I didn't do a tribute thing when Dan Fogelberg passed away a while back, because I had to figure out, exactly, how I felt about his music. He is usually lumped with the singer-songwriter group - James Taylor, etc. - and that might be fair, or not. Some of his songs just don't do it for me; I even learned to play "Leader of the Band" on the guitar, but ugh! Ditto with "Longer", which I sang at my sister's wedding 21 years ago. "Run for the Roses"? More like "Run for the Toilet".
On the other hand, there are a couple songs of his I do like. They aren't stupendous colossal world-changing songs; they are good, and one of them always makes me smile.
When my sister moved back home from Mississippi, preparing to enter the Peace Corps, I was just entering Senior High School. She had a fantastic record collection; one of the records she had was Phoenix. The title track is a nice song in which the narrator (does it matter if it's Fogelberg?) tells the world he's tired of sitting around and moping because a relationship has ended. The following clip isn't very good, but it's the only one with this song on it.
Another song of his I have liked - and I can't really say why - is "Heart Hotels". The title is kind of stupid, to be honest. I think it's more a sensibility thing. Fogelberg didn't write for twelve-year-olds, or fifteen-year-olds. He wrote for adults; in this way he was very much in the James Taylor line of singer-songwriters. His was an adult sensibility, even if the writing and arranging was, well, kind of blah (a DJ on a local radio station when I was growing up called him "Dan Fogelboring", and I still think of that whenever I hear his music or see his name).
Finally, I harbor the dark secret that "Same Auld Lang Syne" has always been a favorite of mine, because I just like the little story that unfolds. It would be nice to have an experience like this - a reunion that is bitter-sweet. I know a couple that were high school sweethearts, who broke up. They went their separate ways, married others people, then each got divorced around the same time. They just happened to run in to one another, in Chicago on separate school field trips of all things. They are now happily married with two wonderful little boys. This is the exception that proves the rule - reunions like this usually end up in restraining orders, rather than either a happy little chat over beer, or a fairy tale ending. For some reason, with one brief exception, I haven't even tried the whole "friendship" thing. Anyway, I know it's hokey, but I still like it ("We tried to reach beyond the emptiness but neither one knew how" is a bit of a stretch; I think the narrator is reaching a bit as he describes his ex's unhappiness with her current lot).
Monday, March 10, 2008
What Was He Thinking
New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was caught with his pants down and wallet out, and while he hasn't resigned, I think his effectiveness has diminished.
I just want to know what the hell he was thinking. Before he was governor he was State Attorney General - a law officer and he was consorting with prostitutes. The highest ranking Democratic official to be nailed (no joke intended) by such illegalities, he is no better than David "Poopy Diapers" Vitter, and as far as I'm concerned should resign. Indeed, unlike Bill Clinton, Spitzer wasn't engaged in garden-variety adulterous behavior. He was breaking the law, paying women to have sex with him. Did he actually think he was insulated from detection because of his position? Did he think he wouldn't get caught?
Again, unlike former President Clinton, Spitzer most definitely violated the public trust by breaking laws he had sworn to uphold. I think this disqualifies him from holding any office of public trust. Had he merely been sneaking around with a pretty young thing, or had serial affairs with various consenting adults who didn't have his VISA card number, that would be one thing; a personal foible but hardly worth getting worked up about. Checking out hotties online, then ordering one like one orders a pizza - that's a horse of a different, illegal, color.
Along with sending him packing from Albany, I think a good old fashioned dope slap is warranted.
I just want to know what the hell he was thinking. Before he was governor he was State Attorney General - a law officer and he was consorting with prostitutes. The highest ranking Democratic official to be nailed (no joke intended) by such illegalities, he is no better than David "Poopy Diapers" Vitter, and as far as I'm concerned should resign. Indeed, unlike Bill Clinton, Spitzer wasn't engaged in garden-variety adulterous behavior. He was breaking the law, paying women to have sex with him. Did he actually think he was insulated from detection because of his position? Did he think he wouldn't get caught?
Again, unlike former President Clinton, Spitzer most definitely violated the public trust by breaking laws he had sworn to uphold. I think this disqualifies him from holding any office of public trust. Had he merely been sneaking around with a pretty young thing, or had serial affairs with various consenting adults who didn't have his VISA card number, that would be one thing; a personal foible but hardly worth getting worked up about. Checking out hotties online, then ordering one like one orders a pizza - that's a horse of a different, illegal, color.
Along with sending him packing from Albany, I think a good old fashioned dope slap is warranted.
The Founders And Their Faith
Founder of Beliefnet, Steven Waldman, has published a book, Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Freedom in America, and has offered up what he calls "Liberal Fallacy No. 1" at TPMCafe, attempting to refute the claim that all the men most intimately involved with the founding of the American Republic were Deists.
On the one hand, this is a good reality check, because they weren't all anything. I would be hard pressed to call Jefferson a "Founding Father" at all; he wrote the Declaration of Independence, plagiarizing John Locke along the way, but was not a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Some of the most important men involved - Governeur Morris, Richard Henry Lee, Alexander Hamilton - are not remembered today as well as others, and were devoutly religious (Morris bankrolled the Revolution with his personal fortune; Hamilton was a sycophant, annoying George Washington; Richard Henry Lee was the grandfather of Robert E. Lee). Of all the men in Philadelphia that hot late summer of 1787, James Madison and Ben Franklin came closest, although as Waldman notes, Franklin implored his colleagues in Philly to pray together.
Deism is a tricky thing, though, so on the other hand, I wouldn't argue that some weren't Deists. Some might have been, or called themselves such. Indeed, Deism as a type of religious affectation was rare, and its impact on religious life overblown by a later intellectual community that sought to downplay what it saw as the superstitious aspects of Christian faith.
I think a far more honest way to present the whole issue of the Founders and their religious belief is this: The Founders understood their religious beliefs as being irrelevant to the vital issue of the structure of the American Republic, and the role of religion in public life to be corrosive to the practice of the virtues necessary to the success of republican life. With the example of a century and a half of religious war in Europe behind them, they knew all too well the dangers inherent in granting official status to one or another system of belief. Catholics, Protestants, Anabaptists, and non-believers managed to work together quite well in Philadelphia because they understood the issues they faced were narrow, practical ones. They hoped their example would be used in the future. Yet, the fourteen states each had official religions supported by state taxes. These were phased out over time, but were certainly present in 1787.
I think it far better to ask the question of the relevance of the religious beliefs of men living at the height of the Enlightenment trust in the rational life for those of us living at the tail end of such a time of optimism. With the screams of the victims of the 20th century still echoing in our ears, one wonders how we could continue to demand adherence to any particular ideology - and I include religious belief here - as a necessary qualification for inclusion in our national polity. One's belief, or lack thereof, in any system of belief, or even a vague acceptance of one or another "god", is irrelevant, in the end, to the more pressing question of whether and how well a man or woman is qualified to act on the public's behalf dealing with issues of vital import.
This is not stripping religion from the public square; I have yet to accept this particular idea. Indeed, this is one of the more stupid ideas presented in the past decade or so. What it is doing is keeping the Founders in view, while remaining true to our contemporary situation in which religious belief, while certainly vital to millions, no longer has the public voice it once did, and is far more a social and cultural palliative than part of the CV for public figures.
As an example, just consider that Bob Dole, George McGovern, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and George W. Bush are all members of the United Methodist Church. Indeed, Dole and McGovern were in leadership positions in the church in which they shared membership with Hillary and Chelsea Clinton.
Whether or not Madison, Jefferson, Washington, Adams, Franklin, or the rest of them were Deists or not is not nearly as important to me as whether or not they set up a system of government which continues to function in the 21st century. Ours is a secular state, if still a nation soaked in religious imagery (although the imagery is less and less evocative for the majority of the population).
On the one hand, this is a good reality check, because they weren't all anything. I would be hard pressed to call Jefferson a "Founding Father" at all; he wrote the Declaration of Independence, plagiarizing John Locke along the way, but was not a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Some of the most important men involved - Governeur Morris, Richard Henry Lee, Alexander Hamilton - are not remembered today as well as others, and were devoutly religious (Morris bankrolled the Revolution with his personal fortune; Hamilton was a sycophant, annoying George Washington; Richard Henry Lee was the grandfather of Robert E. Lee). Of all the men in Philadelphia that hot late summer of 1787, James Madison and Ben Franklin came closest, although as Waldman notes, Franklin implored his colleagues in Philly to pray together.
Deism is a tricky thing, though, so on the other hand, I wouldn't argue that some weren't Deists. Some might have been, or called themselves such. Indeed, Deism as a type of religious affectation was rare, and its impact on religious life overblown by a later intellectual community that sought to downplay what it saw as the superstitious aspects of Christian faith.
I think a far more honest way to present the whole issue of the Founders and their religious belief is this: The Founders understood their religious beliefs as being irrelevant to the vital issue of the structure of the American Republic, and the role of religion in public life to be corrosive to the practice of the virtues necessary to the success of republican life. With the example of a century and a half of religious war in Europe behind them, they knew all too well the dangers inherent in granting official status to one or another system of belief. Catholics, Protestants, Anabaptists, and non-believers managed to work together quite well in Philadelphia because they understood the issues they faced were narrow, practical ones. They hoped their example would be used in the future. Yet, the fourteen states each had official religions supported by state taxes. These were phased out over time, but were certainly present in 1787.
I think it far better to ask the question of the relevance of the religious beliefs of men living at the height of the Enlightenment trust in the rational life for those of us living at the tail end of such a time of optimism. With the screams of the victims of the 20th century still echoing in our ears, one wonders how we could continue to demand adherence to any particular ideology - and I include religious belief here - as a necessary qualification for inclusion in our national polity. One's belief, or lack thereof, in any system of belief, or even a vague acceptance of one or another "god", is irrelevant, in the end, to the more pressing question of whether and how well a man or woman is qualified to act on the public's behalf dealing with issues of vital import.
This is not stripping religion from the public square; I have yet to accept this particular idea. Indeed, this is one of the more stupid ideas presented in the past decade or so. What it is doing is keeping the Founders in view, while remaining true to our contemporary situation in which religious belief, while certainly vital to millions, no longer has the public voice it once did, and is far more a social and cultural palliative than part of the CV for public figures.
As an example, just consider that Bob Dole, George McGovern, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and George W. Bush are all members of the United Methodist Church. Indeed, Dole and McGovern were in leadership positions in the church in which they shared membership with Hillary and Chelsea Clinton.
Whether or not Madison, Jefferson, Washington, Adams, Franklin, or the rest of them were Deists or not is not nearly as important to me as whether or not they set up a system of government which continues to function in the 21st century. Ours is a secular state, if still a nation soaked in religious imagery (although the imagery is less and less evocative for the majority of the population).
Prayers, Please
A member of our church was killed today in a horrible accident on his property. Lisa is on the way to pick up his son from college in the Quad Cities. He is survived by his entire family - his parents, his wife, his children, his siblings. He was past President of the school board, a farmer and local business man, a family man. He was also someone who was a good public friend of Lisa, a member of our church who took his faith seriously, and his public service even more seriously. A loss like this - it does give one pause.
Send them up to the Lindberg family.
Send them up to the Lindberg family.
Sunday, March 09, 2008
A Question
I've been ruminating a lot on the whole issue of sin (original and otherwise), the relationship between morality, personal and collective, and the Christian life, what grace really means for us as we live our lives, and other light topics. At this point, I've come to some tentative conclusions that I think are pretty controversial, but I just want to know what you, my three loyal readers, think.
When all is said and done, is the issue of personal morality - not just the whole sex thing (which is far too overblown by conservative Christians for my comfort level) but all aspects of one's personal moral conduct - not so much irrelevant but just of less consequence than our collective (i.e., as the Church) action towards furthering the Kingdom of God? Do our notions of morality bear any relevance to the needs and demands and call of the kingdom?
If you feel moved, discuss. . .
When all is said and done, is the issue of personal morality - not just the whole sex thing (which is far too overblown by conservative Christians for my comfort level) but all aspects of one's personal moral conduct - not so much irrelevant but just of less consequence than our collective (i.e., as the Church) action towards furthering the Kingdom of God? Do our notions of morality bear any relevance to the needs and demands and call of the kingdom?
If you feel moved, discuss. . .
Two Weeks Straight
Last week, the Washington Post Outlook Section published an instantly infamous essay by anti-feminist Charlotte Allen on how silly and thoughtless women are (thus refuting her desire to be taken seriously). Today, the editors have chosen L. Brent Bozell, of the right-wing Media Research Center, to write a short, inaccurate history of the past twenty years of grievances of "the conservative movement" against the Republican Party, which has - as should be clear - neglected conservative policies and the conservative base except in rare instances (funny enough, he never once mentions abortion or school prayer . . .).
So, two weeks straight, some of the most important space in print opinion journalism is turned over to someone whose grasp of facts and reality is dim at best, often sliding in to Cloud-Cuckoo Land with such phrases as the following:
How anyone could type that sentence after all the facts of the matter have publicly exonerated Clinton from every charge of corruption (with the exception of a personal impropriety), while the Bush Administration is drowning in corruption - the mind boggles that an editor would let it pass without saying, "You know, Brent, this line right here? It's a bunch of crap."
But, after they published Charlotte Allen's piece of misogynistic nonsense, who would expect something like serious editorial oversight or vetting?
Who publishes next week? Silvio Berlusconi on media independence? Clarence Thomas on the death of racism on the right?
Maybe Leonard Downie on prudent editorial judgment in the newspaper business, and the high standards of American journalism?
And, of course, it's the internet's fault and the education system's fault and video game playing's fault that print journalism is dying. Not the lack of integrity and professionalism of the press. . .
So, two weeks straight, some of the most important space in print opinion journalism is turned over to someone whose grasp of facts and reality is dim at best, often sliding in to Cloud-Cuckoo Land with such phrases as the following:
But after eight years of Clinton's corruption . . .
How anyone could type that sentence after all the facts of the matter have publicly exonerated Clinton from every charge of corruption (with the exception of a personal impropriety), while the Bush Administration is drowning in corruption - the mind boggles that an editor would let it pass without saying, "You know, Brent, this line right here? It's a bunch of crap."
But, after they published Charlotte Allen's piece of misogynistic nonsense, who would expect something like serious editorial oversight or vetting?
Who publishes next week? Silvio Berlusconi on media independence? Clarence Thomas on the death of racism on the right?
Maybe Leonard Downie on prudent editorial judgment in the newspaper business, and the high standards of American journalism?
And, of course, it's the internet's fault and the education system's fault and video game playing's fault that print journalism is dying. Not the lack of integrity and professionalism of the press. . .
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Saturday Rock Show
It was a year ago that Boston lead-singer Brad Delp died. Boston's debut album was one of the first LPs I ever bought, back in 1978. The album has many virtues and vices. One of its virtues, to me, is the slickness of the production. Considering the album was produced in Tom Scholz' basement, with him playing all the instruments (he put the band together after Epic bought the tapes, which were pressed onto the LP). I have always thought that side 1 was basically "Variations On A Theme", with Side 2 being actual different songs. Of these, I always liked "Hitch A Ride", a pretty typical 1970's stadium rock song, although I always thought the ending solo was good (including Scholz using different guitars and trading channels to make it sound like he was trading 8's with another instrumentalists).
To the memory of a great rock singer on one of the greatest rock LPs of the past 30 years, here's "Hitch A Ride":
To the memory of a great rock singer on one of the greatest rock LPs of the past 30 years, here's "Hitch A Ride":
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Three Conversations
I'm going to try something here that either will fall flat or might elicit a good response. I want you to give me three different conversations you would like to have with three different persons from your life, and a quick summary of those. What follows are my three, and what they might be, and why. Obviously, feel free to give as much information as you feel comfortable giving.
First, I would like to sit with my paternal grandmother and tell her that it would have been far better to have spoken of the deaths of her younger brother (in WWI) and oldest son (in a horrible car accident) than to have insisted on silence. Far better to remember those who have lived than to have the fact of their deaths always before us.
Second, I would like to sit with my best childhood friend and tell him that nothing he went through was worth killing himself over.
Finally, I would like to sit down with one particular woman from my past, and just catch up. I want to find out what's been happening in her life, tell her about mine. I would like to congratulate her on what's she's achieved, and find out if she replaced one psycho car with another over the years.
That's the template. Go ahead.
First, I would like to sit with my paternal grandmother and tell her that it would have been far better to have spoken of the deaths of her younger brother (in WWI) and oldest son (in a horrible car accident) than to have insisted on silence. Far better to remember those who have lived than to have the fact of their deaths always before us.
Second, I would like to sit with my best childhood friend and tell him that nothing he went through was worth killing himself over.
Finally, I would like to sit down with one particular woman from my past, and just catch up. I want to find out what's been happening in her life, tell her about mine. I would like to congratulate her on what's she's achieved, and find out if she replaced one psycho car with another over the years.
That's the template. Go ahead.
Fantasists
I was going to do something else, but I came across a couple posts at a couple different places just now that are breathtaking in the way they loop in to fairy land.
First, over at Tbogg, we have the surprising ability of one right-winger to figure out, in detail, the source of this morning's bombing in front of a military recruiting office in Times Square. As he says, this has been another episode of CSI:Hooterville.
Brad at Sadly, No! gives us the skinny on the latest from Glenn Reynold's wife's blog, in which she relates how prepared she is to face the crumbling of American society because she's read a book.
One guy thinks he's Sherlock-freaking-Holmes because CBS has three different series on forensic science. A woman knows she's prepared for Invasion USA because she has a book in her basement on guns. In that case, I'm ready to tour with either Led Zeppelin or Wynton Marsalis because I've got books on rock bands and jazz. Also, I could fight in a war because I have books on WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. I could be a wizard because I have all seven Harry Potter books; I could be a gangster because I have seen Goodfellas and The Godfather about fifteen times each. I could captain a starship because of the number of times I have watched Star Trek and its various spin-offs.
Why are these people taken seriously, instead of taken in to protective custody?
First, over at Tbogg, we have the surprising ability of one right-winger to figure out, in detail, the source of this morning's bombing in front of a military recruiting office in Times Square. As he says, this has been another episode of CSI:Hooterville.
Brad at Sadly, No! gives us the skinny on the latest from Glenn Reynold's wife's blog, in which she relates how prepared she is to face the crumbling of American society because she's read a book.
One guy thinks he's Sherlock-freaking-Holmes because CBS has three different series on forensic science. A woman knows she's prepared for Invasion USA because she has a book in her basement on guns. In that case, I'm ready to tour with either Led Zeppelin or Wynton Marsalis because I've got books on rock bands and jazz. Also, I could fight in a war because I have books on WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. I could be a wizard because I have all seven Harry Potter books; I could be a gangster because I have seen Goodfellas and The Godfather about fifteen times each. I could captain a starship because of the number of times I have watched Star Trek and its various spin-offs.
Why are these people taken seriously, instead of taken in to protective custody?
I Support Obama, But Let's Be Real
I haven't really experienced the whole "Your candidate is the personification of evil, mine is the blessed of the Lord" thing that seems to be going on at some of the larger liberal blogs. I have read with some surprise and more than a few chuckles as Atrios and Digby and some others have tried to deal with the on-going flame wars between Obama and Clinton supporters. It got so bad for a while that Digby even turned off her comments. Atrios, as per his style, deals with it in a more ironic, detached, and humorous way. Yet the problem is very real. Indeed, so much so that some are despairing of the two factions uniting to win against McCain come November; passions are running that high.
At Sadly,No!, HTML Mencken has a longish analysis of this whole phenomenon, a reality check for those so lost in glorifying one or another of the candidates. I disagree with some of what he says, as well as his stance of being "above it all". Yet, over all, he does have some points worth considering and taking to heart.
I think the comparison to an elevated FDR in particular is wrong - Obama and Clinton are not as good at the nitty-gritty of politics as Roosevelt was (he was the master manipulator of persons; I doubt if any President we have ever had was able to sit and listen to all sorts of people and have those people leave believing that he agreed with them), but both of them are both far more intelligent and understanding of certain policy matters. Roosevelt left the details to others, particularly his eminence gris Harry Hopkins. Neither Obama nor Clinton have such an aide-de-camp, and would probably be scorned if they did (Hopkinis was to Roosevelt what Rove was to Bush, the brains behind the throne; in the former case, however, Hopkins was not amoral).
I think it odd that we liberals are investing so much emotion in the current candidates. Even if either or both of them were far better than they are - and for all their flaws they are both quite able, both politically and practically - they would still not qualify for the fawning so many supporters seem to heap upon them. They are people running for high political office, a status that compromises them. They are both smart, well-spoken, hard-working. They are also compromised by the debts they owe to the many powerful people who have supported them for their own, narrow ends. I think Mencken's point about neither of them being particularly progressive or idealistic is not quite true. I also think there are many who exist at the further ends of the political spectrum who will indeed hold their noses as they vote for either candidate come November.
On the other hand, the Democrats have had to suffer under the burden of having several bright, talented, attractive candidates run for the Presidency. John Edwards, Obama, Clinton - all three have many qualities that far exceed any Democratic candidate in recent memory, including Bill Clinton who had many of Roosevelt's best qualities, as well his worst. It has been a good year for Democrats for a change, which is part of the reason neither side is budging all that much. I also think the narrow practical divide is part of the reason it is so heated; the smaller the difference, the more they will be exaggerated for effect.
For example, I support Obama for the simple reason that I think his motivational style has been a boon for the Democratic Party, and will be so for the country. I do not have illusions that his style of governance will differ all that much from a hypothetical President Hillary Clinton. Charges and counter-charges of racism and sexism, from the media and supporters of each candidate, while hardly sustaining the myth of "the most heated primary ever", certainly do not help.
Should Sen. Clinton win the nomination, I will support her in the general election, write nice blog posts about her, urge others to vote for her, etc. This doesn't mean I don't support Obama whole-heartedly; it just means that in the best American tradition, I will be as practical and pragmatic about what is in our best interest, politically, as I can.
At Sadly,No!, HTML Mencken has a longish analysis of this whole phenomenon, a reality check for those so lost in glorifying one or another of the candidates. I disagree with some of what he says, as well as his stance of being "above it all". Yet, over all, he does have some points worth considering and taking to heart.
It’s not the support or supporters I object to, it’s the enthusiasm and the fanatics. For any politician. But especially for such mediocre ones. After all, it’s not as if either Clinton or Obama are exactly FDR incarnate; they are both fairly average “liberal” politicians who are thoroughly schooled in the arts of serial triangulation. They ain’t radical; nor are they idealist; they are simply better than any Republican alternative. They’re good enough for a vote (with or without one’s nose tightly held) but that’s it. It just won’t do to mask this homely reality with fawning, drooling praise of either politician.
I think the comparison to an elevated FDR in particular is wrong - Obama and Clinton are not as good at the nitty-gritty of politics as Roosevelt was (he was the master manipulator of persons; I doubt if any President we have ever had was able to sit and listen to all sorts of people and have those people leave believing that he agreed with them), but both of them are both far more intelligent and understanding of certain policy matters. Roosevelt left the details to others, particularly his eminence gris Harry Hopkins. Neither Obama nor Clinton have such an aide-de-camp, and would probably be scorned if they did (Hopkinis was to Roosevelt what Rove was to Bush, the brains behind the throne; in the former case, however, Hopkins was not amoral).
I think it odd that we liberals are investing so much emotion in the current candidates. Even if either or both of them were far better than they are - and for all their flaws they are both quite able, both politically and practically - they would still not qualify for the fawning so many supporters seem to heap upon them. They are people running for high political office, a status that compromises them. They are both smart, well-spoken, hard-working. They are also compromised by the debts they owe to the many powerful people who have supported them for their own, narrow ends. I think Mencken's point about neither of them being particularly progressive or idealistic is not quite true. I also think there are many who exist at the further ends of the political spectrum who will indeed hold their noses as they vote for either candidate come November.
On the other hand, the Democrats have had to suffer under the burden of having several bright, talented, attractive candidates run for the Presidency. John Edwards, Obama, Clinton - all three have many qualities that far exceed any Democratic candidate in recent memory, including Bill Clinton who had many of Roosevelt's best qualities, as well his worst. It has been a good year for Democrats for a change, which is part of the reason neither side is budging all that much. I also think the narrow practical divide is part of the reason it is so heated; the smaller the difference, the more they will be exaggerated for effect.
For example, I support Obama for the simple reason that I think his motivational style has been a boon for the Democratic Party, and will be so for the country. I do not have illusions that his style of governance will differ all that much from a hypothetical President Hillary Clinton. Charges and counter-charges of racism and sexism, from the media and supporters of each candidate, while hardly sustaining the myth of "the most heated primary ever", certainly do not help.
Should Sen. Clinton win the nomination, I will support her in the general election, write nice blog posts about her, urge others to vote for her, etc. This doesn't mean I don't support Obama whole-heartedly; it just means that in the best American tradition, I will be as practical and pragmatic about what is in our best interest, politically, as I can.
What Kind Of Cross
I think my exhaustion with our current political situation is due in part to my own sense that our political discourse is so broken. We dance around the simple fact that politicians are intent on gaining power, and using power. Progressives and liberals like to pretend that this power is something to be used in conjunction with non-elected elites and others who understand the current situation, and are willing to use that knowledge and understanding for the common good. Unfortunately, it has never worked that way even in ideal conditions, which do not exist right now.
Conservatives play the same rhetorical game, although they do less well at hiding their true intent - gaining and maintaining power. Using a gloss of "common good" rhetoric only poorly disguises the reality that they are far more interested in ensuring the social and economic status of corporate and military elites than in truly advancing social and economic welfare.
Being Christian, I am leery of those who seek power, under whatever guise. When I came across Nicholas Wright's answer to a truly stupid question - Would Jesus be a Democrat or Republican if he were to run for President? - it cut through much of the nonsense, and spoke to my own sense of the rot at the core of our current political life.
Be sure that he would be waterboarded first.
Conservatives play the same rhetorical game, although they do less well at hiding their true intent - gaining and maintaining power. Using a gloss of "common good" rhetoric only poorly disguises the reality that they are far more interested in ensuring the social and economic status of corporate and military elites than in truly advancing social and economic welfare.
Being Christian, I am leery of those who seek power, under whatever guise. When I came across Nicholas Wright's answer to a truly stupid question - Would Jesus be a Democrat or Republican if he were to run for President? - it cut through much of the nonsense, and spoke to my own sense of the rot at the core of our current political life.
Jesus didn't run for anything. He acted as if he were a different kind of ruler altogether, with a 'kingdom' that didn't originate from the present world (otherwise, he said, his servants would fight to rescue him) but instead was meant FOR this present world, to transform and heal it. The present way we do politics and government is, alas, part of the problem, and he would have challenged it (its huge cost, its pretense of participation which is shamelessly manipulated by the media, its cult of personality, its ignoring, all too often, of the actual needs of the poor, etc. etc.) just as he challenged the power structures of his day.
The real question is, what sort of a cross would today's system be intent on using to kill him?
Be sure that he would be waterboarded first.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Where's A Shepherd's Crook When You Need One?
So the President was supposed to pass the torch to McCain at a little newsie gaggle at the White House today. Of course, he and his staff even screwed up something as routine as that, and Bush showed up before McCain, so the President proceeded to embarrass the entire nation.
The only thing to make this entire farce worth watching is the way Bush refused to let McCain speak, droning on and on and on . . . .
One last note. I thought McCain was supposed to have superb political instincts. If so, why in the hell is he appearing on TV with the most unpopular President ever? I realize this is one of those "events" that broadcast news creates in order to give it something to do with a 24 hour cycle, but one would think that a President with a 19% approval rating would get, perhaps, a mention once in a while.
Bush doing soft shoe. Heaven and saints and all good things preserve us.
The only thing to make this entire farce worth watching is the way Bush refused to let McCain speak, droning on and on and on . . . .
One last note. I thought McCain was supposed to have superb political instincts. If so, why in the hell is he appearing on TV with the most unpopular President ever? I realize this is one of those "events" that broadcast news creates in order to give it something to do with a 24 hour cycle, but one would think that a President with a 19% approval rating would get, perhaps, a mention once in a while.
Bush doing soft shoe. Heaven and saints and all good things preserve us.
The Morning After . . .
So Hillary is still in it to win it, it seems. Obamentum has stalled a tad.
You know, I've got so much on my mind right now, I couldn't care less, to be honest.
If McCain wins in November, I will blame both Hillary and Obama. And either western Europe or New Zealand will look increasingly good to me as emigrations destinations (Denmark is at the top spot, even though I don't speak the language).
You know, I've got so much on my mind right now, I couldn't care less, to be honest.
If McCain wins in November, I will blame both Hillary and Obama. And either western Europe or New Zealand will look increasingly good to me as emigrations destinations (Denmark is at the top spot, even though I don't speak the language).
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
If It's Tuesday, There Must Be A Primary
I have to say that, while in theory more voting is better than less, nailing down a Democratic nominee soon will be a good thing.
Here's hoping Texas and Ohio, and Rhode Island and Vermont, end this once and for all, so we can concentrate of taking down McCain.
Breath will be held until tomorrow . . .
Here's hoping Texas and Ohio, and Rhode Island and Vermont, end this once and for all, so we can concentrate of taking down McCain.
Breath will be held until tomorrow . . .
Home
Just to the right of center, on the corner - that's the house I grew up in.View Larger Map
July 2005. That was the last time I saw my parents. That was the last time I was in the house in which I grew up, my hometown, walked the places I could walk blindfolded. Had anyone told me I would be homesick for all that, I think I would have laughed myself to a stroke. Yet, I do miss it.
View Larger Map
Of all the old stomping grounds, the one place I miss more than any other is a village park called The Glen. It isn't really a glen in the technical sense. What it is, rather, is the last remnant of the small glacier that retreated from that area. Most of the geography is dominated by rolling hills, with valleys cut by the meandering Susquehanna and Chemung Rivers. Here, though, the hills are steeper, sheer, and at the top of the Glen is a small (about 25 feet or so) waterfall that either pours violently or is bone dry. I once climbed it during a dry spell - it is shale, with many steps and handholds along the way - and reached the top to hear the rush of water from the sluice gates at the Village reservoir open. I dashed out of the way as a small wall of water rushed down, turning the once dry fall into a torrent of falling water.
Next to the Glen is a village cemetery. At the top of the cemetery is an access road for vehicles to go to the water supply, and just off the road is a small path. You cut up that path, always keeping the top of hill in view as different paths branch off the main one. After about ten minutes, you come out in to a meadow that stretches out over the top of the hill north of town. If you walk out from the cpose of pine and maple trees about 100 yards and look south you can see the entire Valley from there - Waverly, South Waverly, Sayre, and Athens. I used to go and sit there - just sit.
I blame ER for this bout of nostalgia and homesickness. I hope he doesn't mind.
Anyway, the wife and I will be going out to dinner at Yanuzzi's, maybe, or Tomasso's. We might even venture over the tracks to the east side of Sayre and eat at Mangialardo's. When you order spaghetti at Yanuzzi's, they ask if you want one or two meatballs. If you order two, prepare yourself for a doggy bag for your entree (spaghetti is a side order there) because the meatballs are about the size of a baseball.
Ah, well - in three weeks we shall be there. I am planning on taking the laptop, in the hope that the area has reached the 21st century and has wi-fi somewhere. If not, when you don't hear from me, you know now why. I will be taking pictures and sharing them, although I know my family is, um , reticent to have their picture taken. So, it will be places, rather than people.
Monday, March 03, 2008
(Not Quite) Music Monday - NSFW Or Children
While the 1980's have often been called a renaissance era for comedians, the 1970's were a great time for comedy. Three comedy albums have achieved immortality by setting a standard that has not been matched since - Steve Martin's A Wild And Crazy Guy; George Carlin's Class Clown; Richard Pryor's That Nigger's Crazy. What was most interesting was the career arc these three gentleman pursued over the ensuing years. All three continued to do comedy, although Martin pursued an acting career of variable success. He also is a best-selling author. Carlin continues to do stand-up, appearing on HBO pretty regularly, while also appearing in a few movies (Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure being his best known appearance). Pryor did several very funny movies with Gene Wilder, and some lesser efforts (including an odd scene with Margot Kidder in a tub full of bubbles I once saw parodied beautifully in National Lampoon).
Yet, despite multiple personal problems including a near-fatal accident while free-basing cocaine, Pryor came out in 1982 with a triumph, the greatest comedy concert movie ever, Live On The Sunset Strip. My best friend and I went to see it on a beautiful early June Friday evening at our local drive-in. Unlike Martin, who is quite serious and thoughtful, and Carlin, who just seems to get more and more angry, Pryor was funny and light-hearted (contrast his attitude with the near-manic antics of Robin Williams and Jim Carrey, both of whom seem to think that everything they do must be FUNNY). The following clips are from that movie. Watching them to get ready for this post took me back to that warm night with a dear friend now gone 21 years. As this is Richard Pryor, it should go without saying that this is for adults only; if you are offended by strong language or sexual references, you might want to just skip this whole thing.
Having made his comedy bones by giving some kind of authenticity to the word "nigger", during the course of the movie, Pryor recounted a trip he made to Africa and his revelation in regards to that word. I think this is a clip that needs to be seen and heard by all those who think the word appropriate - Pryor has a lesson here for all of us.
He was a national treasure. I am grateful that he has left behind a body of comedy work that we can see, again and again, that shows us how people can grow and change and still be hysterically funny.
Yet, despite multiple personal problems including a near-fatal accident while free-basing cocaine, Pryor came out in 1982 with a triumph, the greatest comedy concert movie ever, Live On The Sunset Strip. My best friend and I went to see it on a beautiful early June Friday evening at our local drive-in. Unlike Martin, who is quite serious and thoughtful, and Carlin, who just seems to get more and more angry, Pryor was funny and light-hearted (contrast his attitude with the near-manic antics of Robin Williams and Jim Carrey, both of whom seem to think that everything they do must be FUNNY). The following clips are from that movie. Watching them to get ready for this post took me back to that warm night with a dear friend now gone 21 years. As this is Richard Pryor, it should go without saying that this is for adults only; if you are offended by strong language or sexual references, you might want to just skip this whole thing.
Having made his comedy bones by giving some kind of authenticity to the word "nigger", during the course of the movie, Pryor recounted a trip he made to Africa and his revelation in regards to that word. I think this is a clip that needs to be seen and heard by all those who think the word appropriate - Pryor has a lesson here for all of us.
He was a national treasure. I am grateful that he has left behind a body of comedy work that we can see, again and again, that shows us how people can grow and change and still be hysterically funny.
Richard Perle And History - Two Strangers
Before I take on Richard Perle's op-ed in today's Washington Post, I think it is important to note some background on the man dubbed, along with Robert Novak, the "Prince of Darkness". In the late 1970's, Perle was the founder of an organization called The Committee on the Present Danger (CPD). It saw itself as a counter-point to the real politique of the Council on Foreign Relations, which advocated continued detente and engagement with the Soviet Union. CPD consisted of many prominent anti-communist liberals who were becoming more and more conservative in their approach to foreign policy (Perle had begun his policy life as an aide to the late Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson, the drooling anti-Soviet hero of many of today's neo-conservatives). Convinced we were at war with a world-dominating power that would stop at nothing to destroy our way of life (you see how these ideas get recycled?), CPD demanded ever-larger defense budgets, a brinksmanship policy towards the Soviet Union, and the contemplation of limited nuclear bombardment when the possibility of no strike on US soil seemed at least within the limits of reason. Most of the early Reagan foreign policy - from the huge defense department budget increases through the shrill rhetoric ("Evil Empire") to a DoD White Paper that came to light in 1982 in which then Sec. of Defense Caspar Weinberger wrote of developing a policy towards limited nuclear exchange in the face of Soviet adventurism - was rooted in CPD fantasies and paranoia.
Some of the members of CPD first came together during the Ford years, after Ford rejected a CIA threat assessment of the Soviet Union. This was the now-infamous "Team A" versus "Team B" reports. Team A was the group CIA assembled to analyze everything from Soviet grain production through their strategic planning and troop military deployments. Their conclusion was simple - while the Soviet Union's nuclear arsenal was a threat to the US mainland, their economic and social infrastructure was such that it could not sustain such a military behemoth for long. Further, Soviet forces were poorly trained conscripts, stationed in occupied territories that were hostile to their presence, straining morale. The Soviet economy was such that, the necessary spending to even keep pace with American defense spending would bankrupt the country.
Team B came along because Ford was convinced by hawks in the Republican party (including then former governor Ronald Reagan who was making a serious bid to boot Ford off the ticket in 1976) that the scenario painted by Team A was wrong in all aspects. Team B, led by George H. W. Bush and including a younger Richard Perle on its research staff, concluded that the Soviet Union, led by hard-line ideologues bent on world domination, had a defense budget that, hidden in other areas of Soviet expenditure, was nearly twice the US defense budget. They assumed the Soviets had a nuclear war-fighting policy, and demanded the Americans develop one as well. They argued that, while a conscripted force, the Red Army being twice as large as the American army would overwhelm the latter in an overwhelming Blitzkrieg-style attack.
As the 1980's unfolded, it became pretty clear that Team A had it right not just in general, but in detail as well. Yet, Richard Perle has developed a reputation as "an expert" on issues of foreign policy despite being, like most neo-conservatives, wrong about pretty much everything. Today he writes in the Post the following:
Here he is, re-writing history in which he was a participant. For those of us old enough to remember these times, I find it hard to imagine anyone could type the words above with a straight face or clear conscience. Whether it was upgrading to the MX missile - including developing a mobile launch platform for them - the B-1B bomber, stealth technology for ships and aircraft (yes, we have stealth ships, and have had for close to two decades), or the deployment of medium-range, nuclear armed missiles to Europe specifically to counter the deployment of Soviet medium-range missiles to Warsaw Pact countries - the United States had an on-going strategic mind-set of countering every Soviet movement with a counter-movement. Further the "significant" expansion of Soviet programs was an updating of their own technology to meet the far-better technology of the United States, something they never achieved.
In other words, the premise of Perle's entire article is a bunch of hokum, bunk, nonsense, folderol, and bushwah. Sadly, Perle believes he is right - which I believe is far more frightening than the ideas themselves. Further, that such nonsense appears on some of the most coveted opinion space in the American news media shows how far we still have to go to fight the delusions of the right.
Some of the members of CPD first came together during the Ford years, after Ford rejected a CIA threat assessment of the Soviet Union. This was the now-infamous "Team A" versus "Team B" reports. Team A was the group CIA assembled to analyze everything from Soviet grain production through their strategic planning and troop military deployments. Their conclusion was simple - while the Soviet Union's nuclear arsenal was a threat to the US mainland, their economic and social infrastructure was such that it could not sustain such a military behemoth for long. Further, Soviet forces were poorly trained conscripts, stationed in occupied territories that were hostile to their presence, straining morale. The Soviet economy was such that, the necessary spending to even keep pace with American defense spending would bankrupt the country.
Team B came along because Ford was convinced by hawks in the Republican party (including then former governor Ronald Reagan who was making a serious bid to boot Ford off the ticket in 1976) that the scenario painted by Team A was wrong in all aspects. Team B, led by George H. W. Bush and including a younger Richard Perle on its research staff, concluded that the Soviet Union, led by hard-line ideologues bent on world domination, had a defense budget that, hidden in other areas of Soviet expenditure, was nearly twice the US defense budget. They assumed the Soviets had a nuclear war-fighting policy, and demanded the Americans develop one as well. They argued that, while a conscripted force, the Red Army being twice as large as the American army would overwhelm the latter in an overwhelming Blitzkrieg-style attack.
As the 1980's unfolded, it became pretty clear that Team A had it right not just in general, but in detail as well. Yet, Richard Perle has developed a reputation as "an expert" on issues of foreign policy despite being, like most neo-conservatives, wrong about pretty much everything. Today he writes in the Post the following:
Despite a near universal belief to the contrary, the "action-reaction-upward-spiraling strategic weapons race" of the Cold War never really happened. . . .
But as is often the case with conventional wisdom, little serious research was done to establish whether it was true. The most important exception was the work of the late Albert Wohlstetter, America's preeminent strategic thinker, who approached the subject with his customary rigor. In a 1976 article -- "Racing Forward? Or Ambling Back?" -- Wohlstetter demonstrated that U.S. and Soviet strategic weapons programs were largely independent of each other and that the number, explosive power and cost of American nuclear weapons had peaked 15 years earlier (under Defense Secretary Robert McNamara) and had been declining ever since, even as Soviet programs had expanded significantly.
Here he is, re-writing history in which he was a participant. For those of us old enough to remember these times, I find it hard to imagine anyone could type the words above with a straight face or clear conscience. Whether it was upgrading to the MX missile - including developing a mobile launch platform for them - the B-1B bomber, stealth technology for ships and aircraft (yes, we have stealth ships, and have had for close to two decades), or the deployment of medium-range, nuclear armed missiles to Europe specifically to counter the deployment of Soviet medium-range missiles to Warsaw Pact countries - the United States had an on-going strategic mind-set of countering every Soviet movement with a counter-movement. Further the "significant" expansion of Soviet programs was an updating of their own technology to meet the far-better technology of the United States, something they never achieved.
In other words, the premise of Perle's entire article is a bunch of hokum, bunk, nonsense, folderol, and bushwah. Sadly, Perle believes he is right - which I believe is far more frightening than the ideas themselves. Further, that such nonsense appears on some of the most coveted opinion space in the American news media shows how far we still have to go to fight the delusions of the right.
Sunday, March 02, 2008
More Christian Stuff For Sunday
Pastor Dan offers some thoughts on salvation and "what is to come".
The first paragraph is something I can second. I'm not sure where it comes from, or what it means. A "personal relationship"? That isn't exactly what the Bible calls us to, nor is it evident in Jesus ministry.
The second paragraph, however, is no less mystifying for me. I have to say that I'm just not sure what the afterlife is all about, if it even is. If it is, I can honestly say that I do not think it will conform to anything we can understand, or have experienced.
As for what may or may not be beyond redemption - again, a hearty second. Even out-and-out rejection of God does not, I believe, put us beyond the pale. In seminary, I read a sermon by the wonderfully gifted preacher and originator of Christian anti-Semitism John Chrysostom, in which he portrays the grace of Jesus Christ as being a person of many disguises. One of those disguises is a beggar pursuing us down the street even as we have ignored and even perhaps chased him away with threats of and actual violence. We are pursued by the hound of heaven, and this one will not rest until we are captured.
I have long since reconciled myself to being completely agnostic about "what comes next". Whether it's the silence of oblivion, the Pearly Gates and Golden Streets, the final resurrection of the Dead, or something else entirely - I honestly have no opinions (although I used to joke in seminary that, rather than wine and bread, I always imagined the eschatological banquet at which we are to sit and share to consist of Guinness Stout and Peanut M&M's). I am more and more convinced as each day passes that God is far more concerned with our lives here and now. We are called not to shed our concerns with this world, but to love it transcendently, to work for its reclamation, and like the God who has captured us in grace and love, never ever give it up as lost. Not only is there nothing in us that is beyond redemption; there is nothing that is that is beyond the possibility of God's love granting it eternal salvation.
The one thing I've never really been able to wrap my mind around is the personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I dunno about anybody else, but coming face-to-face with Jesus at the Pearly Gates has always been pretty hard to imagine.
What I can imagine, oddly enough, is being saved into the community. It's an odd thought, but it shouldn't be. The church is the "body of Christ," after all. So perhaps the "face-to-face" wouldn't be so much a personal interaction as entry into a new, reconciled community. I find that thought appealing not least because there's never been a community in this world I could settle into without at least a little ambivalence. Which, to be clear, says more about me and my curmudgeonly ways than the communities in which I've been involved. Still, it's nice to think that there is no part of the self - even those tensions we cannot fully name or understand - that is beyond redemption. I guess we'll find out in the sweet bye-and-bye.
The first paragraph is something I can second. I'm not sure where it comes from, or what it means. A "personal relationship"? That isn't exactly what the Bible calls us to, nor is it evident in Jesus ministry.
The second paragraph, however, is no less mystifying for me. I have to say that I'm just not sure what the afterlife is all about, if it even is. If it is, I can honestly say that I do not think it will conform to anything we can understand, or have experienced.
As for what may or may not be beyond redemption - again, a hearty second. Even out-and-out rejection of God does not, I believe, put us beyond the pale. In seminary, I read a sermon by the wonderfully gifted preacher and originator of Christian anti-Semitism John Chrysostom, in which he portrays the grace of Jesus Christ as being a person of many disguises. One of those disguises is a beggar pursuing us down the street even as we have ignored and even perhaps chased him away with threats of and actual violence. We are pursued by the hound of heaven, and this one will not rest until we are captured.
I have long since reconciled myself to being completely agnostic about "what comes next". Whether it's the silence of oblivion, the Pearly Gates and Golden Streets, the final resurrection of the Dead, or something else entirely - I honestly have no opinions (although I used to joke in seminary that, rather than wine and bread, I always imagined the eschatological banquet at which we are to sit and share to consist of Guinness Stout and Peanut M&M's). I am more and more convinced as each day passes that God is far more concerned with our lives here and now. We are called not to shed our concerns with this world, but to love it transcendently, to work for its reclamation, and like the God who has captured us in grace and love, never ever give it up as lost. Not only is there nothing in us that is beyond redemption; there is nothing that is that is beyond the possibility of God's love granting it eternal salvation.
"No Condemnation Now I Dread"
The Associate Pastor at Poplar Grove UMC, Rich Holton, has a blog (surprise, surprise), and throughout Lent, Rich has been putting up hymns of Charles Wesley as devotional guides, enhancements, etc. I have been over everyday to check them out, because the younger Wesley, for all he was different from his older, more earnest brother, still managed to put succinctly in his poetry what John could only seem to do at length in his sermons - put the message of the abounding grace of Jesus Christ, and the promise of sanctifying grace, in a spiritual and emotional context that was both accessible and beautiful.
Now, when I say "succinctly", I should clarify and add that some of Charles' hymns had many, many verses; "O, For A Thousand Tongues To Sing" begins with the fourth verse of a poem that has, I think, thirteen or fourteen stanzas. As this was not uncommon at the time, I think we should give him a bit of the benefit of the doubt.
In any event, yesterday's hymn, "And Can It Be That I Should Gain", contains the following stanza, which begins with the line in the title of this post:
What I love about this particular verse is the boldness of it. While there is certainly an element of thanksgiving and humility that should always be a part of the Christian life, we should also remember that grace emboldens us. We are, to quote St. John's Gospel, no longer servants but friends. We are not separated from God - there is no condemnation any more - and we are to live and work and worship and finally approach the throne not with fear, but with the boldness that is a gift of grace. There is no swinging back and forth between sin and forgiveness. There is no "backsliding", no possibility that this grace, once having grasped us, will slip away again because we have been naughty. God isn't some passive-aggressive parent looking to manipulate us. We are the beloved children for whom there is nothing but love and mercy.
I would invite everyone to navigate on over to Rich's site and spend just a few minutes in contemplation of the wisdom and insight of Charles Wesley as we, like Jesus, make our own journey to Jerusalem, and its Cross and Empty Tomb (sounds like an English pub, doesn't it?).
Now, when I say "succinctly", I should clarify and add that some of Charles' hymns had many, many verses; "O, For A Thousand Tongues To Sing" begins with the fourth verse of a poem that has, I think, thirteen or fourteen stanzas. As this was not uncommon at the time, I think we should give him a bit of the benefit of the doubt.
In any event, yesterday's hymn, "And Can It Be That I Should Gain", contains the following stanza, which begins with the line in the title of this post:
No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in him, is mine;
alive in him, my living Head,
and clothed in righteousness divine,
bold I approach th' eternal throne,
and claim the crown, through Christ my own.
Bold I approach th' eternal throne,
and claim the crown, through Christ my own.
What I love about this particular verse is the boldness of it. While there is certainly an element of thanksgiving and humility that should always be a part of the Christian life, we should also remember that grace emboldens us. We are, to quote St. John's Gospel, no longer servants but friends. We are not separated from God - there is no condemnation any more - and we are to live and work and worship and finally approach the throne not with fear, but with the boldness that is a gift of grace. There is no swinging back and forth between sin and forgiveness. There is no "backsliding", no possibility that this grace, once having grasped us, will slip away again because we have been naughty. God isn't some passive-aggressive parent looking to manipulate us. We are the beloved children for whom there is nothing but love and mercy.
I would invite everyone to navigate on over to Rich's site and spend just a few minutes in contemplation of the wisdom and insight of Charles Wesley as we, like Jesus, make our own journey to Jerusalem, and its Cross and Empty Tomb (sounds like an English pub, doesn't it?).
My Sunday Head-Beating
Why do I do this to myself? Every Sunday, I know David Broder will write something really inane, and every Sunday morning, I wend my was on over, and get smacked around by the stupid.
What hurts so much about this sentence? First of all, voters shouldn't be at all interested in "the real person", if by that Broder means what kind of individual Hillary Clinton is - does she laugh at fart jokes, or make a good spaghetti sauce, or prefer smooth jazz to classic rock. Second, if these were important issues, it might have been the duty of Broder and his fellow journalists to kind of, you know, find out and let people know.
To many Washington insiders, for some reason known only to their therapists, Hillary Clinton is this big mystery. The fact that she is this big political ink blot to so many shows the problem with who Clinton is might not be Clinton's problem, but their problem. It might be the problem isn't that voters don't know who she is - I find it surprising that, having been in the national public eye for sixteen years, Broder could actually write that sentence so fecklessly - but that the Washington-based press corps hate her so much they refuse to write stories about her without looking through all sorts of lenses that distort whatever picture they might actually be getting.
Next Sunday, I'll really try something else that doesn't hurt so much.
My sense is that in the following months of campaigning, voters were often frustrated by their inability to discover the real person behind the notably buttoned-up candidate.
What hurts so much about this sentence? First of all, voters shouldn't be at all interested in "the real person", if by that Broder means what kind of individual Hillary Clinton is - does she laugh at fart jokes, or make a good spaghetti sauce, or prefer smooth jazz to classic rock. Second, if these were important issues, it might have been the duty of Broder and his fellow journalists to kind of, you know, find out and let people know.
To many Washington insiders, for some reason known only to their therapists, Hillary Clinton is this big mystery. The fact that she is this big political ink blot to so many shows the problem with who Clinton is might not be Clinton's problem, but their problem. It might be the problem isn't that voters don't know who she is - I find it surprising that, having been in the national public eye for sixteen years, Broder could actually write that sentence so fecklessly - but that the Washington-based press corps hate her so much they refuse to write stories about her without looking through all sorts of lenses that distort whatever picture they might actually be getting.
Next Sunday, I'll really try something else that doesn't hurt so much.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Saturday Rock Show A Day Early
Tomorrow I kick off my 2008 Mobile Disc Jockey season, so I won't be around. I mentioned Porcupine Tree last September, and have been listening, again, to their CD Deadwing, and I have to say that this video, as disturbing as the images are, captures the feeling of the band in a way that another "official" video might not. There is something dark about their music. Now, personally, I think the best song on this particular release is the 14-minute-long "Arriving Somewhere But Not Here", but the title track is also quite good. In fact, there really aren't any weak songs here. Enjoy, but prepare to be disturbed (the whole crossing out of the eyes thing . . . brrrr, gives me chills):
Six Word Memoirs
Kirsten links to this, and I think it's great. How do you boil down a life to six words?
Here's mine: There are always more chances.
The floor is now open.
Here's mine: There are always more chances.
The floor is now open.
A Personal And Not-So-Personal Postscript
This post, in which I speak about what I believe love to be, and not to be, has given me great satisfaction - it has prompted some of the best responses I've ever received. I was surprised this morning, walking in the door from a long night at work, to find that my wife had read it last night (she usually takes one day a week and speed-reads through my stuff). She was visibly upset, and after retreating to the bedroom where our privacy is only marginally better than standing in the middle of a Mall on a Saturday in July, she asked me if I was in love with someone else. So, the only person to actually ask me the question was . . . Lisa.
Oy.
The long and the short of it is simple - I tried to explain what I meant by what I obviously did not present very well. It was a good opening, because we had an honest and open talk about our lives, and our life together. She told me she has not held the whole "meant for each other/soul mates" nonsense for years, and so I want to retract that. I said that my intention was only to offer the realistic perspective that human beings cannot possibly receive all that they need from a single other individual across the span of a lifetime - people change, needs and wants change, etc. Without ever once breaking one's wedding vows, it seems to me that relationships with those not one's spouse can be rewarding, fulfilling, benefiting all concerned - and should be considered a good thing for all concerned. I realize this is a very fine line upon which I am dancing here, but I reiterated to her that I was not speaking from experience, but only making a general observation about the realities of human interaction, the limits of love and marriage, and the possibilities open to people who are willing to be honest enough, and open enough, to the possibilities life provides them.
Human beings are far too complex and varied over time to think that, without constant attention, a marriage is somehow going to "take care of itself". It isn't. Being with another individual, figuring out all the big and small ways to fit one's life in to another's in the face of all the vagaries and obstacles requires work. It also requires an openness and honesty that change sometimes brings both challenges and opportunities. I told Lisa last night what I wrote in the comments below, that taking the easy road of divorce when we came quite close to falling apart in the summer of '06 seems, in retrospect, to have been the coward's way out. The marriage vows include the promise to be together "for better or worse", and sometimes worse can be pretty bad (I am excluding unhealthy, obsessive, or abusive situations here; run as fast as you can from that kind of thing). With liberal divorce laws, we feel quite free to leave when the going gets rough. How much better to face new challenges together than to throw up one's hands and say, "Oh, well, I tried."
Love, marriage - these are complex, strange things, never really understood, just coped with as we move through life. I like Alan's comment about tossing a book across a room, because all that pseudo-psychobabble we are fed only makes things worse, because we believe there are people out there who actually know the answers to our questions. There are no answers, and the questions aren't really questions so much as they are problems that require an ability to be open and honest.
One last thing. A few years ago, my uncle passed away. After coming back home from the funeral, I sent a note to my aunt - whom I did not know well, but always liked - thanking her for her hospitality (she opened her house to the huge brood of family that showed up for Ned's funeral), and offering on paper condolences I did not have a chance to offer in person. One of the things I wrote has stuck with me, and I think of it often. After reflecting on my own memories of Uncle Ned and what he did for me, and our whole family, during his life, and being grateful he was the kind of person he was (you never stopped laughing when you sat around with Ned), I said that I understood there are private things, secret things, between a husband and wife and those things are the glue that holds people together, no matter what others may think they see and know about a couple. No one knows about a couple, no matter how much they may think they know, because it is those private things that are the real secret. I won't share mine, but I will say that we too often forget those secret things, those private things. Marriages are a many layered, multifaceted experience; there is no summary to any one marriage, even one that ends. I think we would do far better to allow them to be experiences to which we are open, rather than riddles to be solved or some "thing" that has a reality to which ours must conform.
We are engaged in a mystery.
Oy.
The long and the short of it is simple - I tried to explain what I meant by what I obviously did not present very well. It was a good opening, because we had an honest and open talk about our lives, and our life together. She told me she has not held the whole "meant for each other/soul mates" nonsense for years, and so I want to retract that. I said that my intention was only to offer the realistic perspective that human beings cannot possibly receive all that they need from a single other individual across the span of a lifetime - people change, needs and wants change, etc. Without ever once breaking one's wedding vows, it seems to me that relationships with those not one's spouse can be rewarding, fulfilling, benefiting all concerned - and should be considered a good thing for all concerned. I realize this is a very fine line upon which I am dancing here, but I reiterated to her that I was not speaking from experience, but only making a general observation about the realities of human interaction, the limits of love and marriage, and the possibilities open to people who are willing to be honest enough, and open enough, to the possibilities life provides them.
Human beings are far too complex and varied over time to think that, without constant attention, a marriage is somehow going to "take care of itself". It isn't. Being with another individual, figuring out all the big and small ways to fit one's life in to another's in the face of all the vagaries and obstacles requires work. It also requires an openness and honesty that change sometimes brings both challenges and opportunities. I told Lisa last night what I wrote in the comments below, that taking the easy road of divorce when we came quite close to falling apart in the summer of '06 seems, in retrospect, to have been the coward's way out. The marriage vows include the promise to be together "for better or worse", and sometimes worse can be pretty bad (I am excluding unhealthy, obsessive, or abusive situations here; run as fast as you can from that kind of thing). With liberal divorce laws, we feel quite free to leave when the going gets rough. How much better to face new challenges together than to throw up one's hands and say, "Oh, well, I tried."
Love, marriage - these are complex, strange things, never really understood, just coped with as we move through life. I like Alan's comment about tossing a book across a room, because all that pseudo-psychobabble we are fed only makes things worse, because we believe there are people out there who actually know the answers to our questions. There are no answers, and the questions aren't really questions so much as they are problems that require an ability to be open and honest.
One last thing. A few years ago, my uncle passed away. After coming back home from the funeral, I sent a note to my aunt - whom I did not know well, but always liked - thanking her for her hospitality (she opened her house to the huge brood of family that showed up for Ned's funeral), and offering on paper condolences I did not have a chance to offer in person. One of the things I wrote has stuck with me, and I think of it often. After reflecting on my own memories of Uncle Ned and what he did for me, and our whole family, during his life, and being grateful he was the kind of person he was (you never stopped laughing when you sat around with Ned), I said that I understood there are private things, secret things, between a husband and wife and those things are the glue that holds people together, no matter what others may think they see and know about a couple. No one knows about a couple, no matter how much they may think they know, because it is those private things that are the real secret. I won't share mine, but I will say that we too often forget those secret things, those private things. Marriages are a many layered, multifaceted experience; there is no summary to any one marriage, even one that ends. I think we would do far better to allow them to be experiences to which we are open, rather than riddles to be solved or some "thing" that has a reality to which ours must conform.
We are engaged in a mystery.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
A Reading Of Psalm 23
Street Prophets offers up Psalm 23 today in the on-going Progressive Bible Study. I will let PD speak for himself as to how he would interpret this most famous Hebrew poem. I have often thought the Psalm an interesting one to offer as comfort. As Pastor Dan notes, it is used at funerals (I have recited it more than I can remember at them), and seems to offer a real boon to those who are seeking some kind of solace. I think, however, that it is as much as question of familiarity and tradition - in the midst of loss we look for whatever anchors of our old life may still be around - as any real assistance the Psalm contains in and of itself.
I would like to focus right now on the most interesting set of couplets within the Psalm, verses 4-5a. To quote from the long-ago memorized King James version, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for thou art with me/Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. . ." What kind of protector would lead one through the "valley of the shadow of death"? What kind of shepherd "preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies"? Obviously, a shepherd does these things, leading the herd through areas where wolves and lions sit in wait, pasturing herds in full view of hunting packs of both. Yet, does this not make the protection the shepherd offers somewhat more equivocal than it is usually presented?
I want to ask a simple question with what I think is a disturbing answer - Is there real protection being offered here, or the mere promise of presence in the face of danger? Not only are we told that God will lead us through the valley of the shadow of death, but God will sit us down with our enemies at a common table. There is no offer of comfort or protection here; in fact, there seems to be only the realistic assertion that whatever protection we might feel is merely a presence. Further, it seems to me that the offer of communion with one's enemies isn't so much comfort as a very real threat.
All of this leads me to believe the author of this Psalm was far more realistic about who God is than our own sentiment-drenched reading would allow. We face that fear-filled valley with only the promise of presence - no guarantees we will make it through. God's comfort does not include any promises that our lives will be easy or free from pain, sorrow, or even death. Rather, all we are given is a promise that God will be there, even as we face our enemies, and the last enemy.
Any thoughts?
I would like to focus right now on the most interesting set of couplets within the Psalm, verses 4-5a. To quote from the long-ago memorized King James version, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for thou art with me/Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. . ." What kind of protector would lead one through the "valley of the shadow of death"? What kind of shepherd "preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies"? Obviously, a shepherd does these things, leading the herd through areas where wolves and lions sit in wait, pasturing herds in full view of hunting packs of both. Yet, does this not make the protection the shepherd offers somewhat more equivocal than it is usually presented?
I want to ask a simple question with what I think is a disturbing answer - Is there real protection being offered here, or the mere promise of presence in the face of danger? Not only are we told that God will lead us through the valley of the shadow of death, but God will sit us down with our enemies at a common table. There is no offer of comfort or protection here; in fact, there seems to be only the realistic assertion that whatever protection we might feel is merely a presence. Further, it seems to me that the offer of communion with one's enemies isn't so much comfort as a very real threat.
All of this leads me to believe the author of this Psalm was far more realistic about who God is than our own sentiment-drenched reading would allow. We face that fear-filled valley with only the promise of presence - no guarantees we will make it through. God's comfort does not include any promises that our lives will be easy or free from pain, sorrow, or even death. Rather, all we are given is a promise that God will be there, even as we face our enemies, and the last enemy.
Any thoughts?
The Wit And Wisdom Of John Hagee
I once chanced upon a program on Trinity Broadcasting Network - a cable/satellite channel chock-a-block with dispensationalists and out-and-out kooks like Benny Hinn - in which John Hagee was attempting to delineate, with the aid of charts and pictures (I was waiting for a felt board, but it didn't appear), the exact meaning of the Book of Revelations. As an exercise in biblical exegesis it was perhaps the most absurd thing I had ever seen. As an exercise in hilarity, however, it was exquisite. Trying to take this late-first century work of apocalyptic literature and turn it in to a series of predictions for our current state of affairs ended up being a mess, although I doubt Hagee understood that. No, his urgent, earnest pleas to give credence to his nonsense was far too transparent to be anything other than an honest belief that he was preaching nothing but the truth revealed to him and him alone.
It is easy to dismiss such ignorant claptrap, until one realizes the incredible social and political power a person like Hagee wields. Only then do we have to face the fact that our political life includes not just the great and powerful, but the ignorant and demented as well. Hagee's endorsement of John McCain, as Glenn Greenwald notes, should, had we a properly functioning press corps educated on matters of serious import, raise all sorts of red flags and force questions upon McCain that should at least make him uncomfortable. Alas and alack, not only will that not happen, McCain will prance around the country glad to have the endorsement of such a person as John Hagee.
I find it odd - although by now I shouldn't - that the ridiculous statements of Louis Farrakhan and the perfectly reasonable comments of some such as the pastor of Barack Obama's church in Chicago for some reason exist outside the pale of acceptability, while the truly awful, hate-filled ranting of Pat Robertson, and the bloody fantasies of John Hagee are perfectly acceptable. The former, I suppose suffer under the weight not only of not having money and therefor power, but also being black. The latter have money, access, influence, and are so white they are almost transparent.
If we were honest, such little factoids as these might actually be discussed, as would the Rev. Hagee's attempts to create a Classic Comics edition of Revelations for those not schooled in the intricacies of apocalyptic. Of course, they won't, any more than the anti-Semitism which exists at the root of his ironic, blind support for the state of Israel, or desire for military confrontation with Iran, for the free use of nuclear weapons as a tool to bring about the second coming of Christ, and all sorts of other foolish ideas. No, they'll just admire the hundreds who pack his church in Texas and his open checkbook and say, "Wow, he's important," rather than, "Wow, this guy's a war-mongering, hate-filled ignoramus. Why does John McCain want his support?"
It is easy to dismiss such ignorant claptrap, until one realizes the incredible social and political power a person like Hagee wields. Only then do we have to face the fact that our political life includes not just the great and powerful, but the ignorant and demented as well. Hagee's endorsement of John McCain, as Glenn Greenwald notes, should, had we a properly functioning press corps educated on matters of serious import, raise all sorts of red flags and force questions upon McCain that should at least make him uncomfortable. Alas and alack, not only will that not happen, McCain will prance around the country glad to have the endorsement of such a person as John Hagee.
I find it odd - although by now I shouldn't - that the ridiculous statements of Louis Farrakhan and the perfectly reasonable comments of some such as the pastor of Barack Obama's church in Chicago for some reason exist outside the pale of acceptability, while the truly awful, hate-filled ranting of Pat Robertson, and the bloody fantasies of John Hagee are perfectly acceptable. The former, I suppose suffer under the weight not only of not having money and therefor power, but also being black. The latter have money, access, influence, and are so white they are almost transparent.
If we were honest, such little factoids as these might actually be discussed, as would the Rev. Hagee's attempts to create a Classic Comics edition of Revelations for those not schooled in the intricacies of apocalyptic. Of course, they won't, any more than the anti-Semitism which exists at the root of his ironic, blind support for the state of Israel, or desire for military confrontation with Iran, for the free use of nuclear weapons as a tool to bring about the second coming of Christ, and all sorts of other foolish ideas. No, they'll just admire the hundreds who pack his church in Texas and his open checkbook and say, "Wow, he's important," rather than, "Wow, this guy's a war-mongering, hate-filled ignoramus. Why does John McCain want his support?"
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Asking For More Than We Can Ever Get Out Of It
I've been on a kick lately, thinking through a lot of different, yet related, ideas - on experiencing life, on embracing what life has to offer without labeling or judging, seeing grace even in the midst of horror and terror and mourning as part of seeing the presence of God - and my thoughts turn, without too much difficulty to love.
My wife and I have had an on-going debate/discussion since early on. She has always been a firm believer in the whole "soul mate" thing; I, while occasionally dipping my toe in to hyper-romanticism, began poo-pooing such nonsense. Then, after five or six years together, I became a convert to the idea. In the past six months to year or so, I have reverted to my former sense that such talk is utter nonsense. I go further, however; I no longer believe it possible to invest human relationships with so much weight. I think the weight, in the end, crushes not only the relationship, but the people involved. It is all well and good to affirm one's love for another; it is quite another, and I think dangerous to one's own sense of oneself as well as the health of the relationship, to begin claiming that love has transformed in to "need". Need is a dangerous state to be in with another human being, to be honest; most people do not have the psychological health to carry their own burdens. To insist that another human being is responsible for my happiness, my sense of self is not the kind of healthy self-emptying one thinks of when one considers, for example, Christian demands for self-abnegation. Rather, it is a kind of self-infantalizing. We are handing to another person the keys not just to our hearts, but to our very lives. We are asking them to provide for us what, in all likelihood, they cannot provide for themselves.
We are a nation of incurable romantics. Our art, both high and popular celebrates all sorts of foolish ideas, from love at first sight to the emptying of the self onto another as a sign of true love. We sing about it in songs, we watch one after another movie in which people make utterly foolish choices based on the notion that their happiness can come only when they are attached to another human being.
Yet, real love between two people is such a fragile, beautiful thing. Why would we weigh it down with the requirement that it not only give us the pleasure of another person's presence in our lives, a presence to excite and surprise and confound and be at peace with, but also give us psychological strength we lack and equanimity we cannot seem to find on our own? Why would we demand that another person not only love us, but "complete" us, be our "soul mate", thus admitting up front that we feel our selves are incomplete and and for themselves?
The most wonderful part of marriage, for me at least, has been the continual excitement of learning there is so much about this woman I do not know, this woman I have lived with for nearly fifteen years. Far more than insisting that, without her, I am not complete, I revel in the almost daily surprise of seeing something I have not seen before. Why would I demand more than that? Why would I insist on a unbreakable bow of "forever" before the fact, rather than allow the unfolding of our time together to provide evidence that our being together is a worthy goal in and of itself?
I also do not believe that such love is, or should be, necessarily exclusive. Throughout human history, it has not been. I am not advocating adultery; I am saying that it is perfectly natural to discover, one fine day, another person who interests us as much, albeit in different ways, as someone to whom we have committed ourselves. It seems to me that pursuing such interest, cognizant of the limits we have set around such activities, is as worthy a goal as holding fast to the original commitment itself. How else can we live and grow, experiencing the possibilities life has to offer, if we insist that love is, by its nature, exclusive? Since it really isn't, I see no reason why we should pretend that it either can be, should be, or is. A deep friendship can offer a wealth of experiences that can only make us better people, better lovers, better friends, better individuals. To argue that only certain, socially sanctioned kinds of "love" are properly love is ridiculous on its face.
This is another instance of asking of love more than it can possibly provide. I see no reason in the world why it is necessary to seek in one individual every scrap of balance and joy in one's life. Without ever breaking the vow to forsake others, I believe it is not only possible, but rewarding to enjoy many of the same joys and sorrows and surprises we have with spouses with one who is not our spouse. It can only make us better, because one thing I believe about love is quite simple - when it is real, and I mean really real, it is never wrong.
I wonder how many people are going to ask me if I'm cheating on my wife now?
My wife and I have had an on-going debate/discussion since early on. She has always been a firm believer in the whole "soul mate" thing; I, while occasionally dipping my toe in to hyper-romanticism, began poo-pooing such nonsense. Then, after five or six years together, I became a convert to the idea. In the past six months to year or so, I have reverted to my former sense that such talk is utter nonsense. I go further, however; I no longer believe it possible to invest human relationships with so much weight. I think the weight, in the end, crushes not only the relationship, but the people involved. It is all well and good to affirm one's love for another; it is quite another, and I think dangerous to one's own sense of oneself as well as the health of the relationship, to begin claiming that love has transformed in to "need". Need is a dangerous state to be in with another human being, to be honest; most people do not have the psychological health to carry their own burdens. To insist that another human being is responsible for my happiness, my sense of self is not the kind of healthy self-emptying one thinks of when one considers, for example, Christian demands for self-abnegation. Rather, it is a kind of self-infantalizing. We are handing to another person the keys not just to our hearts, but to our very lives. We are asking them to provide for us what, in all likelihood, they cannot provide for themselves.
We are a nation of incurable romantics. Our art, both high and popular celebrates all sorts of foolish ideas, from love at first sight to the emptying of the self onto another as a sign of true love. We sing about it in songs, we watch one after another movie in which people make utterly foolish choices based on the notion that their happiness can come only when they are attached to another human being.
Yet, real love between two people is such a fragile, beautiful thing. Why would we weigh it down with the requirement that it not only give us the pleasure of another person's presence in our lives, a presence to excite and surprise and confound and be at peace with, but also give us psychological strength we lack and equanimity we cannot seem to find on our own? Why would we demand that another person not only love us, but "complete" us, be our "soul mate", thus admitting up front that we feel our selves are incomplete and and for themselves?
The most wonderful part of marriage, for me at least, has been the continual excitement of learning there is so much about this woman I do not know, this woman I have lived with for nearly fifteen years. Far more than insisting that, without her, I am not complete, I revel in the almost daily surprise of seeing something I have not seen before. Why would I demand more than that? Why would I insist on a unbreakable bow of "forever" before the fact, rather than allow the unfolding of our time together to provide evidence that our being together is a worthy goal in and of itself?
I also do not believe that such love is, or should be, necessarily exclusive. Throughout human history, it has not been. I am not advocating adultery; I am saying that it is perfectly natural to discover, one fine day, another person who interests us as much, albeit in different ways, as someone to whom we have committed ourselves. It seems to me that pursuing such interest, cognizant of the limits we have set around such activities, is as worthy a goal as holding fast to the original commitment itself. How else can we live and grow, experiencing the possibilities life has to offer, if we insist that love is, by its nature, exclusive? Since it really isn't, I see no reason why we should pretend that it either can be, should be, or is. A deep friendship can offer a wealth of experiences that can only make us better people, better lovers, better friends, better individuals. To argue that only certain, socially sanctioned kinds of "love" are properly love is ridiculous on its face.
This is another instance of asking of love more than it can possibly provide. I see no reason in the world why it is necessary to seek in one individual every scrap of balance and joy in one's life. Without ever breaking the vow to forsake others, I believe it is not only possible, but rewarding to enjoy many of the same joys and sorrows and surprises we have with spouses with one who is not our spouse. It can only make us better, because one thing I believe about love is quite simple - when it is real, and I mean really real, it is never wrong.
I wonder how many people are going to ask me if I'm cheating on my wife now?
An Extra Music Post
I know no one reads, or at least comments, much on these music posts of mine. I am offering this one because it echoes in many ways my own place right now on my spiritual journey. I suppose Keenan, who wrote these lyrics, would either laugh at that statement, or wonder what it meant, but that's OK. I'm just glad he's around to say better what I have been trying to say. If semi-prog, very dark heavy metal isn't your thing, just skip the vid and read the lyrics, please.
I have written several times that I think Tool lead singer and lyricist Maynard James Keenan should be named poet laureate. Known for their off-putting videos and uncompromising sound - including dark lyrics soaked in rage - what is less known is the sublime beauty of some of their songs. I think Lateralus is without a doubt their best record to date (although 10,000 Eyes has its moments, too), and the title song is a wonderful celebration of the possibility inherent in real living. That is to say, living with eyes open to the possibilities of both pain and beauty that is true human living. Lyrics below the video:
I have written several times that I think Tool lead singer and lyricist Maynard James Keenan should be named poet laureate. Known for their off-putting videos and uncompromising sound - including dark lyrics soaked in rage - what is less known is the sublime beauty of some of their songs. I think Lateralus is without a doubt their best record to date (although 10,000 Eyes has its moments, too), and the title song is a wonderful celebration of the possibility inherent in real living. That is to say, living with eyes open to the possibilities of both pain and beauty that is true human living. Lyrics below the video:
Black then white are all I see in my infancy.
red and yellow then came to be, reaching out to me.
lets me see.
As below, so above and beyond, I imagine
drawn beyond the lines of reason.
Push the envelope. Watch it bend.
Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind.
Withering my intuition, missing opportunities and I must
Feed my will to feel my moment drawing way outside the lines.
Black then white are all I see in my infancy.
red and yellow then came to be, reaching out to me.
lets me see there is so much more
and beckons me to look through to these infinite possibilities.
As below, so above and beyond, I imagine
drawn outside the lines of reason.
Push the envelope. Watch it bend.
Over thinking, over analyzing separates the body from the mind.
Withering my intuition leaving all these opportunities behind.
Feed my will to feel this moment urging me to cross the line.
Reaching out to embrace the random.
Reaching out to embrace whatever may come.
I embrace my desire to
feel the rhythm, to feel connected
enough to step aside and weep like a widow
to feel inspired, to fathom the power,
to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain,
to swing on the spiral
of our divinity and still be a human.
With my feet upon the ground I lose myself
between the sounds and open wide to suck it in.
I feel it move across my skin.
I'm reaching up and reaching out.
I'm reaching for the random or what ever will bewilder me.
And following our will and wind we may just go where no one's been.
We'll ride the spiral to the end and may just go where no one's been.
Spiral out. Keep going...
When Is Catholic Bashing Not Catholic Bashing?
Oy. I just got done writing about the stupid way our discourse is warped by those who shout "anti-Semite" in a crowded theater, and I came across this from On Faith at The Washington Post.
Now, I will admit that I have not read the references letter from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. Nor did I read the criticism of that letter, so I have no way of judging the veracity of the claims of Sister Mary Ann. I can say, from my own experience at The Catholic University of America, that for all it's America's largest denomination, it is quite quick to claim "anti-Catholic bias" whenever someone criticizes some public position the Church or its surrogates take. I was the only Protestant in some of my classes, and my criticisms of some point of Catholic teaching was usually labeled the result of my own anti-Catholic upbringing. I was agog the first time I heard this; by the last time it was uttered, I just shook my head and smiled. What else can you do?
In any event, it seems that some people just can't take criticism. In truth, it is no more anti-Catholic to criticize the public stance of the Catholic Church on social issues than it is anti-Methodist to claim the denomination is a hair's breadth away from Karl Marx. No one, on individual, no institution, is above reproach or beyond criticism. To shout "you hate me for being me!" every time someone says that an institution of which one is a member is criticized just doesn't cut it for me.
Please, stop.
Now, I will admit that I have not read the references letter from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. Nor did I read the criticism of that letter, so I have no way of judging the veracity of the claims of Sister Mary Ann. I can say, from my own experience at The Catholic University of America, that for all it's America's largest denomination, it is quite quick to claim "anti-Catholic bias" whenever someone criticizes some public position the Church or its surrogates take. I was the only Protestant in some of my classes, and my criticisms of some point of Catholic teaching was usually labeled the result of my own anti-Catholic upbringing. I was agog the first time I heard this; by the last time it was uttered, I just shook my head and smiled. What else can you do?
In any event, it seems that some people just can't take criticism. In truth, it is no more anti-Catholic to criticize the public stance of the Catholic Church on social issues than it is anti-Methodist to claim the denomination is a hair's breadth away from Karl Marx. No one, on individual, no institution, is above reproach or beyond criticism. To shout "you hate me for being me!" every time someone says that an institution of which one is a member is criticized just doesn't cut it for me.
Please, stop.
The Real Third Rail Of American Politics (UPDATE)
It is often said that Social Security is "the third rail" of our political life; touch it, and die a screaming, horrid death. I don't think so. Trying to have a realistic discussion of our policy towards the nation-state of Israel causes everyone in mainstream and right-wing politics (increasingly difficult to distinguish) to lose whatever equanimity they might possess and start frothing at the mouth. Alan Dershowitz lost whatever credibility he once had by carrying on this way. David Horowitz actually requires a bib when he starts on this tack. Joe "Likudnik" Lieberman is an embarrassment when he starts talking about Israel.
Back in the summer of '06, on my first attempt at blogging, I wrote a very tentative criticism of Israel's invasion of southern Lebanon, and got a comment without a trackback that, when boiled down to its essentials, called me anti-Semitic. I have rarely ventured forth since then, because I weary of having to explain the obvious - criticizing Israeli foreign policy is not the same thing as desiring the death of all Jews; wishing we could have an honest debate about American policy towards Israel is not the same thing as tossing a Hitlergruss and having Arbeit Mach Frei stenciled above my house; wondering about the political sanity of some members of the American Jewish community who demand a narrow range of debate on Israel is not seeing hook-nosed usurists behind every hedge-row. Alas, I am quite sure that my use of various bigoted comments in this paragraph will draw the weirdos like my dog's manure draws flies.
Today, Glenn Greenwald commends Barack Obama for a speech in which he asks, not exactly rhetorically, for a more open debate on our policy towards Israel. In the process, Greenwald shows the results of a recent opinion survey in Israel that shows how warped our own discourse is. I have no doubt that his comments are chock-a-block with accusations of Jew-hating and closet goose-stepping on Greenwald's part. Yet, how can we move forward if we don't actually move from the stalemate we currently find ourselves in on this whole issue? How tiring does it get to repeat, yet again, that the equation of "Israel" and "Jewishness" is simply false?
It should be noted that part of this debate is driven by religious fanatics who actually believe that the current nation-state of Israel is the reincarnation (resurrection?) of the ancient, Biblical kingdom, and therefore it is the duty of all good (American) Christians to defend it, so that it can be destroyed when Jesus descends from the clouds and saves all the Christians and kills all the heathen, including those Christ-killing Jews who live in Israel. CBN actually negotiated with Egypt to build a small, air-conditioned storage facility to house television equipment so that, when Jesus does return, they will have the equipment staged at the foot of Mt. Sinai to broadcast it around the world (I kid you not).
Our entire discourse is so warped, I wonder how we function.
UPDATE: Missing last night's debate, I now see that Russert managed to get his dig in, with the TN state GOP piling on. If it weren't for the fact that Russert is admired by so many people as a "tough journalist", I would laugh. Knowing, however, that there are so many who admire the Boy from Buffalo (and his dad, "Big Russ", God help us), I weep because someone this God-awful stupid actually manages to legitimate idiocy in our public discourse.
Rather than boycott FOXNews, I think Democrats should boycott any debate moderated by Russert. Not because he's a partisan hack. Rather, because he's just so goddamn stupid.
Back in the summer of '06, on my first attempt at blogging, I wrote a very tentative criticism of Israel's invasion of southern Lebanon, and got a comment without a trackback that, when boiled down to its essentials, called me anti-Semitic. I have rarely ventured forth since then, because I weary of having to explain the obvious - criticizing Israeli foreign policy is not the same thing as desiring the death of all Jews; wishing we could have an honest debate about American policy towards Israel is not the same thing as tossing a Hitlergruss and having Arbeit Mach Frei stenciled above my house; wondering about the political sanity of some members of the American Jewish community who demand a narrow range of debate on Israel is not seeing hook-nosed usurists behind every hedge-row. Alas, I am quite sure that my use of various bigoted comments in this paragraph will draw the weirdos like my dog's manure draws flies.
Today, Glenn Greenwald commends Barack Obama for a speech in which he asks, not exactly rhetorically, for a more open debate on our policy towards Israel. In the process, Greenwald shows the results of a recent opinion survey in Israel that shows how warped our own discourse is. I have no doubt that his comments are chock-a-block with accusations of Jew-hating and closet goose-stepping on Greenwald's part. Yet, how can we move forward if we don't actually move from the stalemate we currently find ourselves in on this whole issue? How tiring does it get to repeat, yet again, that the equation of "Israel" and "Jewishness" is simply false?
It should be noted that part of this debate is driven by religious fanatics who actually believe that the current nation-state of Israel is the reincarnation (resurrection?) of the ancient, Biblical kingdom, and therefore it is the duty of all good (American) Christians to defend it, so that it can be destroyed when Jesus descends from the clouds and saves all the Christians and kills all the heathen, including those Christ-killing Jews who live in Israel. CBN actually negotiated with Egypt to build a small, air-conditioned storage facility to house television equipment so that, when Jesus does return, they will have the equipment staged at the foot of Mt. Sinai to broadcast it around the world (I kid you not).
Our entire discourse is so warped, I wonder how we function.
UPDATE: Missing last night's debate, I now see that Russert managed to get his dig in, with the TN state GOP piling on. If it weren't for the fact that Russert is admired by so many people as a "tough journalist", I would laugh. Knowing, however, that there are so many who admire the Boy from Buffalo (and his dad, "Big Russ", God help us), I weep because someone this God-awful stupid actually manages to legitimate idiocy in our public discourse.
Rather than boycott FOXNews, I think Democrats should boycott any debate moderated by Russert. Not because he's a partisan hack. Rather, because he's just so goddamn stupid.
Man And God No Longer At Yale (UPDATE)
William Buckley dying is a bit redundant, as far as I'm concerned. A defender of the lack of principles of the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy; a race-baiting, Martin-Luther-King-Jr.-hating defender of the peculiar institution of Jim Crow as true Americanism; a tired promoter of the idea that Ronald Reagan was somehow the only true American President; and a man who would rouse himself from his semi-comatose, semi-reclining position to toss out a quote from Cicero or St. Thomas to make himself look smarter than he really was - I'll just say, with Douglas Adams, "So long, and thanks for all the fish."
Will they bury him in that same position, leaning so far back in his chair it looks like it and he will tip over, pen cap in his mouth, a look of petulant triumph on his face because his adversary didn't know that he had just quoted from the Tridentine Mass rather than Virgil, just to throw the guy off?
All this will change if, in his will, he has left it all to the most obscure liberal blogger on the planet. In that case, may I just say, "Bill, you were a swell guy, up until 1967 or so, when you actually died."
UPDATE: I can't agree with Matt Yglesias. I refuse to say anything nice about a guy who defended Franco and Pinochet; who continued to deride the Civil Rights movement long after it had succeeded in its initial goals; and who, in his ultra-montane Catholocism resembled a disheveled Cardinal Newman trying to deliver his lectures on "The Idea of the University". No props here, Matt. Sorry.
Will they bury him in that same position, leaning so far back in his chair it looks like it and he will tip over, pen cap in his mouth, a look of petulant triumph on his face because his adversary didn't know that he had just quoted from the Tridentine Mass rather than Virgil, just to throw the guy off?
All this will change if, in his will, he has left it all to the most obscure liberal blogger on the planet. In that case, may I just say, "Bill, you were a swell guy, up until 1967 or so, when you actually died."
UPDATE: I can't agree with Matt Yglesias. I refuse to say anything nice about a guy who defended Franco and Pinochet; who continued to deride the Civil Rights movement long after it had succeeded in its initial goals; and who, in his ultra-montane Catholocism resembled a disheveled Cardinal Newman trying to deliver his lectures on "The Idea of the University". No props here, Matt. Sorry.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Living With Complexity
The following is a stream-of-consciousness post, just the not-quite-random jotting down of some thoughts as they pop in to my head on the theme in the title. Feel free to comment or ignore at your leisure, because this is a kind of venting exercise for me.
Most of us, I think, are uncomfortable with complexity. We figure out ways to ignore nuance, conflict, and even the contradictions in our lives. It is always easier to draw lines around parts of our lives, lines that become walls separating vital parts of our lives from each other. We traverse the walls separating out these different parts with care, and we never give a thought as to how the different parts, separated so assiduously from one another, interact in our lives.
Yet, aren't these walls largely figments of our imaginations? Trying to reconcile the irreconcilable in our lives can lead us, usually, in two, time-worn directions: 1) the cliche of "the double life"; 2) eradicate the contradictions and live "with integrity". Neither of these options, however, deals with the underlying problem, however, which is quite simply this - we will never eradicate compromise and contradiction in our lives. No one is free from the dirty little secrets we try to hide from ourselves and others; our closets are full of the skeletons of our past, and no matter how hard we try either try to keep the door closed, or open them up and sweep away the dust of these events, they continue to fill.
One alternative to the endless search for a life lived honestly is to accept the complexity with which we live, and to accept the ways we do not live up to our beliefs about ourselves. In so doing, we can, first, maybe make some headway on dealing with those parts of our lives of which we aren't so proud, or perhaps reconciling those parts of our lives that we separate by those imaginary walls that really don't work so well after all. One of the first tasks necessary for real maturity (as opposed to the psychobabble we too often are spoon fed) is to see ourselves as others see us, not as we imagine ourselves to be.
The first time I went through this exercise was in my early 20's. I was confronted by two different mentors with a picture of myself not only that I had never considered, but when presented with it, was inclined to dismiss out of hand (I won't go in to details). Yet, after thinking about what I had been told, in detail both excruciating and necessary, I realized that I had to take much more care in the future to be aware of the perceptions of others in how I lived my life because decisions I make, for whatever internal reasons, can be interpreted quite differently by others. Care for others is the first step in dealing with complexity.
We too often hear and read people who say, "I don't care what other people think, I'm just going to live my life." That's a wonderful attitude to take. If one is an adolescent still trying to figure out who he or she is. There is nothing "heroic" or "adult" or "mature" in the pose of the disconnected rebel. This is the pose of the fearful adolescent, really - fearful of the approbation of others, and cutting off the approbation before it can reach one's sense of equanimity. If we don't care what others think or say before they say it, if they say it it is already meaningless.
The roots of this kind of pose aren't so much courage in the face of a heartless world, but fear of the complexity and compromise necessary to live in the world. Sometimes we have to see that our lives are compromised, and yet do the best we can anyway. Sometimes we have to accept that we are not the best person we could be, and that's OK. Sometimes we have to accept that others see us in a way we never would have suspected - and some of these unsuspected ways are actually surprisingly good.
I know someone - and no, it isn't me - who accepts the complexity of life so fully, without any sense of irony or compromise or willingness to hedge bets, that I used to wonder how it is done (sorry for the passive voice, but I am trying to hide an identity here). When asked, this person just say, "This is my life." There is no fear of judgment, no desire to live with what other people call integrity. There is only the acceptance of the complexity of life - and the inherent insecurity that entails. Rather than a heroic stance towards life, this is one that shows courage, and I think real integrity. This person is an integrated individual because this person accepts life as it is, and makes choices based on that reality. What others might call "a wrong choice" is only wrong because these others aren't living this life, with these experiences. This person is aware of the perceptions of others, and is careful with the feelings of others, but only so far as they do not interfere with making choices that are necessary to make one happy.
I have learned a lot watching this person. I hope I learn how to live this way more completely, and honestly.
Most of us, I think, are uncomfortable with complexity. We figure out ways to ignore nuance, conflict, and even the contradictions in our lives. It is always easier to draw lines around parts of our lives, lines that become walls separating vital parts of our lives from each other. We traverse the walls separating out these different parts with care, and we never give a thought as to how the different parts, separated so assiduously from one another, interact in our lives.
Yet, aren't these walls largely figments of our imaginations? Trying to reconcile the irreconcilable in our lives can lead us, usually, in two, time-worn directions: 1) the cliche of "the double life"; 2) eradicate the contradictions and live "with integrity". Neither of these options, however, deals with the underlying problem, however, which is quite simply this - we will never eradicate compromise and contradiction in our lives. No one is free from the dirty little secrets we try to hide from ourselves and others; our closets are full of the skeletons of our past, and no matter how hard we try either try to keep the door closed, or open them up and sweep away the dust of these events, they continue to fill.
One alternative to the endless search for a life lived honestly is to accept the complexity with which we live, and to accept the ways we do not live up to our beliefs about ourselves. In so doing, we can, first, maybe make some headway on dealing with those parts of our lives of which we aren't so proud, or perhaps reconciling those parts of our lives that we separate by those imaginary walls that really don't work so well after all. One of the first tasks necessary for real maturity (as opposed to the psychobabble we too often are spoon fed) is to see ourselves as others see us, not as we imagine ourselves to be.
The first time I went through this exercise was in my early 20's. I was confronted by two different mentors with a picture of myself not only that I had never considered, but when presented with it, was inclined to dismiss out of hand (I won't go in to details). Yet, after thinking about what I had been told, in detail both excruciating and necessary, I realized that I had to take much more care in the future to be aware of the perceptions of others in how I lived my life because decisions I make, for whatever internal reasons, can be interpreted quite differently by others. Care for others is the first step in dealing with complexity.
We too often hear and read people who say, "I don't care what other people think, I'm just going to live my life." That's a wonderful attitude to take. If one is an adolescent still trying to figure out who he or she is. There is nothing "heroic" or "adult" or "mature" in the pose of the disconnected rebel. This is the pose of the fearful adolescent, really - fearful of the approbation of others, and cutting off the approbation before it can reach one's sense of equanimity. If we don't care what others think or say before they say it, if they say it it is already meaningless.
The roots of this kind of pose aren't so much courage in the face of a heartless world, but fear of the complexity and compromise necessary to live in the world. Sometimes we have to see that our lives are compromised, and yet do the best we can anyway. Sometimes we have to accept that we are not the best person we could be, and that's OK. Sometimes we have to accept that others see us in a way we never would have suspected - and some of these unsuspected ways are actually surprisingly good.
I know someone - and no, it isn't me - who accepts the complexity of life so fully, without any sense of irony or compromise or willingness to hedge bets, that I used to wonder how it is done (sorry for the passive voice, but I am trying to hide an identity here). When asked, this person just say, "This is my life." There is no fear of judgment, no desire to live with what other people call integrity. There is only the acceptance of the complexity of life - and the inherent insecurity that entails. Rather than a heroic stance towards life, this is one that shows courage, and I think real integrity. This person is an integrated individual because this person accepts life as it is, and makes choices based on that reality. What others might call "a wrong choice" is only wrong because these others aren't living this life, with these experiences. This person is aware of the perceptions of others, and is careful with the feelings of others, but only so far as they do not interfere with making choices that are necessary to make one happy.
I have learned a lot watching this person. I hope I learn how to live this way more completely, and honestly.
Faiths Of Our Fathers
The Pew Center On Religion and Public Life has published a comprehensive survey of American attitudes towards religion, and the results are surprising. About half of Americans church-shop once they become adults, and close to a quarter simply reject any religious affiliation all together. We are a nation whose public discourse is drenched in religious imagery, yet we are increasingly rejecting the hard-line idea that the religious life has to be a certain way. Indeed, while hardly as secular as Western Europe, we now have evidence that much of the rhetoric concerning religion in our collective life is meaningless to a larger and larger audience.
What's funny about this is that, in our household, we have two people who live on opposite ends of the results of this survey. I was baptized, confirmed, studied theology through, and continue my membership in, the United Methodist Church, for a variety of reasons from personal inertia through a belief in much of the Wesleyan approach to the Christian life. My wife, however, came to the UMC only in 1988. In fact, that was the year she started attending church on a regular basis for the first time in her life. Baptized and confirmed in the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, her grandfather being a pastor in that denomination, she did not grow up going to church. Her father had a falling out with the faith of his youth, and her family didn't go to church until her mother started seeing a man who attended the UMC in the town in which they lived. Lisa started going because of . . . a really cute guy. Within a couple years, she was a US2 missionary for the UMC; within another couple years, she was in seminary. Six years after first setting foot in a church, she was serving as an ordained deacon (under the old ordination rules). This is all good because the Missouri Synod doesn't ordain women, so she couldn't have answered her call there.
What was your religious affiliation growing up, what, if any is it now, and what were your reasons for making the choices you did?
What's funny about this is that, in our household, we have two people who live on opposite ends of the results of this survey. I was baptized, confirmed, studied theology through, and continue my membership in, the United Methodist Church, for a variety of reasons from personal inertia through a belief in much of the Wesleyan approach to the Christian life. My wife, however, came to the UMC only in 1988. In fact, that was the year she started attending church on a regular basis for the first time in her life. Baptized and confirmed in the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, her grandfather being a pastor in that denomination, she did not grow up going to church. Her father had a falling out with the faith of his youth, and her family didn't go to church until her mother started seeing a man who attended the UMC in the town in which they lived. Lisa started going because of . . . a really cute guy. Within a couple years, she was a US2 missionary for the UMC; within another couple years, she was in seminary. Six years after first setting foot in a church, she was serving as an ordained deacon (under the old ordination rules). This is all good because the Missouri Synod doesn't ordain women, so she couldn't have answered her call there.
What was your religious affiliation growing up, what, if any is it now, and what were your reasons for making the choices you did?
For Democracy Lover
I read Tbogg every single day. In fact, his is the third site I visit, after Sadly,No! and Think Progress. I need a smile when I first get up, and I usually end up laughing out loud when I read him. I rarely quote him, though, but today, I link and quote for the simple reason that he manages to say exactly what needs to be said in re lefty disdain for our compromised political process. Let me say, first, that I think the charges of compromise are accurate; yet, I have yet to have a substantive answer to my questions concerning the questions of power, with what the current system might be replaced in the real world, and so on. In any event, Tbogg constructs a wonderful answer to a "harrumphing" commenter who tries to call out Democrats for being wussies in the face of power, and why the left should extend the Magical Bird salute to them this fall in the form of a vote for Ralph "Vanity Fair" Nader:
Let me see if I can explain it this way:
Every year in Happy Gumdrop Fairy-Tale Land all of the sprites and elves and woodland creatures gather together to pick the Rainbow Sunshine Queen. Everyone is there: the Lollipop Guild, the Star-Twinkle Toddlers, the Sparkly Unicorns, the Cookie Baking Apple-cheeked Grandmothers, the Fluffy Bunny Bund, the Rumbly-Tumbly Pupperoos, the Snowflake Princesses, the Baby Duckies All-In-A-Row, the Laughing Babies, and the Dykes on Bikes. They have a big picnic with cupcakes and gumdrops and pudding pops, stopping only to cast their votes by throwing Magic Wishing Rocks into the Well of Laughter, Comity, and Good Intentions. Afterward they spend the rest of the night dancing and singing and waving glow sticks until dawn when they tumble sleepy-eyed into beds made of the purest and whitest goose down where they dream of angels and clouds of spun sugar.
You don't live there.
Grow the fuck up.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Our Stupid Discourse
I really don't have anything to add to what Glenn Greenwald writes about the ridiculous new narrative questioning Barack Obama's patriotism, including Greenwald's contention that Obama is doing exactly right in his response.
It might not be cowardice on the Democrats' part. They might just be stupid enough to tremble in fear at the thought that someone somewhere might think them unpatriotic.
It might not be cowardice on the Democrats' part. They might just be stupid enough to tremble in fear at the thought that someone somewhere might think them unpatriotic.
Music Monday
I've been noticing that a lot of contemporary "prog" and "neo-prog" bands sound an awful lot like Genesis during the period 1975-1983. Now, I'm a fan of Genesis, and I think that some of their best music was produced in this time span. I'm just not sure it's enough to generate an entire musical movement. Or maybe it is, and I'm just not musical enough to hear it. Anyway, here are some songs from this period, starting with the first song off what I think is the best record they put out between The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway and Genesis - Duke, "Behind the Lines":
This is perhaps the most disturbing song Genesis ever did. It is about a psychotic man who is with a prostitute, yet thinking he is with his mother. Yeah. It's called "Mama":
. . . And Then There Were Three was the first album they did after Steve Hackett left. The tracks are consistent, with a similar "sound" as it were, even as they alternate between Tony Banks songs and Mike Rutherford songs (the one Phil Collins track, "Follow You, Follow Me" is slightly different, more in tone than anything else). Of all the songs, though, I always liked "Deep in the Motherlode". Here's a bearded Phil Collins, with hair, probably slightly drunk, as he was deep in his own motherlode, the collapse of his first marriage which he chronicled on his first solo record. The sound on this clip just doesn't quite capture the song the way the cut on their second box set (also a live track) does, but oh, well.
This is perhaps the most disturbing song Genesis ever did. It is about a psychotic man who is with a prostitute, yet thinking he is with his mother. Yeah. It's called "Mama":
. . . And Then There Were Three was the first album they did after Steve Hackett left. The tracks are consistent, with a similar "sound" as it were, even as they alternate between Tony Banks songs and Mike Rutherford songs (the one Phil Collins track, "Follow You, Follow Me" is slightly different, more in tone than anything else). Of all the songs, though, I always liked "Deep in the Motherlode". Here's a bearded Phil Collins, with hair, probably slightly drunk, as he was deep in his own motherlode, the collapse of his first marriage which he chronicled on his first solo record. The sound on this clip just doesn't quite capture the song the way the cut on their second box set (also a live track) does, but oh, well.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Discrimination Based On Sound Business Principles
What follows is inspired by this little post by Matt Yglesias. Believe it or not, this is something about which I have given much passing thought. In a general sense, I have wondered about the ways in which certain diseases strike certain individuals. In my family, three of my grandparents made it in to their 80's, and my paternal grandmother lived to be 95 (my maternal grandmother only lived to be 64; had she lived even 20 years later, she might have made it through the breast cancer that killed her). I have seen young people with leukemia, testicular cancer, lymphoma, MS, and other debilitating illnesses. My father-in-law, who died in 2001 at the age of 58, had a personal and family history of cardiovascular disease (he died from a pulmonary embolism).
At the same time, I see people who live long, healthy lives, or perhaps long and not-so-healthy, but certainly long lives. I look at my parents, now officially in their mid-80's, and only recently slowing down (three years ago, they made the drive from upstate New York for a week's visit out here on the prairie). I know people twenty years my parents' juniors who would be hard pressed to make a journey half as long.
There just seems to be a place for DNA in this odd distribution of ailments and diseases. Some folks just seem to have superior genetic material, and either fight off microbial disease or manage to stave off the worst excesses of genetic breakdown that result in cancer. There is nothing fair about this; nor is there anything particularly wrong with it, either. It's just the way the biological cookie crumbles sometimes, as harsh as that sounds.
Yet, as Yglesias points out, the kinds of genetic testing which will in all likelihood be developed over the next few decades will only put the whole issue in sharper focus, as insurers push harder and harder to avoid risky investments. So, you are a young man whose paternal line has a history of cardiovascular disease, you are edging towards obesity and diabetes? Or, you are a young woman who has a history of breast cancer in your family? I would guess that insurance companies would take one look at your genes and say, "So sorry."
On the one hand, this makes perfect sense. Folks who are already infected with HIV can be denied coverage; folks with other chronic diseases who do not have insurance can be denied. Why not extend that principle to those with faulty genetic material, making them more prone to illnesses requiring all sorts of payouts from insurance carriers?
Except, of course, we have a problem here, do we not? When this is boiled down to its most basic level, I just want to know how this is substantively different from discriminating against people because of the color of their skin color. Indeed, one could even argue that such discrimination is also sound, from the point-of-view of a health insurance provider - sickle cell, Taysachs Disease, high blood pressure anyone?
I think this is not an argument for regulating these kinds of things out-of-bounds for insurance companies. Rather, I think it is an argument for scrapping private insurers all together and going to national health care. We are not responsible for the genetic material that makes us who we are, including those faulty genes that may make us more susceptible to this illness or that one. I see no reason why good economic sense should condemn millions of Americans to bad or no health care through no fault of their own.
At the same time, I see people who live long, healthy lives, or perhaps long and not-so-healthy, but certainly long lives. I look at my parents, now officially in their mid-80's, and only recently slowing down (three years ago, they made the drive from upstate New York for a week's visit out here on the prairie). I know people twenty years my parents' juniors who would be hard pressed to make a journey half as long.
There just seems to be a place for DNA in this odd distribution of ailments and diseases. Some folks just seem to have superior genetic material, and either fight off microbial disease or manage to stave off the worst excesses of genetic breakdown that result in cancer. There is nothing fair about this; nor is there anything particularly wrong with it, either. It's just the way the biological cookie crumbles sometimes, as harsh as that sounds.
Yet, as Yglesias points out, the kinds of genetic testing which will in all likelihood be developed over the next few decades will only put the whole issue in sharper focus, as insurers push harder and harder to avoid risky investments. So, you are a young man whose paternal line has a history of cardiovascular disease, you are edging towards obesity and diabetes? Or, you are a young woman who has a history of breast cancer in your family? I would guess that insurance companies would take one look at your genes and say, "So sorry."
On the one hand, this makes perfect sense. Folks who are already infected with HIV can be denied coverage; folks with other chronic diseases who do not have insurance can be denied. Why not extend that principle to those with faulty genetic material, making them more prone to illnesses requiring all sorts of payouts from insurance carriers?
Except, of course, we have a problem here, do we not? When this is boiled down to its most basic level, I just want to know how this is substantively different from discriminating against people because of the color of their skin color. Indeed, one could even argue that such discrimination is also sound, from the point-of-view of a health insurance provider - sickle cell, Taysachs Disease, high blood pressure anyone?
I think this is not an argument for regulating these kinds of things out-of-bounds for insurance companies. Rather, I think it is an argument for scrapping private insurers all together and going to national health care. We are not responsible for the genetic material that makes us who we are, including those faulty genes that may make us more susceptible to this illness or that one. I see no reason why good economic sense should condemn millions of Americans to bad or no health care through no fault of their own.
It's Not As Much Fun As Making Up Racist Remarks
In a piece in the Outlook section of The Washington Post, former adviser to John Edwards' Presidential campaign Michael Signer writes an impassioned plea for reporters covering the campaigns to do some serious stories in the national press on the foreign policy proposals of the candidates. In his plea he asks not very rhetorically why it is these reporters don't cover this kind of thing. He cites several substantive speeched by Edwards, Obama, and Clinton that received almost no coverage in the major press. Indeed he even relates a discussion with a reporter who claimed the candidates haven't "said anything" about foreign policy.
In response to Signer's question, I would offer a couple explanation, the weight of each dependent upon one's view of the press. In the first instance, I believe the reporters don't cover them because they honestly believe the American people don't care about foreign policy all that much. Never mind that we've got American troops engaged in combat in two countries in Asia; never mind the endless declarations that we are a nation "at war"; never mind we are reminded every day that war is with, depending on who's talking and what they're saying, "Islam", "Terror", or "Evil-doers". Indeed, never mind that there are other threats and promises abroad of far greater importance, that the candidates have spoken to these issues, and the press has given a collective "ho hum" to it all.
I also think campaign reporters are far less interested in issues than in the campaign itself - who's ahead, who's behind, who's in, who's out. That kind of thing is far more interesting, as well as riveting, than abstruse policy proposals that will only matter is the candidate wins. The day-to-day intrigue and positioning of candidates and their staffs, that's the stuff that really matters.
In line with these two things is the persistence of nonsense stories - the playing of the race card; the role of Bill Clinton in his wife's campaign; remarks by Barack Obama's wife; Edwards' infamous haircut and house; McCain's relationship with a female lobbyist - that dominate our discourse. It isn't that stories on policy aren't done. They are drowned out in the chorus of crap that swells to fortissimo every time something trivial comes down the wires. That much of this trivia is also wrong, false, or misconstrued misses the point. This is the way, for better or worse, politics is played in this country, and to pretend that we do better when we focus on issues misses the point that we rarely have done so. Whether it's a photo of Michael Dukakis sitting in a tank, or Bill Clinton blowing a saxophone (God, I used the word "blow" in a sentence with Bill Clinton again without thinking), or Al Gore inventing the internet, this kind of stuff - regardless of its veracity or importance - weighs far more in the minds of those who shape the way campaigns are run than any question of policy.
It's so much more fun to wonder about Obama's patriotism than it is to wonder how he will deal with a rising Russia.
In response to Signer's question, I would offer a couple explanation, the weight of each dependent upon one's view of the press. In the first instance, I believe the reporters don't cover them because they honestly believe the American people don't care about foreign policy all that much. Never mind that we've got American troops engaged in combat in two countries in Asia; never mind the endless declarations that we are a nation "at war"; never mind we are reminded every day that war is with, depending on who's talking and what they're saying, "Islam", "Terror", or "Evil-doers". Indeed, never mind that there are other threats and promises abroad of far greater importance, that the candidates have spoken to these issues, and the press has given a collective "ho hum" to it all.
I also think campaign reporters are far less interested in issues than in the campaign itself - who's ahead, who's behind, who's in, who's out. That kind of thing is far more interesting, as well as riveting, than abstruse policy proposals that will only matter is the candidate wins. The day-to-day intrigue and positioning of candidates and their staffs, that's the stuff that really matters.
In line with these two things is the persistence of nonsense stories - the playing of the race card; the role of Bill Clinton in his wife's campaign; remarks by Barack Obama's wife; Edwards' infamous haircut and house; McCain's relationship with a female lobbyist - that dominate our discourse. It isn't that stories on policy aren't done. They are drowned out in the chorus of crap that swells to fortissimo every time something trivial comes down the wires. That much of this trivia is also wrong, false, or misconstrued misses the point. This is the way, for better or worse, politics is played in this country, and to pretend that we do better when we focus on issues misses the point that we rarely have done so. Whether it's a photo of Michael Dukakis sitting in a tank, or Bill Clinton blowing a saxophone (God, I used the word "blow" in a sentence with Bill Clinton again without thinking), or Al Gore inventing the internet, this kind of stuff - regardless of its veracity or importance - weighs far more in the minds of those who shape the way campaigns are run than any question of policy.
It's so much more fun to wonder about Obama's patriotism than it is to wonder how he will deal with a rising Russia.
A Fanatic's Love
I'm currently deep in to Gary Giddins' Visions of Jazz: Its First Century, a most unusual history of this most American of art forms. Had Ken Burns eschewed traditional chronological/personal/formal history, and created his documentary Jazz along similar lines, it would have been far better than it was. Giddins' book is, in essence, a written box set, a series of relatively short overviews of the lives, the music, the songs, and the settings of jazz throughout its improbable run as, first, a racially divided source of inspiration; the sound that gave a generation its name; the revolt of the post-modernists who insisted that jazz live up to its intellectual potential; the fear of and acquiescence to rock, including amplification; and its final resting place as a plethora of styles rooted in a rhythmic style and harmonic and melodic openness to just about everything. Nothing exemplifies the contemporary state of jazz to me more than the Grammy-award-winning CD in which free jazz bassist Charlie Haden and jazz guitarist Pat Metheny (known for his lush orchestrations using either keyboardist Lyle Mays or a real orchestra) play together, Beyond the Missouri Skyline.
Giddins knows the linear, traditional history of the music. He has listened to, and absorbed, every phrase, every solo, every harmony, every variation on "Body and Soul" and "Old Rocking Chair" that exists. He knew, either well or in passing, some of the best musicians to play, from elder statesman Roy Eldridge through the titan Sonny Rollins and Ornette Coleman. His work is singular in that he manages to present in words on paper, an impression of what this music he loves so well and knows so thoroughly, does to listeners. It is a soloist's art, uniquely American in that it celebrates the power of the individual to be heroic, even as that hero is supported by a motley crew without whom that heroic individualism would be impossible.
He also celebrates some interesting, forgotten people. Who in the world was Bobby Hackett? Why, he was a Muzak performer who also played some amazing solos. Frank Sinatra? Giddins admits he was of jazz without being in jazz; yet his interpretation of pop songs, his ersatz recordings with arrangers Nelson Riddle and Johnny Mercer would have been impossible without Louis Armstrong or Billie Holliday. Giddins celebrates the power and artistry of Roy Eldridge who, had Louis Armstrong never existed, would be celebrated today as the singular genius of the trumpet. Giddins reminds readers that without Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young, Charlie Parker and Sonny Rollins would not have understood the breadth of possibilities of both song and instrument.
I wish that someone would do something similar to rock music. The standard history of rock has been told so many times, and always with the same emphases - the rise of r&b and a new wave of country music in the early 1950's, given a synthesis in the guitar of Chuck Berry (a country musician at heart) and the swagger of Elvis Presley (who speeded up "Kentucky Moon" in one of his first releases). Only lately has Ike Turner's "Rocket 88", an early '50's r&b classic relegated to the fringes of the mainstream, been recognized as the first true rock and roll song.
How much better to move beyond a celebration of these earliest, primitive forays, through the overtaking by the major labels (if I have to read about the Brill Building again I might throw up), and even the Beatles, and remember the Kinks. How much better to recall that the biggest selling concert act in the years 1965 through 1967 was not the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, but Herman's Hermits (Jimi Hendrix opened for the Hermits on his first, and their last, tour of the United States). How much better to take the Beach Boys off the beach and leave them in the studio where they belong?
One of the greatest crimes of the standard history of rock music (I encountered it in the standard, The Rolling Stone History of Rock and Roll, written in three separate sections, denoting the early years up to the Beatles; the period from their ascendance through their demise; and the post-Beatles shattering of consensus) has been the puling and whining that, after John, Paul, George, and Ringo went their separate ways, "the music" no longer had an anchor, as it were. This is wrong for several reasons, not the least of which is that it places far too much on the four young men from Liverpool to imagine that they were the anchor of rock in the 1960's. What of Bob Dylan, the Rascals, the Doors, Motown, the Yardbirds, the Buffalo Springfield? What of the relationship between the Everly Brother's countrified rock and roll and Richie Furay's Poco, which did much the same thing, only to be watered down and over-produced (and sell a lot more records) in The Eagles? Why do standard histories of rock and roll include long reviews of James Taylor or Paul Simon, who were more or less crooners with guitars (Simon was briefly a toiler in the Brill Building factory; some of Taylor's songs were arrangements of Carole King songs, and King, too, had spent years at Brill)? Why is prog denigrated as a dilution of rock, and heavy metal lampooned as noise for neanderthals, rather than as serious attempts to take the music to places - emotionally and artistically - that were accessible to millions of fans?
It would be nice to read a history of rock the celebrated the song-writing of Ray Davies as much as Lennon/McCartney; the studio technique of Brian Wilson, rather than just his song-writing; the way the Rascals' "Good Lovin'" provided a template for both music and lyrics as the sixties moved from its mid- to its late- period? It might even be nice to discount the late Lester Bangs' love-affair with the Stooges and MC5, and later British punk, and celebrate a more mature, post-revolt attempt to take the pieces and put them back together (PiL, and Joe Strummer's post-Clash bands are far better and more effective than either the Sex Pistols or the Clash).
So, maybe like Giddins, it would be nice to read a fan's history of rock, written the way rock is supposed to be - loud, boisterous, upsetting our conceits and traditions and sense of complacency. It should be gritty and sexy, carnal and angry. It should also be by turns short and to the point, and perhaps a bit longer and more thoughtful. It should synthesize what has been done, but also overturn our comfortable assumptions about what this music is, what it has done, what it means, and whether or not it has a future (here, I have some doubts, because for the past twenty years or so, we have been recycling styles; hip-hop is the real music factory today, although that, too, is already getting a bit old).
Who knows, maybe I'll do it.
As if I had time.
Giddins knows the linear, traditional history of the music. He has listened to, and absorbed, every phrase, every solo, every harmony, every variation on "Body and Soul" and "Old Rocking Chair" that exists. He knew, either well or in passing, some of the best musicians to play, from elder statesman Roy Eldridge through the titan Sonny Rollins and Ornette Coleman. His work is singular in that he manages to present in words on paper, an impression of what this music he loves so well and knows so thoroughly, does to listeners. It is a soloist's art, uniquely American in that it celebrates the power of the individual to be heroic, even as that hero is supported by a motley crew without whom that heroic individualism would be impossible.
He also celebrates some interesting, forgotten people. Who in the world was Bobby Hackett? Why, he was a Muzak performer who also played some amazing solos. Frank Sinatra? Giddins admits he was of jazz without being in jazz; yet his interpretation of pop songs, his ersatz recordings with arrangers Nelson Riddle and Johnny Mercer would have been impossible without Louis Armstrong or Billie Holliday. Giddins celebrates the power and artistry of Roy Eldridge who, had Louis Armstrong never existed, would be celebrated today as the singular genius of the trumpet. Giddins reminds readers that without Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young, Charlie Parker and Sonny Rollins would not have understood the breadth of possibilities of both song and instrument.
I wish that someone would do something similar to rock music. The standard history of rock has been told so many times, and always with the same emphases - the rise of r&b and a new wave of country music in the early 1950's, given a synthesis in the guitar of Chuck Berry (a country musician at heart) and the swagger of Elvis Presley (who speeded up "Kentucky Moon" in one of his first releases). Only lately has Ike Turner's "Rocket 88", an early '50's r&b classic relegated to the fringes of the mainstream, been recognized as the first true rock and roll song.
How much better to move beyond a celebration of these earliest, primitive forays, through the overtaking by the major labels (if I have to read about the Brill Building again I might throw up), and even the Beatles, and remember the Kinks. How much better to recall that the biggest selling concert act in the years 1965 through 1967 was not the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, but Herman's Hermits (Jimi Hendrix opened for the Hermits on his first, and their last, tour of the United States). How much better to take the Beach Boys off the beach and leave them in the studio where they belong?
One of the greatest crimes of the standard history of rock music (I encountered it in the standard, The Rolling Stone History of Rock and Roll, written in three separate sections, denoting the early years up to the Beatles; the period from their ascendance through their demise; and the post-Beatles shattering of consensus) has been the puling and whining that, after John, Paul, George, and Ringo went their separate ways, "the music" no longer had an anchor, as it were. This is wrong for several reasons, not the least of which is that it places far too much on the four young men from Liverpool to imagine that they were the anchor of rock in the 1960's. What of Bob Dylan, the Rascals, the Doors, Motown, the Yardbirds, the Buffalo Springfield? What of the relationship between the Everly Brother's countrified rock and roll and Richie Furay's Poco, which did much the same thing, only to be watered down and over-produced (and sell a lot more records) in The Eagles? Why do standard histories of rock and roll include long reviews of James Taylor or Paul Simon, who were more or less crooners with guitars (Simon was briefly a toiler in the Brill Building factory; some of Taylor's songs were arrangements of Carole King songs, and King, too, had spent years at Brill)? Why is prog denigrated as a dilution of rock, and heavy metal lampooned as noise for neanderthals, rather than as serious attempts to take the music to places - emotionally and artistically - that were accessible to millions of fans?
It would be nice to read a history of rock the celebrated the song-writing of Ray Davies as much as Lennon/McCartney; the studio technique of Brian Wilson, rather than just his song-writing; the way the Rascals' "Good Lovin'" provided a template for both music and lyrics as the sixties moved from its mid- to its late- period? It might even be nice to discount the late Lester Bangs' love-affair with the Stooges and MC5, and later British punk, and celebrate a more mature, post-revolt attempt to take the pieces and put them back together (PiL, and Joe Strummer's post-Clash bands are far better and more effective than either the Sex Pistols or the Clash).
So, maybe like Giddins, it would be nice to read a fan's history of rock, written the way rock is supposed to be - loud, boisterous, upsetting our conceits and traditions and sense of complacency. It should be gritty and sexy, carnal and angry. It should also be by turns short and to the point, and perhaps a bit longer and more thoughtful. It should synthesize what has been done, but also overturn our comfortable assumptions about what this music is, what it has done, what it means, and whether or not it has a future (here, I have some doubts, because for the past twenty years or so, we have been recycling styles; hip-hop is the real music factory today, although that, too, is already getting a bit old).
Who knows, maybe I'll do it.
As if I had time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Virtual Tin Cup
