temperament of children. But the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow website takes the phenomenon one step further with its AP articles. The far-right fundamentalist group replaces the word “gay” in the articles with the word “homosexual.” I’m not entirely sure why, but it seems to make the AFA happy. The group is, after all, pretty far out there. The problem, of course, is that “gay” does not always mean what the AFA wants it to mean. My friend Kyle reported this morning that sprinter Tyson Gay won the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials over the weekend. The AFA ran the story, but only after the auto-correct had “fixed” the article:...'

This was originally reported at Right Wing Watch, which also managed to save a screenshot of the archives of some more of AFA's top-notch sports reporting:

Get Off My Lawn!

2008-06-27T14:50:00.003-04:00

Last night we were lucky enough to see Liz Phair performing at a small club here in New York. In honor of the 15th anniversary of the release of her first album, ‘Exile in Guyville,’ she’s doing a short tour at small clubs in New York, San Francisco and Chicago, playing the entire album in original song order. A fantastic show.

This was the eighth time I’ve seen her perform, having seen her at least once on each album tour that she’s ever done. The first time was back in November, 1993 at the original location of Washington DC’s 9:30 club, also touring for ‘Guyville.’ If I remember correctly, it was around 100 people at that gig, and it was one of the most amazing shows I’ve ever seen. You could see how much her band adored her as she shyly played through most of that album and a few other songs she had written back then. Last night's show was the only other one of her I’ve seen in such a small venue – only about 3-400 - and it reminded me of how important that kind of intimacy is to enjoying live music.

It was an interesting show also to see how much things have changed. Not just Liz Phair herself, who has a confidence in playing that she has worked hard at over the last decade and a half. The audience, as well, has changed, though not much in demographic but rather in how an audience behaves. 1993 predated the internet and cellphones. And those technologies have completely changed how an audience relates to a performer on stage.

What is it with cellphone cameras at these things? At the risk of sounding like a Luddite old fart, screaming at the kids about his lawn, it pisses me off. We were surrounded by people who spent the entire time taking picture after picture on their cellphones to email to their friends. It was bizarre to see people who paid good money (tickets to the sold-out shows were scalped for close to a hundred bucks a pop), spend the entire show viewing it through a 1”x2” small screen. They would hold it up, blocking people’s view, snap the picture, and then fuss with it before scrolling down a list of people to email it to.

It seems to reflect an inability to be able to relate to live performance; as if the only way that people can relate to something is through the medium of a screen. I don’t begrudge people from taking a shot or two (the above photo was stolen from the blog of someone who saw the show last night), to share with friends who aren’t at the concert, but I thought that’s what the phone part of the cellphone was for – dialing them up and letting them listen in.

Of course, I am an old fart. Back in 1993, after we saw a cool show we would tell people about it in person. Uphill, both ways, of course.

**UPDATE**

Here's a Youtube from a guy who was standing pretty much next to me. He recorded it on his cellphone, so the sound pretty much sucks, though in his post he's proud of the video quality, which isn't so bad. Divorce Song:

Pollution

2008-06-25T14:10:00.003-04:00

So what's in the paper today? Let's see, in the front section...:

'White House Refused to Open Pollutants E-Mail:

The White House in December refused to accept the Environmental Protection Agency’s conclusion that greenhouse gases are pollutants that must be controlled, telling agency officials that an e-mail message containing the document would not be opened, senior E.P.A. officials said last week.

The document, which ended up in e-mail limbo, without official status, was the E.P.A.’s answer to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that required it to determine whether greenhouse gases represent a danger to health or the environment, the officials said. ...'

As Digby puts it: 'La la la la I can't hear you!' This is apparently the level that the administration has sunk to - acting like five-year-olds when faced with something that they don't want to deal with.

Also in today's paper is another story about how some people have decided to memorialize this administration in an appropriate way:

'An Honor That Bush Is Unlikely to Embrace

Reagan has his highways. Lincoln has his memorial. Washington has the capital (and a state, too). But President Bush may soon be the sole president to have a memorial named after him that you can contribute to from the bathroom.

From the Department of Damned-With-Faint-Praise, a group going by the regal-sounding name of the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco is planning to ask voters here to change the name of a prize-winning water treatment plant on the shoreline to the George W. Bush Sewage Plant...'

Crappy News to Start the Day

2008-06-23T08:40:00.003-04:00

R.I.P. George Carlin

'...Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck...'

Welcome to Brooklyn. So Say We All.

2008-06-17T10:30:00.002-04:00

Things are happening here in the Borough of Brooklyn. In a week and a half, the art project ‘Waterfalls’ by the Olafur Eliasson begins. As well, Brooklyn has now, after many years of community opposition, an IKEA opening up in Red Hook.

The ‘Waterfalls’ project is temporary, lasting through October. Opponents of the Red Hook IKEA will have to wait just a bit longer for the IKEA to go away; but go away it will, as we found out this past weekend. In the mid-season finale of Battlestar Galactica, when the remnants of the human race and the Cylon Rebels together finally land on Earth, they apparently pick Brooklyn as the first spot to visit. I always felt I was in the center of the universe.

Dead Ducks

2008-06-13T11:02:00.003-04:00

Two religion blogs that I regularly read, Father Jake and Adventus, recently posted on an old sermon by Robert Capon, an Episcopal priest and prolific author. In the sermon, Father Capon discusses the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, Luke 18:9-14:

‘…He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: ‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax-collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.” But the tax-collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.’…’

Most exegesis of that parable focuses on notions of being humble before God, but Father Capon gets at something else:

‘...The law, the commandments, are efforts at morality, humility, spirituality and, above all, are efforts at religion, are efforts at trying to do something that will get us right with God. All don't work. Therefore God, as Jesus speaks of Him, doesn't risk trying to save the world by human good behavior. The Pharisee's mistake, therefore, is not that he is saying something that it is just proud or a little bit arrogant, but that what he is saying is dead wrong. His goodness is irrelevant to the problem that he is talking about. Therefore, God says that the tax collector who simply looks at his shoe tips and says, "I'm no good," is justified. Now, why?

The point is that this parable is about death and resurrection. It is not about morality, spirituality or anything else. It is about the fact that both the Pharisee and the Publican (the tax collector), are dead ducks. The Pharisee is a very high class kind of dead duck, but they are both dead as far as being able to reconcile with God is concerned. The point about all of this is that the reconciliation God has in mind for them is totally dependent on their death…

…Now you ask yourself a question. Do you like that parable? Of course, you don't like it. The point is that it violates every sense you and I have about the fact that we really are basically doing fairly well. If only other people were as nice and considerate and as wonderful as we are, the world would be a better place to live in and God says, "No. That will not work." It can't be done that way. It can't be done by people who think they are winners. It can only be done by people who are willing to admit they are losers and then who are willing to trust God in the death of their losing to do it for them, to deliver them the gift of a reconciliation with God...’

Father Jake and Adventus use this as a starting point to discuss Grace and the necessary non-transactional nature of it; ie God doesn’t give out Grace for specific acts, being good and the like. Christian concepts of Grace, forgiveness, salvation, etc. are not mathematical; notions of spreadsheets tallying your good and evil deeds waiting for you at the pearly gates is not what Christianity is about. To Christians, Grace is free and Grace is ‘beyond price.’ One has the free will to accept it or not, of course. And, as Father Capon says, this is upsetting, as it has nothing to do with merit – whether or not one deserves it. Hitler and Gandhi are both offered Grace.

But what got my interest in this was the notion of Grace being necessarily tied to death. Here’s Father Capon again:

‘…I don't believe in resurrection. I don't believe in eternal life. I don't believe in life after death. I don't believe in the hereafter. Those are all opinions. I simply trust Jesus that He will deliver to me as He rose from the dead, He will raise me. Whatever that means, however it works, I trust Him because in His death is my reconciliation and in my reconciliation is my joy in Him...’

To me this statement works on a number of levels, for the notion of both Grace’s requisite connection to death (at least according to Father Capon) and the notion of the resurrection of Jesus (which I also don’t believe in) can both still work to an agnostic such as me when ‘death’ is viewed as a metaphor (either our own or Jesus’), and not necessarily as something physical, medical or historical (as in the crucifixion). Death being defined not by one’s heart not beating, but by one’s heart not feeling.

Most of my interest in Christianity is objective, as an outsider; I don’t have a horse in this race as it were. But I am intensely involved by choice as one who sees the profound influences of Christianity in our society, both good and bad. This makes me a bit of an odd duck: the vast majority of people who study Christianity as much as I do feel called to do so for personal spiritual reasons, unlike me. I then end up in a weird position of being an agnostic apologist for Christianity, agnostic because while I can be inspired by the teachings of Jesus, as many agnostics are, I don’t consider myself a Christian since Christianity is not primarily about the Sermon on the Mount (though I wish it were) but the Passion on the Cross. And I don’t believe in the historical fact of the resurrection.

But if one reads the Passion using resurrection from death as a metaphor, rather than a physical event, and by viewing Jesus’ death and resurrection as a ‘closing’ and ‘reopening’ of his heart, then the Passion can be a powerful inspiration to an agnostic such as myself.

Or to put it another way, as the quote from Terry Eagleton on the top banner of Adventus says:

‘…The central doctrine of Christianity, then, is not that God is a bastard. It is, in the words of the late Dominican theologian Herbert McCabe, that if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you…’

End of the World

2008-06-12T09:23:00.002-04:00

Above, the 'House of Yahweh,' the last hope of all mankind.

It is shaping up to be a lovely day, this Thursday, June 12th. Sunny, high in the mid eighties. And I have an Issac Hayes concert to look forward to this evening. Or maybe not:

'...Nuclear war will begin next Thursday, June 12, or sooner, according to the latest prediction of self-proclaimed prophet Yisrayl "Buffalo Bill" Hawkins, the founder of a religious sect in Abilene, Texas.

"It could be turned loose before then," Hawkins told 20/20 for a report to be broadcast tonight. "You're going to see this very soon, really soon," he said.

Hundreds of truck trailers have been loaded with food and water on the group's 44-acre compound, in preparation for the coming war...'

It all sounds pretty gloomy, especially since Kathy and I are looking forward to the concert. But there is hope:

'...Other former members say they are required to buy doomsday food and supplies from a company that Hawkins owns personally, Life Nutrition Products.

"Everything that he preaches has to do with people buying something," said former House of Yahweh elder David Als of New York City...'

There's no problem that a good dose of commerce can't solve.

The House of Yahweh claims thousands of members around the world, dedicated to the teachings of Mr. Hawkins, despite his brushes with the law: he is currently facing multiple charges of promoting bigamy, organized crime, and violating child labor laws. Tons of the followers are converging on the town of Abilene today.

Why does this always happen?

'...Ruby Wilkins, who was a sect member in the early 1980s and whose children also were members, said Yisrayl Hawkins helped her escape from a bad marriage. But she came to see him as controlling, exploiting those who had nothing.

"Out on the street, they were just nobody, and they didn't have enough smarts to be anybody. Bill took them in, would give them a black suit and called them elders. As long as they were there, they were somebody," Wilkins said.

Many members change their last name to their teacher's...'

All that many people need is a single person to treat them with respect; give them that and they'll follow you to the end of the earth. Even if you are a complete and immoral wackadoo.

Bad days at the office

2008-06-05T15:18:00.001-04:00

This is a compilation of bad office days caught on security cameras. I post this is in honor of the latest viral video sweeping the web: a guy completely freaking out at the offices of CCTV in Russia:

Animation

2008-05-15T19:29:00.002-04:00

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

I've been busy at a conference and at work, so I haven't had time to post, or follow up on several comments left for me. In the meantime enjoy this wall painting animation by Blu; definitely cooler than anything I'm working on.

Mammon

2008-05-09T17:34:00.002-04:00

Pastor Dan at Street Prophets takes note of an article in the Wall Street Journal covering the proposed actions of the Alliance Defense Fund, a ‘conservative legal-advocacy group’ based in Scottsdale. It seems that civil disobedience isn’t just for hippie liberals any more:

‘...A conservative legal-advocacy group is enlisting ministers to use their pulpits to preach about election candidates this September, defying a tax law that bars churches from engaging in politics.

Alliance Defense Fund, a Scottsdale, Ariz., nonprofit, is hoping at least one sermon will prompt the Internal Revenue Service to investigate, sparking a court battle that could get the tax provision declared unconstitutional. Alliance lawyers represent churches in disputes with the IRS over alleged partisan activity.

The action marks the latest attempt by a conservative organization to help clergy harness their congregations to sway elections. The protest is scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 28, a little more than a month before the general election, in a year when religious concerns and preachers have been a regular part of the political debate...

...Alliance fund staff hopes 40 or 50 houses of worship will take part in the action, including clerics from liberal-leaning congregations. About 80 ministers have expressed interest, including one Catholic priest, says Erik Stanley, the Alliance's senior legal counsel…’

Forcing a court challenge to what is perceived as unjust is the American way, and can be very effective. The problem is that this issue of divorcing politics from the pulpit is not about free speech as the Alliance Defense Fund proclaims, but is instead about the tax deduction. It’s false to claim that laws prevent priests from advocating for political candidates. It’s totally legal to do such advocacy; you’ll just loose your luscious tax deduction.

The gag rule isn’t all that onerous. It simply prohibits speaking out in favor or against a specific individual running for office. One can rail and thunder from the pulpit on political issues all one wants, you just can’t tell a congregation to go vote for a guy because the other one is going to hell.

But a tell in all of this, is the predominance of the preaching to those who support conservative politicians, and waiting to do so until a point late enough in the election cycle that nothing can be done about it until after the election. That’s why this sound and fury is more about Hail Mary passes to get a few more votes for conservative candidates a month after the ‘protest.’ What’s truly telling, though, is that so far I haven’t seen any church or parish feel strongly enough about this issue to self-revoke their own tax status to allow themselves to avoid the gag rule. Money trumps speech indeed.

From Pastor Dan:

'...C. Welton Gaddy of the Interfaith Alliance had a statement on the ADF's move that seems on-the-money:

Houses of worship belong to divine authority – they are not the property of either political party. The Alliance Defense Fund’s call for pastors to break the law represents the height of irresponsibility. They are putting churches across the country unnecessarily at risk to costly and time-consuming investigations that could result in harsh financial penalties. Putting churches in legal and financial jeopardy seems a bizarre way of defending religious freedom, which the ADF claims to defend.

But there is an even greater issue at stake in this campaign than violating the law. When religious leaders endorse candidates from the pulpit, they weaken both the sanctity of religion and the integrity of democracy. The IRS allows – and the Interfaith Alliance encourages – religious leaders to speak out on the important political issues of the day, but when clergy endorse specific candidates or parties in their official capacity, they abuse their pastoral authority...'

Angry Gods

2008-05-08T13:25:00.002-04:00

Way cool photos of an electrical storm breaking out over the active Chaiten Volcano in Chile. Plenty more here.

Sex and the Slope

2008-04-30T14:27:00.002-04:00

It's time for us to sell our house and move. Now. From today's New York Post:

'...After years of taking shots from Carrie Bradshaw and her friends, Brooklyn is about to get its due.

Producers are giving Park Slope the star treatment with a pilot by the same executives who brought "Sex and the City," starring Sarah Jessica Parker, and "Melrose Place" to TV.

According to industry sources, Darren Star, who created those smash shows, has teamed with Sony and NBC for a proposed series about a group of affluent characters who live in the upscale Brooklyn neighborhood.

Sue Kramer, who wrote and directed the 2006 romantic comedy "Gray Matters" starring Heather Graham, Bridget Moynahan and Molly Shannon, is writing the script.

"It's an hour-long dramady," Kramer, who lives in Park Slope, told Page Six.

"It takes place in Park Slope and Park Slope is one of the characters in it. Park Slope has so much juice, just like Manhattan. It's got a lot of pizzazz and energy."

The show remains untitled and has not yet been cast, but will have the usual staples of a Darren Star project: laughs, drama, heartbreak - and, of course, sex, sources say.

If the show gets the green light, viewers can see the first episode sometime next year...'

It's just my luck that they would start producing a 'dramady' [sic] in my neighborhood just as real estate values are dropping. I can't catch a break...

Unnecessary War

2008-04-29T14:44:00.002-04:00

We just finished the HBO series John Adams. Contra the New York Times review, we both enjoyed Paul Giamatti’s, and Laura Linney’s, performances, and overall I thought that the miniseries was excellent. I had a few quibbles, such as the self conscious filming style, with the constant steadicam and camera tilt, and the constant buzzing of flies in key scenes, meant I assume to be some form of symbolism that I didn’t care enough about to decode. But my largest complaint was how brief the entire thing was, even condensing his entire presidency to less than a single episode. It’s understandable of course, seeing how the entire series is ten hours already and there is so much of interest to cover, and more to the point, I thought they did a good job with the condensing. Just because I find his presidency to be of great interest doesn’t mean that everyone else would want to sit through a 40 hour miniseries, and I had better be thankful that the series got made at all – under 2 million watched the finale.

In the brief sketch made of his presidency, one interesting item that was ignored was the Treaty of Tripoli. During the 18th century, American shipping (like that of the European nations) was under constant attack by the Barbary Pirates. Prior to the revolution, Great Britain defended American Shipping, and during the revolution, France did. But after the revolution we were on our own.

The Barbary pirates were from a series of Islamic principalities on the North African coast, remnants of empires that waxed and waned from the time that initial Muslim invasions back in the seventh and eight centuries overran the remnants of the Roman Empire. Their main economic function was piracy, forcing people to fight or pay bribes. After the Revolution, America was not in a position to fight, so John Adams decided to pay bribes instead. Yearly tributes were authorized by Congress, culminating in the payment of a large sum, with the ratification of the Treaty of Tripoli by the Senate and signed by President John Adams.

The treaty was originally written in Arabic, and it was an English translation that was officially ratified. Part of the treaty ensured the release of numerous Americans that had been abducted aboard ships, and the bulk of the treaty covered renumerations that the United States paid to the Islamic principalities. Of most interest, though, is Article 11 of the treaty:

‘As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.’

Quite the argument on the separation of church and state. Now in the past two centuries many people have argued for the irrelevance of the article, as there is some doubt over whether it actually was part of the original Arabic treat document. But ultimately it is an irrelevant point, as the version of Article 11 in English is what was ratified by the Senate, signed by the President, and made into the law of the land.

In the end, the treaty didn’t matter. Adams always preferred bribery to war, and Jefferson, his successor as President, preferred war to what he perceived as an unjust tribute. Ironically as well, since the only way to fight was to raise a national navy, and Jefferson loathed federalizing anything, especially armed forces. Nonetheless, war broke out and in the end another peace treaty was signed in 1805, but it also included American payments of ransom. But that still didn’t solve things, and fighting continued for years more, until a final treaty was signed in 1815, by which point the tides had already turned against the Islamic states – their end was coming, and they ultimately became colonies of France.

But the longest lasting remnant of those pointless wars remains the forgotten Article 11 of that original treaty, now gaining further relevance in our current age of pointless wars.

‘A Wasted Life, Better Left in Silence’

2008-04-25T10:35:00.002-04:00

(Above, the white sheep of the family.)

From the Catholic News Agency:

‘…The Vatican has approved the beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman, the English convert and theologian who has had immense influence upon English-speaking Catholicism, the Birmingham Mail reports.

John Henry Newman was born in 1801. As an Anglican priest, he led the Oxford Movement that sought to return the Church of England to its Catholic roots. His conversion to Catholicism in 1845 rocked Victorian England. After becoming an Oratorian priest, he was involved in the establishment of the Birmingham Oratory.

He died in 1890 and is buried at the oratory country house Rednall Hill.

The Catholic Church has accepted as miraculous the cure of an American deacon’s crippling spinal disorder. The deacon, Jack Sullivan of Marshfield, Massachusetts, prayed for John Henry Newman’s intercession.

At his beatification ceremony later this year, John Henry Newman will receive the title “Blessed.” He will need one more recognized miracle to be canonized.

The case of a 17-year-old New Hampshire boy who survived serious head injuries from a car crash is being investigated as a possible second miracle…’

Most people take pride in their family history of having descended from one or more famous people, and although in many cases the stories don’t hold up, they often make for a good telling around a wine-fueled dinner table. My family really doesn’t have anyone famous in their background; we have many good stories of our ancestors, but none of them were famous. Except for Cardinal Newman.

My grandmother’s (on my father’s side) maiden name was Newman, and the story that I was repeatedly told growing up (assuming I remember it correctly) is that it is the same Newman as the family of the famous Cardinal Newman. Now, John Henry Newman, being a catholic cardinal, was not married, and didn’t have kids, so we obviously didn’t descend from him. No, we are descendants of one of his brothers.

Cardinal John Newman had two brothers (and three sisters). His youngest brother, Francis William Newman, was a Unitarian and a well respected professor of Latin in University College in London. We’re not descended from him. No, the story is that we’re descended from the middle brother, Charles Robert Newman. From ‘Charles Newman and His brothers,’ published 1956 by Martin Svaglic:

‘…Few, however, seem aware that there was a third Newman brother named Charles Robert, one year younger than John, the story of whose eccentric life has come to be known in any detail only since 1948…Francis Newman passed it over on one page of his strange little ‘corrective’ book on the Cardinal, calling it a “wasted life, better left in silence.” [Cardinal] John Henry did his best to keep hidden from public curiosity what he called the “aimless, profitless, forlorn” life of his brother, even to the point of buying up from a virtual blackmailer a batch of Charles’s letters, after his death in 1884, to prevent their coming to popular attention…’

Charles Newman was the family black sheep, an atheist and a reclusive hermit, who was pretty much ostracized by the family, although supported enough for him to spend most of his life by himself in a small cottage in Wales. He didn’t start out as a hermit; he started out as a school teacher. That didn’t end so well, as this reminiscing letter to the New York Times from an admirer of Charles in 1884 points out:

‘…At the time I am speaking of, [Charles] Newman was miserably poor, entirely dependent on his small pittance as an usher in a third-rate country school. The task of teaching rude Sussex louts was, as might be imagined, intolerably irksome to a man of [Charles] Newman’s high intellectual power. It was like chopping logs with a fine-edged razor. The relations between him and his principal soon became strained, and the connection did not last long. The engagement was suddenly terminated by a tussle between the usher [Charles Newman] and his class, in which, as might be expected, the usher got the worst of it. He was knocked down, and, unable to defend himself with his hands, he employed his teeth, inflicting a bite on some fleshy part of his assailant’s person with such effect that the boy fled howling. This act sealed Newman’s fate. He was instantly dismissed…

…[Archbishop] Hare, I remember, used to make excuses for Newman’s religious and moral obliquities on the ground of partial insanity. There was a screw loose somewhere…’

Pretty soon, Charles ended up spending the rest of his 40 years living in a small cottage in the Welsh town of Tenby. Another reminiscence from an admirer:

‘…Dressed in a pea-jacket, with a shawl or a rug thrown over across his shoulders, and with a sou’-wester over his head, he marched along-rigid, erect, with staccato step, looking not to the right nor to the left. He wore shoes (sometimes slippers) and, as his trousers were short and wide in the legs, a considerable interval of his white socks was left exposed. I am sorry to say that the lads and lasses and the vulgar sort of folk regarded Charles Newman at Tenby much as the formerly did Tennyson at Farringford and Carlyle at Chelsea. Once, I recollect, when he came to me to tea, he was followed to the door by a crowd of gaping urchins, whom I had to disperse with the threat of a stick…’

Charles died in 1884, and his writings, which is what he busied himself with during those 40 years in Tenby, were mostly destroyed by the Cardinal and other members of his family. What remained was collected and published posthumously in 1891. Long out of print, his ‘Essays in Rationality’ (along with a good potted biography) has been scanned and is now available as part of Google’s effort to put every book ever printed on line.

The problem, as you may have noticed, is that nowhere in my (admittedly brief) research can I find any mention of Charles Newman ever marrying or having kids, which could obviously pose a problem to those in my family who tell the story of our being Charles’s direct descendants. But it’s a good tale to tell at a wine-fueled dinner table, being descended from the ne’er-do-well brother of a soon to be beatified Cardinal.

I, for one, welcome our new Robot Overlords

2008-04-24T15:02:00.002-04:00

The Japanese have for some inexplicable reason decided that equipping some of their 40 million robots (1 million industrial and 39 million domestic) with lasers is an excellent idea. Apparently Battlestar Galactica hasn't reached there yet.

Food Riots

2008-04-24T13:27:00.002-04:00

So now, instead of bank runs, we have food runs. Panic has seized the minds of American food consumers and now there are runs on basic grain staples in Wal-Marts, Costcos and Sam’s around the country. People are now buying massive quantities of rice after reading articles such as this one from the Wall Street Journal, where we are faced with the very odd spectacle of investment advisers recommending that Americans stock up on foods as a hedge against global rising food prices. It makes sense on a certain level, as rice is definitely tastier than Bear Stearns stock certificates.

This panic is fun to watch, as it ends up being a classic self-fulfilling process. People stock up, the shelves go empty (as the store distribution system is not set up to deal with a sudden spike in demand like this) and it will take a while for the plentiful stocks of rice in this country to make their way back onto the shelves. But in the meantime the empty shelves will prompt more panic buying, as people think the shelves are empty because of a lack of rice, and not because the supply chain isn’t used to dealing with irrationality on a massive scale.

The real problem is not here, where we have plenty of food, but in many places elsewhere on the globe. Food riots are popping up like mushrooms after a rain, as countries are dealing with a perfect storm of economic and weather problems that are affecting different parts of the food supply around the world. My brother in his new blog today posts an article from this week's Economist which covers the problem.

Or, rather, problems, because anyone who thinks that there is one problem causing all of this is being myopic. Natural catastrophes such as drought are playing a large role in all of this, but only in local areas. Rice harvests around the world are abundant, but there are many places where they are not, due to a lack of water for the thirsty crop. Distribution remains the largest problem there. But the main problems are economic.

To blame those on the left, a huge problem has historically been a crude and mishandled subsidizing of food production. This is one of the main reasons for the riots – the prices have gone up so much because they were held artificially low to begin with, at levels that were economically unsustainable. And while giving away rice and wheat to a hungry populace may sound like a good idea, over the long term it’s a disaster, as it gives farmers no reason to produce anything. Well, except for drug crops like cocoa and poppies, whose prices are supported at artificially high levels due to their illegality.

But lest I sound like a rampant capitalist, a large amount of the blame goes to those on the right. The fiscal policies of this country have managed to devalue the U.S. dollar to a great degree, and the U.S. dollar is the main currency of international trade. This is one of the main reasons the price of oil has gone through the roof. And for the exact same reasons, it’s why the price of traded food, and therefore all food, is going through the roof as well. For the past year, the supply of and demand for food has not in and of itself changed appreciably, but the currency used to purchase food has changed dramatically. Which is why 2008 is the year of food riots, and not 2007.

And to blame everyone, no matter their political persuasion, most of the grain on the planet doesn’t feed people; it feeds cows, pigs and chickens (there are 1.5 billion cows on this planet, weighing as much as all 6 billion people, and 50 billion chickens hanging out all over the globe.) Eating meat is a grossly inefficient way to get calories from the soil to peoples’ bellies – the most common statistic is that it takes ten calories of grain to produce one calorie of meat, and it's estimated that 70% of all agriculture on this planet is directly devoted to livestock, and not people. And now that millions of newly affluent people in Asia want a new lifestyle to go along with their new found wealth, they are looking at the only culture that historically has a lifestyle of plenty for guidance and inspiration. America, land of car driving carnivores. America has three great inspirational exports to the new middle classes of Asia: a love of cars, a love of meat and a love of Pentecostalism. The world would be a better place if those millions instead stuck to riding bikes to a vegetarian restaurant to discuss Confucianism.

Of course, our country would be a better place if we did that as well, instead of driving the SUV to Wal-Mart to load up on a hundred pound bag of rice we wont be eating.

That's It, I'm voting for Hillary

2008-04-20T12:25:00.000-04:00

h/t Atrios

Still More Family Circus

2008-04-10T10:06:00.002-04:00

(Above image from the Nietzsche Family Circus)

It's been a while since I posted. You can attribute this to my workload and the fact that I finally had my wisdom teeth removed last week; I got to spend a long weekend in a codeine fog catching up with reruns of Battlestar Galactica.

So I missed the chance to make any comments on Senator Obama's Reverend Wright affair. Not that I had much to add that hadn't already been said a thousand times on other blogs. But what is annoying to me the most about this issue is how comparatively unexplored the religious practices of the other candidates have been by the same media that lept all over the story of Senator Obama's preacher.

As a result we have been denied the opportunity to examine the church of Hillary Clinton: none other than The Family, which I have blogged about before. From CommonDreams:

'...Clinton fell in with The Family in 1993, when she joined a Bible study group composed of wives of conservative leaders like Jack Kemp and James Baker. When she ascended to the Senate, she was promoted to what Sharlet calls the Family’s “most elite cell,” the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast, which included, until his downfall, Virginia’s notoriously racist Senator George Allen. This has not been a casual connection for Clinton. She has written of Doug Coe, The Family’s publicity-averse leader, that he is “a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God.”...'

Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet wrote an article for Mother Jones last fall going into more detail on Senator Clinton's foray into The Family's special blend of power and religion:

'...Clinton's prayer group was part of the Fellowship (or "the Family"), a network of sex-segregated cells of political, business, and military leaders dedicated to "spiritual war" on behalf of Christ, many of them recruited at the Fellowship's only public event, the annual National Prayer Breakfast. (Aside from the breakfast, the group has "made a fetish of being invisible," former Republican Senator William Armstrong has said.) The Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes. Its mission is to help the powerful understand their role in God's plan...'

The whole article is well worth reading. One of the reasons this won't be getting much play in the election is that Senator Clinton is not the only person attending meetings of the Family. From ABC news:

'...But if Clinton has a Coe problem, then it seems Obama would also: a quick call to the Obama campaign elicited a confirmation that the junior senator from Illinois had also attended "a couple" of Coe’s meetings. And, like Clinton reportedly has, Obama spoke at one of the meetings about his faith, spokesman Bill Burton confirmed...'

Zombie Jesus Day

2008-03-25T18:01:00.002-04:00

And another Easter has passed us by, or as we celebrate it in our house, Zombie Jesus Day. We had our annual dinner to celebrate, and 13 people feasted on Lamb and Ham and a wonderful assortment of veggies. And, as is my custom, I did my annual Zombie Jesus Day reading from a heretical gospel.

It’s the third year in a row that we’ve done this. The first two years I read from the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and the Secret Gospel of Mark. The Infancy Gospel is a favorite of mine, as it narrates the life of Jesus as an omnipotent little boy, who kills his friends when they piss him off, until he is tutored by a wise Rabbi. The plot closely follows that of the famous Twilight Zone episode, ‘It’s a Good Life:’

‘…The son of Annas the scribe was standing there with Jesus. Taking a branch from a willow tree, he dispersed the waters which Jesus had gathered. When Jesus saw what had happened, he became angry and said to him, "You godless, brainless moron, what did the ponds and waters do to you? Watch this now: you are going to dry up like a tree and you will never produce leaves or roots or fruit." And immediately, this child withered up completely. Then, Jesus departed and returned to Joseph's house. The parents of the one who had been withered up, however, wailed for their young child as they took his remains away. Then, they went to Joseph and accused him, "You are responsible for the child who did this."…’

The Secret Gospel of Mark is a famous fragment of an ‘alternative’ version of Mark, preserved in quotes from a letter written by Clement of Alexandria in the second century, and discovered in 1958. This alternate version, supposedly containing secret teachings of Jesus, became notorious in the late 1960’s and 1970’s when it was first published, because of the homoerotic overtones of the passages:

‘…And they come into Bethany. And a certain woman whose brother had died was there. And, coming, she prostrated herself before Jesus and says to him, 'Son of David, have mercy on me.' But the disciples rebuked her. And Jesus, being angered, went off with her into the garden where the tomb was, and straightway a great cry was heard from the tomb. And going near, Jesus rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb. And straightaway, going in where the youth was, he stretched forth his hand and raised him, seizing his hand. But the youth, looking upon him, loved him and began to beseech him that he might be with him. And going out of the tomb, they came into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days Jesus told him what to do, and in the evening the youth comes to him, wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God. And thence, arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan…’

This year in honor of the latest news coming from Albany, I read from the Gospel of Mary Magdalene. It’s a more traditional Gnostic text, and is organized like others, such as the Gospel of Judas, where a single favored disciple is given secret teachings by Jesus and then proceeds to tell them to everyone after Jesus ascends to heaven. In the case of the Gospel of Mary, it is Mary who has been given the teachings, but they are initially rejected by the other disciples, as she is a woman.

The first six pages of the Gospel are missing; the best copy we have is a version in Coptic from the fifth century, but it is thought that the Gospel was originally written in Greek in the middle of the second century, a hundred years after the death of Jesus. The gospel starts with Jesus, post resurrection, preaching to the assembled disciples and finishing up a speech on Gnostic theology, about how we are divorced from reality, and that ultimately we will be ‘resolved again into our own roots.’ Jesus then departs, after giving the instructions to go out and preach to the world. But the Disciples are confused and worried, after the bad reception Jesus had just received, having been killed and all that. Mary then gets up and begins speaking, rallying them, and giving the secret messages that Jesus told her. Unfortunately that is where another 4 pages of text are missing.

When the text picks up, Mary is in full Gnostic mode, going on and on about the crazed numerology that is part and parcel of Early Christian Gnosticism:

‘…The first form is darkness, the second desire, the third ignorance, the fourth is the excitement of death, the fifth is the kingdom of the flesh, the sixth is the foolish wisdom of flesh, the seventh is the wrathful wisdom. These are the seven powers of wrath. They asked the soul, whence do you come slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space? The soul answered and said, what binds me has been slain, and what turns me about has been overcome, and my desire has been ended, and ignorance has died…’

This is a very standard Gnostic Text, all about a very complex organization of beings that are behind our wrongly perceived reality. When Mary finishes speaking we have one final Chapter in the Gospel:

‘…When Mary had said this, she fell silent, since it was to this point that the Savior had spoken with her. But Andrew answered and said to the brethren, Say what you wish to say about what she has said. I at least do not believe that the Savior said this. For certainly these teachings are strange ideas.

Peter answered and spoke concerning these same things. He questioned them about the Savior: Did He really speak privately with a woman and not openly to us? Are we to turn about and all listen to her? Did He prefer her to us?

Then Mary wept and said to Peter, My brother Peter, what do you think? Do you think that I have thought this up myself in my heart, or that I am lying about the Savior?

Levi answered and said to Peter, Peter you have always been hot tempered. Now I see you contending against the woman like the adversaries. But if the Savior made her worthy, who are you indeed to reject her? Surely the Savior knows her very well. That is why He loved her more than us. Rather let us be ashamed and put on the perfect Man, and separate as He commanded us and preach the gospel, not laying down any other rule or other law beyond what the Savior said.

And when they heard this they began to go forth to proclaim and to preach…’

What I like about this Gospel is not the crazed Gnostic teaching, which I can never make heads or tales of and doesn’t interest me much, but the role of Mary as a female teacher in an otherwise male room of disciples. For despite the pushback she receives, she is ultimately received as the most important teacher in the room, in spite of her gender. And this reflects a lot of what happened in the early Christian churches. The contemporary patriarchal structure of the Church has not always been that way, and many texts from the first few centuries reflect the different and changing roles of women. You can read this in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 11 (which has been badly translated for millennia) and also it is easy to see in the Gospels of Mark and, especially, John.

There is a lot of evidence that many early Christian churches were led by women, and also that early Christology transcended gender roles. As well, one can also see a constant pressure, as the church matured and gradually became the official religion of an empire, to make the church more hierarchical and more patriarchal. Next year I may read from the Odes of Solomon, another early Christian text from the second century, featuring a gender-bending Christ who’s gender shifts from ‘he’ to ‘she’ in the middle of a speech, and who as a ‘he’ has breasts that feeds the generation (Ode 19):

‘…A cup of milk was offered to me, and I drank it in the sweetness of the Lord's kindness. The Son is the cup, and the Father is He who was milked; and the Holy Spirit is She who milked Him; because His breasts were full, and it was undesirable that His milk should be ineffectually released. The Holy Spirit opened Her bosom, and mixed the milk of the two breasts of the Father. Then She gave the mixture to the generation without their knowing, and those who have received it are in the perfection of the right hand…’

Coke Adds Life

2008-03-20T10:44:00.004-04:00

In this Easter Season, it always pays to play it safe:

"...Many people in the Philippines consider crucifixion and self flagellation good for the soul, but it is bad for your health according to new government advice for penitents.

This Holy Week, the thousands of guilt stricken or pious worshipers who will flay the skin off their backs, and the handful who will crucify themselves, are encouraged to get a tetanus shot first and be sure to use a clean whip or nails.

"We are not trying to go against the Lenten tradition here because whipping has somewhat already become some form of ’atonement for sins’ for some of us,” Health Secretary Francisco Duque the 3rd said.

"Getting deep cut wounds during whippings or lashings is inevitable and being so exposed during the course of the penitence, with all the heat and dust blowing in the wind, welcomes all sorts of infections and bacteria like tetanus,” he explained...

...“The City Health Office (CHO) autoclaved all the nails to be used and will administer anti-tetanus vaccine to all the “Cristos” to ensure their protection from possible infection,” it points out. City officials will conduct an inspection of the Golgothas on Thursday.

The festival is sponsored by Coca-cola and a company called Smart Telecommunications...'

I love the Coca Cola sponsorship. It reminds me of the famous (and debunked) stories of the Pepsi or Coke Slogans ('Come Alive with Pepsi,' or 'Coke Adds Life') being mistranslated into Chinese as 'Pepsi/Coke brings your ancestors back from the dead,' thus driving down sales. Though neither of those mistranslations actually happened, perhaps those lingering urban myths have convinced some at Coca Cola to try their hand at resurrection.

What Light?

2008-03-14T16:16:00.003-04:00

Jake: The band... the band...
Reverend Cleophus James: DO YOU SEE THE LIGHT?
Jake: THE BAND!
Reverend Cleophus James: DO YOU SEE THE LIGHT?
Elwood: What light?
Reverend Cleophus James: HAVE YOU SEEEEN THE LIGHT?
Jake: YES! YES! JESUS H. TAP-DANCING CHRIST... I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT!

From the UPI:

'...KOTTAYAM, India, March 11 (UPI) -- Reports in India of a miraculous image of the Virgin Mary in the sky have led about 50 people to blind themselves by staring at the sun.

The visions are said to appear over the former home of a hotel owner in the Kottayam area in southeast India, The Daily Telegraph reported. One hospital in the district reported 48 patients had been admitted with burned retinas since last week, the British newspaper reported.

Churches have warned their congregations that looking at the sun will cause permanent blindness and have told them the supposed miracle is not one.

Before moving out, the hotel owner reportedly had also claimed to have statues of the Virgin Mary that cried honey and bled oils and perfumes...'

Singing, 'This will be the day that I die...'

2008-03-05T13:11:00.004-05:00

Apparently Don McLean's 'American Pie,' is now being used by the American Military as a form of 'interrogation technique.' Mother Jones Magazine has assembled a list of 24 songs that the military is using to:

'...induce sleep deprivation, "prolong capture shock," disorient detainees during interrogations—and also drown out screams...'

It's quite a playlist:

Deicide: Fuck Your God
Dope: Die MF Die
Dope: Take Your Best Shot
Eminem: White America
Eminem: Kim
Barney: Barney Theme Song
Drowning Pool: Bodies
Metallica: Enter Sandman
'Meow Mix' TV Commercial Jingle
Sesame Street TV Theme Song
David Gray: Babylon
Bruce Springsteen: Born in the U.S.A.
AC/DC: Shoot to Thrill
AC/DC: Hells Bells
BeeGees: Stayin' Alive
Tupac: All Eyes on Me
Christina Aguilera: Dirrty
Neil Diamond: America
Rage Against the Machine: Bulls on Parade
Don McLean: American Pie
Saliva: Click Click Boom
Matchbox 20: Cold
Hed P.E.: Swan Dive
Prince: Raspberry Beret

One's first reaction would be that this sounds like a typical playlist in any college dorm room. Mother Jones has helpfully assembled a complete audio file of all of these songs, which should come in useful if you need to get your puppy to stop piddling on the carpet. Simply go to the site, hit play, turn the speakers to 11, and go out shopping. Presto - instant Gitmo. By the time you return, Good ol' Spot will be cowering in a corner vowing never to pee again, muttering, 'Meow meow meow meow. Meow meow meow meow...'

Phantom Menace

2008-03-05T09:29:00.003-05:00

Above: Charlemagne bumming, because he never existed

I’ve just started a new book, ‘God’s War,’ a history of the Crusades by Christopher Tyerman. It’s a hefty and daunting tome, clocking in at over 900 pages; I’ve committed myself to the introduction and the first few chapters to see if I really want to make the pledge to the whole thing.

It can be a tough slog – to set up the story, the book starts by going over European and Asian History for the 500 years prior to the first crusades in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. And that is precisely the time period that we all blanked out on in our World History Classes in high school and college. You’ve got the Greek and Roman Empires, and then a bunch of people hanging out in Europe until Michelangelo and Martin Luther. The years from the fall of Rome to the Renaissance are just a fog of inconsequence; if a country becomes prominent, a decade later it’s overthrown. Memorizing the important dates and people and such of that time is a tremendous mnemonic feat.

But there is another way to simplify things and get a better grasp of history. Thanks to Herebert Illig, we now have the wonderful idea that the early Middle Ages didn’t exist. It’s called Phantom Time Theory, and it states that the years 614 to 911 never happened:

‘…The Phantom time hypothesis is a theory developed by Heribert Illig (born 1947 in Vohenstrauß) in 1991. It proposes that there has been a systematic effort to make it appear that periods of history: specifically that of Europe during Early Middle Ages (AD 614–911) exist, when they do not. Illig believed that this was achieved through the alteration, misrepresentation and forgery of documentary and physical evidence…’

So it’s not 2008, but actually 1711. There is actually a known period of Phantom Time that definitively exists: the dates October 5th through October 14th, 1582 never existed, thanks to the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar. Those ten days were skipped to make up the problem of the Julian Calendar being off by 674 seconds per year; after a long period of time, that added up to many days, causing problems with when to harvest and such.

Mr. Illig’s hypothesis is actually based on that event. For ten days helps bring the calendar back in line with 1282 years of error, but:

‘…The ten days that were skipped in October 1582 corrected the mistake that had accumulated in the Julian Calendar over the previous 1,282 years. However, if you deduct these 1,282 years from 1582, you don't arrive in the year of Caesar's calendar reform, 45 BC, but in the year AD 300! If he had gone all the way back to Caesar, Pope Gregory would have had to skip 13 days. He did not do so, and yet: the astronomical situation and the calendar agreed. His jump was too short, yet he landed in the right place…’

Mr. Illig goes on to try to account for the missing 300 years, and comes up with the Early Middle Ages because, well, he can’t think of anything that happened then either:

‘…Now it was a question of making the first thesis plausible: Which period was superfluous? At first glance it was obvious that the Roman imperial era was very well documented. The Renaissance period before 1582 was also very well documented. Even the Romanesque and Gothic eras - looked at from an art-history perspective - are well documented, with thousands - even tens of thousands - of buildings. So almost automatically we hit upon the Early Middle Ages. Only here was there darkness. Only here did we find the technical term "Dark Ages"…’

In addition to helping ease my reading load, this theory also has very positive applications for the Republican Party. If it’s only 1711, that makes their platform of building a bridge to the 18th century much more relevant. Also, it becomes much harder to criticize them for eviscerating the U.S. Constitution if it isn’t even going to be ratified for another 77 years.

As for poor Charlemagne, he is explained away in a puff of logic:

‘…To sum up: archaeological testimony clearly contradicts the documents of that period. Since our calendar shows "slack", it is permitted to state: Charlemagne has no historical background. He is an invented figure. This conclusion is compelled by the lack of finds, to which I would add that there would be an absolute absence of finds if scholars did not strive so hard to attribute any available works of art or objects of daily use to the Carolingian era…’

Tant pis...

Moses on High

2008-03-04T12:46:00.002-05:00

And now for the latest in craziness:

'...High on Mount Sinai, Moses was on psychedelic drugs when he heard God deliver the Ten Commandments, an Israeli researcher claimed in a study published this week.

Such mind-altering substances formed an integral part of the religious rites of Israelites in biblical times, Benny Shanon, a professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem wrote in the Time and Mind journal of philosophy.

"As far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don't believe, or a legend, which I don't believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics," Shanon told Israeli public radio on Tuesday.

Moses was probably also on drugs when he saw the "burning bush," suggested Shanon, who said he himself has dabbled with such substances.

"The Bible says people see sounds, and that is a classic phenomenon," he said citing the example of religious ceremonies in the Amazon in which drugs are used that induce people to "see music."

He mentioned his own experience when he used ayahuasca, a powerful psychotropic plant, during a religious ceremony in Brazil's Amazon forest in 1991. "I experienced visions that had spiritual-religious connotations," Shanon said.

He said the psychedelic effects of ayahuasca were comparable to those produced by concoctions based on bark of the acacia tree, that is frequently mentioned in the Bible.'

This represents a problem I have with a lot of journalism covering 'scientific studies.' To start with, the 'study' isn't linked to, so I have no idea where Mr. Shanon is coming from. As a result, it sounds like idle cocktail party chatter, but being reported as the result of a 'researcher's study.'

So while articles like this make for fun coffee room humor, they actually bother me. If you're going to claim some pedantic reasons for unexplained historical phenomena (such as the appearance of the ten commandments on a hill in the Sinai, or a star in the sky over Bethlehem,) you'd best actually provide some valid evidence behind your theory. Billions of people have believed in divine reasons for these events; to pull a theory with no backing out of your ass (they were all stoned) to account for them goes beyond the point of disrespect.

The parts of the Hebrew Bible that cover the events of Moses were written in a period between 1000 BC and 700 BC, but we have no manuscript copies that date from anywhere near that far back. So these events are lost to time, both from a literary standpoint as well as an archaeological one. Anyone who comes up with definitive 'rational' explanations for such events is actually more of a moron than someone who believes in them being the result of divine intervention; a belief in divine intervention requires both faith, and a belief that faith trumps 'rationality,' so it isn't moronic to believe in the divinity of such events when you believe in the supremacy of faith.

However a need to come up with 'rational' explanations requires a belief in the supremacy of rationality over faith; but to believe that you can rationally come up with good explanations for events without evidence is in itself irrational. Someone who is irrational and who values the supremacy of rationality is therefore a complete idiot.

Last Refuge of the Scoundrel

2008-02-29T09:03:00.002-05:00

The GOP has Representative Jack Kingston (R-GA) taking point in trotting out the attacks against Senator Obama; I saw him last week on Bill Maher mouthing the typical talking points the GOP is trying to embed in the American subconscious. Mostly 'unpatriotic' themes: his wife hates America, the Senator is a terrorist sympathizer, he's black, he's a Muslim, etc. Representative Kingston has the requisite plastic anchorman look for this job, but his skills as a front man for these attacks is so limited that I can't help but wonder if it's a secret ploy to make us all complacent about how poorly the GOP will campaign this summer and fall. This clip of him 'slamming' Obama for not wearing a flag lapel pin, all while not wearing one himself, is so laughable that it completely neutralizes him as an effective spokesman. I doubt we'll be seeing him on the TeeVee any more.

Mo' Money

2008-02-21T13:37:00.002-05:00

It is estimated that by 2010, if not earlier, the direct cost of the Iraq war will exceed $600 Billion. There could have been a better option.

First the government could have taken that money, and used it to guarantee and purchase state and municipal bonds earmarked for school construction and repair, and other infrastructure repairs, such as bridges, water and sewer systems, all of which are falling apart. Set up a program where the states sell $550 billion worth of bonds to the federal government at, say 4.5% and the states then use that money as follows:

1. Repair and replace every last school needing repair and replacement in this country. Total cost: $112 Billion.

2. Repair every single substandard bridge in the entire country. Total cost: $188 Billion.

3. Repair and replace every single worn out water pipe in the entire country. Total cost: $250 Billion.

The government then earns $27 billion a year in income on those bonds (at 4.5%), and has $50 billion left over to boot. What could be done with that $27 billion a year annual income?

Well, the current population of Iraq is 27 million, so the US government could have cut a check of $1,000 dollars a year to every single man woman and child in the country, in perpetuity. This may not sound like a lot, but in a country where the Gross National Income is $2,000 per person, that amounts to a 50% income raise. All for a promise to leave us the hell alone.

And then you could use the last $50 Billion to bribe Saddam and every one of his henchman to leave Iraq and move to a glorious palace built in the Tuvalu Islands; once those islands sink beneath the ocean in a few more years (thanks to Global Warming,) our Saddam problem would have been solved.

New Score

2008-02-20T09:00:00.002-05:00

Six months ago I posted on the phrase 'Why is there evil in the world,' and compared the number of Google hits for that phrase with the number of hits for the phrase's opposite, 'Why is there good in the world.' I came up with the following:

'Why is there evil in the world': 967 hits
'Why is there good in the world': 681 hits.

Both phrases require assumptions to ask them, namely whether the world (Or God, as a commenter on Janni's blog pointed out) is inherently Good or Evil. If you ask why is there evil in this world, then the assumption is that the world is an inherently good place. I took the search results to be a somewhat tongue in cheek gauge of hope (or hopelessness.)

I went back and checked out the results again, but this time I went all the way to the end of the lists, and allowed Google to list duplicated entries and such, to get a true count. The new results should encourage those who have hope:

'Why is there evil in the world': 993 hits
'Why is there good in the world': 44 hits

So this is the new baseline, as this is a different methodology from before. Clearly the drop in the 'good' category is due to my revised methodology. I'll try to remember to repeat this study in another six months, maybe right before the election.

Like Rabbits

2008-02-19T13:34:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was President’s Day, so in honor of that I will write about something that relates to one positive thing our President has done: PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS relief. I will even give our President the benefit of my (large doubts): I believe that he pushes for the program because he honestly thinks that it is the right thing to do, and not just because he is engaging in cynical political calculus.

The program is up for renewal and expansion, but the fights over it are just starting:

‘Conservatives Angry at Changes in AIDS Funding

Religious anti-abortion groups are angry over proposed changes in the Bush administration's global AIDS relief program, which has reportedly provided lifesaving medicine to 1.4 million people worldwide...

...On Friday, Bush will begin a weeklong tour in Africa, pressing for a new five-year commitment of $30 billion. Concerned Women for America, along with other conservative religious groups, such as the Family Research Council and the Population Research Institute, are encouraging Bush to veto the bill in its current form.

"It would be better if President Bush had never proposed PEPFAR, than to have $50 billion hijacked by abortion-promoting, chastity-mocking, anti-people groups," said Steven Mosher, president of the Population Research Institute...'

The Population Research Institute has also been in the news lately for another issue: the “demographic winter”; the idea that declining birth rates will lead to depopulation and societal collapse. This has been the latest argument of groups that go beyond opposing abortion rights and argue for the elimination of contraception access, groups such as The Population Research Institute.

An article in the latest issue of The Nation, ‘Missing: The “Right” Babies,’ goes over this phenomenon:

‘…Mosher, president of the Catholic anticontraception lobbyist group Population Research Institute (PRI), describes his grim vision of Europe's future: fields will lie fallow and economies will wither. A great depression will sink over the continent as it undergoes "a decline that Europe hasn't experienced since the Black Death." The comeuppance has a name, one being fervently hawked among a group of Christian-right "profamily" activists hoping to spark a movement in secular Europe. It's called the "demographic winter," a more austere brand of apocalypse than doomsayers normally trade in, evoking not a nuclear inferno but a quiet and cold blanket of snow in which, they charge, "Western Civilization" is laying itself down to die…’

This is all less about a slavish following of scripture and more about xenophobia. These arguments have been going on for some time and are becoming heard in the corridors of power:

‘…At the national level, in 2004 Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi offered a "baby bonus" of about $1,000 to parents who had a second child…’

But:

‘…The racial preferences behind Berlusconi's "baby bonus" came into embarrassing relief when immigrant parents were accidentally sent checks for their offspring and then asked to return the money: the Italian government hadn't meant to promote those births…’

The general fear is hordes of Muslims taking over the world. And it isn’t limited to ‘Christian’ nations. From the Jerusalem Post:

‘…It may be true that the world is becoming overpopulated, although some countries in Europe are encountering the opposite problem of aging populations with insufficient young people, and that is what is happening in Jewish communities as well. Everywhere except in Israel, the Jewish population is diminishing, with the result that we are not even reproducing ourselves. Committed Jews should be concerned about the depletion of the Jewish population, especially in light of the fact that a third of the world Jewish population was exterminated in the Holocaust. Rather than making up for that loss we seem to be adding to it, especially when we take into account those Jews lost to us through assimilation and intermarriage.
The proposal of the Rabbinical Assembly teshuva, therefore, is that Jewish couples who can have children and do not suffer from specific physical, mental or other problems preventing it should add one more child or even more to the two required by Halacha, a "mitzva child," to replenish the Jewish world and assure future Jewish existence…’

Hannah Farber at the Jspot comments:

‘What strikes me about these two attempts to affect the way we make the most intimate, important decisions of our lives is that they are both based in fear and sorrow…

…Since I began working in the Jewish community, I’ve heard this advice again and again, and it never fails to get my ovaries in a twist, not least because of the implied (or explicit) criticism of professional women (never of professional men) who postpone childrearing to accommodate their career goals. I say: if the rabbis are so committed to making this a communal issue, the rabbis should raise the children. In fact, given their comfortable salaries and high communal status, they have no excuse: they should be adopting and converting children by the dozen. Given the impressive recent developments in medicine that prolong human life, I wouldn’t excuse any rabbi under sixty from performing this mitzvah. Wouldn’t that make a fine statement of commitment to the Jewish future?...’

Pranskter God

2008-02-18T09:57:00.002-05:00

"Anyone else have trouble sleeping with that thought? The idea that God might be...fucking with our heads?"

This is one of Bill Hicks more famous rants, riffing on the idea of a prankster God; one who is engaged in the affairs of men, but not always in a benevolent way. Needless to say, this is not a traditional Christian way of viewing the divine, though it is certainly forgivable from someone who died of cancer at the age of 32.

However: Jennifer Berenson Maclean in 'The Divine Trickster: A Tale of Two Weddings in John,' in the book, 'A Feminist Companion to John:'

'...Common traits [of tricksters in literature] include the figure's use of deceptive speech, his ambiguous or liminal status, his ability to invert situations, often to increase his own status, his role as messenger of the gods and bringer of essential gifts to human culture, his transgressions of established boundaries and his role in shaping culture. All these characteristics are found in [The Gospel of] John's presentation of Jesus...'

Jesus as a Divine Prankster. It actually works in the context of Jesus' first sign, turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana, (John 2:1-12). The wine runs out at the wedding that Jesus, his mother, brothers and several disciples are attending. Jesus' mother makes Jesus aware of the situation, and after some controversial words, Jesus converts a vast amount of water into excellent wine. But it's a bizarre sign, theologically. First of all, no one is made aware of the miracle, other than Jesus, some of his disciples, and the readers of the Gospel. The wedding guests are never told of it, and their only comment is that is strange for the host to wait to bring out the best wine until after all the guests are good and hammered. So the vast majority of the people (including Jesus' mother) are tricked. In addition, this sign has no one being saved, healed or raised from the dead. And nothing is asked of the people who benefit from the sign; no faith is demanded. Jesus just converts water to wine and doesn't tell anyone about it.

Now plenty of Biblical scholars have written encyclopedias about this sign story, so interpretations are easy to come by, and many make sense; New wine replacing old as a metaphor for the new law replacing the old; the story is focusing on signs for the disciples and not anyone else, as that is who is being discussed at that point in the Gospel; Jesus being introduced as the Messianic Bridegroom (and therefore responsible for producing the wine), etc. But the question still remains: why that (unique) story, why not another one that would make a clearer point, and not risk having Jesus seen as supporting rampant drunkenness at weddings (as many scholars have complained.)

The analogy that Maclean raises is with the wedding of Jacob. Jacob worked for his Uncle for seven years in the hopes of marrying the hot babe, Rachael, but at the last minute Lathan, Rachael's father, substitutes Leah in Jacob's honeymoon bed. By the time Jacob wakes up, it's too late, and Jacob, who is widely shown throughout Genesis as being a trickster himself, has himself been tricked. Imagery of Jacob is prominent in the first 4 chapters of John, from the calling of the disciples in chapter 1 to Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob in chapter 4. According to Maclean, The 'Trickster' Jacob is presented in the Gospel of John as representing the existing nation of Israel; Jesus is presented as the 'trickster' Lathan: the one who tricks the trickster.

But why this analogy, Jesus as Trickster or Prankster? Tricksters and pranksters can only operate at the bottom end of a hierarchy; trickery and pranks are the only means to work in a system rigged against them. One only needs to read the stories of women in the Old Testament to understand that - women use their wits to make things happen; physical power and oratory are not tools available to them as second class citizens. Think of the mother and stepmothers of Moses, secretly defying the laws of the Pharaohs to ensure Moses' survival. And, to Maclean's (and Raymond Brown's) point, think of the community that wrote the Gospel of John - by the end of the first century, a proto-Christian community struggling against a much larger and more powerful Jewish community from which it sprung. The first four chapters of John can almost be read as a story of the founding of that community.

Throughout the Bible, God roots for young underdogs, those without power and those who are marginalized. And throughout the Bible, the only tools available to those at the bottom are tricking those at the top. Perhaps Bill Hicks was onto something; a Prankster God, but one who rewards those who trick the powerful.

"I am a prankster God, I'm killing me..."

Tomorrow is the 14th anniversary of Bill Hick's death; a tribute is being held at the Gotham Comedy Club here in New York.

More Family Circus

2008-02-15T13:43:00.001-05:00

All is not happy in the land of Christian Fundamentalism. A string of stories that have come up in the past week is pointing to a wonderful class-based schism that is developing in both the Christian Right and the Republican Party.

Back in January, Doug Wead, a religious advisor to the first President Bush, helped leak a story on his blog that Governor Huckabee accepted donations from the Televangelist Kenneth Copeland. The mainstream press dutifully ran with that story, because Kenneth Copeland is under investigation by U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), as part of a campaign he is undertaking investigating the finances of six different televangelists. A few days ago, Doug Wead posted again in his blog, criticizing Senator Grassley for his investigations.

So what is that all about? Why is Mr. Wead outing Televangelists one minute and defending them the next, and why is a conservative Republican Senator going after these televangelists in the first place?

Well, guess what, it’s an election year. This is all just a peak at what is going on behind the scenes. Mr. Wead outed Kenneth Copeland as a way of attacking Huckabee, and on how the Governor failed to properly court evangelicals:

‘…When seeking to establish a base among evangelical voters, presidential contender, Governor Mike Huckabee, made a big mistake. It is one that many presidential wannabes have made before him. He went over the heads of the evangelical leaders of influence and talked directly to the people. It works well with most constituencies, Catholics, Labor, Jews, Hispanics, Women but it never works with Blacks and it never works with evangelicals either. It cost Mike Huckabee the presidential primary in South Carolina and it will probably cost him the nomination…’

Pretty fun stuff: proper obeisance wasn’t paid. The connection with Kenneth Copeland is mentioned as a ‘too little too late’ comment. But the press got hold of it, and, lo and behold, Huckabee got to spend a bunch of time on the Sunday chat shows defending his relationship with the preacher Copeland. Clearly the Bush family doesn’t like Huckabee, because the good governor is playing respect to evangelicals, but not their leaders. There’s a proper way to do things, after all…

But where does Senator Grassley fit into all of this? Because just as there is a schism in the party, there is also a fight brewing among the churches. You see, Senator Grassley is not just the Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee; he also helps run the International Christian Leadership Council, otherwise know as ‘The Family.’ All of the six televangelists that he is going after are proponents of the ‘prosperity doctrine,’ that God rewards you in this life with health and wealth. As such, they are almost certainly ripe for accounting investigations, though Mr. Wead argues otherwise:

‘…At least the six televangelists are consistent. That is, they truly believe their doctrines, namely, that God wants his people healthy, wealthy and forgiven. It is something they preached when they were poor. Take away their wealth and put them in jail and they would still preach it. And incidentally, six more televangelists would emerge because it is not a concept forced on a gullible public as the media would like to believe, it is driven by millions of Christians who subscribe to this particular Biblical interpretation, rightly or wrongly. The televangelist are in some respects the most accountable of all ministries, they literally rise and fall on their last sermon, which pays all their bills.

But Grassley apparently believes it is false doctrine, a dodge. So why then does he maintain a mansion on the Potomac? As a member of the White House senior staff, I was encouraged to come to Cedars and enjoy its pool and tennis courts and its spectacular view of Washington and use it for my own personal relaxation. It was a place to host important guests coming in for the National Prayer Breakfast. But why is it wrong for Kenneth Copeland, for example, to practice what he has publicly preached all his life and right for Senator Grassley to violate his own conscience?...’

So apparently a class-based fight is brewing between different politically connected fundamentalist groups. We’ve got a series of Bush-family-defended televangelists on one side and ‘The Family’ on the other side. As Jeff Sharlet puts it in the Reveler:

‘…But more important, for those of us interested in seeing beyond the image of a monolithic Christian Right presented by mainstream media, Wead, Grassley, and most of all Posner are revealing the class-based factionalism that pervades the American fundamentalist movement…’

Hey, Good Looking

2008-02-14T17:20:00.003-05:00

From the top, the 'Looking Good for Jesus' Travel Kit, Bubble Bath, Change Purse ('Show Him the Money') and Lip Balm.

Sad to say, these wonderful products are no longer available in Singapore. Apparently the Catholic Church there got upset and made the retailer pull all of these products from the shelves. Not to fear; any Singaporean who wants to look good for the Lord can still order these from the internet.

H/T Jesus' General

All The News That Gives You Fits

2008-02-13T13:06:00.003-05:00

Well, gee, let's all take a looksie at what's in the paper today. Why, on page one it's this:

Senate Votes to Expand Spy Powers

'...WASHINGTON — After more than a year of wrangling, the Senate handed the White House a major victory on Tuesday by voting to broaden the government’s spy powers and to give legal protection to phone companies that cooperated in President Bush’s program of eavesdropping without warrants.

One by one, the Senate rejected amendments that would have imposed greater civil liberties checks on the government’s surveillance powers. Finally, the Senate voted 68 to 29 to approve legislation that the White House had been pushing for months. Mr. Bush hailed the vote and urged the House to move quickly in following the Senate’s lead...'

Well, that's all rather depressing. Let's check up on sports, shall we:

Goodell and Specter Ready to Meet

'...N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell will travel to Washington on Wednesday to meet with Senator Arlen Specter for a discussion about the league’s investigation into the Patriots’ spying on other teams.

“I have a lot of questions,” Specter said. “I’m hoping to get some answers.”

Specter, of Pennsylvania, is the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He first requested a meeting with Goodell in a letter in November. Specter wanted to know why the league had destroyed all evidence in the spying case and whether there was any indication that the Patriots had cheated when they played the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl XXXIX...'

h/t John Cole, who adds:

'...There is a very real and perverse possibility that the NFL will face tougher sanctions for spying on practice squads and covering it up than the telecoms and this President will face for spying on the citizenry and lying about it...'

That which Pisseth Understanding

2008-02-12T16:54:00.000-05:00

Pastor Steven L Anderson, pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona, expounding on the King James Bible phrase, "him that pisseth against the wall." Definitely the most idiotic and hilarious bit of sermon that I’ve ever heard.

Pastor Anderson helpfully provides us with a number of things to discuss. First of all is the slavish use in certain fundamentalist churches of the original King James Bible, viewing it as the authentic word of God. The King James Only movement is quite popular in this country, and is a natural result of people who strive to take scripture literally, without pausing to consider what exactly the term literal actually means.

This poses problems, not the least of which is that the King James Version (KJV) is obviously only an English translation, thereby eliminating access to the Bible to the majority of the world that doesn’t read English. Of course, this is not a problem to those who seriously believe that people who don’t read English are condemned to Hell. But another more subtle issue is the evolving nature of the English language. The original KJV dates back to 1611 (with regular updates occurring since then) but the Jacobean English spoken and written back then is different than the English today, and not just with the second person pronouns that still existed at that time (thee and thou, instead of modern English’s co-opting of you and yours). Grammatically there is a massive difference: word order.

Today, English uses a ‘SVO’ word order: subject – verb – object; I marry you. But that is recent, and for most of its ‘life’ English used an ‘SOV’ word order: subject – object - verb; I thee wed (and, ‘til death do us part). This is identical to Japanese, Korean, Hindi, and, most relevantly, Latin. An English speaker relying on the KJV for an ‘English’ translation is about as logical as the same speaker relying on a Japanese translation. You’re actually much better off making everyone in your congregation learn the original Biblical languages of Hebrew and Greek, although the problem with that is the same as with English: Hebrew and Greek have changed radically in the past 2-3000 years.

But all this pails in theological significance to the important point of having the quintessence of masculinity in God’ Eye be about being able to pee standing up.

The above would be an example of a sermon that would not win the Virginia Theological Seminary’s John Hines Preaching Award. However, the sermon that did win this year was by my brother, Mike:

‘…Preaching on the 10th chapter of the Gospel of Luke, Kinman focused his remarks on God’s radical imperative for Christians to connect with and love one another, beginning with, according to Kinman, the simple act of eye contact. “Not making eye contact” said Kinman, “is the mantra of urban living… when we make eye contact with someone, we make a connection. We establish relationship. We invite them into our lives. When we do that, we become vulnerable… and vulnerability compromises safety.”

“Christ’s call to us to make eye contact,” continued Kinman, “is to venture into the neighborhoods of poverty and literally to look the ‘we’ who live there in the eyes, and listen to them and learn from them… not to drive by or drive around but to gaze on people on society’s margins with compassion, to bind their wounds and love them extravagantly.”…’

Congratulations to Mike on this wonderful award of recognition, even if he can't be bothered to email me about it, and I have to find out about it third-hand. He does complain about not having the time to write in his blog (though he spends time writing and moderating here.) If he started posting his sermons, though, then I would be able to actually read them, and maybe he wouldn't feel so bad about waiting three months between posts.

I'd much rather watch a Youtube of him preaching.

Shorter 'The Wire'

2008-02-12T10:21:00.000-05:00

We are all Fucked.

We're latecomers to this show, having just started watching it only about a month ago on DVD. But now we're halfway through season three. It's engrossing and some of the best TV we've ever seen. Kind of like that sick thrill one gets watching a building burn down, except it's our entire country.

Scarlett Johansson Nude

2008-02-12T10:10:00.000-05:00

(Let's see how many hits from Google searches this post gets...)

One of the more idiotic twists of this primary season is the story of Jason Rae, a 21 year old College Junior who is one of the almost eight hundred ‘super delegates’ that will help to decide the Democratic nominee for President. To woo him, the Clinton campaign has sent over Chelsea Clinton to have breakfast and had Bill Clinton call him on his cell phone. The Obama Campaign has had John Kerry give him a call.

Jason Rae has been a member of the DNC, which gets him his ‘super delegate’ status, since he was 17. The rules apparently allow someone as young as 14, at least from the state of Wisconsin.

Jason Zengerle of the New Republic notes::

‘…While Hillary has Bill and Chelsea making her case to Rae, it looks like Obama has . . . John Kerry. Uh, two words of advice for the Obama people: Scarlett Johansson…’

Children

2008-02-11T14:57:00.000-05:00

I’m spending this week making some small changes to this blog, including updating the links on the right, which I will cover over the next few days. But one of the elements I am adding is a list of books that I’ve been reading or have recently read. I’ll keep the list updated as I can, adding new ones and eliminating old ones. I’ll try to keep the list to around ten.

One of the books is a Christmas Gift, The World Without Us; most have heard of it, if not read it. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but it deals with the collapse of the built environment, ruins, and the ephemerality of our artifacts – all topics that interest me – so my liking it should come as no surprise. The book primarily uses all of that fun stuff to hide a more aggressive environmental message, going so far as to end with a chapter covering the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement and the One Child Policy. So, for instance, if every human female from now on would have only one child, by the end of this century the global population would be a quarter of what it is today, with the corresponding reduction in consumption and pollution, goodness and light.

It’s a radical but not-new idea. It’s also little too Malthusian in scope – if consumption of resources is the problem, then eliminating people is not the necessary solution. Cutting consumption obviously is; and if everyone in aggregate consumed a third less, then you wouldn’t have to get rid of a single person to reduce consumption and pollution by a third.

But children do consume, and it’s a surprisingly unaddressed issue in our land of massive consumption combined with an awareness of the evils of that consumption. In short, which has a more positive future impact on the environment – a household getting rid of a car (taking mass transit, walking more) or a household deciding to not have kids (with the corresponding elimination of food consumption, diapers, plastic toys and whatnot)?

That question will most likely remain unanswered because it’s too emotionally fraught, and questions of consumption remain addressed at the fringes only; people use canvas bags instead of plastic, but they still buy the same amount of crap to fill them. Anyone who talks about getting rid of their car in this country is viewed as a freak, unless you are fortunate, like me, to live in a city with abundant mass transit; New York City is one of a very few cities in this country that provide that option, and 80% of the population of Manhattan doesn’t own a car.

So heaven help anyone who chooses not to have a child for such ethical reasons. They are perceived as well and truly mad, if not as downright selfish individuals.

****************

One of the many and various reasons people have kids is a fear of loneliness in old age; a feeling that, once it’s too late, you’ve missed the boat. Many people look at their lives with feelings of accomplishment and think, ‘Hey, raising kids sounds cool, but so does leaning how to wind-surf, and I’ve got a lot of other things that I’m doing that I would rather do than deal with child rearing.’ But then the doubts set in; you look at images of grandparents and think that, damn, that looks cool. I’d better get going on all of this right now, before it’s too late. I don’t want to end up alone rocking on the porch of the nursing home.

Unfortunately for those who proselytize that everyone should have kids, that’s not how it works; several studies indicate otherwise. People’s happiness in old age vis-à-vis children is independent of whether or not they had them. It’s dependent on whether or not they wanted them. The highest rates of happiness and lowest rates of loneliness are among those who decided they really want kids, and had them, and also those who decided they really didn’t want to have kids, and didn’t have them. The ‘happiness’ rates of those two groups were identical. Less happy are those who wanted kids, and were unable to have them. At the very bottom are those who ended up discovering they didn’t want to have kids, and had them anyways. Life sucks for them at the nursing home.

These studies also show that among the elderly who had kids when they were younger, happiness is entirely dependent on the relationship they have with them currently as adults, and not the relationship they had with them when the kids were young. But the rates of happiness are no different than with those elderly who didn’t have kids but have a large group of adult friends and other family to hang out with.

And, yes, not having kids is statistically selfish: Childless couples are happier:

'...Besides, what some parents gain in intimacy with their children, they lose in intimacy with their partners. Hanson says, "Research has shown that on the average the greatest challenge to a couple is becoming parents. Many marriages hold together for a few years when the child is young, but they've been strained beyond repair by everything that comes from having kids and the couple divorces, maybe by the time the kid reaches first grade. Some people think they will save their relationship by having children. It almost never happens." He cites a study by John Gottman, a renowned expert on marriage at the University of Washington, which estimates that couples have eight times more arguments after becoming parents. Hanson says he's seen this in his life as well as his practice. "Many couples overcome all this and having children brings them closer together. That's certainly true for my wife and myself. But during the early years -- our kids are now 15 and almost 13 -- boy, we quarreled and were emotionally distant and troubled in our marriage like we'd never been. We argued about all the issues that new parents commonly argue about -- how to raise the children, who is doing more, the inevitable lack of time for an intimate relationship."

Cain reprints one of those 1975 letters sent to Ann Landers in her book: "I am 40, and my husband is 45. We have twin children under 8 years of age. I was an attractive, fulfilled career woman before I had these kids. Now I'm an overly exhausted nervous wreck who misses her job and sees very little of her husband. He's got a 'friend,' I'm sure, and I don't blame him. Our children took all the romance out of our marriage. I'm too tired for sex, conversation or anything."

Such alienation is less likely when people don't have children. "Statistics show childless couples are happier," Cain says. "Their lives are self-directed, they have a better chance of intimacy, and they do not have the stresses, financial and emotional, of parenthood." ...'

McCain: Like Hope, But Different

2008-02-11T13:05:00.000-05:00

This is why Senator McCain will loose the general election. He can't even win primaries without resorting to bogus inside politics, AFTER he's become the obvious nominee. He remains 0 for 3 in the primaries and caucuses this weekend, though Washington's caucuses are still up in the air because of the bogus calls.

And it's not just the war being hung around his neck like an anchor. This sort of aggressive and memorable viral video wont appear from any Republicans this election cycle; sophisticated humor isn't their forte.

Video via Americablog; it parodies the original Obama video.

And if all else fails, all the Democratic nominee has to do is print up several million copies of this photograph:

Monks

2008-02-10T15:06:00.000-05:00

Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem
[bonk]
Pie Iesu domine,...
[bonk]
...dona eis requiem.
[bonk]
Pie Iesu domine,...
[bonk]
...dona eis requiem.

The Revealer links to an article recently published in the LA Times, 'What Chores Would Jesus Do?,' a piece on the 'New Monasticisim.' It's an excellent article, and it covers an aspect of contemporary Christianity that gets almost no play in the media in this country. (Because of the current state of religious journalism, one can be forgiven for thinking that there are only three religious beliefs in this country: 'Fundamentalist' Christians, Banal forms of Deism, and Hardcore Atheists.)

'...Moving in last January, they pledged to spend one year together, learning to become true followers of Christ. They would give generously, love unconditionally. They would exchange their middle-class ways for humility and simplicity, forgoing Hardee's fries, new CDs, even the basic comfort of privacy.

"The focus has to be on God and the way of life he has set out for us, as opposed to the way we want to live, which is very selfish," Jeromy Emerling said.

A few months into the experiment, at a weekly house meeting, Jake Neufeld framed the vision this way: "Church is not something we attend. It's something we are."...'

And it ends up being a very difficult slog for them, if not impossible. Which is good: Being a Christian shouldn't be easy. The article gets laughable for a while, as this group of people struggle with consumer choices:

'...Some monastic communities pool their resources and renounce private property. The Billings friends chose to control their own finances, though they shared equally in rent, utility and grocery bills. They all said they wanted to consume less, spend less, so they could give away more. Yet they found it unexpectedly hard to give up little comforts.

Each family had come to the house with a refrigerator, so they now had two. They sat on a leather couch to watch Bible study videos -- and Jennifer Aniston comedies. Their pantry was filled with bulk beans, but they splurged on kiwi fruit, reduced-fat Cheez-Its, mint-chip ice cream.

When Phyllis, trying to be diligent about budgeting, refrained from buying a $5 pacifier for her baby, she stewed all day, questioning how much she must sacrifice to live up to the ideal of a simple life.

"Do we want to be simple about how many outfits our kids have? Or how nice the furniture is?" she demanded. "How many kinds of salad dressing are in the fridge?"

Phyllis proposed a cap on discretionary spending -- perhaps $250 to $300 per adult. Excess income would go into a community account, to be given away. Everyone nodded approval. Months later, though, they still had not put the plan into effect, or even agreed on a definition of discretionary: Did that include car insurance? Cellphone bills? What about Christmas gifts?...'

What's missing from the article, and maybe from these people's understanding, is that they haven't yet escaped. They're still playing by the rules of a consumer culture, thinking that the answer to 'being the church' is by cutting spending by 'X' percent, or watching fewer hours of TV each day. You're still obsessing about numbers and analyzing your life through numbers that way; the numbers may be smaller, but it's all about the numbers.

Still, though the experiment comes close to failing, there are noble things that result, and I'm impressed by these people, despite their love for Jennifer Aniston movies. Following a life in Christ is essentially an impossible thing to do, yet after a year of this, these people are honest about their successes and failures, and some vow to persevere, even as others abandon the exercise.

Family Circus Follow Up

2008-02-10T14:59:00.001-05:00

Some brief notes, following up from the post below. Behold the Nietzsche Family Circus, a site that pairs a random Family Circus cartoon with a random quote from Friedrich Nietzsche. Thanks to Paul for the tip.

Jeff Sharlet, the author of the Harpers article I mentioned below, posted a comment alerting me to his book which is coming out on May 20th, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. I've already preordered it, and I urge you all to do the same. Mr. Sharlet also edits a website, The Revealer, 'A Daliy Review of Religion and the Press,' for the NYU Center for Religion and Media. I don't envy someone trying to tackle the insipid quality of religious journalism in this country.

Family Circus Updated Below

2008-02-08T13:36:00.001-05:00

Good Golly, yesterday was the National Prayer Breakfast. Most outside the beltway aren't all that familiar with it, other than perhaps hearing it mentioned on the nightly news once a year and assuming it's some banal photo-op exercise for members of congress to appear pious.

Far from it. The National Prayer Breakfast is the one public event held each year by a secretive religious organization that dominates Washington, DC politics.

Meet the Family:

'...The Fellowship is one of the most secretive, and most powerful, religious organizations in the country. Its connections reach to the highest levels of the U.S. government and include ties to the CIA and numerous current and past dictators around the world...'

Some History:

'...The Family was founded in Seattle in 1935 by Abraham Vereide, a Norwegian immigrant and traveling preacher who had been working with the city's poor, and who feared that Socialist politicians were about to take over Seattle's municipal government. Prominent members of Seattle's business community recognized his success with those who were "down and out" and asked him to give spiritual direction to their group who were "up and out." He organized Christian prayer breakfasts for politicians and businessmen that included anti-Communism and anti-union discussions. He was subsequently invited to set up similar meetings among political and business leaders in San Francisco and Chicago. By 1942, the organization had moved headquarters to Washington, DC, where it helped create breakfast groups in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. In 1944, the organization's name was changed to International Christian Leadership, then in 1972, to The Fellowship Foundation. It was at this time that the group's leaders decided to lower the Fellowship's public profile by decentralizing its leadership.

The organization has been criticized for its relationships with dictators, including Brazilian dictator Marshal Artur da Costa e Silva, General Suharto of Indonesia, Salvadoran general Carlos Eugenios Vides Casanova, and Honduran general Gustavo Alvarez Martinez...'

Back in 2003, Jeffrey Sharlet working for Harpers magazine went undercover into the group's headquarters in Washington, DC:

'...Ivanwald, which sits at the end of Twenty-fourth Street North in Arlington, Virginia, is known only to its residents and to the members and friends of the organization that sponsors it, a group of believers who refer to themselves as “the Family.” The Family is, in its own words, an “invisible” association, though its membership has always consisted mostly of public men. Senators Don Nickles (R., Okla.), Charles Grassley (R., Iowa), Pete Domenici (R., N.Mex.), John Ensign (R., Nev.), James Inhofe (R., Okla.), Bill Nelson (D., Fla.), and Conrad Burns (R., Mont.) are referred to as “members,” as are Representatives Jim DeMint (R., S.C.), Frank Wolf (R., Va.), Joseph Pitts (R., Pa.), Zach Wamp (R., Tenn.), and Bart Stupak (D., Mich.). Regular prayer groups have met in the Pentagon and at the Department of Defense, and the Family has traditionally fostered strong ties with businessmen in the oil and aerospace industries. The Family maintains a closely guarded database of its associates, but it issues no cards, collects no official dues. Members are asked not to speak about the group or its activities.

The organization has operated under many guises, some active, some defunct: National Committee for Christian Leadership, International Christian Leadership, the National Leadership Council, Fellowship House, the Fellowship Foundation, the National Fellowship Council, the International Foundation. These groups are intended to draw attention away from the Family, and to prevent it from becoming, in the words of one of the Family's leaders, “a target for misunderstanding.” The Family's only publicized gathering is the National Prayer Breakfast, which it established in 1953 and which, with congressional sponsorship, it continues to organize every February in Washington, D.C. Each year 3,000 dignitaries, representing scores of nations, pay $425 each to attend. Steadfastly ecumenical, too bland most years to merit much press, the breakfast is regarded by the Family as merely a tool in a larger purpose: to recruit the powerful attendees into smaller, more frequent prayer meetings, where they can “meet Jesus man to man.”...'

His entire article is online here, and I strongly urge everyone to read it. I did several months ago on a train ride home, and ended up frightened beyond belief:

'...At the 1990 National Prayer Breakfast, George H.W. Bush praised Doug Coe [the nominal head of the organization - ed.] for what he described as “quiet diplomacy, I wouldn't say secret diplomacy,” as an “ambassador of faith.” Coe has visited nearly every world capital, often with congressmen at his side, “making friends” and inviting them back to the Family's unofficial headquarters, a mansion (just down the road from Ivanwald) that the Family bought in 1978 with $1.5 million donated by, among others, Tom Phillips, then the C.E.O. of arms manufacturer Raytheon, and Ken Olsen, the founder and president of Digital Equipment Corporation. A waterfall has been carved into the mansion's broad lawn, from which a bronze bald eagle watches over the Potomac River. The mansion is white and pillared and surrounded by magnolias, and by red trees that do not so much tower above it as whisper. The mansion is named for these trees; it is called The Cedars, and Family members speak of it as a person. “The Cedars has a heart for the poor,” they like to say. By “poor” they mean not the thousands of literal poor living barely a mile away but rather the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom: the senators, generals, and prime ministers who coast to the end of Twenty-fourth Street in Arlington in black limousines and town cars and hulking S.U.V.'s to meet one another, to meet Jesus, to pay homage to the god of The Cedars.

There they forge “relationships” beyond the din of vox populi (the Family's leaders consider democracy a manifestation of ungodly pride) and “throw away religion” in favor of the truths of the Family. Declaring God's covenant with the Jews broken, the group's core members call themselves “the new chosen.”...'

Here's a non-public breakfast at the house:

And we were called to serve on Tuesday mornings, when The Cedars hosted a regular prayer breakfast typically presided over by Ed Meese, the former attorney general...Three women from Potomac Point, an “Ivanwald for girls” across the road from The Cedars, came to help serve. They wore red lipstick and long skirts (makeup and “feminine” attire were required) and had, after several months of cleaning and serving in The Cedars while the brothers worked outside, become quite unimpressed by the high-powered clientele. “Girls don't sit in on the breakfasts,” one of them told me, though she said that none of them minded because it was “just politics.”

The breakfast began with a prayer and a sprinkle of scripture from Meese, who sat at the head of the table. Matthew 11:27: “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” That morning's chosen introduced themselves. They were businessmen from Dallas and Oregon, a Chinese Christian dissident, a man who ran an aid group for Tibetan refugees (the Dalai Lama had been very positive on Jesus at their last meeting, he reported). Two ambassadors, from Benin and Rwanda, sat side by side. Rwanda's representative, Dr. Richard Sezibera, was an intense man who refused to eat his eggs or even any melon. He drank cup after cup of coffee, and his eyes were bloodshot. A man I didn't recognize, whom Charlene [the cook] identified as a former senator, suggested that negotiators from Rwanda and Congo, trapped in a war that has slain more than 2 million, should stop worrying about who will get the diamonds and the oil and instead focus on who will get Jesus. “Power sharing is not going to work unless we change their hearts,” he said.

Sezibera stared, incredulous. Meese chuckled and opened his mouth to speak, but Sezibera interrupted him. “It is not so simple,” the Rwandan said, his voice flat and low. Meese smiled. Everyone in the Family loves rebukes, and here was Rwanda rebuking them. The former senator nodded. Meese murmured, “Yes,” stroking his maroon leather Bible, and the words “Thank you, Jesus” rippled in whispers around the table as I poured Sezibera another cup of coffee.

Here's David Coe, the son of Doug, and the heir apparent of the Family:

'...He walked to the National Geographic map of the world mounted on the wall. “You guys know about Genghis Khan?” he asked. “Genghis was a man with a vision. He conquered”—David stood on the couch under the map, tracing, with his hand, half the northern hemisphere—“nearly everything. He devastated nearly everything. His enemies? He beheaded them.” David swiped a finger across his throat. “Dop, dop, dop, dop.”

David explained that when Genghis entered a defeated city he would call in the local headman and have him stuffed into a crate. Over the crate would be spread a tablecloth, and on the tablecloth would be spread a wonderful meal. “And then, while the man suffocated, Genghis ate, and he didn't even hear the man's screams.” David still stood on the couch, a finger in the air. “Do you know what that means?” He was thinking of Christ's parable of the wineskins. “You can't pour new into old,” David said, returning to his chair. “We elect our leaders. Jesus elects his.”

He reached over and squeezed the arm of a brother. “Isn't that great?” David said. “That's the way everything in life happens. If you're a person known to be around Jesus, you can go and do anything. And that's who you guys are. When you leave here, you're not only going to know the value of Jesus, you're going to know the people who rule the world. It's about vision. 'Get your vision straight, then relate.' Talk to the people who rule the world, and help them obey. Obey Him. If I obey Him myself, I help others do the same. You know why? Because I become a warning. We become a warning. We warn everybody that the future king is coming. Not just of this country or that, but of the world.” Then he pointed at the map, toward the Khan's vast, reclaimable empire...'

The membership of the Family is a complete Who's Who of Washington politicians, lobbyists and corporate heads. They're the damn Freemasons of the 21st century, and if you've ever been curious as to why our foreign policy for the past seven years (and longer) has been such an unmitigated disaster, then you need to look no farther then this group of demented and delusional twits who are in charge of running it: The State Department has been outsourced to them.

*Update*

It's been three hours since I posted this, and since then, two people have visited this blog from United States Senate IP adresses (including one who spent over half an hour reading this blog, and another who is online as I type this) and one from the US House of Representatives. Clearly a lot of people have Google alerts set up.

Welcome, folks. And yes, I vote.

LOLJesus

2008-02-07T16:46:00.000-05:00

It appears that many people didn't get the LOLKramer reference posted yesterday. I thought about deleting the post, but since there was already a comment on it, I'm leaving it alone. So instead I'll give a brief explanation to those who don't know about LolCats because they spend less than 12 hours a day in front of their computer as I do.

From the Wikipedia Article:

'...Lolcat is a term used to describe an image combining a photograph of an animal, most frequently a cat, with a subjectively humorous and idiosyncratic caption in broken English referred to as Kitty Pidgin, Kitteh, or lolspeak. The idea originated on 4chan imageboards as Caturday. The name "lolcat" is a compound word of "lol" [laughing out loud - ed.] and "cat".The phenomenon is also referred to as cat macros. Lolcats are created for photo sharing imageboards and other internet forums. Lolcats are similar to other anthropomorphic animal-based image macros such as the O RLY? owl, and the term is often used as a catchall for images of the same genre which may or may not feature cats...

...These images usually consist of a photo of a cat with a large caption characteristically formatted in an uppercase sans serif font such as Impact or Arial Black. The image is, on occasion, digitally edited for effect. The caption generally acts as a speech balloon encompassing a comment from the cat, or as a description of the depicted scene. The caption is intentionally written with deviations from standard English spelling and syntax, featuring "strangely-conjugated verbs, but [a tendency] to converge to a new set of rules in spelling and grammar." These altered rules of English have been referred to as a type of pidgin or baby talk. The text parodies the grammar-poor patois stereotypically attributed to Internet slang. Frequently, lolcat captions take the form of snowclones in which nouns and verbs are replaced in a phrase. Some phrases have a known source while others seem to be specific to the lolcat form...'

The famous site for Lolcats is icanhascheezburger.com. But the truly bizarre site under development is the Wiki project that is translating the entire Bible into Lolcat. The above phrase I superimposed onto Jesus in accordance with the graphic rules of Lolcat is Matthew 5:17-20.

Clearly this is all about people having too much time on their hands, and not enough imagination to spend volunteering it somewhere. But it is fascinating to me from the one respect of watching the development of a cohesive language grammar. The rules for Lolcat were developed in a very short period of time in the same way that all languages were - organically through a community. A community of computer geeks, true, but a community nonetheless, and its development is progressing in the exact same way that other pidgins have developed: ground-up; from the Hawaiian Creole English (a mash of native languages, English, Tagalog, Japanese and other languages resulting from a surge in immigration at the turn of the last century) to even Klingon (originally invented in outline by a linguist for the first Star Trek movie, but developed and massively expanded by a large coterie of fans.)

Attack of the Wiener Dogs

2008-02-06T15:02:00.001-05:00

Super Tuesday is over, and now that the dust has settled it looks like Clinton and Obama pretty much split things; Romney won his home states and little more; my favorite crazy man, Huckabee, cleaned up in the former Confederacy, once again proving to me that I never want to live there; and John McCain pretty much sewed up the Republican nomination.

Now there are plenty of those on the far right that are none too happy about this. Right wing blowhard pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Hugh Hewitt are all aghast that Senator McCain is the presumptive nominee, and the Religious right is apoplectic. In short the hard conservatives that backed Bush are seeing their own personal end of days.

Focus on the Family's James Dobson is a case in point. Yesterday he released a statement saying that if McCain's the nominee, he's going to take his ball and go home:

'...I am convinced Sen. McCain is not a conservative, and in fact, has gone out of his way to stick his thumb in the eyes of those who are. He has at times sounded more like a member of the other party. McCain actually considered leaving the GOP in 2001, and approached John Kerry about being Kerry's running mate in 2004. McCain also said publicly that Hillary Clinton would make a good president. Given these and many other concerns, a spoonful of sugar does not make the medicine go down. I cannot, and I will not vote for Sen. John McCain, as a matter of conscience...'

Rush Limbaugh and the long list of other assholes have pretty much said the same thing. Of course, now these folks have found themselves in an interesting predicament, namely that they are stuck with McCain as the nominee. So what will they do? Flip flop, or stick with what they have said?

Their only real play is to stick with what they said. Republicans have long odds to take the White House come November, and if the blowhards flip flop and support McCain, their influence as the far right media circus or the far right religious circus will be hurt. If, on the other hand, they sit the election out, and McCain still loses, then they can spin that McCain lost because they didn't back him, and you all damn well better listen to us king makers next time.

This all speaks of an understandable collapse in influence of those who supported President Bush most strongly. And the religious right is especially afraid. Dobson's desperate. And when he doesn't get his way, he takes it out on wiener dogs:

'...Please don't misunderstand me. Siggie is a member of our family and we love him dearly. And despite his anarchistic nature, I have finally taught him to obey a few simple commands. However, we had some classic battles before he reluctantly yielded to my authority.

The greatest confrontation occurred a few years ago when I had been in Miami for a three-day conference. I returned to observe that Siggie had become boss of the house while I was gone. But I didn't realize until later that evening just how strongly he felt about his new position as Captain.

At eleven o'clock that night, I told Siggie to go get into his bed, which is a permanent enclosure in the family room. For six years I had given him that order at the end of each day, and for six years Siggie had obeyed.

On this occasion, however, he refused to budge. You see, he was in the bathroom, seated comfortably on the furry lid of the toilet seat. That is his favorite spot in the house, because it allows him to bask in the warmth of a nearby electric heater...When I told Sigmund to leave his warm seat and go to bed, he flattened his ears and slowly turned his head toward me. He deliberately braced himself by placing one paw on the edge of the furry lid, then hunched his shoulders, raised his lips to reveal the molars on both sides, and uttered his most threatening growl. That was Siggie's way of saying. "Get lost!"

I had seen this defiant mood before, and knew there was only one way to deal with it. The ONLY way to make Siggie obey is to threaten him with destruction. Nothing else works. I turned and went to my closet and got a small belt to help me "reason" with Mr. Freud.

What developed next is impossible to describe. That tiny dog and I had the most vicious fight ever staged between man and beast. I fought him up one wall and down the other, with both of us scratching and clawing and growling and swinging the belt. I am embarrassed by the memory of the entire scene. Inch by inch I moved him toward the family room and his bed. As a final desperate maneuver, Siggie backed into the corner for one last snarling stand. I eventually got him to bed, only because I outweighed him 200 to 12!...'

That strange and demented tale of beating up a dachshund with a belt is and autobiographic quip from James Dobson's book, "The Strong Willed Child, a parenting handbook he wrote. This helps one understand the reaction of the religious right when they aren't obeyed. And it also explains the continued emnity between Wiener Dogs and the religious community:

So now Jesus has been kidnapped. The stakes are certainly getting higher.

Super Tuesday

2008-02-05T13:04:00.001-05:00

One thing that does suck about living in New York City is that your vote rarely counts at the national level. New York is a Democratic powerhouse, so your vote pretty much gets lost no matter your political party. To top it off, usually at primary time the winner's already been decided, so all you're doing is wasting time by voting.

But this year is different, thanks to the accelerated primary season and the intense competition for delegates that is still going on. On the Democratic side, I was favoring Edwards, though I am predicting Clinton will take it. Now that Edwards is out, I voted for Obama, because no one who voted for the Iraq war is ever going to get my nod for anything. On the Republican side, it looks like my prediction of Romney taking it is not coming to pass, which is pretty much par for the course for my political predictions.

It's more fun in Arizona, though, thanks to some of the easiest ballot requirements of any state in the Union. There are over 20 people running for President on each side. Janni has the rundown of the Democratic side of lunacy, and she links to this site which covers all of the 'dark horse' candidates that are running for president. But by far the best is the Republican candidate for President, Bob Forthan.

Here is his platform, in it's entirety:

'Hello, I’m a two thousand eight republican candidate of the United States of America, and this is what I would do of I was elected, I’m not a lawyer, but my choice for Vice President is a lawyer, and if something happen to me he would stay the course, and he is a demo crate from Mass chutes.

Now I want to start America on a three hundred year odyssey to save the world by building Dome Homes, first in America, then around the world . Now the goal is to have a minimum standard of living around the world. Next I would used Americas military services build the dome homes.

However I can’t pay the current soldiers salary, and their will be no insurances of any type available, because Americas broke, I also wouldn’t be able to pay federal employees, except in critical areas, and they would be replaced with cheaper labor. Next I would tell the nation Americas broke and the nation well be a cash only transaction country, then I would explain what is a cash only transaction country, their well be no use of credit, debts cards, no personnel checks cash transactions, except bank cashers checks, and employers checks over two thousand dollars and taxed at the current rate, and the people making less than two thousand dollars and paid in cash no taxes and no social security numbers to work in America, and their will be a federal sales tax for all American, and tax refund for people making more than two thousand dollars a month.

Next I would tell the nation there is no insurances to fall back on, the invention of insurances have cause a national security crises because everything is inflated due to insurances, also insurances inflate the cost of goods causing people to work long therefore causing pollution.

Furthermore, I would tell the world Americas broke and we can’t pay our debts but America will pay twenty-five percent of what owed to them or nothing because of Americas financial problems, and Americas new goals to greenhouse gases, no gun control, which is one of the most important, would you travel out at night if their was no gun control, and no insurances would you buy a one, two, or a three hundred thousand dollar house if their was no insurance, or a fifty thousand dollar Hummer, the building of Dome Homes structures that house less than five thousand people, cash only transactions, no credit, debt used no personal checks cashed, and a minimum standard of living for all.

Next I would tell all the retirees Americas broke, and Federal employees will have a one time offer of receiving fifty percent of all the money paid into their retirement systems or nothing I can only hope the states, and private retirement systems will follow, and for the same reasons, I told the world, Americas broke.

America will file bankruptcy, because we are broke, and the courts will repay all if their any left, this action will help save the environment.

Last I will need a new army with a new mission,” OPERATION GLOBLE L WARMING”, which is building Dome Homes and taming the nations deserts, and then the worlds deserts, also I would withdraw up to ninety-five percent of all troops around the world.'

On the plus side, he isn't that much less articulate than the current Republican president, and his platform makes about as much sense. And it's less vile than Huckabee's wanting to sodomize everyone with a flagpole.

R.I.P. Petey

2008-01-30T17:12:00.000-05:00

Last week we lost our sixteen year old cat, Petey.

Petey (needless to say, not named by me) started off life as a kitten adopted by one of my roommates when I was in Graduate school. My roommate soon tired of the pet, and it became the job of the rest of us to take care of him. He began by being a third wheel for Agamemnon and Menlaus who were happy enough without this new young upstart who always bothered them. But they grudgingly accepted him, and I adopted him myself after his poking and prodding of Agamemnon kept him alive through a major near-death trial that he had years ago.

Of course that didn’t prevent Petey from pushing Agamemnon out of a third story window a few years later.

When Agamemnon and Menelaus died a few years ago, Petey was absolutely bereft. His pals were gone and he went into what can only be described as a cat depression, if there is such a thing. His health went south and it didn’t look good for him at all until we adopted the new kittens, Electra and Orestes. At first, Petey wasn’t amused, but the kittens quickly grew on him and Petey recovered his health and spirit for another two years.

He had been fighting cancer for a little over a month, doing pretty well all things considered, but early last week he quickly took a turn for the worse. The end came quickly, fortunately, and we buried him in the back yard next to Agamemnon and Menelaus. At least they got a few years reprieve.

He will be sorely missed.

Shorter Cloverfield

2008-01-29T18:25:00.000-05:00

Yuppies are pretty stupid, since they throw boring parties and spend a fortune on Manhattan condos that look trashed out even before the monsters show up. But they work well as hors d'ourves.

Huckabee

2008-01-18T13:57:00.001-05:00

Separated at birth: On the left, the actor Gregory Itzen playing corrupt President Charles Logan from the TV series 24; on the (far) right Arkansas Governor and presidential aspirant Michael Huckabee.

There's a lot I'd like to write on this guy, but Salon's done a favor by writing two excellent articles on the Dominionist Christians backing him for his presidential run. Truly frightening stuff. The winner is George Grant, a former executive director of Coral Ridge Ministries, who cowrote the book with Michael Huckabee, "Kids Who Kill: Confronting Our Culture of Violence," and who also wrote another book, "The Changing of the Guard: The Vital Role Christians Play in America's Cultural Drama," which includes this famous passage:

'...Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ -- to have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness.
But it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice.
It is dominion we are after. Not just influence.
It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time.
It is dominion we are after.
World conquest. That's what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish. We must win the world with the power of the Gospel. And we must never settle for anything less...
Thus, Christian politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the land -- of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ...'

What's been interesting over the past few months is watching the different aspects of contemporary American Christian theology play out in Governor Huckabee's campaign. On one had is the dominionist aspect, basically a Christian vision of the Taliban and Sharia law; on the other is recognition that Christian theology is more than just a collection of 'thou shall nots,' but also 'thou shalls.' So in addition to favoring rewriting the Constitution to be more in line with (his vision of) God's word, he also has a history of raising taxes in his home state to fund anti-poverty initiatives. Watching this battle in his campaign between the different factions of politically involved right wing Christians is more interesting to me than watching the similar battle going on in the Republican party itself, between Governor Romney (the money wing, and the one I predict will win), Senator McCain (the neo-con wing), and Governor Huckabee (the social conservative wing).

And to top it off there are recipes!:

Indulging

2008-01-17T14:15:00.000-05:00

Via Open Left I read that the Republican House Minority Leader, John Boehner, has issues with food that he can’t pronounce:

'...The presidential race is not the only place where change is an issue. Members of Congress returning to the Capitol this week are being confronted by transformational happenings that have shaken the building to its foundations: Democrats have hired a new company to run cafeteria services. Naturally, this has caused an outbreak of partisan skirmishing. "I like real food," proclaimed Republican leader John Boehner when asked about the new menu by a producer for another cable news outfit. [It was CNN] "Food that I can pronounce the name of."...'

While I certainly don’t find it surprising that a high-ranking Republican politician has major issues with things he is unfamiliar with or he can’t understand, and wants to go as far as complaining about it on National television with the aim of shutting the whole thing down, what struck me about the brief article was the following comment that he made:

'...The company that Nancy Pelosi and her people have hired has a mandate to "Go Green," complete with a mission statement posted outside the cafeteria on an eco-friendly LCD screen and a requirement to buy carbon offsets. Boehner doesn't think much of that either. "It reminds me of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, when we had indulgences," says Boehner of the offsets...'

Mr. Boehner is a Catholic, but one who apparently doesn’t understand his own faith. He refers to indulgences in the Catholic Church in the past tense, when in fact they are alive and quite well. What he may be talking about is the famous tradition of tying indulgences to financial transactions, which was officially outlawed by Pope Pius V in 1567 - Martin Luther and his hammering complaints on a door had something to do with that. But indulgences remain to this day.

What’s fun about indulgences is that they do still remain an inherently financial transaction, despite the official removal of money from the equation. The currency of indulgences is merits: through acts of prayer and penance one builds up a store of merits which can remiss certain types of punishment for sin; excess merits one has can actually be transferred to someone in need. The Catholic Church is allowed to give indulgences as well, though it doesn’t ‘earn’ them in the same way; instead the Church has what is referred to as the ‘Treasure House of Merit.’ This is a collection of merits (rather large, considering the Church’s history of handing them out) that the Church ‘inherited’ upon the deaths of the early church saints, who apparently had quite an excess of them.

And like money, and the carbon offsets that Mr. Boehner lambastes, this is a currency that ultimately has as its aim the modification of social behavior. Sin, as it were, has a price, which must be paid. What would be real fun would be to take merits and indulgences to the next level, develop a trading market for them, and derivatives based on futures as well. Perhaps Mr. Boehner could work on setting that up since he frowns on the same process for carbon offsets.

Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

2008-01-16T17:33:00.000-05:00

Via Matthew Yglesias, I now see that there is a new way to play with kid's minds: Armor of God PJs.

'...Although we are a new company, our desire is to grow into a well-known Christian Organization whose main goal is to reach as many children as possible by providing the Word of God, offering top quality products and excellent customer service along with offering parents the means and support to help their children grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ...'

According to the website, the inspiration is Ephesians 6:10-18:

'...Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. With all of these, In all circumstances take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God....'

And yet another biblical quote unwittingly used. Technically the PJs should help aid in the struggle against 'the authorities.' Of course, ask any kid who they think the authorities are, and their parents may be surprised by the answer.

Pituitary Retards

2008-01-12T17:31:00.000-05:00

From the latest TV Week:

"...NBC’s revamp of the campy competition classic “American Gladiators” scored the highest new series premiere rating of the season...“Gladiators” earned a 5.9 preliminary rating among adults 18 to 49 and was seen by 12 million viewers. The demo rating gives "Gladiators" the best score for an NBC debut since “Heroes." ...The two-hour premiere came in second during the 9 p.m. hour behind an original episode of “Desperate Housewives” (7.2), but it handily won the 10 p.m. hour. What’s more, “Gladiators’” final half-hour was its highest-rated, with a 6.1, which bodes well for the true test of the show’s strength when the show airs tonight in its regular time period...'

Bill Hicks is laughing at all of us now.

Happy 2008

2008-01-11T14:53:00.001-05:00

And another New Year greets us. I've always appreciated the New Year for allowing the possibility of reflection and a clean slate to begin again. But before one ponders what is to come, it's always best to review where one has been.

And, so, 2007. As I posted a year ago, major events were foretold to happen by one of my favorite pompous gasbags, the Reverend Pat Robertson. His forecasts for 2007 (an annual tradition for him) included massive terrorist and nuclear attacks on multiple US cities with a corresponding death toll in the millions. Clearly that did not come to pass. Also not coming to pass - the return of Jesus Christ, which 1 out of every 4 Americans believed would happen in 2007, according to a poll taken back then. I have searched thus far in vain for a similar poll for 2008, as it would be interesting to see what people have learned from their poor prognosticating abilities.

Other things that Americans believed were to happen in 2007, based on a poll taken at the beginning of the year:

Gas Prices will go up: 93% believed it very likely
The US Congress will raise the minimum wage: 81%
Global Warming will get worse: 74%
The U.S. will be hit with a major natural disaster: 70%
Terrorists will attack somewhere in the world with biological or nuclear weapons: 64%
The U.S. will be hit with a terrorist attack: 61%
A U.S. state will legalize gay marriage: 57%
Bird Flu will arrive in the U.S.: 50%
The U.S. will go to war with Iran: 40%
A cure for cancer will be found: 35%
The military draft will be reintroduced: 35%
The U.S. will withdraw its troops from Iraq: 29%
The U.S. will go to war with North Korea: 26%
Jesus Christ will return to Earth: 25%
Scientists will find evidence of extraterrestrial life: 19%

So aside from being lousy at prediction, Americans are also horribly pessimistic. If I run into any prediction polls for 2008, I'll pass them along.

But what of 2008? Pat Robertson is not deterred, but has learned a lesson and is scaling back his thoughts. Or, rather, as I mentioned last year, God is, for Pat Robertson is merely the vessel to receive the prognostications of God, according to the Reverend. So if it didn't happen, it's not Reverend Robertson's fault, but God's. (Though what he doesn't mention is the chance that God didn't get anything wrong, it's just that Pat Robertson can't hear him so well and misunderstood what was said).

This year, oil will reach $150 a barrel, The stock market will crash (though maybe not this year, but by 2010), and "the Lord was saying there's going to be violence and chaos in the world." So God's not exactly going out on a limb here. Though perhaps God needs to take a break from his schizophrenic self:

Robertson said he received no divine information about the war in Iraq. In past years, he said, "the Lord told me it would be a disaster; well, it has been a disaster."

This doesn't bode well since our President apparently talks with God about Iraq. And God seems to be telling him different things than the Reverend Robertson.

A schizophrenic God could explain a lot of things.

The Pope's Message of Peace

2007-12-14T13:34:00.000-05:00

Above: My Response back to him

The Pope has published his annual remarks for World Peace Day, to be officially spoken on January 1st. This year's theme is family:

'At the beginning of a New Year, I wish to send my fervent good wishes for peace, together with a heartfelt message of hope to men and women throughout the world. I do so by offering for our common reflection the theme which I have placed at the beginning of this message. It is one which I consider particularly important: the human family, a community of peace...'

Pope Benedict XVI focuses on two families, the 'stable union' of the singular family and the metaphor of the larger community of mankind, and uses those two families to guide his remarks. First the human family:

'...in a healthy family life we experience some of the fundamental elements of peace: justice and love between brothers and sisters, the role of authority expressed by parents, loving concern for the members who are weaker because of youth, sickness or old age, mutual help in the necessities of life, readiness to accept others and, if necessary, to forgive them. For this reason, the family is the first and indispensable teacher of peace. It is no wonder, therefore, that violence, if perpetrated in the family, is seen as particularly intolerable. Consequently, when it is said that the family is “the primary living cell of society” something essential is being stated. The family is the foundation of society for this reason too: because it enables its members in decisive ways to experience peace. It follows that the human community cannot do without the service provided by the family. Where can young people gradually learn to savor the genuine “taste” of peace better than in the original “nest” which nature prepares for them? The language of the family is a language of peace; we must always draw from it, lest we lose the “vocabulary” of peace. In the inflation of its speech, society cannot cease to refer to that “grammar” which all children learn from the looks and the actions of their mothers and fathers, even before they learn from their words...'

These are wonderfully lovely and articulate sentiments. Unfortunately they are preceded by this:

'...The natural family, as an intimate communion of life and love, based on marriage between a man and a woman, constitutes “the primary place of ‘humanization' for the person and society”, and a “cradle of life and love”...' [boldface mine]

Sigh. Here we go again. For purposes of clarity, I eliminated the footnotes in the quotes above, but the footnote to the statement of marriage being defined as between a man and a woman refers to the Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 48. It's important to remember that Catholic teachings and beliefs are based on scripture indirectly, through 2,000 years of written biblical interpretation. Sort of like how our laws are based on court interpretations of the Constitution. This is why Catholic doctrine usually refers to documents such as these, rather than chapter and verse from the Bible.

I wont quote at length from part 48 of the Pastoral Constitution, but it's fair to say that the only justification that it gives for limiting marriage to between a man and a woman is the old procreation chestnut:

'...By their very nature, the institution of matrimony itself and conjugal love are ordained for the procreation and education of children, and find in them their ultimate crown...'

The rest of part 48 discusses issues such as the role of the family to nurture children - and it doesn't even talk about how one needs both a man and a woman to do that. Actually it spends more time talking about nurturing than procreation. But since Kathy and I can't have kids through procreation, I guess we're a hindrance to world peace.

Though it seems like shooting fish in a barrel to argue about the idiocy of the procreation argument, I can't help but point out the utter lack of compassion and squandering of opportunities that are the hallmarks of such an approach to families. The Pope is arguing that Kathy and I, despite being a man and a woman, are incapable of educating kids in a solid nurturing way simply because we can't pop them out ourselves, not to mention arguing that queer couples we know are apparently more likely to lock their kids in a hot car than Mr. and Mrs. Joe and Mary Crackhead.

To be fair, this is not the only issue that the Pope's message covers. Sections on the environment (Prompting the Daily Mail to post an article entitled 'The Pope condemns the climate change prophets of doom.' - a rather unfair characterization of what he actually says), the importance of moral law (one could quibble, but he's Catholic after all, so it would be churlish to do so) and the last section: Overcoming conflicts and disarmament:

'...At a time when the process of nuclear non-proliferation is at a stand-still, I feel bound to entreat those in authority to resume with greater determination negotiations for a progressive and mutually agreed dismantling of existing nuclear weapons. In renewing this appeal, I know that I am echoing the desire of all those concerned for the future of humanity...'

While I applaud such sentiments, it is a rather rich statement to come from someone who has yet to address the issue of his immediate predecessor giving a peace medal to Samuel Cohen, because of his invention: the Neutron Bomb. In fact most of the talk in the Vatican about Pope John Paul II is about his impending sainthood.

Pope Benedict XVI is famous for having a profound intellect, which I don't doubt. He is amazingly articulate and a formidable scholar. But unless those qualities are subject to a strong compassion and introspection they are going to be more of a harm to world peace than the 'costs of environmental protection.' If he wants to exercise true leadership in arguing for change for the cause of World Peace, then the best place for him to begin is to enact change at home.

Keeping up the Beat

2007-12-13T13:38:00.000-05:00

I'm back from a long and lovely trip to Hawaii, but now am pretty busy, so it's been a while since I posted. But I'm working on one about how the Pope's an idiot. To tide you over, here's some early 80's English Beat music videos:

Smells Like Teen Spirit

2007-11-26T13:38:00.000-05:00

Now that Thanksgiving has passed, it's time to begin all that Xmas shopping. And what better gift to those who tolerate your living in New York City than perfume:

'...No, this is not a Bond No. 9. A neurologist is fascinated by the impact scent has on memory and a family-based enterprise delivers the essence(s) of Brooklyn in a creation called Eau de Brooklyn. People tell how it reminds them of places they have visited, of smaller areas within the neighborhood...'

But before you get too excited of the romantic possibilities of your loved ones wearing the...scent, bear in mind that the top story in Brooklyn the past few months is how they found gonorrhea in the Gowanus Canal.

Closeted

2007-11-21T09:02:00.001-05:00

This clearly hasn't been a good week for those devout God-fearin' folk in the south. First God blew them off over the desertification of greater metropolitan Atlanta: though the prayer vigil run by the state's Republican Governor was scheduled on a day when the forecast actually called for rain, no rain came. Then those who were left wondering why God was forsaking them, needed to look no further than the pleasant town of Decatur, where the head priest of the 10,000 member mega church, Chapel Hill Harvester (website now yanked), admitted his role in a sex scandal, sleeping with his brother's wife and fathering one of her children. How Biblical; though clearly not in the same league as that pastor from that church in Alabama.

After a while one gets numb to all of these stories, as they become less funny over deadening repetition and more, well, just simply sad. A reflection of personal repression on a massive scale.

I posted on Conservapedia back in February, when it first came out. At the time I assumed the site, a 'conservative' and fundamentalist version of Wikipedia for those who believe that Wikipedia is too liberally biased, would fizzle and die, but it turns out to have been backed by some serious right wing money, and is growing at a fairly healthy clip, as websites go. This morning, Atrios linked to a page in the site - the top ten most requested searches on Conervapedia. I'll reprint it here in it's entirety (things like this often get pulled rather quickly):

Most viewed pages

1. Main Page‎ [1,902,291]
2. Homosexuality‎ [1,537,431]
3. Homosexuality and Hepatitis‎ [516,639]
4. Homosexuality and Promiscuity‎ [420,033]
5. Homosexuality and Parasites‎ [387,855]
6. Homosexuality and Domestic Violence‎ [348,867]
7. Gay Bowel Syndrome‎ [340,462]
8. Homosexuality and Gonorrhea‎ [330,987]
9. Homosexuality and Mental Health‎ [274,467]
10. Homosexuality and Syphilis‎ [264,934]

Michael's Two Daddies

2007-10-26T12:27:00.001-04:00

The blog Jesus' General has been getting some help lately from Miss Poppy, who also runs a wonderful Christian Store on the web, where I have purchased numerous saintly gifts for friends, including anti-masturbation gum and the Jesus ashtray. Her first post there covers the new book, 'Does God Love Michael's Two Daddies?', a fundamentalist riposte to 'Heather has Two Mommies.' (Notably the book covers two gay men, not two gay women, as the Bible actually has very few things to say about lesbianism.)

Miss Poppy complains that there are no good reviews for the book, though of course now some wags are already starting to review the book at Amazon. However, she missed the review by Darby Dameron on the website of the publisher, Apologetics Press, which sad to say is not a parody:

'I am in education and see the trend of teaching tolerance to our young people and this scares me. Fortunately, I am in a school district where these views are not pushed on our children, yet they are still exposed to these ideas in the shows on TV and movies which come out. Myself and some of the other teachers have been looking for a book with a Christian view of homosexuality and I was excited when I picked up my copy of Reason and Revelation to find this book. I ordered it and have shared it with some of my friends. We appreciate the straightforward, scriptural approach to the topic. We may not be able to share it with our children in the classroom, but we can share it with our own chilren, who can then take these teachings to school. Thank you.'

You just can't make this shit up. To top it off, the book is written by one Sheila K. Butt.

Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!

2007-10-22T14:46:00.000-04:00

They warned us. And the future is here:

'...The deputy mayor of the Indian capital Delhi has died a day after being attacked by a horde of wild monkeys.

SS Bajwa suffered serious head injuries when he fell from the first-floor terrace of his home on Saturday morning trying to fight off the monkeys...'

Of course, as was predicted, our doom will be of our own idiotic hand:

'...The High Court ordered the city to find an answer to the problem last year...One approach has been to train bands of larger, more ferocious langur monkeys to go after the smaller groups of Rhesus macaques...'

Yes, that's an excellent solution to the problem.

'Math is hard - Let's go Shopping'

2007-10-09T17:58:00.001-04:00

I was going to post on something stupid going on in this world, but then I ran into something more stupid:

'...Fashion Fever Shopping Boutique, the correctly named Barbie toy, features a built-in credit card swiper and a life-size credit card for young children to use when buying outfits for their dolls. According to the Amazon website, "Once the balance hits zero, it will reset so you can continue to shop."...'

H/T Feministing, which has tracked down a (poor quality) youtube of the advertisement with the great line:, 'And you never run out of Money!.'

No word yet on the mortgage-fever house-buying Ken doll.

Coney Island

2007-10-09T17:50:00.000-04:00

Time to get caught up on some photoblogging, now that I've downloaded some more pictures from the digital camera. These are from a trip we took with the nieces, Samantha and Lianna, to Coney Island, shortly before it closed for the season. Of course this land of trailer park amusement park fun is destined to close, perhaps for good or perhaps it will get a one year extension on life. But fear not, those who like their entertainment bland and inoffensive; plans are afoot to replace the entire 16 acre site with a shopping mall, condos and, yes, a new amusement park, but without all of that unsightly grime. The march to make New York no different than Orange County proceeds apace.

Will Fluffy go to Heaven?

2007-09-28T13:16:00.001-04:00

My friend Andrew forwarded me a link to this site, which paints ghastly memorial pictures of Jesus holding your recently deceased pet (done for a fee, of course.) This kind of idiocy does raise, however, the issue of whether or not animals go into heaven. The problem is that the Bible is silent on the subject, as far as actually outright stating whether or not they do.

This seems like a fun group, a church dedicated to getting animals into heaven:

'...Our Mission Is To Prove Without A Shadow Of A Doubt That When God Made Animals He Made Them With Spirits And Souls and intended that they have a place in Heaven...'

I found them doing a Google search on 'will my pet go to heaven.' I could write for months on those search results, but many of them say the same thing, focusing on the book of Ecclesiastes as the scriptural source offering proof that in fact they do. Of course one can also offer countering scripture that hints that in fact animals don't go to heaven. If you're interested, just follow the link.

But what I found funny is the volume of search results - over 2.3 million hits. If you use quotes around the phrase, requiring an exact match, you get 721 hits. So I decided to compare that result to others:

"Will my husband go to heaven." - 2 hits

"Will my wife go to heaven." - 0 hits (Give it a week or so, and the google spider will hit this website, creating one hit - this blog entry)

"Will my spouse go to heaven." - 0 hits..

"Will my parents go to heaven." - 0 hits

"Will my mother go to heaven." - 0 hits

"Will my father go to heaven." - 1 hit

"Will my brother go to heaven." - 4 hits

"Will my sister go to heaven." - 1 hit

"Will my child go to heaven." - 5 hits

"Will my son go to heaven." - 1 hit

"Will my daughter go to heaven." - 0 hits

"Will my neighbor go to heaven." - 0 hits

"Will my enemy go to heaven." - 0 hits.

"Will my friend go to heaven." - 4 Hits

Again, "will my pet go to heaven" gets 721 hits. As a comparison I used "Is my ... going to heaven" and got very similar results. So there is a lot of angst out there about our pets getting into heaven. And not much about people close to us getting there. So we simply don't give a shit, either because we are convinced we are, convinced we aren't, or don't care about anyone other than ourselves:

"Will I go to heaven." - 805 hits.

Cowboy

2007-09-21T12:43:00.001-04:00

This is classic:

'...President Bush may like to be seen as a swaggering tough guy with a penchant for manly outdoor pursuits, but in a new book one of his closest allies has said he is afraid of horses.

Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, derided his political friend as a "windshield cowboy" – a cowboy who prefers to drive – and "the cockiest guy I have ever met in my life". ...'

To be fair, most other preppies from Connecticut are also afraid of horses. H/T TPM.

Music Lessons

2007-09-15T15:36:00.000-04:00

How To Record Music:

How to Play Music:

Class Dismissed

'Everybody likes Ganesh'

2007-09-13T09:13:00.000-04:00

It looks like a certain Hindu deity is becoming very trendy:

'...Patel and her family will be one of many to visit a temple to honor Ganesh. Representatives from two of the U.S. temples where Ganesh is the presiding or primary deity say the numbers attending the celebrations are rising.

At the Sri Ganesha Hindu Temple in South Jordan, Utah, 50 people attended the first Ganesh Chaturthi celebration in 1995; about 500 are expected this year. At the Hindu Temple Society of North America in Queens, N.Y., which was built in 1977, the festival has grown from three days to nine to accommodate all the worshipers.

The numbers are not surprising, said Deepak Sarma, an associate professor of religious studies at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

"There are lots of different sects in Hinduism," he said. "Ganesh overlaps with all of them. Everybody likes Ganesh."...'

Ganesh Chaturthi (Ganesh's birthday celebration) is this Saturday, September 15th. Another good anniversary to celebrate.

9/11

2007-09-11T15:20:00.000-04:00

Gary Kamiya has an excellent article in today's Salon. Some choice quotes:

'...Sept. 11 was a hinge in history, a fork in the road. It presented us with a choice. We could find out who attacked us, surgically defeat them, address the underlying problems in the Middle East, and make use of the outpouring of global sympathy to pull the rest of the world closer to us. Or we could lash out blindly and self-righteously, insist that the only problems in the Middle East were created by "extremists," demonize an entire culture and make millions of new enemies.

Like a vibration that causes a bridge to collapse, the 9/11 attacks exposed grave weaknesses in our nation's defenses, our national institutions and ultimately our national character. Many more Americans have now died in a needless war in Iraq than were killed in the terror attacks, and tens of thousands more grievously wounded. Billions of dollars have been wasted. America's moral authority, more precious than gold, has been tarnished by torture and lies and the erosion of our liberties. The world despises us to an unprecedented degree. An entire country has been wrecked. The Middle East is ready to explode. And the threat of terrorism, which the war was intended to remove, is much greater than it was.

All of this flowed from our response to 9/11. And so, six years later, we need to do more than mourn the dead. We need to acknowledge the blindness and bigotry that drove our response. Until we do, not only will the stalemate over Iraq persist, but our entire Middle Eastern policy will continue down the road to ruin...'

This September 11th is the sixth anniversary of the attacks. But it is also the 101st anniversary of the beginning of Mahatma Gandhi's campaign against non-violence. It would be great if we could start commemorating that event. Because as several have been pointing out, we have no need to be made to remember what happened on this day six years ago - we keep having it pounded into our heads every damn day by this administration.

A Good World

Putting Your Faith in God...

Stimulus!

Buh-Bye, Dubai

Predictions

Belief

Be Seeing You

Freedom of Choice

Tough Decisions

Hey, Zeus, Christos

Election

Wazzup!!!

More of This, Please

One Nation, Under God

We Get Letters

All Greek to Me

Is our Children Learning?

The Millennium Development Goals

Witchcraft

419

Gender Card

We Get Letters

Praying for Gas

Palin

Friday Cat and Sunflower Blogging

Blogging Days

Saturday Plant Blogging

Bacon

Androgynous

I'm Glad I Became an Architect

The Pressure's On

Back to School

Welcome to our Country

Let My People Go

Complements

France

Banjo

Gender Equality

Marriage

Get Off My Lawn!

Pollution

Crappy News to Start the Day

Welcome to Brooklyn. So Say We All.

Dead Ducks

End of the World

Bad days at the office

Animation

Mammon

Angry Gods

Sex and the Slope

Unnecessary War

‘A Wasted Life, Better Left in Silence’

I, for one, welcome our new Robot Overlords

Food Riots

That's It, I'm voting for Hillary

Still More Family Circus

Zombie Jesus Day

Coke Adds Life

What Light?

Singing, 'This will be the day that I die...'

Phantom Menace

Moses on High

Last Refuge of the Scoundrel

Mo' Money

New Score

Like Rabbits

Pranskter God

More Family Circus

Hey, Good Looking

All The News That Gives You Fits

That which Pisseth Understanding

Shorter 'The Wire'

Scarlett Johansson Nude

Children

McCain: Like Hope, But Different

Monks

Family Circus Follow Up

Family Circus *Updated Below*

LOLJesus

Attack of the Wiener Dogs

Family Circus Updated Below