The Quotidian Meander

This Blog Closing Down

2006-01-15T09:18:00.000-06:00

"The Quotidian Meander" will be coming down in the next couple of weeks. Having started my new photography blog at http://theonlinephotographer.blogspot.com, I find I really don't have the time or the inclination to keep two blogs going. Since The Online Photographer is by far the more popular, this one has to go.

I just wanted to thank you for coming here. The United States is without question becoming a fascist state, or at least much more of a fascist state than it has traditionally been. America's best hope at the moment is in the Democrats winning the 2006 Congressional elections and taking back Congress; George Bush will then be impeached, and perhaps the neofascist movement will be stopped, or at least slowed down.

As quoted in the New Yor Times this morning, Rahm Emanuel, Democratic representative from Illinois, said, "George Bush won the election. If you don't like it, you better win elections."

Amen.

Solidarnosc,

Mike Johnston

What the...?

2005-12-08T11:14:00.000-06:00

I'm astonished to report that Even Hitler Had a Convertible just sold copy number 4!! Did my mother finally figure out how to order a copy, I wonder, or did some unrelated person out there actually want it?

It's not often a product's total sales go up 33% in one fell swoop.

On the other hand, someday it will be one of the world's rarest books.

The Quotidian Meander

New Photography Blog

2005-11-29T11:27:00.000-06:00

It's possibly way too early to mention this, but due to popular demand I've started an all-photography blog. It's called The Online Photographer blog, and the web address is:

http://theonlinephotographer.blogspot.com

There's one rule...no politics. :-)

There's nothing much up yet (I only started it yesterday). But if you're one of the QM readers who are also photographers, well...you're cordially invited to check it out from time to time. Especially once it gets going.

The Quotidian Meander

Did Bush Mislead the Public?

2005-11-28T15:51:00.000-06:00

If any Republican tries to tell you that Bush never "deliberately" misled the public, send 'em to this link:

http://www.democrats.reform.house.gov/IraqOnTheRecord/index.asp?viewAll=1&Speaker=President+George+W%2E+Bush

It outlines chapter and verse on 55 specific misleading statements the President made.

For those not yet convinced.

The Quotidian Meander

'X' Marks the Spot

2005-11-22T23:44:00.000-06:00

It takes a machine glich to express how I feel about the lies and propaganda that comes from the mouth of the VPOTUS every time he opens it....

The Quotidian Meander

Quote of the Day

2005-11-22T09:48:00.000-06:00

"Creationism is mythology. Intelligent design is mythology. It's not science. They try to make it sound like science. It clearly is not."

--Professor Paul Mirecki, Chairman of the Religious Studies Department at the University of Kansas, announcing a University course called "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies."

The Quotidian Meander

Happy Anniversary

2005-11-15T07:24:00.000-06:00

Today is the 35th anniversary of the march on Washington, which set a record at the time for the largest public demonstration in United States history. A quarter of a million demonstrators peacefully called for an immediate U.S. withdrawal from Viet Nam.

The administration a year later talked of the "nattering nabobs of negativism" (a phrase spoken by Spiro Agnew but written by William Safire) in the press, and attempted to spin public opinion by suggesting that not supporting the war was unpatriotic.

How times have changed.

The Quotidian Meander

Devolution in Kansas

2005-11-10T07:57:00.000-06:00

The QM notes with considerable amusement that magic is now to be taught in Kansas schools. The so-called "Intelligent Design" "theory" (which evolved from Creationism, which evolved from Biblical fundamentalism) has been mandated to be force-fed to Kansas students along with accepted theories of biology. Thus does metaphysics drive its wedge into science, and thus does Kansas demonstrate the pitfalls of public education by fiat.

It seems to me that if an intelligence designed Kansans, they would have the wit to follow the lead of scientists in such matters, instead of capitulating to the wilfull ignorance of non-scientists pining for official reinforcement of supernatural fantasies.

In a perhaps not unrelated development, they are giving away free land in Kansas (click the link), to try to entice people to move there from elsewhere and reverse the declining population. Perhaps if Kansans would resist their impulses to reconstitute medieval world-views, they would do better at that project.

The Quotidian Meander

Re the Alito Nomination...

2005-11-02T15:12:00.000-06:00

"One group is breathing a big sigh of relief: Corporate America. Of the dozen or so names on Bush's rumored short list of high court candidates, Alito ranked near the top for the boardroom set. In the 800-plus opinions he has penned during his 15 years as a federal judge, Alito consistently has come down on the side of limiting corporate liability, limiting employee rights, and limiting federal regulation."

"Why Big Business Likes Alito" Business Week, November 1st 2005

The Quotidian Meander

Any Day Now

2005-10-26T12:54:00.000-05:00

By Pat Oliphant. Click on image to see larger version.

Blind Rage

2005-10-26T11:18:00.000-05:00

U.S. deaths in Iraq have surpassed 2,000, which the White House and other Republican partisans are calling inconsequential, an arbitrary landmark. Arbitrary it may be; the President calls for more "sacrifice," an apt word for once.

It's worthwhile to remember that 15,000 soldiers have also been badly injured or permanently maimed. That's a ratio of 1 dead to 7.5 seriously injured. The bare minimum of Iraqis killed is put at 30,000 by most news organizations; if the ratio holds true, we might assume 225,000 serious injuries to Iraqis.

The Republicans are correct that by the standards of most wars, 2,000 dead and 15,000 maimed is paltry. More soldiers died on single days in many of America's wars. Even Iraqi casualties pale by comparison with the wholesale slaughter of Iraq's war with Iran.

There are really only two cases in which the 2k/15k numbers should be significant to us: 1. If our soldiers are dying for a just, pressing, and noble cause; or 2. If they are dying uselessly. In the former case, their sacrifice becomes disproportionately important to the rest of us, on whose behalf they are fighting. (For instance, 507 pilots and aircrew died in the Battle of Britain, an immeasurably meaningful sacrifice. Those dead are still greatly honored in Britain, and probably always will be.)

It is case #2, however, that opponents of the war invoke to claim significance for the 2,000 "mark on the wall." It seems a shame for Americans to have to die for nothing. Or for them to die for some arcane and/or radical notion of oil-related Geopolitics. And if they are indeed dying for a poor cause, then the 2,000 number becomes significant--because it is an outrage, a pity, an affront to decency.

History will record, I believe, that America's leaders were cynical in the extreme in instituting this war--and that the American people, for their part, were merely striking out blindly in a rage over 9/11, not mindful of who was hit...as long as someone was.

That is not something anyone's child should have to die for.

The Quotidian Meander

Stolen, by Alec Baldwin

2005-10-24T18:53:00.000-05:00

By Alec Baldwin (I stole this from Huffpo, but it sure echoes my sentiments)

In today's NY Times, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas, in reference to the Fitzgerald/ CIA leak investigation, is quoted as saying that she hoped "that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on the crime and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation was not a waste of time and taxpayer dollars."

If you check the online record you will see that this is the same Kay Bailey Hutchison that voted in favor of both counts of impeachment against Bill Clinton. More disturbingly, she writes in the Congressional record dated February 17th, 1999:

"I do not hold the view of our Constitution that there must be an actual, indictable crime in order for an act of a public officer to be impeachable. It is clear to this Senator that there are, indeed, circumstances, short of a felony criminal offense, that would justify the removal of a public officer from office, including the President of the United States. Manifest injury to the Office of the President, to our Nation and to the American people and gross abuse of trust and of public office clearly can reach the level of intensity that would justify the impeachment and removal of a leader."

My question for today is: Why are contemporary Republicans so full of shit? And a follow-up...How did the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and General Eisenhower get taken over by such lying, thieving, self-serving scoundrels?

(Alec Baldwin)

Last Call

2005-10-23T17:34:00.000-05:00

I'm going to delete this book from my Lulu account soon (that is, it will no longer be available for purchase), so if you would like a copy, please order it soon.

www.lulu/com/bearpaw

Arrest warrant issued for lawmaker DeLay

2005-10-19T15:14:00.000-05:00

HOUSTON (Reuters)--An arrest warrant was issued on Wednesday and bail set at $10,000 for former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay ahead of his scheduled court appearance this week in Austin, Texas for money laundering and conspiracy charges, a Texas court clerk said.

The so-called "capias" was a "purely procedural event" but would require DeLay to turn himself into authorities to be fingerprinted and photographed, Travis County Grand Jury Clerk Linda Estrada said.

Court officials said DeLay was expected to go to Fort Bend County jail in his district near Houston for booking, but that had not been confirmed.

"To any sheriff or peace officer of the state of Texas, greetings, you are hereby commanded to arrest Thomas Dale DeLay and keep him safely so that you have him before the 331st Judicial District Court of Travis County," the warrant said.

DeLay has been charged with conspiracy and money laundering in a campaign finance scheme tied to his political action committee, Texans for a Republican Majority.

He has denied any wrongdoing, but is accused of laundering $190,000 in corporate campaign contributions through the Republican National Committee for distribution to Republican candidates for the Texas Legislature in 2002.

Texas law forbids the use of corporate money in political campaigns.

He is scheduled to make his first court appearance on Friday before state District Judge Bob Perkins.

Neither a DeLay spokesman nor his lawyer was immediately available for comment.

(Reuters)

Response to Poverty: Cut Relief to the Bone

2005-10-18T13:56:00.000-05:00

Hundreds of thousands of Katrina survivors are homeless, jobless, without health coverage--added to the millions already poor in America.

The right wing's response? Cut Medicaid, food stamps, housing and other vital services still deeper.

Hard to believe--but this Thursday the House of Representatives is expected to vote on increasing the cuts in vital programs (such as Medicaid, food stamps, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), child welfare services, SSI, unemployment insurance, child support, etc.) from $35 billion to $50 billion. Forces in the Senate would also like to cut more. In addition, House right-wing members are calling for across-the-board cuts of all the other programs--including housing, education, public health, nutrition, child care, etc. (True Majority)

Most Americans don't get this. They don't understand that the corporate-fascist imperative is to shower aid and advantages on huge corporations while at the same time reducing or revoking anything that helps individual, everyday citizens.

The emerging world model seems to be, of all countries, China: Near-runaway capitalism coupled to a non-democratic, oppressive, authoritarian social regime. We're not there yet, but America is heading in that direction on rails.

Beware.

The Quotidian Meander

Bush Remains Hugely Popular

2005-10-16T12:59:00.000-05:00

I sure wish I wasn't such a slow reader. I read a mere 30 to 50 books a year, and every day of my life I feel the pressure. I have a friend who was a champion swimmer in his youth, and he says he is still haunted by the memory of swimming laps against the clock and constantly being behind, striving to keep up but gradually falling farther and farther back no matter how hard he tried. That's what I feel like when it comes to staying informed and exposing myself to ideas. I'm always behind, and always falling further behind.

And as if that weren't bad enough, I forget half of what I do read. I have an embarrassing habit of forgetting the very titles of the books I've read recently, which makes it seem like nothing stuck in my head at all. It's not quite that bad, but I have to constantly work to try to keep my memory in halfway decent shape.

Re-reading books would help set them in my memory, but, probably owing to my limited capacity to absorb them in the first place, I seldom re-read anything. Recently, however, I've been trying to re-read all of George Orwell. As I've done so, one thing about Orwell (besides what a delight he is to read) seems most prominent.

A fool's game
Predicting the future has always been a fool's game. It is for one thing unprovable until it happens or doesn't happen, so any fool can say anything with about the same chances of truth-value. Consider Marx, for example. Marx's critiques of capitalism were brilliant, and should be read by any individual claiming to be educated, at least in summary. But his pronouncements about the "inevitable" future course of history were, to put it mildly, way, way off the mark.

Even Jesus Christ was woefully bad at predicting the future. As Michael Grant's book Jesus makes clear, Jesus spent most of his ministry preparing for the coming of the Kingdom of God, which he thought was imminent. Almost two thousand years later, the same predictions--called the "rapture" this time, a concept the popularity of which I will never understand--is big business. But it still hasn't happened. (Why the prophets of "rapture" think they're better at predicting the future than Jesus himself was seems a mystery, but never mind.)

Orwell, however, is a different story. He died in 1950, but it's just amazing how prescient he was about what was happening in the world. His insights are still remarkably fresh today. His vision of 1984 hasn't exactly come true, any more than the Russian Revolution took place among farm animals, but in terms of psychological truth-telling it has only gained with the passage of time. Reading Orwell and Affluenza (another of the books currently on my bedstand) at the same time is eye-opening. Orwell's devotion to the unvarnished truth meant that his agenda was formed by his clear vision of the world, rather than the other way around, as it is with most of us humans.

And now for something completely different
Looking at things the wrong-way round is often enlightening. For instance, one thing that's stuck me recently is how the press is universally reporting that Bush's approval ratings are low. Sorry, but that doesn't jibe with the way I see it. A whopping 37% of the American population still thinks Bush is doing "a good job" as President? Holy cow. Given the situation in government and in the country as a whole, that seems to me like an enormous number.

I mean, just take a look at a couple of random facts. The Comptroller General of the United States says that 2004 was the most fiscally reckless in our entire history. Bush's Brain, a.k.a. Turd Blossom, just made his fourth command appearance before a Grand Jury. We have to find a way to dispose of an estimated 22 million tons of wreckage along the Gulf Coast. And of course there's good news and bad news out of Iraq; the good news being that they're making steps towards democracy, the bad news being that if they were truly democratic, they'd promptly vote an authoritarian Islamic theocracy into power.

And, somewhat to my amusement, the President's biggest critics these days are actually Republicans. They've just gotten their first whiff of how terminally pig-headed the man is. After five years of Bush telling the country and the world that it's going to be the way he says it's going to be just because he says so, they're apparently surprised--and in no small measure angered--that he's now doing the same thing to them.

But still, 37% of the population are so partisan, or so brainwashed, or so single-issue, or so corporately co-opted, or so distracted, or so advantaged, that they can still report to pollsters that they think Bush is doing a good job. As I've said before, if that's a good job, one can only wonder what a bad job would be. It's a situation Orwell would have found compelling.

The Quotidian Meander

Coinkydink? You Decide

2005-10-15T17:49:00.000-05:00

One of the conventions or truisms in postmodern America is that when something is a "conspiracy theory," it's crazy, perpetrated by outer-fringe whackos who can't tell the Good Book from the Hale-Bopp comet. And maybe the following suggests an M.O. on the part of the Administration that isn't entirely on the up-and-up, which some will reject out of hand on the "conspiracy theory" basis.

Still, it seemed mighty bald to me when Bush made what the Administration termed a "major speech on terrorism" and then, later that same day, New York City was knocked on its butt by warnings of imminent attacks on the subway system.

Turns out that this is not the first time such a thing has happened. MSNBC's Keith Olberman reports that "in the last three years there had been about 13 similar coincidences--a political downturn for the administration, followed by a 'terror event'--a change in alert status, an arrest, a warning."

Click the title to read the whole article.

The Quotidian Meander

The "QM" Now a Book!

2005-10-14T23:17:00.000-05:00

I'm pleased to announce that the best of "The Quotidian Meander" is now anthologized as a printed book. It's called "Even Hitler Had a Convertible." If you're among those who are concerned about the direction our country is taking, and would either like to have this blog in revised, edited, and printed form, or would like to send it to a friend, please check the link by clicking on the title above.

Apropos of not much, the consarned thing took me forever to lay out. If you find any typos, I'd be obliged if you'd let me know!

Suicide Bombing

2005-10-10T13:09:00.000-05:00

"Suicide bombing is now so commonplace in our world that most of us have lost sight of just how unimaginable it should be. It is, perhaps, the least likely thing human beings could ever be inclined to do. What, after all, is less likely than large numbers of middle class, educated, psychologically healthy people intentionally blowing themselves up--in crowds of children, in front of the offices of the Red Cross, at weddings--and having their mothers sing their praises for it? Can we even conceive of a more profligate misuse of human life? As a cultural phenomenon, suicide bombing should be impossible. But here it is."

(Sam Harris)

The Quotidian Meander

The Future, by Wendell Berry

2005-10-08T14:32:00.000-05:00

The Future
by Wendell Berry

For God's sake, be done
with this jabber of "a better world."
What blasphemy! No "futuristic"
twit or child thereof ever
in embodied light will see
a better world than this, though they
foretell inevitably a worse.
Do something! Go cut the weeds
beside the oblivious road. Pick up
the cans and bottles, old tires,
and dead predictions. No future
can be stuffed into this presence
except by being dead. The day is
clear and bright, and overhead
the sun not yet half finished
with his daily praise.

The Quotidian Meander
(Thanks to WK for sending this)

...And if God Told You to Jump Off a Bridge?

2005-10-06T16:06:00.000-05:00

In Elusive Peace: Israel and the Arabs, a major three-part series on BBC TWO (at 9:00 p.m. on Monday 10, Monday 17 and Monday 24 October), Abu Mazen, Palestinian Prime Minister, and Nabil Shaath, his Foreign Minister, describe their first meeting with President Bush in June 2003:

Nabil Shaath says: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, "George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan." And I did, and then God would tell me, "George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq…" And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, "Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East." And by God I'm gonna do it.'"

The Quotidian Meander
(Thanks to Scott L. for sending this)

It Would Be...Noteworthy

2005-10-06T12:16:00.000-05:00

Just a couple of odd items: my local news this morning reported that 370,000 people were thrown out of work by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Last night, NBC news reported that the federal government awarded a no-bid contract to an Alaska firm to build a large number of temporary classrooms for Mississippi. An Alaska firm that has never built temporary classrooms before. (They look more or less like large double-wide trailers.) The government paid $85,000 each. Meanwhile, a local Mississippi contractor who has built temporary classrooms before said he would have done the job for $55,000 each--and if he'd gotten the contract it "most probably" would have created jobs in Mississippi.

NBC also reported that the government is paying $2,500 per residence for a crew to cover up the damaged parts of residential roofs with blue tarps. In many cases, that's approximately what it would cost to reshingle the roofs permanently.

Now, you see? This is the big problem with no-bid contracts. Because I, personally, would cover up the damaged parts of residential roofs with blue tarps for only $2,200 per roof. I would do it all day, and into the night. I would do it for as long as the dollars flowed. I would go blue-tarp crazy. I'd be a blue-tarp fool.

And just think of how much that would save the taxpayers.

And so it goes.

P.S. I could not care less if Condi Rice is lesbian. It has nothing to do with her job or her public role. I have to confess, though, that the prospect of a black, lesbian Republican Presidential nominee has a certain, uh, appeal.

The Quotidian Meander

Administration Propagandizing Breaks the Law

2005-10-05T07:06:00.000-05:00

"In a scathing report issued on September 30, the Government Accountability Office's (GAO) investigators said the Bush Administration had broken the law by using taxpayer dollars to disseminate 'covert propaganda' in the United States.

"The case in question involves the buying of favorable news coverage of the White House's education policies in the form of payments to conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and the hiring of a PR firm to analyze media perceptions of the Republican Party. (The GAO's ruling should lead the mainstream media to broaden its investigation: What other reporters and media outlets are on the government's payroll?)

"But this is the tip of the proverbial iceberg. It's now clear that the Bush Administration represents a broad threat to a free and fair media. The bribing of journalists to report 'friendly' news has to be put in the context of a decades-long effort by the right and its corporate allies to undermine journalists' ability to report fairly on power and its abuse--whether through consolidation, cutbacks in news budgets or by attaching the label 'liberal bias' to even the most routine forms of news-gathering and reportage."

(Katarina van den Heuvel)

Read the whole essay--the title is a link.

Send this to others by clicking on the envelope below.

The Quotidian Meander

What, Me Worry?

2005-10-03T17:01:00.000-05:00

This morning, Bush nominated his personal lawyer to the Supreme Court.

I've decided I'm not going to worry about Harriet Miers. Anybody nominated by Bush who donated $1k to Al Gore in '88 falls under the category of "not as bad as it might have been" in my book.

But I can't resist one little dig--aren't we glad that the Michael Brown fiasco at FEMA ended cronyism in the Bush White House?

Sheesh.

Well, okay, two digs: Harriet Miers evidently has said that George W. Bush is the smartest man she's ever known.

George W. Bush.

Smartest man. Ever known.

'Kay, now that's a worry.

The Quotidian Meander

A Strange Affair

2005-10-03T08:36:00.000-05:00

Sometime in the next two to five years, we're going to have the opportunity to read one seriously fascinating book. It will be an exhaustive investigative account of the whole Judy Miller affair.

All I know is that something is seriously fishy here. Nobody seems to know exactly what is going on, although everyone is agreed that it is much more than meets the eye.

One day, somebody will do the digging, and will be able to put the whole thing in perspective--drag the truth, kicking and screaming, out into the light.

The Quotidian Meander

Pace Bill Bennett

2005-09-30T23:40:00.000-05:00

"...you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down."
--Bill Bennett

Problems with Bennett's formulation, and the reasons why it's racist even though he was only speaking hypothetically:

1. It presumes something other than individual choice. "You could abort every black baby..." Who could abort every black baby? The government? The radical right? the Neo-Hitler-Youth? Abortion is a matter of individual liberty--one person making a decision about her own family planning. The very idea that anybody--any agency, power, or force--could "abort all" babies of any sort is essentially fascist at its root. It harks back to forced sterilization programs, not to mention final solutions.

2. It presumes that blacks are born criminals. That is, it's not because they grow up in poverty and prejudice that makes criminals out of them, it's because they're black. This is fairly typical of racist thinking on the issue. The racist idea is to emphasize the separateness of black people based on their race, by concentrating on the black underclass and then blaming underclass behavior on the entire race.

The truth is, about two thirds of all American blacks belong to the middle class or higher; blacks who grow up in the suburbs with two prosperous parents do just as well in school as the average white kid with the same advantages; etc. etc. So, to lower the crime rate in this country, would it be necessary to abort the babies of people such as, say, Bill Cosby, Oprah, Shaq, Thomas Sowell, Tavis Smiley, Al Roker, Samuel L. Jackson, Maya Angelou, Clarence Thomas, Jessie Jackson, Condoleeza Rice, Stanley Crouch, and on and on? Ridiculous.

It's interesting to note that many of the conservative blogs and commentaries on the Katrina disaster focused not on povery, mendacity, and governmental callousness, but on "looting and lawlessness." Stories were spread on the conservative noise machine emphasizing (and in many cases fabricating) these aspects of the disaster. The cause of this is systemic: racists want to believe that poor blacks cause crime, and that therefore they deserve to be discriminated against, deserve to live in poverty, deserve their own condition, their misery. As for those conservatives who insist that "black males are disproptionately involved in violent crimes," again, that's a racist formulation--because it's not because they're black, it because they're a disadvantaged underclass with low education and limited opportunities. If you were to separate out the assimilated, college-educated, professional black middle and upper classes, and analyze only them, putting the underclass aside, what you would find is that black males are NOT disproportionately involved in crime. So where does the problem lie? Is it in "blackness" per se, or is it in the existence of a disadvantaged underclass?

If you were to abort all the white babies in this country, it would eventually cut down on the number of racists. Maybe even, if we were lucky, on the number of racist right-wing talk-show hosts. Ba-dum.

The Quotidian Meander

Well, There's Always 2006

2005-09-30T22:10:00.000-05:00

In 1994, people got fed up with an overbearing, bloated, incompetent Congress. Voters swept the incumbent Democrats out, and installed young, vital Republican majorities in both Houses.

The result?

Corruption in government is at an all-time high.

Cronyism, quid pro quo, and the "revolving door" between the "aisles" and the "lobbies" in Washington are worse than ever.

Government's even larger.

Government's far more in debt.

The poor and the lower middle class are worse off; personal income growth has stalled; "job devaluation" continues apace; unemployment remains high.

Class divisions in the country are deeper and more bitter than they've been since the 1930s.

Ethics violations in Congress are rampant, with Republican leaders in both Houses either indicted or under investigation.

And that's not even mentioning Vietnam II.

So what to do? In a two party system, there's only one thing to try: sweep the overbearing, bloated, incompetent Republicans out of Congress, and install young, vital Democratic majorities in both houses.

Viva 2006.

The Quotidian Meander

You Can't Make This Stuff Up, Dept.

2005-09-29T15:56:00.000-05:00

It's not fair. It's just not. A few recent news bites:

--> Republican Senator Jim Inhofe, of Oklahoma, in his role as Chairman of the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee, has called sci-fi novelist Michael Crichton to give expert testimony before the committee, on the subject of global warming. Crichton's latest novel, State of Fear, is heavily preoccupied with denying global warming.

--> Louisiana State Senator Craig Romero (Republican, of course) visited Washington earlier this month to raise money for Katrina disaster relief. But while drumming up support for his own run for Congress, he handed out press packets to special interest groups saying that if only Katrina victims would never move back home, the district will become Republican.

--> Radio talk-show host, former Reagan administration Secretary of Education, and best-selling author of The Book of Virtue Bill Bennett declared on his radio show that if "you wanted to reduce crime...if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." Bennett conceded that aborting all African-American babies "would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do," then added again, "but the crime rate would go down."

--> Rep. Stacey Campfield, a white Republican from Tennessee, tried to join the Congressional Black Caucus, and was turned down. His response was to compare the Caucus--unfavorably--to the KKK. "My understanding is that the KKK doesn't even ban members by race," said Rep. Campfield, adding that the KKK "has less racist bylaws" than the black lawmakers' group. Caucus chairman Rep. Johnny Shaw, a black Democrat, called Campfield a "strange guy" who was simply interested in stirring up trouble.

It's not fair, I tell ya. How is a guy supposed to lampoon this stuff? The truth is more offensive and ridiculous than any parody. Oh well.

The Quotidian Meander

The Delay Train (Or Is That the Train Delay?)

2005-09-29T04:45:00.000-05:00

Tom Delay's high-speed express graft'n'greed train, nicknamed the "Milk It For All Its Worth," appears to have encountered a bad patch of track. Longtime Delay watchers will marvel that it's just one single solitary indictment, analogous to nailing Capone for tax fraud; Delay has, after all, left innumerable bodies strewn in his wake. Well, actually the Capone analogy is the nonpartisan analogy. The progressive-hippie one-worlder analogy would be to, say, getting the Son of Sam with a parking ticket.

And in case you're wondering what's giving the Republican leader over in the other house of Congress fits, here's the short take: it's exactly what Martha Stewart went to jail for, but on a much grander scale. The QM is betting Frist won't serve any time--after all, he's not some uppity broad who needs to be taken down a peg.

Back to the Delay Train: chances are still pretty good that repairs will be made and service will be restored. Operators this ruthless have a way of never quite going away, as will be demonstrated when Newt Gingrich runs for President in 2008.

P.S. Also check out "The Hypocrite Effect," this blog's entry for last July 10th (the title above is a link).

The Quotidian Meander

Let's Get This Straight

2005-09-28T07:44:00.000-05:00

The opposite of Liberal is not Conservative. The opposite of conservative is Progressive. The opposite of liberal is Authoritarian.

"The term authoritarian is used to describe an organization or a state which enforces strong and sometimes oppressive measures against those in its sphere of influence, generally without attempts at gaining their consent and often not allowing feedback on its policies.

"In an authoritarian state, citizens are subject to state authority in many aspects of their lives, including many that other political philosophies would see as matters of personal choice. There are various degrees of authoritarianism; even very democratic and liberal states will show authoritarianism to some extent, for example in areas of national security." (Wikipedia)

The Quotidian Meander

Quote of the Day

2005-09-24T16:32:00.000-05:00

"My family's ok, so I'm not worried about the house. I never liked that house that much anyhow."

--Port Authur police officer Pat Powell, whose house, in Sabine Pass, TX, lay directly in the path of Hurricane Rita

An Enlightening Experience

2005-09-23T16:13:00.000-05:00

It's no secret that George Bush doesn't much care for poor people. In his own words, his "core" is "the Haves…and the Have-Mores." But I had a thought the other day--I wondered if Bush has ever worried about the price of gasoline, or the winter heating bill.

Most people in America are at least annoyed by those two things, and many are very worried indeed. This past Summer, I paid more than $20 for a single tank of gas for the first time in my life. Right after Katrina, putting gas in the car came pretty close to $30.

In Wisconsin, huge pickup trucks, SUVs, and, to a lesser extent, minivans are very popular. Those people are paying, in some extreme cases, upwards of $100 for a fill-up! And presumably they have to do it more often, too. I can get by on a single tank of gas for a month--can an SUV manage any significant commute for a whole month on a single tank of gas? I don't know for sure, but I doubt it.

And in Wisconsin, Wisconsin Energies is cautioning families whose monthly home heating bill was $350 last winter to expect monthly expenses northward of $500 this year. Maybe it's just my starving-artist perspective, but that seems like kind of a lot of money to me.

I just think that the experience of near-poverty--at least fleetingly--is a necessary experience for anyone, especially the very rich. Many otherwise continuously prosperous white people experience this during a short lull right after graduating from college. Many, however, don't even experience it then. I've never experienced anything close to real poverty, but I'm aware, at least, that it can be an enlightening experience to not have quite enough money. It's one reason why I have a little more trust in politicians like John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich--at least they know what that's like.

I just wonder if the cost of gas for the car or the cost of heating a house in the winter has ever even entered into the President's consciousness. Again, I don't know…but I have to doubt it.

The Quotidian Meander

Be It Resolved

2005-09-23T15:57:00.000-05:00

Chicago, Illinois

On September 14, 2005, Chicago approved a resolution calling for an "immediate and orderly withdrawal" from Iraq by a vote of 29-9. Here's the text of the Resolution.

Resolution

RESOLUTION URGING CESSATION OF COMBAT OPERATIONS
IN IRAQ AND THE RETURN OF U.S. TROOPS

WHEREAS, The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 was passed by the U.S. Congress on October 11, 2002, and that Public Law 107-243 cited Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction as a primary reason for the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq; and

WHEREAS, On January 12, 2005, President Bush officially declared an end to the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; and

WHEREAS, The United States initiated combat operations in Iraq on March 19, 2003; and

WHEREAS, Hundreds of thousands of members of the United States Armed Forces have served with honor and distinction in Iraq; and

WHEREAS, More than 1,700 members of the United States Armed Forces have been killed and more than 12,000 members of the Armed Forces have been wounded in substantially accomplishing the stated purpose of the United States of giving the people of Iraq a reasonable opportunity to decide their own future; and

WHEREAS, The United States military occupation of Iraq has placed significant strains on the capacity of the United States Armed Forces, both active duty and reserve and the National Guard.

WHEREAS, The armed forces of Iraq number more than 76,000 troops as of June 8, 2005, and are growing in number and capability daily; and

WHEREAS, The forces of the Iraqi Interior Ministry number more than 92,000 personnel as of June 8, 2005, and are growing in number and capability daily; and

WHEREAS, More than $200 billion has been appropriated by Congress to fund military operations and reconstruction in Iraq, and Chicago residents’ share now exceeds $2.1 billion; and

WHEREAS, The funds spent by Chicago taxpayers on the war and occupation in Iraq could have provided Head Start for one year for 238,056 children; or medical insurance for one year for 1,076,242 children; or 31,147 public school teachers for one year; or 16,183 additional housing units, according to the National Priorities Project; and

WHEREAS, The war and continued occupation have resulted in the devastation of Iraq’s physical and social infrastructure and led to widespread and continuous resistance to U.S. occupation that threatens the lives of Iraqi civilians and the men and women who compose the ranks of U.S. and other occupying forces; and

WHEREAS, The presence of United States forces in Iraq and the alleged torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other facilities have inflamed anti-American passions in the Muslim world and increased the terrorist threat to United States citizens, both at home and abroad; and

WHEREAS, Polls show that less than half of the American people support the war; and

WHEREAS, Illinois Congresspersons Rush, Lipinski, Emanuel, Davis, Schakowsky, Jackson, Gutierrez, and Costello joined more than 100 other Congresspersons in voting for a House resolution on an Iraq exit strategy; and

WHEREAS, On January 2003, the Chicago City Council passed a resolution 47-1 opposing the war in Iraq prior to its commencing in March 2003; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED, That the City Council of the City of Chicago, on behalf of the citizens of Chicago, urges the United States government to immediately commence an orderly and rapid withdrawal of United States military personnel from Iraq; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That the City Council of Chicago, recognizing that the stability of Iraq is crucial to the security of the citizens of Chicago and to all Americans, urges the United States government to provide the people of Iraq with all necessary non-military material aid as shall be necessary for the security of Iraq’s citizens and for the rebuilding of Iraq; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That the financial resources used to prosecute the war be redirected to address the urgent needs of America’s great urban centers and the most vulnerable portions of our population, including health, education, and homeland security; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution shall be sent to George W. Bush, President of the United States, and the members of the Illinois Congressional delegation.

The Quotidian Meander

The Coming Media Monopolies

2005-09-22T15:47:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the cut-and-paste, but this is too important not to at least do my own little part to help spread the word.

Sand, Sun and Spectrum Policy
By Craig Aaron
August 30, 2005

Summer is no time to talk about spectrum policy. So instead, let's pretend this is a column about going to the beach.

Imagine for a moment that you're relaxing on the white sand, with a slight breeze in the air, just steps from the clear blue water. This beach is open to the public, but it's never too crowded. It's a great place to surf.

But then one day you show up, and there's a huge brick wall blocking your path to the shore. Without telling anyone, the government sold off this seaside spot to a private developer. Seems they were a little short of cash because of too many tax cuts. If you still want to dip your toes in the water, the new management expects you to pay through the nose.

You'd be pretty angry, right?

Well, that's exactly what's happening right now in Congress. Only the valuable public resource being auctioned off isn't the beach--it's a prime slice of the public airwaves.

A little background: In 1996, Bill Clinton and Congress handed the nation's television broadcasters billions of dollars worth of the radio spectrum for free to make the transition from analog to digital broadcasting.

Where broadcasters now have one channel on the air, they'll soon be able to "multicast" four to six channels simultaneously (with no new obligations for public interest programming). This will be especially troubling if the broadcasters succeed in overturning broadcast ownership rules at the FCC. They could potentially control as many as 12 or 18 channels in a single market.

In exchange for this windfall, the broadcasters were supposed to complete the digital transition by the end of next year--and return their old analog spectrum to the government. But they've been slow to make the switch, so Congress is preparing to impose a new "hard date" of Dec. 31, 2008, at which point your TV will stop working if you don't subscribe to cable or satellite.

That's right. Though nobody has bothered to warn consumers, millions of TVs being sold right now will soon be obsolete. Even though 85 percent of U.S. households subscribe to cable or satellite, Consumers Union estimates that 39 percent of homes have at least one TV relying on over-the-air analog signals. Unless the government pays for a subsidy, tens of millions of viewers will have to cough up at least $50 for a converter or buy new TVs altogether.
(Guess which one the electronics industry is counting on.)

But the real scandal of the digital television transition is what's going to happen to the analog spectrum that's being vacated by the broadcasters and returned to the government. After returning from the recess, Congress intends to auction off the public airwaves to the cell phone companies for at least $20 billion. You wouldn't know from the paltry press coverage of this boondoggle that there's an alternative. Instead of a one-time fire sale, Congress could open the airwaves to the public and lay the groundwork for universal, broadband access. All they have to do is set aside a portion of the spectrum as "unlicensed," meaning anyone can use it, not just the highest bidder.

The wireless network at your corner coffee shop uses unlicensed spectrum. But right now Wi-Fi operates in the high-frequency "junk bands," which are cluttered with signals from microwave ovens, garage-door openers and baby monitors. The airwaves being taken from the broadcasters, however, are the Malibu of the radio spectrum--fine beachfront property.

Signals at these lower frequencies travel farther at lower powers and can go through obstacles like walls, trees and mountains. That means lower infrastructure costs for broadband providers, encouraging the development of local wireless networks and lowering prices. With more unlicensed spectrum, the "Community Internet" networks being set up across the country would be even faster and more reliable.

Super-high-speed broadband connections for just $10 a month could be a reality.

Under the current regime, a majority of Americans are unable to get connected or afford the high-priced commercial service offered by the cable and phone companies. The United States has fallen to 16th place worldwide in broadband penetration--behind countries like South Korea, Japan, Canada and Finland. More unlicensed spectrum would help narrow the digital divide.

We're heading for a world in which all communications--television, telephone, radio and the Web--will be delivered over the Internet. The choice seems clear: We can sell off our public resources to pay for the war, tax cuts or more pork-barrel projects.

Or we can invest in the future, bringing the benefits of broadband to all Americans.
But first our lawmakers need to pull their heads out of the sand.

Craig Aaron is the communications director of the national media reform group Free Press and a senior editor of In These Times. The views expressed here are his own.

The Quotidian Meander

Backronyms

2005-09-20T07:28:00.000-05:00

backronym (BAK-ro-nim) noun

A word re-interpreted as an acronym.

[Compound of back + acronym.]

In a backronym, an expansion is invented to treat an existing word as an
acronym. An example is the PERL programming language whose name is now
explained as an acronym of Practical Extraction and Report Language.

When naming, sometimes a suitable name is chosen and then an acronym
is retrofitted on top of it: USA PATRIOT Act (Uniting and Strengthening
America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct
Terrorism). The clunkiness of the expansion is a quick giveaway. How about
forming a backronym for ACRONYM itself: A Contrived Result Of Nomenclature
Yielding Mechanism?

(from Anu Garg at A.Word.A.Day)

Katrina Won't Spin

2005-09-16T12:55:00.000-05:00

Bush made a nice speech last night.

Then again, he's going to send NASA to Mars, be the Education President, get Osama bin Laden no matter what it takes, be a uniter not a divider, and fire anyone in his administration found to have been involved in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

Forgive me, but our President has got a credibility gap a mile wide. I'm afraid we're going to have to wait and see.

The Quotidian Meander

Take a Hint

2005-09-15T07:20:00.000-05:00

Bill Mahr last Friday night:

"Now, I kid, but seriously, Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you anymore. There's no more money to spend. You used up all of that. You can't start another war because you also used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people.

"Yeah, listen to your mom. The cupboard's bare, the credit card's maxed out, and no one is speaking to you: mission accomplished! Now it's time to do what you've always done best: lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service. And the oil company. And the baseball team. It's time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or spaceman?!

"Now, I know what you're saying. You're saying that there's so many other things that you, as president, could involve yourself in... Please don't! I know, I know, there's a lot left to do. There's a war with Venezuela, and eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church. And Social Security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote. But, sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You've performed so poorly I'm surprised you haven't given yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man.

"Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire metropolis to rising water and snakes. On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two Trade Centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans...Maybe you're just not lucky!

"I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side. So, yes, God does speak to you, and what he's saying is, 'Take a hint.' "

(Bill Mahr) (Thanks to JB for sending me this)

Amazing article

2005-09-13T16:08:00.000-05:00

This is amazing. Note the date on this article.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00060286-CB58-1315-8B5883414B7F0000

Great News

2005-09-11T11:56:00.000-05:00

There's lots of really good news out there if you only know how to look at it. For instance, did you know that the cost of living hasn't gone up since 1997? There's strong evidence of this in the fact that Congress hasn't raised the minimum wage since then.

Ignore all the pay raises Congress has given ITSELF in that time period. That might lead you to a different conclusion, and you'd miss the good news.

More good news: President Bush has rescinded the Davis-Bacon act of 1931, requiring that construction companies pay "prevailing" wages. Why? To help with the reconstruction effort, of course. Construction companies have long been hampered in their selfless efforts by those pesky labor costs, after all. In a similar spirit, this probably means that, real soon now, President Bush will require that companies accepting government contracts for rebuilding suspend their profit-taking, too. Right? Everybody should be approaching this in the same spirit, shouldn't they?

It's real generous of those companies to be paying anything, come to think, since the poor homeless darkies would probably work for cheap wine! This is working out very well for them.

In a similar spirit, the President has also wisely suspended the requirement that rebuilding contractors bid competitively for government contracts. This just shows how trusting our President is. What a nice guy! He knows he can count on the civic responsibility of the construction companies, who will seize this opportunity to submit low bids voluntarily. After all, they're saving on all those labor costs.

Everyone's helping, in this time of national crisis.

It warms the heart.

The Quotidian Meander

We Need to Pay Attention

2005-09-09T13:26:00.000-05:00

I have to say that things like this make me almost physically ill, and, very unfortunately, I'm not the only one.

One of the things that ordinary, everyday Americans need to know that most of us don't is that the U.S. military has been using depleted uranium for both armor and munitions since the first Gulf War. It seems that DU armor is nearly impervious to conventional armor-piercing shells, and DU-tipped rounds are extremely effective at piercing conventional armor. Plus, thanks to our numerous nuclear energy plants, depleted uranium is relatively plentiful and cheap.

The trouble seems to be that "depleted" uranium is not entirely depleted, and when a DU-tipped round hits anything, the uranium is atomized and pollutes the environment around it.

Iraqis living near the "Corridor of Death" from the first Gulf War are experiencing greatly heightened incidences of birth defects.

Unfortunately, it's also affecting our own soldiers. DU appears to be at least partly responsible for "Gulf War Syndrome," which, as some observers see it, is in essence radiation sickness. 40% of Gulf War veterans have needed further medical care after returning home, vs. 9% in WWII. It is suspected that Gulf War veterans are also experiencing higher-than-normal rates of birth defects in their own children, although no scientific studies have been permitted.

The issue is highly politicized because Saddam Hussein used it heavily in his internal propaganda before he was deposed, and because the Department of Defense has stonewalled on accountability. Although it's a hot-button issue in the European press, the corporate-owned U.S. media has downplayed the issue.

The dispersed uranium from DU-tipped ammunition is extraordinarily difficult to clean up--as the U.S. contractors building military bases in Iraq are discovering.

It may also be that DU-tipped munitions violate the Geneva Convention, which outlaws weapons that inflict needless and ongoing suffering.

(Source: True Lies by Anthony Lappe and Stephen Marshall,
http://shorterlink.com/?LHPJ81)

The Quotidian Meander

Our Orwellian Times

2005-09-08T16:53:00.000-05:00

The United States is in its post-democratic phase. Democracy in this country lasted 224 years, which is a pretty good record.

Along the way, it was a principle that was much admired in the abstract, and much abused in practice.

Not until 2000, however, did the system fail--when Jeb Bush, the President's brother, doing his part to secure the desired end result in the election, oversaw a wholesale (and wholly purposeful) disenfranchisement of black voters in Florida. Overall, between 48,000 and 70,000 voters--overwhelmingly poor and black (about 9 out of 10 of whom could be expected to vote Democratic)--were improperly stricken from voter rolls.

That turned out to be decisive.

In the 2004 election, exit polls predicted that John Kerry would win the presidency by a comfortable margin of 8 million votes. Exit polls are considered highly reliable, with a margin of error of only 1%. Yet George W. Bush "won" the election by 5 million votes.

When this discrepancy was analyzed, it was discovered that anomalous results--that is, wide discrepancies between the exit polls and the counted vote that far exceeded the statistical margin of error--did not occur where the votes were counted by hand. Only in precincts where the votes were counted electronically did large discrepancies occur.

Americans largely ignored both of these irregularities.

We've also ignored the high irony of claiming to be "exporting democracy" when we're no longer practicing it at home. (Or rather, we're pretending to practice it but aren't.) Of course, freedom and democracy are not the real reasons we're in Iraq, and never were.

But still.

The Quotidian Meander

Sorry, My Bad

2005-09-07T07:23:00.000-05:00

You hardly have to be a critic of the President, as I am, to discern that he's not a man who takes responsibility for things. Amid the growing concern and anger over the slow rescue response after Katrina, for instance, the conservative message machine has already settled on its characteristically simple slogan, which it will now repeat ad infinitum: this time, it's "state and local." As in, state and local governments and agencies are the ones you should blame, not the President or his party. And of course Karl Rove's spinmeister spin, which is "Let's help the victims now and point fingers later."

Don't take my word for it. Just be on the lookout for these terms over the next few days and weeks. I'm betting you'll hear it more than a few times. I've already heard eight different individuals use the standard-issue "point fingers later" line.

There is, of course, one way to make absolutely sure that you're not blamed: head the "investigation" yourself. Every parent knows the great value of deferring a decision. "We'll talk about it later" or "I'll decide tomorrow" are crucial strategies for dealing with insistent childish demands. On the national political scene, the equivalent is, of course, the "investigation." When anger flares or criticisms become insistent, the solution is often to launch an investigation. You can then refuse to talk about it because it's an "ongoing investigation," and you can claim to be doing something about it even when, really, you're not.

So anyway, apparently George W. Bush himself--always one to cut to the core truth of issues regardless of the political consequences, as we all know--will head the "investigation" of the response to Katrina.

Here are two possible potential conclusions I can think of:

"The problems occurred because I cut the legs off FEMA and slashed funding for flood control, and appointed one of my incompetent cronies to head FEMA. Sorry, my bad."

"There was no way to foresee the disaster; response was mainly a problem on the state and local levels; as soon as I became aware of the problem, I launched an investigation."

We should really save the guy the trouble. (He's already cut his five-week vacation short by a few days. How much more can one President sacrifice?) Why even have an investigation, when it's all but certain from the start what the outcome is going to be?

Don't even bother.

The Quotidian Meander

We're Sure She Meant Well

2005-09-05T20:59:00.000-05:00

Barbara Bush said today, referring to the poor who had lost everything back home and evacuated, "This is working very well for them."

...On the surge of evacuees to [Houston], Barbara Bush said: "Almost everyone I’ve talked to says we're going to move to Houston...What I’m hearing is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this [she chuckles slightly] is working very well for them."

And if there's a shortage of food, why, let them eat cake.

The Quotidian Meander: Ya Can't Make This Stuff Up

Republican Agenda

2005-09-05T14:19:00.000-05:00

From the Sunday Portland Oregonian:

"Other than telling us how to live, think, marry, pray, vote, invest, educate our children and, now, die, I think the Republicans have done a fine job of getting government out of our personal lives."

Chronology

2005-09-04T10:53:00.000-05:00

(by Kevin Drum)

CHRONOLOGY...Here's a timeline that outlines the fate of both FEMA and flood control projects in New Orleans under the Bush administration. Read it and weep:

• January 2001: Bush appoints Joe Allbaugh, a crony from Texas, as head of FEMA. Allbaugh has no previous experience in disaster management.

• April 2001: Budget Director Mitch Daniels announces the Bush administration's goal of privatizing much of FEMA's work. In May, Allbaugh confirms that FEMA will be downsized: "Many are concerned that federal disaster assistance may have evolved into both an oversized entitlement program...." he said. "Expectations of when the federal government should be involved and the degree of involvement may have ballooned beyond what is an appropriate level."

• 2001: FEMA designates a major hurricane hitting New Orleans as one of the three "likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country."

• December 2002: After less than two years at FEMA, Allbaugh announces he is leaving to start up a consulting firm that advises companies seeking to do business in Iraq. He is succeeded by his deputy and former college roommate, Michael Brown, who has no previous experience in disaster management and was fired from his previous job for mismanagement.

• March 2003: FEMA is downgraded from a cabinet level position and folded into the Department of Homeland Security. Its mission is refocused on fighting acts of terrorism.

• 2003: Under its new organization chart within DHS, FEMA's preparation and planning functions are reassigned to a new Office of Preparedness and Response. FEMA will henceforth focus only on response and recovery.

• Summer 2004: FEMA denies Louisiana's pre-disaster mitigation funding requests. Says Jefferson Parish flood zone manager Tom Rodrigue: "You would think we would get maximum consideration....This is what the grant program called for. We were more than qualified for it."

• June 2004: The Army Corps of Engineers budget for levee construction in New Orleans is slashed. Jefferson Parish emergency management chiefs Walter Maestri comments: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay."

• June 2005: Funding for the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is cut by a record $71.2 million. One of the hardest-hit areas is the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, which was created after the May 1995 flood to improve drainage in Jefferson, Orleans and St. Tammany parishes.

• August 2005: While New Orleans is undergoing a slow motion catastrophe, Bush mugs for the cameras, cuts a cake for John McCain, plays the guitar for Mark Wills, delivers an address about V-J day, and continues with his vacation. When he finally gets around to acknowledging the scope of the unfolding disaster, he delivers only a photo op on Air Force One and a flat, defensive, laundry list speech in the Rose Garden.

So: A crony with no relevant experience was installed as head of FEMA. Mitigation budgets for New Orleans were slashed even though it was known to be one of the top three risks in the country. FEMA was deliberately downsized as part of the Bush administration's conservative agenda to reduce the role of government. After DHS was created, FEMA's preparation and planning functions were taken away.

Actions have consequences. No one could predict that a hurricane the size of Katrina would hit this year, but the slow federal response when it did happen was no accident. It was the result of four years of deliberate Republican policy and budget choices that favor ideology and partisan loyalty at the expense of operational competence. It's the Bush administration in a nutshell.

(Source: Kevin Drum, "Political Animal" column, The Washington Monthly)

The Quotidian Meander

Can't Be Everywhere

2005-09-03T07:16:00.000-05:00

Percentage of Louisiana's National Guard force unavailable because they're in Iraq: 35

Percentage of Mississippi's National Guard force unavailable because they're in Iraq: 40

Total number of missing personnel: approximately 5,800

Pertinent quote:

"Missing the personnel is the big thing in this particular event [i.e., the aftermath of hurricane Katrina]. We need our people."

--Lieutenant Andy Thaggard, Mississippi National Guard

The Quotidian Meander

Unkind Cuts

2005-09-02T07:43:00.000-05:00

I made a mistake in the "As Ye Sow" piece. I originally wrote "$230 short...." It was supposed to be "$23M short...." Basically, with all the money asked for by the Army Corps of Engineers for New Orleans, the Bush White House proposed giving them between 1/3 and 1/4 of what was asked for, and then Congress upped it to about half of what was needed. It wouldn't be so much of a scandal (priorities do have to be made) except that we're spending $4 billion a week in Iraq, much of that going to military contractors and American defense corporations.

Similar cuts have, of course, been going on all over the country at every level. The military base closings that have been taking place will save the Pentagon some $5 billion annually. Again, not a bad thing, except that the figure pays for a measly nine or ten days in Iraq, and we have built, or are building, 14 military bases on Iraqi soil.

Again, the point is that this Administration is deliberately engaging in extraordinary deficit spending, in a deliberate attempt to bankrupt the U.S. Treasury. It's a philosophical position. A radical one, I might add. Care to go looking for spending bills Bush has vetoed? I'll give you a hint: it'll be a lonely search, and you'll look a long time. At the same time, ordinary governmental services that U.S. citizens have taken for granted for a century and more are considered, by the right-wing philosophes, disreputable, and so the administration has been slashing them wherever and however it can. Their principles are: remove all constraints on big business, multinational corporations, and the very rich; spend as much federal money as possible, so there's none left for government social programs; and curtail or eliminate all federal spending on social programs, average citizens, and infrastructure.

All the little things that people complain about are just manifestations of this overall policy: the "tax reductions" that are really just a giveaway to the rich, and will only serve to shift a greater tax burden to the middle class; the unprecedented military spending, extraordinary in a time of peace; the gutting of environmental protections (note that the Bush Administration was quick to "respond" to high gas prices in the past few days by removing more environmental restrictions on gas producers--think that will be temporary?), the attempt to dismantle Social Security. All of it is just part and parcel of this government's radical basic policies.

It's interesting that one great project of the Neocon revolution has been to transfer the former demonization of communists and socialists to a demonization of liberals. It seems an odd choice of bogeymen--demonizing liberals seems at first blush like clubbing baby seals or beating St. Francis with a stick. But what does "liberal" really mean? It's just a name for people who believe that society works best when there is strong government regulation, government involvement in social and societal problems, and government oversight of industry.

If you watch the White House carefully in the days and weeks to come, I think what you will see is a decided lack of interest in mobilizing relief for the Gulf Coast (no accident that Congress had to initiate recovery spending), but very quick and almost covert action when it comes to exploiting the tragedy to further their underlying aims.

The Quotidian Meander

The Editorial Principle

2005-09-01T16:51:00.000-05:00

I realize that the piece below, "As Ye Sow," seems bitter and ungenerous when Americans of all political persuasions are both recoiling in horror at the tragedy on the Gulf Coast and also pulling together to help.

This brings up a point I had meant to make in "The Middle Monkeys" a few days ago. Many people are unaware of the original intended purpose of the "editorial." The idea is that the editor of a newspaper of magazine is supposed to be fair, unbiased, and evenhanded in the discharging of his or her duties; but it's also natural that every individual in such a position will have his or her own opinions. The editorial is therefore a vent, a steam-valve. It's meant to give the editor a place to park his own personal opinions and blat his own biases, the better to enable him to keep them out of the rest of the publication.

"The Quotidian Meander" is itself a vent and a steam-valve in that same sense. I noticed two years ago that my need to communicate my political fears and worries was growing so insistent that it was spilling over into my photography column, where it was inappropriate. I have never publicized "TQM," never done a thing to increase its traffic; I have no expectations of it and no ambitions for it. I know I'm not a political writer or a politician.

All "The Quotidian Meander" is supposed to do is to give me a personal steam vent, a place to air my political concerns, to better enable me to keep those concerns from infiltrating my photography writings. That's all. That's why I write it, why it exists.

It has worked. In my photography writings, I confine myself to photography and, for the most part, keep the politics out.

Still, it's simply important that citizens realize that this hurricane is not entirely a "natural" disaster. The increasingly horrible aftermath we're forced to witness now is also the result of deliberate policy choices by our leaders.

Never mind the fact that climatologists have been predicting for 25 years that global warming will exacerbate storm activity, and the Bush league bizarrely yanked the U.S. from its lead-dog position in the Kyoto Accord pack. Forget about that. This administration is presiding over the biggest sacking of the U.S. Treasury ever. Using the philosophical rationalization that government can only be curtailed if it is bankrupted ("starve the beast" in the infamous words of Neo-con capo Grover Norquist--click on the title for a link), the Administration is transferring wealth to big business and the economic elite at an unprecedented rate. At the same time, it is cutting back on services to average citizens on almost every front.

We would see this--we are seeing this--wherever pressures are exposing weaknesses in our societal fabric. The hurricane is merely what is exposing it at the moment.

FEMA's slow response (there are trapped infants in desperate straits in a New Orleans hospital, for instance, days after the rains stopped) and the breach of the levees the day after the hurricane passed ARE NOT ACCIDENTS. They are not natural occurrences. They are the result of choices our leaders have made. We simply must realize that; it is our duty, as citizens and as human beings.

The Quotidian Meander

As ye sow...

2005-09-01T16:11:00.000-05:00

I hate being a poverty-line American in the era of George W. Bush, but I would REALLY hate being a disaster victim under his watch. As one watches him mouth his dreadful platitudes on television, one can almost sense the pins-and-needles he's on lest someone mention two facts that have lately started to look a tad unwise. First, the Bush administration had all but cut off funding for SELA (The South Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project) by 2003, and second, he's slashed funding for FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Administration.

The Army Corps of Engineers has been pretty bald about it. It was way behind schedule with flood control measures for New Orleans ($23M short on scheduled improvements in the Lake Ponchartrain levees, for instance), but it cited the costs of Iraq and Homeland Security as "putting pressure" on funds for flood control and disaster preparation.

Funny how no one wants a strong government until they need help. Then they can do nothing but complain about the tepid government response. Well, as ye sow, so shall ye reap.

The Quotidian Meander

The Conservative Media

2005-08-31T20:08:00.000-05:00

Once again, a reference to that great neo-con shibboleth, "the liberal press," has challenged some readers.

Yes, yes, a majority of reporters are liberals, or voted Democratic. Ah, the core, the foundation, the cornerstone of the conservative myth.

What about their bosses, editors? Conservative or Republican, by two-to-one.

And their bosses, publishers? Conservative or Republican, by approximately five-to-one.

Talk radio? Fuggedabouddit. There are anywhere from 1200 to 1500 conservative, right-wing, or religious-right talks shows on radio. At last count, there was exactly one liberal one. Two, if you consider NPR's low-key broadcasts to be "liberal."

As Ted Rall says, right-wingers are the gatekeepers of the talk TV medium. No liberal hosts a national show on either broadcast or cable television.

Of the dozen top newspaper editorialists, the top three are conservative, and seven overall are identifiably conservative. Liberals? Only one of the top 12.

Avowedly conservative television networks? One for the conservative/Republicans (Fox), none for liberals.

Avowedly conservative major newspapers? One for the conservative/Republicans (The "Rev." Sun Myung Moon's heavily subsidized Washington Times), none for liberals. (Yes, yes, I know, the New York Times is supposedly liberal. Gimme a break. It's just serving a liberal audience, is all. There's nothing liberal about it in principle, in terms of its mission or charter.)

Here are the only possible ways anyone can possibly interpret the media in the United States as "liberal":

If they don't know what "liberal" means.
If they don't actually expose themselves to the media. I.e., read.
If they're playing politics. The right has flogged liberals for so long with "the liberal media" that it's loathe to give up that cudgel.
If they're so far toward the looney right that everything and everyone is to the left of them. Or,
If they think every liberal viewpoint expressed in the media is the result of bias, and no conservative viewpoint is.

So where do liberals lead? Only one area: the funnies. Cartoons. There are still more liberal and lefty cartoonists than right-wing ones. (This hardly counts, though, because it's only natural. To be a cartoonist, you have to have a sense of humor. Ba-dum.)

The U.S. media is overwhelmingly conservative. The "liberal media" is a hoary, antique myth, a paper tiger. It doesn't exist.

The Quotidian Meander.

American Weirdness and Europe-Envy

2005-08-30T15:24:00.000-05:00

This will engender knee-jerk "love it or leave it" reactions from some, but I have to confess that I sometimes wish I were European. Perhaps it's a version of the grass-is-greener thing, but it often seems like Europeans are just more...sensible, by and large.

Something like 65% of Europeans are atheist or agnostic, for one thing, versus the weird combination we have here of people who both a) profess religious belief and yet b) are almost wholly ignorant of it. Seventy to 85% of Americans (depending on whose poll you're reading) say they are "practicing" Christians and 45-55% claim to be "born again," yet only 14% can name more than half of the Ten Commandments. The vast majority cannot answer simple Biblical questions like "Who was Lot?" Or, "Where did Jesus go on Palm Sunday?"

This reached an amusing reductio ad absurdum in one of Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" segments on his Tonight Show. Jay asked a young woman--a professed Christian--what the holiday right before Easter was called. The woman said she didn't know, so Jay gave her a bit of a hint. "C'mon, it's the Friday right before Easter. It's a really good holiday. A really good Friday." Our Christian still didn't have clue.

I would have thought that even the average American Zoroastrian (if there is such a thing) could answer that question correctly. Weird.

Even weirder, the current evangelical "movement" takes a hard-line stance against secularism--and yet is itself almost entirely a secular movement. This obvious fact appears to be completely lost on evangelicals themselves. Not only is it almost wholly a political movement, but it barely even adheres to the teachings of Jesus. For instance, the great project of the Evangelical community at the moment is a great mass apologia for business success and monetary prosperity. Which is fine--except that it directly contradicts the teachings and preachings of Jesus. And then of course there's the whole family values thing. What did Jesus actually teach? Leave your father and mother and follow the Lord (or words to that effect--I'm reaching waaay back to childhood Sunday-School memories here). Hardly in sync with the religious right's family values orthodoxy, one would think. That's probably lost on evangelicals too.

But I bet a lot of Europeans get it.

The Quotidian Meander.

The Middle Monkeys

2005-08-29T16:08:00.000-05:00

As the subtitle of this blog indicates, I'm a "writer from another field." My other field--well, my only field, since politics normally isn't my thing (I'm only trying to do my duty as an American citizen here)--is photography. I've been involved in photography in one way or another for most of my adult life, if you can call it that. (Ba-dum.)

Curiously, every now and again, I get a message from somebody who reads my photography writings and then somehow stumbles on my political views, who then ostentatiously declares that he will no longer read anything I have to say about photography. Here's a typical one, from an anonymous poster called "Shutterbuggy" on the DPReview.com Canon forum:

"I'm not a ranter and don't engage in ad hominem. I've read your column on Luminous Landscape. I want to say thanks for alerting me to the presence of you blog. After reading the statements regarding President Bush, I won't need to find the time to read your column in the future."

Well, it's nice that he's not a ranter. What he is, unfortunately, is a monkey. The middle one, I think. I refer, of course, to the three monkeys Saul Bellow talks about in his fine picaresque novel The Adventures of Augie March:

"Monkey was the basis of much thought with us. On the sideboard, on the Turkestan runner, with their eyes, ears, and mouth covered, we had see-no-evil, speak-no-evil, hear-no-evil, a lower trinity of the house. The advantage of lesser gods is that you can take their names any way you like. "Silence in the courthouse, monkey wants to speak; speak, monkey, speak." "The monkey and the bamboo were playing in the grass..." Still the monkeys could be potent, and awesome besides, and deep social critics when the old woman, like a great lama--for she is Eastern to me, in the end--would point to the squatting brown three, whose mouths and nostrils were drawn in sharp blood-red, and with profound wit, her unkindness finally touching greatness, say, "Nobody asks you to love the whole world, only to be honest, ehrlich."

(Just as an aside, now that's what I call a sentence.) The hear-no-evil monkey seems to be a hallmark, or at least a leitmotif, of some conservatives. They will not hear dissenting opinions, will not countenance inconvenient facts. They are resolute about shielding themselves from any information that diverges from what they want to hear.

But not only that, it seems. As Shuttermonkey says, he's not going to read my photography column in the future. This seems a harsh standard to hold the world to! What, is he going to ignore the advice of his plumber if the man voted for Gore? Find a new dentist if the dentist donates to the ACLU? What if he's selling his house and the buyer's real-estate agent tells a Bush joke--would he walk away from the table? "Not gonna do it"?

This may surprise some readers of this blog, but I regularly read conservative viewpoints. I read William F. Buckley and David Brooks (recently hilariously described as "the affirmative-action hire at the Times"), and I'll even read Ann Coulter, if only to learn what my own individual hell would be like if I believed in that sort of thing.

It's true that I don't ordinarily subject myself to Rush Limbaugh, but that's not because he's a big fat idiot, only because he's such a goddamned liar...that guy will say anything. But I'm not afraid of hearing him, either. It's not like I've never heard him. Heck, I've even read Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson, a book that is beautiful as well as being mostly wrong. I don't cover my ears, in other words.

I wonder if "Shutterbuggy" has ever read Marx's criticisms of capitalism? Does he ever take in a Paul Krugman column, or click over to huffingtonpost.com? Has he read Mark Crispin Miller's Cruel and Unusual to see what the other side is up to?

Doesn't seem very likely, does it.

Unfortunately, that's very typical of a certain breed of conservative. They're simply, purposefully unaware. I have a bumper sticker on my car that says, "If you like Bush, you're not paying attention." I truly believe that. I truly believe that the main run of traditional Republicans who [allegedly] re-elected W are simply not aware of what he and his cronies are doing. They're just talking amongst themselves; their "news" regularly gets twisted into propaganda and then subjected to endless repetition in what former Republican strategist David Brock dubbed "The Republican Noise Machine" until they simply can't believe it's not true. They haven't even heard of how the voter rolls in Florida were cooked before the 2000 election. They think that Paul Wellstone's funeral was full of campaigning, based on an endlessly repeated five-second clip from the event. They think the media is still liberal, for heaven's sake--in the face of nearly overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I even had one conservative friend say to me recently that he was unaware of a single documented instance of George W. Bush actually lying. I suggested, in my usual gentle way, that he might want to avail himself of one of the many books documenting just those instances, starting with, oh, say, David Corn's helpfully-titled book The Lies of George W. Bush....

The evidence is out there. The information exists. But when you refuse to listen to anyone's opinion on any subject because you're afraid you'll come within earshot of an opinion that doesn't agree with your own preconceived notions, well, you've made yourself pretty safe. Your mind doesn't even have to be closed, because very little even makes it that far.

The Quotidian Meander

WWJD?

2005-08-25T17:17:00.000-05:00

Pat Robertson, a.k.a. Rev. Strangelove, a.k.a. Our Best Argument for the Continued Separation of Church and State, is now calling for the assassination of foreign leaders. I'm sure you've heard.

Yes, yes, I know. This is all so obvious: Robertson is a fraud, a charlatan, and the people who believe in him are weak-minded and unintelligent. Yatta, yatta.

But would it be too much to ask for a guy who advocates Christianity and the Bible to at least stay within the broad boundaries of Christ's teachings? I mean, the man has supposedly read the Bible. Allegedly, he knows what Christ says in it. Can't he just sorta kinda maybe slightly color within the lines of the book report? Sheesh.

Wherever Jesus is, I'm sure he rolls his eyes whenever Pat Robertson opens his mouth.

The Quotidian Meander

Bush Still On Track

2005-08-24T16:13:00.000-05:00

George Bush is still on track to achieve two years of vacation before his eight years of "service" have ended. On August 18th, he surpassed the previous Presidential record for time off during an 8-year term.

The Great Ambivalence

2005-08-17T14:48:00.000-05:00

I've been pondering for a while about the phrase "Support Our Troops," which I think is currently the most ambivelent phrase in the English language. It has several strong meanings, but no distinct single one. Here are a few things it might be saying:

I'm an American, and I'll support anything America does.
I support the Administration's policies.
You must support the Administration's policies.
Appreciate the sacrifice of our people fighting in Iraq.
Bring our men and women home as soon as possible.
Pretend this war makes sense, or you're a traitor.
American soldiers are defending our freedom and our way of life, wherever and whenever they fight.

This last one seems particularly asinine to me, I must admit. They're fighting for our freedom? In what possible way? But never mind that.

I really do sympathize with the human factor, though. Real people are over there fighting every day, and enduring constant risk. Why? Simply because our leaders asked them to. To not appreciate that is not only rude, it's cruel.

Soldiers can't question their orders. That's unpatriotic. And illegal.

It's not illegal for a citizen to question policy, however. In fact, it's an obligation.

The bottom line for me is what you might call "roots American." It's a matter of plain decency. When a democracy asks its citizens to die for it, we ought to have a good reason for asking--and we ought to give them a good (and clear!) reason for dying.

The Quotidian Meander

Past, Present, Future

2005-07-23T05:42:00.000-05:00

Past: Bush pledges to fire anyone in his administration found to have been involved in the leak of Valerie Plame's name to the press.

Present: Bush pledges to fire anyone convicted of a crime in the Valerie Plame leak.

Future: Bush pledges to fire any Democrat he doesn't have a nickname for who was involved in the Valerie Plame leak.

The Quotidian Meander

Call me a glass half empty gent

2005-07-22T18:29:00.000-05:00

My brother, who I love like a...well, like a brother, sent me a piece in response to the one below. It was a detailed explanation of just which law applies to what Rove did and whether he technically broke that law.

I have to admit, stuff like that just makes me crazy. How can anyone--anyone OTHER than an apologist, that is--possibly not be seeing the bigger picture by now?

The bigger picture is so clear: it's that these people are DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS.

Okay, TECHNICALLY, Bill Clinton did not lie under oath. TECHNICALLY, BIll Clinton did not dodge the draft. TECHNICALLY, Karl Rove may not actually have blatantly broken the law such that a jury of his peers (12 snakes, that would have to be) would have to send him to prison.

Does that really matter? The fact that the "White House source" was retaliating against Joe Wilson was never at issue--until now, when suddenly all the conservative megaphones want to claim that nobody did anything bad and poor little lambie-pie Karl was just being a good chap and his innocent words have been twisted into false intentions by evil, red-horned, pointy-tailed democrats. Give me a fucking break. If anyone does not know Rove's M.O. by now, START PAYING ATTENTION!! The guy is the modern day Boss Tweed, at the very least, if not the modern Machiavellian shadow-prince. He's an evil scheming bastard. Okay, so maybe you don't mind so much if he's YOUR evil scheming bastard...but BE REAL! We all know what he is and how he operates.

The question is, do we want high government officials playing politics with career intelligence agents just for REVENGE? What next, will the Valerie Plame Wilsons of the future disappear in the middle of the night? For God's sake. The point is, THIS ISN'T AMERICAN BEHAVIOR. It's not decent behavior, it's not acceptable behavior. It's banana-republic dictator behavior. It's unworthy of us...of our nation. It's despicable. It sucks.

Here's a bit I read yesterday in a column by a guy named Adam MacKay:

--Call me a glass half empty gent, but when the recent poll came out showing that seventy five percent of Americans thought the White House was not cooperating with the CIA leak investigation, I couldn't help but focus on the twenty five percent who think the White House is co-operating. I'm very curious who these people are, and if that's their idea of co-operation I'd hate to have to play a game of password with them...

Me: Fruit
The 25%: We are not commenting as there is an ongoing investigation.
Me: Red
The 25%: Once again you are trying to get me to answer and we will not do that during an ongoing investigation.
Me: Eden
The 25%: Karl did not say Valerie Plame's name. He said "Wilson's wife."

Man. What exactly do these dirty rotten scoundrels have to do before that last 25% starts waking up? It just boggles the mind. And boggling of this sort is not a good thing.

The Quotidian Meander

The real issues

2005-07-22T14:41:00.000-05:00

From the testimony before Congress of James Marcinkowski, a former CIA Case Office and former prosecutor:

"...The real issues before this Congress and this country today is not partisan politics, not even the loss of secrets. The secrets of Valerie Plame's cover are long gone. What has suffered perhaps irreversible damage is the credibility of our case officers when they try to convince our overseas contact[s] that their safety is of primary importance to us. How are our case officers supposed to build and maintain that confidence when their own government cannot even guarantee the personal protection of the home team? While the loss of secrets in the world of espionage may be damaging, the stealing of the credibility of our CIA officers is unforgivable....

"Each time the leader of a political party opens his mouth in public to deflect responsibility, the word overseas is loud and clear--politics in this country does in fact trump national security.

"Each time a distinguished ambassador is ruthlessly attacked for the information he provided, a foreign asset will contemplate why he should risk his life when his information will not be taken seriously."

The Quotidian Meander

Quote of the Day

2005-07-22T06:25:00.000-05:00

"Right now America is a superpower living on credit--something I don't think has happened since Philip II ruled Spain." (Paul Krugman)

The Quotidian Meander

The Christian States of America

2005-07-21T19:04:00.000-05:00

You know, for a long time I've been a staunch opponent of the religious takeover of government. But sometimes I wonder if this isn't just the result of my near-terminal annoyance over the fact that so many people simply can't grasp the concept of the separation of Church and State.

But when I start to look at it the other way around, things get a little more interesting than scary. If the government became religion-based, what would happen?

Well, for one thing, they'd have to argue about which religion to adopt. Oh, sure, it's easy enough to say "Christian," but what does that mean? Catholic? Baptist? Mormon? There are hundreds of different brands of Christianity. They'd have to choose one.

Naturally, since it's the government, the Feds would have to take over the operations of whichever church actually became the official church. Also naturally, all the other churches would have to start paying taxes, since there would no longer be any separation of church and state.

Think of the increased Federal revenue. It's awe-inspiring to think about. Virtually every neighborhood church would have to start paying property taxes. Religious donations would no longer be tax write-offs. And the Feds would regulate church spending! No more wacky religious schools, no more 700 Club.

Of course, the government would have to regulate who could become a minister or priest. There'd have to be a test. No way would discrimination be tolerated, so women, minorities and gays could count on becoming priests sooner or later. Probably sooner. No way would anyone just be allowed to say they're a minister! You have to take a test to work for the Post Office.

There would certainly be no more theological disputes. There would be a single government policy as to exactly what the Bible means, and that would be that.

And of course, preachers would no longer be allowed to preach anything they wanted, any more than public school teachers are allowed to teach anything they want. It would all be regulated. Committees and "church boards" would schedule what sermons could be given when, and of course what preachers would be allowed to say would have to be prescribed. A standardized prayer book would have to be issued--and, naturally, any voter constituency would want a voice in deciding what was included in it, and how it was worded.

There could of course only be one official translation of the Bible.

And, quite naturally, the church would be just another Federal bureaucracy. Like the Veterans Administration. Pay scales for ministers would be determined by Congress.

I don't know. I think I kinda like the sound of a lot of this. Maybe the born-agains are right--maybe relgion is exactly what American government needs.

The Quotidian Meander

His Own Man?

2005-07-21T10:02:00.000-05:00

I'm feeling a lot better about Judge John Roberts this morning, for one reason: Ann Coulter is worried that he might be his own man. In a column called "Souter in Roberts' Clothing," the she-devil of the looney far-right worries that, freed of his ties to corporate sponsors and right-wing patrons, Roberts might actually prove to be something more than a corporate flunky and a right-wing lackey. He might actually think for himself, in which case he would not be a reliable mirror of all the worst and most idiotic ideas of the American Taliban.

Here's hoping.

The Quotidian Meander

The Chimp-in-Chief

2005-07-20T04:23:00.000-05:00

Last evening, the Chimp-in-Chief named a plastic-haired conservative legal flunky to the highest bench in the land. John Roberts would be a perfect high-court candidate in the old Soviet Union: he's an ideologue; his first loyalty is to his party and its "ideas." He's against reproductive rights. He's against Affirmative Action. He's pro-business and anti-environment. He's against the Voting Rights Act. And so on.

Of course, this is a victory for people who want to control how other people have children. Those Americans feel very strongly in the sanctity of non-Iraqi life. They feel that it is very wrong to prevent Caucasoids from propagating. You see, there are not enough people on the planet. If we continue to allow white people to choose whether or not they're going to have children, who's going to burn the coal and buy the gasoline--and elect the next chimp?

The Quotidian Meander

The Met's Mona Lisa?

2005-07-18T12:39:00.000-05:00

This is the picture for which the Met recently paid $50 million. I think that indicates that museums are now full, casting about with increasing desperation for the last little scraps of history, fighting over them with an ever-increasing intensity. The curators might have mistaken significance for importance, and rarity for value.

I know the story. I know that Duccio (the artist) is an obscure master whose star is on the rise, or at least in the process of belated rescusitation. I know that there are very few Duccios to begin with, and that this is, or was, the last one in private hands and thus potentially available for purchase.

But really, it's not a great picture. The face of the madonna might as well have been carved of wood as painted. She doesn't hold the child; rather, her hands are arrayed below it, relaxed and enigmatic of intent. The child is a miniature adult, a Lilliputian perhaps, or an encephalitic, but not a naturalistic human infant. Even its robes are merely miniaturized, falling with the weight of larger pieces of cloth. Its colors clash.

Madonnas have their charm, but few, perhaps, are great works of art. And oughtn't those few to be ones that transcend the genre and its conventions? Shouldn't they be extraordinary, rather than typical? This one strikes me as merely great art-historical esoterica, not great art.

I might make a special effort to see it, but only if I were already at the Museum.

The Quotidian Meander

Hermione strikes again

2005-07-16T18:25:00.000-05:00

As a writer who's struggled for years and dreamed of finding a key to even modest success, I can only look on in awe at the sales juggernaut that is Harry Potter, and the continuing good fortune of author J. K. Rowling, formerly a penniless single parent.

Unlike most people, however, I can explain it. The books are autobiographical--Rowling is "Hermione." It's got to be. Magic is the only explanation that fits.

The Quotidian Meander

Needed: Better People in Politics

2005-07-15T18:13:00.000-05:00

For me, the "sins" of Karl Rove, if you will, go far beyond his treachery in the matter of Joseph Wilson and his wife. Although it's likely that the Vice President is equally culpable, for me Rove embodies what is wrong with the Republican party, with politics, and with America today. There's no real reason why this country has to be at war right now; no real reason why we should be so widely hated in the world, even among our traditional allies; and most of all, no reason--and no excuse--for the bitter, angry partisanship which has so badly divided this country, neighbor from neighbor, brother from brother, citizen from citizen.

The Republican party, as even longtime Nixonian conservative Pat Buchanan contends, was hijacked by extremists during the Clinton years. It resulted in the most questionable election in American history; the election of the least qualified individual to hold the Presidency in more than a century; the return of Nixonian-style secrecy to government; the polarizing of the national debate; the dirtiest electioneering I've seen in my lifetime, at least; and any number of anti-Democratic turns of policy, from the rollback of environmental protections to the corporatizing of the media. We're suffering from unprecedented budget deficits, high gas prices, and the widest gap ever between rich and poor, and a dozen other regrettable symptoms.

And there's really no good reason for any of it. After the Clinton years, we should have been able to maintain a stable and prosperous track. Yes, even with 9/11.

The most avoidable aspect of our current malaise is the poisonousness in the current political atmosphere. That has many causes, of course, and Karl Rove is not to blame for it exclusively. But he embodies it for me. His vicious, vindictive, bullying style of politicking and backroom skullduggery is fundamentally un-American...or at least, anti-what-used-to-be American. It is totalitarian in nature. Republicans no longer fight fair, and Rove is a big part of the reason. The Plame affair is only the most public, most provable of his dirty tricks. It is the tip of an enormous iceberg. It may be the only thing of which he can be proven guilty; but the real scope of his evil behavior goes far, far deeper.

We need better people in politics and government.

The Quotidian Meander

Most Excellent Speech

2005-07-13T14:00:00.000-05:00

Stanford Report, June 14, 2005
'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Truth in Humor

2005-07-12T21:01:00.000-05:00

Bumper sticker observed in Ann Arbor, Michigan: "WHEN CLINTON LIED / NO ONE DIED."

Amen.

The Quotidian Meander

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

2005-07-12T19:21:00.000-05:00

This simply needs to be reproduced in full. If you haven't seen it, please read!

On Sunday, Newsweek magazine revealed that Karl Rove, the President's key political advisor, was responsible for disclosing the identity of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame.1 Rove's lawyer has confirmed that he was involved.2

Last year, President Bush promised that anyone at the White House involved in the leak would be fired.3 We believe that the President should stick to his word. That's why we're calling on him to fire Karl Rove.

Sign the petition to Bush right now at:
http://www.moveonpac.org/firerove/?id=5782-5300080-LOZi4JTQFMZLMv5ktp1syQ&t=1

Valerie Plame was an operative working on stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction—the most important beat at the CIA and one of the most important jobs in the country.4 Rove revealed her identity and destroyed her network of connections to settle a political score. He weakened America's national security. For that alone, he deserves to be fired.

But as it turns out, that's also the White House's official position. Press Secretary Scott McClellan told the press in September of 2003, when the story first broke, that anyone at the White House who was involved would be fired "at a minimum."5 And when asked on June 10th, 2004, if he would "stand by your pledge to fire anyone found" to have leaked the agent's name, President Bush responded, simply, "Yes."6

Of course, in the past the White House has strenuously denied that Rove had anything to do with it. In 2003, McClellan said that he'd asked Rove if he was involved, and Rove had said he wasn't.7 "The president knows that Karl Rove wasn't involved."8 "I've made it very clear, he was not involved, that there's no truth to the suggestion that he was."9 Asked again if Rove was involved, McClellan responded, "That's just totally ridiculous."10

So what did McClellan have to say about the clear discrepancies between what the President Bush and he had said in 2003 and what Newsweek reported on Sunday? Nothing. Here's an excerpt from the transcript:

Q: Do you want to retract your statement that Rove, Karl Rove, was not involved in the Valerie Plame expose?

A: I appreciate the question. This is an ongoing investigation at this point. The president directed the White House to cooperate fully with the investigation, and as part of cooperating fully with the investigation, that means we're not going to be commenting on it while it is ongoing.

Q: But Rove has apparently commented, through his lawyer, that he was definitely involved.

A: You're asking me to comment on an ongoing investigation.

Q: I'm saying, why did you stand there and say he was not involved?

A: Again, while there is an ongoing investigation, I'm not going to be commenting on it nor is ... .

Q: Any remorse?11

It's worth noting that both Bush and McClellan have commented on the case repeatedly since 2003.12

Republicans claim that the furor over this case is just politics as usual. But what Rove did has serious ramifications. Here's the story in a nutshell: In 2002, former Ambassador Joe Wilson was sent by the CIA to investigate rumors that Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger. Wilson found nothing, and wrote about it in a New York Times op-ed column on July 6, 2003 after President Bush used the claim as part of the case for war. Wilson was married to Valerie Plame, an undercover operative, who was revealed shortly thereafter by conservative columnist Robert Novak. Novak cited "senior administration officials" as his source that Plame was an operative.13

Why out Plame? While we don't know the full story, there are a couple of reasons to do so: to exact revenge on Wilson for refusing to toe the Administration line, and to send a message to would-be whistle-blowers that they should keep their mouths shut.

In any case, Plame's work was important, and by exposing her identity, the leaker destroyed ten years of covert relationship-building and could have jeopardized the lives of other covert agents in the field. At best, it was recklessly irresponsible; at worst, it was malicious; and either way, the leaker undermined our national security.

That's why we, like the President, believe it's time to fire anyone who was involved with the leaking of Plame's name. And now we know that means firing Karl Rove.

Sign our petition now at:
http://www.moveonpac.org/firerove/?id=5782-5300080-LOZi4JTQFMZLMv5ktp1syQ&t=2

And thanks for everything you're doing.

Sincerely,
—Eli, Jennifer, Wes, Matt and the MoveOn PAC Team
Tuesday, July 12th, 2005

FOOTNOTES:

1. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8525978/site/newsweek
2. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=776
3. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=777
4. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002374617_leak12.html
5. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/09/print/20030929-7.html
6. http://www.moveon.org/r?r=777
7. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/11/politics/12rove-quotes.html?pagewanted=print
8. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/11/politics/12rove-quotes.html?pagewanted=print
9. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/11/politics/12rove-quotes.html?pagewanted=print
10. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/11/politics/12rove-quotes.html?pagewanted=print
11. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/11/AR2005071100991.html
12. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/11/AR2005071101284.html
13. http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/printrn20030714.shtml

PAID FOR BY MOVEON PAC
Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

The Hypocrite Effect

2005-07-10T20:37:00.000-05:00

Once, when I was a teacher, I attended a lecture by a prominent child psychiatrist. At one point in the lecture, he drew two circles on the chalkboard, one above the other and quite far apart. On the top one he wrote "IDEAL SELF," and on the bottom one he wrote "REAL SELF."

"The closer together those two circles are for a teenager, the happier she will be. The further apart they are, the more miserable she will be."

The diagram has come back to haunt me as a political metaphor many times. Left-wingers, it seems, are people whose two circles aren't very far apart. Their morals are realistic and practical, but much less high-minded than those of right-wingers. The latter have very high morals, but their two circles are badly separated. The result of this is the Hypocrite Effect.

You know, like the Republican Congressman (I forget his name, and I don't particularly want to be reminded of it) who was spearheading the campaign to get Bill Clinton impeached over Monica Lewinsky--until it was disclosed that he had had numerous extra-marital affairs himself. Like Rush "Big Fat Idiot" Limbaugh, who routinely excoriated narcotics addicts on his Deplorable Demagogue Radio Hour--until it was revealed he was one himself. Like iconic nigger-hater Strom Thurmond, who, it transpired, has a black daughter because he was boinking the black maid back when he was a randy young hypocrite. Like oh-so-Christian House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who turns out to have his clammy hand constantly in everybody else's cookie jar. Like Bill Bennett, who actually wrote books on virtue before it was revealed that he had gambled away eight million dollars. I'd go on, but I'd never get to sleep.

I'd love to know how many gay Republican Congressmen there are. (More than a few, at least according to gay Democratic Congressmen.) Or how many staunch pro-lifers have either paid for or had abortions. (One of the as-yet unexamined scandals of George W. Bush is that he paid for a young lady friend's abortion when he was younger. This was all set to make the news when the woman who was ready to blow the whistle--the best friend of the abortion recipient--became suddenly and inexplicably very wealthy. Go figure!)

Conservatives have high standards, high morals, and uncompromising ideals. Which regularly leads to spectacular falls from grace, because their actual behavior is nowhere near so high-flyin'. That's the hypocrite effect.

Anyway, it certainly looks like we're about to be treated to another of these regular flareups of conservative hypocrisy. This time it might finally be Karl Rove's turn. Of course, anybody with half a brain has known for a long time that Rove was behind the illegal and reprehensible outing of Valerie Plame; it had his fingerprints all over it. How he's going to dodge any sort of accountability for it--and how Georgie-boy will dodge accountability for claiming he knew nothing and had ordered his staff to ferret out the truth--will be entertaining, if in a particularly cynical, debasing way.

Ready...get set....

The Quotidian Meander

Sad

2005-07-08T10:24:00.000-05:00

A British friend wrote to say that she had a headache and is feeling stressed. I don't blame her for being stressed considering the up-and-down events in London the past few days. Even those of us who think Bush is a twit and are against the war in Iraq recall the generous outpouring of support among Britons toward us after 9/11, and you all have been much on our minds over here.

I'm sure some Americans are congratulating themselves for our "War on Terror." Of course, I do hope they track down the bastards who did this, and they can string them up by the neck in the public square for all I care. But if you ask me it's a self-perpetuating situation. We occupy Iraq, which mobilizes more and more muslim extremists; they bomb London, which then strengthens our desire for revenge and our resolve to stay in Iraq. And on and on it goes. And of course most of the dead on both sides are as innocent as kittens, since we're basically making war on each other's civilian populations.

Sad.

The Quotidian Meander

Apropos of music

2005-07-04T15:50:00.000-05:00

Of the twenty-five best-selling albums of all time, twelve were releases from the 1970s.

Three were country albums.

Hootie and the fuckin' Blowfish made the list (and if that doesn't surprise you, you're one up on me).

Two were soundtracks.

Five were "greatest hits" collections.

Seven were double albums. (So much for the old conventional wisdom that double albums weren't commercially viable.)

Garth Brooks, Led Zeppelin, and the Eagles each have two albums in the top 25. The Beatles have three.

Alanis Morrisette's "Jagged Little Pill" is #15.

The Quotidian Meander

Let 'Em Rot

2005-06-30T06:14:00.000-05:00

The Republican leadership has finally disclosed a more than $1 billion shortfall in budget support for returning veterans, despite having known about it since April. Scrambling as usual to assign blame somewhere else, they're calling it an accounting error, or something. The fact is, the Republican leadership rubber-stamps every request for money (repeat after Carl Sagan: "billions and billions") for waging war, but can't pinch off the needed dough to take care of maimed veterans once they're back home.

They're also acting like this enormous shortfall in veterans' benefits comes as a shock. Don't be fooled. They have known that the situation existed for months. They were warned repeatedly by Democrats. And not only by Democrats. One person whose business it was to sound the alarm was Congressman Christopher Smith of New Jersey--Republican Rep. Smith, that would be--who was Chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee. The response of House leadership? Smith was punished for breaking ranks by having his chairmanship taken away.

Hey, get with the program, Smith, or pay the price. Never mind the facts.

Again: don't be surprised. This is all totally consistent with the entire focus of this Administration and its lapdog Congress, as they have demonstrated again and again and again. They will lavish the corporate military industrial establishment with endless public funds, but they just don't care about average Americans...even young Americans who have given their health and the soundness of their bodies for the rest of their lives at the nation's call.

To say this is shameful is beside the point. They don't care about that, either.

The Quotidian Meander

"Stay the Course"

2005-06-29T14:46:00.000-05:00

Bush: Stay the course!

Public: WHAT'S THE COURSE?!?

The Quotidian Meander

Saying It Don't Make It So

2005-06-29T08:09:00.000-05:00

The late Carl Sagan, astronomer, popularizer of science, author, and stalwart of the U.S. space program, argued in his book The Demon-Haunted World that all U.S. high school students should be required to take a course in skeptical thinking. It is evidently a quality that is sorely lacking in the American public.

George Bush himself has admitted that there is no connection between 9/11 and the war in Iraq. Bush himself said some time ago that Osama bin Laden is irrelevant and that he doesn't care about him. And yet, last night, in his speech to 750 U.S. soldiers who'd been instructed to keep quiet, Bush tried again and again--five times, to be exact--to link his Iraq adventure to 9/11 and the hunt for bin Laden. It's the same strategy that got us into this mess in the first place--imply a connection again and again, and hope enough people just don't bother to look into the matter closely enough to discover that it just isn't true.

The Quotidian Meander

Can't Nuke the Liberals

2005-06-27T14:49:00.000-05:00

While it's true that radical Republicans would like to do away with all political liberals, unfortunately you can't use nuclear weapons to do so. The reason is that the weapons are too broad-brush. They tend to kill everything in and around the locations on which they are dropped. Liberals, of course, are cunningly interspersed in our communities amidst regular conservatives and Christians who have already been born again once and don't want to have to be born yet another time after being nuked.

The reason I bring this up is that the United States currently has 10,000+ nuclear warheads, along with a shortage of enemies to use them against. The old Soviet Union is no more, and Red China is now Wal-Mart's largest trading partner (or is that the other way around?). It's true we could nuke Iran or North Korea, but there really isn't enough in both of those countries put together to require anything like 10,000 nuclear weapons. (Defeating Japan only required two. Small ones, by today's standards.) Should our last European enemy, Germany, rise up against us again, we could completely obliterate every city above the hamlet level and still have some left over.

And the reason I bring this up is that last year, the Bush administration asked Congress for money to fund more nuclear weapons. That's right, more. Here's how the Senate voted then:

A few Senators: Oh, okay, George, anything you want.
Most Senators: Are you nuts, George?

In other words, the funding initiative was turned down.

So why bring this up?

Because George and his crew just asked again. That's right, the Bush administration is AGAIN asking Congress to fund new (as in more, as in additional) nuclear weapons. Even some of the very worst hawks in Washington can't see why.

Perhaps they think they can nuke 'em some liberals. I tell you, it can't be done.

The Quotidian Meander

Our Great Leaders

2005-06-24T10:34:00.000-05:00

How to do a wonderful job as President, and earn the trust and devotion of decent people nationwide:

Bankrupt the U.S. Treasury, for no discernible good reason.
Pass the buck always. Never take any direct responsibility for anything.
Embark on a campaign of misinformation and duplicity to draw the country into war. Then slather on the patriotic bombast while young Americans die for nothing.
Either ignore or bully the Congress. Retaliate against anyone who resists.
Subvert the courts.
Pander to religion.
"Ideology first, the will of the majority last."
Quietly undermine democracy at home while aggressively pushing it on foreign nations.
Deny the existence of the most pressing ecological problems of all time.
Forget fairness, decency, and fair play; justify any means by your own desired ends.
Demonize anyone who disagrees with you.
Appoint the least reasonable people to the least appropriate posts. Fight to get them confirmed regardless of any opposition.
Be at the same time almost unbelievably stupid and also incredibly cunning.
Never doubt. Never build concensus. Never seek data. Never weigh advice before making decisions.
Dissemble about everything. Utilize propaganda to the utmost. Shout down any conflicting viewpoints.
Be dirty about everything, but always get other people to do the actual dirty work.

Clearly, to continue our fantastic progress, we must find someone with the character, values, patriotism, and high moral fiber of the late Senator Joe McCarthy to be our next President.

The Quotidian Meander

Flash: More Chickens to be Et

2005-05-13T23:44:00.000-05:00

Leading the news tonight is the story about the Pentagon proposing the closing of multiple military bases on U.S. soil. And once again, to continue yesterday's lame metaphor, the chickens who are affected are looking surprised that the foxes want to eat them.

They shouldn't be. The pattern of this government has been very clear for a long time now: anything that benefits the ruling class (the plutocrats, corporations, the rich, etc.) is supported; anything that benefits ordinary Americans is at risk.

This already has been shown to be true even for the military. The Iraq Misadventure can be looked at as a wholesale transfer of wealth from the U.S. Treasury to military suppliers and client corporations; but even in that climate, soldiers and their families have been persistently shorted. Why? Well, they're just ordinary Americans, of course. Money spent on them is being wasted, according to the reasoning of the group in power.

So it is with military bases. The major expense of military bases doesn't go to corporations. It goes to people and communities.

I'm sure some bases have been proposed for cutting for purely policitcal reasons. A base in Mississippi has been targeted so Trent Lott can save it; ditto Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, which will be saved by the Republican white knight who defeated liberal Tom Daschle.

But bases that just support military families and local businesses, bye-bye. Those darn foxes!

Okay, no more foxes-in-charge-of-the-chicken-coop metaphors....

The Quotidian Meander

Hey, I Think They're Killing Chickens!

2005-05-12T06:27:00.000-05:00

Americans are very peculiar people at the moment. To avoid the appearance of being tolerant of peaceniks, homos, and coloreds, and to confirm some evidently very loosely defined "Christian values," the middle and lower middle class has put foxes in charge of the chicken coop.

These very people are considerably poorer and worse off today than they were in the last years of the Clinton administration.

It's reasonably easy to define a "citizen" by the current government's definition: it's anybody who makes more than about $230,000 per year, and/or has a net worth of $1.2 million or more not including the value of the house they live in. A number of my relatives and friends fall into this very category, so I can't really blame those of them who are Republicans for being that way--even now.

It's also certainly easy to define a "poor person," meaning, a person who is decidedly worse off under the Republicans: it's anybody who makes $65,000 per year or less and/or has a net worth less than $200,000 not including the value of their house.

Those people are getting hammered every which way.

The jobs available to them are scarcer and pay less.
Soon, it's going to be harder and less advantageous to them to declare bankruptcy in the event of personal catastrophe.
Most of their real living expenses have gone up.
The cost of their medical insurance, in particular, is skyrocketing.
...Not only that, but to add insult to injury, at least 40% of insured Americans have "phantom insurance": insurance that will not actually save them from financial ruin in the event they need major medical care.
Gas for their cars costs more.
Their Social Security benefits may well be considerably less sometime soon. This hasn't happened yet, but it's not for want of trying on the part of the Administration.
Their food costs more.
Their air is more polluted.
Their commonly-owned forests are less protected.

And now, in what is almost a parody of the trend of the times, apparently we're going to start setting precedents whereby large corporations can unilaterally cut or eliminate worker pensions and still stay in business. Oh, happy day for big business! They never liked those pesky pension plans in the first place. Pay money to workers who aren't even working? Where's the efficiency in that?

Meanwhile, many middle-class Americans are thinking, "Hey, I've got a pension plan." They're beginning to get a little worried, evidently.

Which is a little like one chicken turning to another and saying, "Have you seen Henriette? How about Roscoe? I haven't seen them in days, and those foxes have some pretty sly grins on their faces...."

Just what is it going to take for the middle class to start catching on?

It hasn't happened yet. As I say, peculiar. Very peculiar.

The Quotidian Meander

This is Good

2005-05-09T12:22:00.000-05:00

Click the title for the link.

The Quotidian Meander

And you thought you had a bad job

2005-05-03T14:32:00.000-05:00

Shiite Arab leader Ibrahim al-Jaafari was sworn in as prime minister and took office as the leader of Iraq's first democratically elected government today.

Great Radicalizing Rant

2005-05-02T16:13:00.000-05:00

I have a financially successful friend who's thinking about buying a second home on a lake, who recently told me that he's becoming "re-radicalized." Just to tweak his tail, I replied:

I'm not sure real radicals own lakefront vacation homes, but I promise not to give you too much grief about it.... :-)

And here's the great rant I got in return.

Ignore smiley. Press button. Cue Rant...

You are probably right. Only the radicals who can actually get something done about anything do. I suppose it would be better for the world if I were not successful financially and intellectually. Then I could be a "real radical" and just whine about what is wrong instead of giving my abilities and money to help actually change things. Every battle that I have ever joined in which the "good guys" prevailed has been won by having a bunch of very smart people with a proven track record of actually being able to accomplish things (and who have and/or know how to attract money to the cause) involved at high levels. Things don't get changed very often just because it is the right thing to do. Here in my State we have improved and protected our rivers by steadily filing lawsuits against the government and other private interests to force the right things to happen. It takes years, lots of money, and some very smart, sympathetic lawyers (most of whom own houses on the rivers up north) to get it done. Same thing out West. I don't think we will ever get national health insurance because of the immorality of allowing 40 million men, women, and children to go without health care in the richest nation on earth. We will achieve reform because GM is going bankrupt because of how much it pays for health care. You know what? I don't give a crap about why it happens, just that it happens. Once the door opens a crack some smart people with the right attitude to go along with their money and influence need to get in there and lead the effort to shape the policy that eventually emerges.

This actually led me to vote for W the first time around (obviously a huge error on my part). I was all set to vote for Gore until he opened his mouth in the debates and the old class warfare stuff started pouring out. As if anyone who is successful in this country ipso facto must have stolen their money somehow and that is why we need to raise taxes and take it back. I have never stolen a single nickel of anything I have ever earned. I have worked my butt off to earn it and helped a few people along the way (as did my father and grandfather who came here without a penny to his name a century ago). I am perfectly willing to take out my checkbook and pay more for the things that need to be done because they need to be done. But, I would appreciate it if some jerk politician would not call me a thief while asking me to write the check.

I wish more guys that own lakeshore vacation homes would become more radicalized. Then more might actually get done.

Right on, Brother.

The Quotidian Meander

Soviet-Style Statistics

2005-04-26T21:06:00.000-05:00

Funniest statistic of the week, from Harper's Index:

Percentage of Americans who think George W. Bush is a "uniter": 49
Percentage who think he's a "divider": 49

And speaking of Statistics, Reuter's news agency is reporting that, in 2003, the State Department originally underestimated the number of terror attack worldwide by almost half, presumably in order to help provide "proof" that Bush's War on Terror is succeeding. Subsequently, it revised the number to 175, which, it admitted, was a 20-year high.

In 2004, the number of significant terrorist attacks increased from 175 to 650.

In response, the State Department has said that next year, it will not release the statistic for 2005. It might be made public anyway; or, of course, it might not.

For their part, Republicans proposed all sorts of reasons why no conclusions can be drawn from this more than 3.7X increase in terrorism.

Naturally, none of these reasons was "there were more terror attacks."

And so it goes.

The Quotidian Meander

Pay Attention!

2005-04-22T16:47:00.000-05:00

You may be aware, or you may not be aware, of the phrase "the nuclear option" that's been floating around in the zeitgeist lately. No, it doesn't refer to a terrorist with a nuclear bomb in a suitcase; it refers to the fact that Republicans are trying to change a 200-year-old (!) rule in the senate, which would make it much harder for Democrats to block their judicial nominees.

This sort of thing actually doesn't bother me that much. The worm will turn--the worm always turns--and someday, the very rule changes designed to oppress Democrats today, will oppress Republicans.

Still, consider the wise words Justin Ruben has to say about this:

"It's worth taking a moment to remember why Republican leaders are so intent on seizing power over the courts: the minimum wage, the Clean Water Act, the constitutional right to privacy, and so many other progressive advances are still too popular to for politicians to gut outright! So they're hoping to stack the Supreme Court with justices so far to the right they'll do what Congress can't. It's an extraordinarily devious plan--they're relying on judicial activism to roll back our rights, even as they claim they're trying to curb it--and the lynchpin is next week's vote on the 'nuclear option.' "

This demonstrates, in a nutshell, the two things that are so amazing to me about the Administration radicals who are shepherding the Congressional sheep these days: 1) they're working tirelessly for agendas that go against the will of the American people, and 2) the way they're doing it is to hope that the American people aren't paying attention!

Of course, when the worm does turn (for foreign readers, I should mention that this is just an idiosyncratic expression meaning that things tend to be cyclical), it may be thanks to these very things. Personally, I was never a Democrat until the current crop of Neoconservative radicals took power with the advent of Ronald Reagan in 1980. I was never a Clintonian until the right wing mounted its virulent and unprecendented persecution campaign against him. And I was never an outright anti-Republican until George W. Bush showed his colors in the wake of 9/11. I still wouldn't be a Democrat, except that they're the best hope we have of checking the excesses of the current "Republicans." I'd probably be a harmless Naderite or a Green or a Bright or something.

And I'm paying attention because the conniving extremists in the warrens of the West Wing are hoping that I won't.

The Quotidian Meander

Relativism and Torquemada

2005-04-21T07:56:00.000-05:00

The following appears to be the most-quoted passage from the new pope:

"A dictatorship of relativism is being built that recognizes nothing as definite, and which leaves as the ultimate measure only one's ego and desires...Having a clear faith, according to the credo of the church, is often labeled as fundamentalism. Yet relativism, that is, letting oneself being carried 'here and there by any wind of doctrine,' appears as the sole attitude good enough for modern times."

Yeah, well, ya gotta be flexible. Maggie Gallagher reports that one pundit suggested he should have taken the name "Torquemada the First," which led me to look up Torquemada--who turns out to be the father of the Spanish Inquisition, and the man who expelled the Jews from Spain. Well, that certainly seems to be going a bit far.

Then again, if verities were eternal, there'd still be a Holy Inquisition, right?

I'm not very attuned to Catholicism, granted, but I just don't see why there can't be a) women priests and b) married priests. I mean, sure, the tradition is unmarried men who were "married to God," or whatever, but then again, there used to be indentured servitude, 7-year apprenticeships, limitless workdays, etc., and women were chattel, subordinated, second-class citizens without the right to vote. It isn't relativism to correct for the biases and bigotries of the past. I just don't see why being a priest couldn't realistically be a 9-to-5 job for a married man or woman like any other job.

Of course with different days off. :-)

The Quotidian Meander

An Actual Conservative

2005-04-20T20:36:00.000-05:00

Being basically a stinking Leftist, I've been saying for years that executive pay is institutionalized robbery. Executives and their cohorts on boards of directors are simply robbing shareholders and ripping the guts out of the entire concept of shared ownership of capitalist enterprises. Who wants to put their money in stocks when they know the profits they're risking their money for is simply going to be skimmed by unscrupulous managers?

Consider this screed, and then take a look at who wrote it. Another damned liberal, probably?

"We learn from Viacom's SEC filing that its chief executive, Sumner Redstone, who is 81 years old, is presumably guarding against the hazards of senior-citizen penury. His salary was $4.97 million, and he received a bonus of $16.5 million. We think we see traces of sibling rivalry in the picture, because one of Viacom's co-presidents, Tom Freston, received only $16 million in bonus. Viacom's other co-president, Leslie Moonves, has got to have done something truly humiliating, because his bonus was only $14 million. (However, all three received more than $30 million in stock options.)

"Why does capitalism tolerate such institutional embarrassments? The answer has to be that embarrassment simply isn't being felt. Consider excruciating, but apparently tolerable, incidentals. Mr. Freston is based in New York. But from time to time, business requires him to be in Los Angeles -- where, as it happens, he also has a home. On those nights[,] does he take hotel rooms? Ample hotel rooms, understand. No. He just charges the company what he thinks is appropriate to pay him for using his own home. In 2004, this amounted to $43,000.

[...]

"What dismays is the utter lack of class in such businesses and businessmen here parading their skills in distortion. Michael Eisner appears twice in the table of the 25 largest compensation packages paid in a single year. In 1993 he took home $203 million. In 1998, $575.6 million.

"That money was taken, directly, from company shareholders. But the loss, viewed on a larger scale, is a loss to the community of people who believe in the capitalist free-market system. Because extortions of that size tell us, really, that the market system is not working in respect of executive remuneration. What is going on is phony. It is shoddy, it is contemptible, and it is philosophically blasphemous."

The writer? William F. Buckley. See how an actual conservative approach differs from that of the rape-and-pillage far-right corporatist greedheads currently in power?

The Quotidian Meander

Z / Me

2005-04-20T16:37:00.000-05:00

Me: I'm with Ben Franklin, who said something to the effect that while he'd concede the possibility, the chances of God existing are so infinitesimally small he's not going to waste his time accounting for it.

Z: Both are beliefs, are they not? Belief in no-God vs. Belief in God? Neither proposition can be established as fact.

Me: But as you know, the burden of proof is on the positive assertion.

Z: A Quotidian Meander rule?

Me: It bears asking, probably--what form do you think God takes? The Bible says we're made in his image, so does that mean he has teeth? Stomach? Lungs? If so we would need to believe that God has to eat and breathe oxygen. Does he exist anywhere?

I think he's a projection of the psyche--I'd call it the "interego," the superego objectified and projected outward. All these people who talk about God are talking about something, after all. They've got the idea, and it appears reasonable to them. So where does the idea come from? To answer the question, I think you merely need to look at the nature of the form the belief takes. For instance, nobody is willing to be pinned down as to what God might look like or where he might be, but they're always eager to specify just exactly what he thinks and what he wants. That much, people just love to explain in great detail. So how could they think they know this so well? I contend that the only way is because it's something in their own heads, part of their own psyche.

I like David Hume's question--he asks, basically, why we would think that the supreme director of the Universe would consist of Mind. Just because we have these organs that think little thoughts and have consciousness doesn't mean that it's any sort of ultimate arrangement.

Z: Who thinks that? Ol' Davy-boy is assuming facts not in evidence.

Somebody once famously said--or was that me?--tell me about the God you don't believe in and I bet I will agree with you.

Apt for all you wrote. I know of no weighting in logic between the propositions, X and Not-X.

Me: But you probably are aware of the weighting in law. [Z is a lawyer.]

Z: Now we're getting somewhere. At least you believe O.J. didn't do it. That's something, at least. Hallelujah!

Duty calls. Need to bow out probably for the rest of the day.

Me: Understood...but I guess that means I get the last word....

X and Not-X may be equivalent in formal logic, but in real life, in pragmatic terms, there are an infinite number of Not-X propositions. That's why I paraphrased Franklin, conceding the possibility while dismissing the probability.

In law, as I understand it, the burden of proof is on the prosecution. "It was Bill who killed Mary" can't just be floated--it has to be reasonably demonstrated that a number of other conditions apply, starting with "Mary is dead." Bill doesn't have to get up every morning and begin his day by proving again that once more, he didn't kill Mary.

Who was it who said that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"? Yet virtually all of the "extraordinary claims" of religions appear to be specifically designed to be un-provable. Throughout history, all religion has ever done is to beat a retreat--as we learn more and more, previous religious claims are discounted one by one, by science, reason, logic, statistics. Religion takes refuge in the un-knowable and the un-proveable. It's not remarkable that I can't prove Not-X; what's remarkable is that virtually every coherent claim of religion is unproveable for Not-X.

The Quotidian Meander

Death Control

2005-04-19T13:21:00.000-05:00

A big welcome to Pope Benedict XVI, who succeeds John Paul II, who we assume has gotten busy doing miracles from heaven. (Two such posthumous miracles are part of the requirement for sainthood.) It's been 950 years since there was a German pope--and you Red Sox fans thought you had it bad.

I do, naturally, have a few doctrinal questions. As Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Benedict XVI was the head of the modern descendent of (gulp) the Inquisition. So is this kind of like Russia electing as its President the former head of the KGB?

(Completely coincidentally, I'm sure, Vladimir Putin used to be known as the "gray Cardinal.")

More importantly, where does this particular 78-year-old virgin stand on the use of prophylactics? The hard-line Roman Catholic view has always been that any sort of birth control is immoral. Rather pressingly, however, condoms have become an important part of "death control" as well, AIDS being the modern plague. So when birth control and death control are one and the same thing, what will the Holy Spirit tell the pope to do?

I'm disappointed that my own favorite, Francis Cardinal Arinze, didn't make a stronger showing. (Well, I guess "showing" is the wrong word, since everything's done in secret.) I'd love for there to be a black pope, but I'd especially appreciate if someone with a true stake in Africa's problems could take a prominent place on the world stage. It's needed. But it's been 1500 years since there's been an African pope. For what that kind of drought feels like, you'd need to ask Cubs fans.

The Quotidian Meander

A Skunk in the Enemy's Camp

2005-04-18T15:39:00.000-05:00

I just want to go on record hoping that Tom Delay survives in the House as long as possible--sapping the Republican Party's energies, distracting their attention from their agendas, causing turmoil within and without their ranks, and giving the lie to their blowsy pretensions of moral rectitude. It's always nice to see a skunk in the enemy's camp.

Of course, it's not so nice to watch the Fascist machinations of Delay's supporters as they try to insulate him from the consequences of his nefarious misdeeds. The hamstringing of the House Ethics Committe, kicking to the curb any committee leaders that dared criticize him and rewriting House ethics rules specifically to prevent Delay from being punished, are moves we would expect from the old Soviet power structure, not the Congress of the United States. But don't worry. As usual, the American people are not paying attention.

The Quotidian Meander

Christianity: Not About Religion Any More

2005-04-14T10:35:00.000-05:00

I've been asked why I'm being so "anti-Christian" lately. Simple: "Christianity" has been taken over by right-wingers and is being used for political, not religious, purposes.

Taking the long view I should be pleased about this, because, historically, when a religion allies itself with a ruling party or a particular political stance, it's been bad for that religion in the long run. More proximately, of course, I simply think we need to raise our voices against the onset of fascism wherever it comes from.

Have you seen Pat Robertson's TV broadcasts, for example? Although masquerading as a peculiar form of doofus, Disneyfied Christianity, it's really just a pseudo-newscast from a far-right viewpoint. It just frosts me that these people can get away with this crap without paying taxes! If it's political, then it ain't religious, and I say we ought to tax the conniving weasels.

In any event, the gloves are off when it comes to right-wing evangelical "Christians." They're making their bed, let 'em lie in it.

The Quotidian Meander

REAL religious leadership!

2005-04-14T10:18:00.000-05:00

Ben Cohen, cofounder of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, sends some bright if not cheery news today: A coalition of religious leaders from around the country are forming to help end the "war of choice" in Iraq, bring our people home, and put the resources being funneled endlessly to fat-cat defense contractors to better uses.

Based on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's contention that foreign wars "draw money and skills and men like one demonic, destructive sucking tube," and that the money can be better used to improve the situation of our people at home, the new organization, called "Clergy and Laity Concerned About Iraq" is non-denominational and inclusive. They're organizing a national bus tour to try to attract media attention. (As we all know, the media, since it's dominated by liberals, will be all over this like a wet blanket. Right? Don't count on it.)

For more, see:

http://www.drivedemocracy.org/breakthesilence/

The Quotidian Meander

A Voice, Stilled

2005-04-12T09:44:00.000-05:00

Andrea Dworkin died recently. Few people I know--or can even imagine--agreed with her on everything: she was allied with the Christian right in her repugnance of pornography, with radical feminists in her rejection of male hegemony over women. Firebrand, former prostitute, protester, rape victim, crusader, a lesbian who lived with a man, she was to me a beacon of what a responsible citizen and a good writer should be: clear, and courageous. She thought for herself. She said what she meant. She was radical, outrageous, provocative, wrong, but she made us think and talk and argue and see things differently, even if we didn't agree with her, and she walked the walk she talked. She died, far too young, at the age of only 58, after a long illness. I think of the books we've lost, the ones she would have written at sixty-five and seventy and eighty.

Along with many others, I will miss her voice.

The Quotidian Meander

Karol Wojtyla

2005-04-05T00:25:00.000-05:00

Catholics, non-Catholics, and even atheists liked and admired Pope John Paul II, and together are mourning his passing. Few Popes have had more influence, few have had more devotion to duty, and none have been as constant and unflagging in the service of good works. John Paul II was a uniter: he reached out to other peoples and to other faiths. He was a tireless traveler and a great diplomat. Ungrudgingly and unstintingly, those of us who are not Catholics can say that this was a great man who did good in the world. These next weeks and months will be fascinating, but not enough to overshadow our regret.

The Quotidian Meander

The Giant Rabbit (A Morality Tale)

2005-03-27T05:01:00.000-06:00

It's Easter again. If you've been reading my ramblings for a while, you might expect that I wouldn't, but I like Easter. It means it's Spring, or that Spring is coming. People dress in nice pastel colors--and hats, which are otherwise out of fashion. I like hats. Everybody goes to church; church is nice. You get to see all your neighbors, and feel both generous and virtuous about giving away a dollar. We eat ham. I don't know if everyone does.

What's that you're saying? How can a professed amoleist believe in Easter?

As a mental exercise, try to imagine yourself in a particular situation. You are living in a green and generous land to which you are generally well adapted. Your fellow creatures are for the most part pleasant and friendly. The laws of the country are neither too lax nor too strict for your comfort. Your prosperity is such that you are able to live without too much effort, and you understand the languages, customs, and habits of the place well enough to live without having to pay undue attention to detail. You have no real trouble finding others of like mind, for company and conversation. You have loved ones there in that country. However, there is one singular peculiarity in your fellow humans in that place, and it is this: every man and woman is of the irreproachable conviction that at regular intervals, a giant rabbit dressed in a jacket enters every house, lays colored eggs about, and goes away.

Now you’re saying, oh, yes, I’m familiar with that, that’s the Easter Bunny. But no, this is no Easter Bunny. The difference between our own culture and this land you’re in is that the majority of your fellow creatures believe in this giant rabbit passionately and literally. That is, this is not a symbolic rabbit to them. It is not a rabbit of myth or legend; it is neither a quaint remnant of folklore nor some holiday convention. It is not something your neighbors tell each other with a wink and a smile. It is no story. No, it is (according to them) an actual, real giant rabbit, certified and sanctified.

None of your countrymen has ever seen this rabbit. Despite this, the rabbit-believers are convinced that the rabbit talks to them, and they believe that if they leave their wants, needs, and requests scribbled on little scraps of paper laying around the house, the rabbit reads them--sympathetically--and then endeavors (by means of powers the rabbit has) to arrange the ineffable progress of events in the world and in their lives such that these events, in the aggregate, comprise his replies.

Now, your friends and neighbors are not insane. You find most of their various beliefs to be, if not sensible, then at least explicable--most of the time; and at any rate, when one or the other of them displays a conviction far from the ordinary, either that individual is aware that his idea is odd and acknowledges it as such, or else he exhibits certain of the signs of mental defect. Neither of these conditions obtain in the case of the giant rabbit, however. Ordinary as well as unusual people take the giant rabbit for granted. Superstitious and dull as well as supremely intelligent and well-educated people agree on matters appertaining to the giant rabbit, though they might agree on little else. People from all walks of life and from every class stratum contend endlessly over every opinion large and small, save the primacy and importance of the invisible enormous rodent--on that, they are as one.

Oh, and I should mention--there is not actually any giant rabbit.

You do know that there are no giant rabbits that dress in human clothes and visit houses, don’t you? I’m not stretching credulity here? You’re aware that it’s not an imaginary giant rabbit that directs the machinations of events in the world, and that no giant rabbit determines your own individual fate? Good, then. You’re with me so far.

There is an attendant problem you have in this imaginary scenario. For not only do all the people you live with--your neighbors, friends, and loved ones; indeed, all your countrymen and -women--believe in the giant rabbit, but they spend a great deal of energy and time simultaneously reassuring each other of their belief, and asserting the truth of the giant rabbit to the rest of the world; and part of this contending is that they are intolerant of disbelief in the giant rabbit, such that if you are frank about your doubts, you will be criticized, disapproved of, ostracized, perhaps even oppressed for your views. Thus, although you are technically free to inquire about the nature of the world and the workings of reality as if the imaginary rabbit were in fact imaginary, you are also likely to suffer for doing so.

There. Have you got it? You’ve successfully imagined this scenario and put yourself in this position? You can sense what it must be like? Good. Now all you need to know is that this is how I feel regarding the tenets and practice of extremist Christianity in America. So now you understand me.

But the actual Easter Bunny--the real one, I mean--him I like. I like bunnies. He's easy to like, because people don't actually believe in him. We all understand that he is imaginary.

Happy Easter!

The Quotidian Meander

Mrs. Schiavo--the Bright Side

2005-03-25T10:43:00.000-06:00

Years ago, I taught in a girls' school. The boys' school was nearby, and often the seventh- and eighth-grade boys hung out after school in the halls where the girls' lockers were. This also happened to be the place I was given to hang an exhibit of photographs of the senior class.

My exhibit consisted of a succession of pictures of the senior girls, about 5 or 6 kids per picture.

Well, the confluence of puerile boys and pictures of girls being what it is, sooner or later somebody drew prominent boobies on some of the pictures with a pen. I'm pretty sure the culprit wasn't one of the girls.

So I marched over to the boys' school during their assembly period, and held forth from the lectern. I made my indignation known, touching both on respect for artwork and (because I didn't want them to think I only cared about myself) respect for the feelings of the girls whose pictures had been defaced. I passed moral judgement on the perpetrator and insisted that the only honorable course for him was to come forth, confess, and apologize to me and to the girls in the picture he'd ruined.

After the assembly, one of the veteran teachers approached me. "You're really naive, you know that?" she snorted, with obvious scorn.

"Oh? Why so?"

"You're never going to get the kid who did that to come forward, you know."

Well, yes, I certainly did know that. But that wasn't the point. The point was to take advantage of the specific situation in order to clarify to kids what proper behavior is, and why. I wasn't talking to the one kid who did the dirty. I was talking to all the kids, hopefully getting them to think a little about respect for public artwork and the subjects of public artwork. That's how values are communicated.

In a similar way--looking at the opportunity it has afforded all of us to clarify our values and our wishes--I can see that a lot of good has come out of the case of Mrs. Schiavo. Actually, her case is far from unique. Life support is denied to hopeless patients more than a thousand times a day in this country. Overwhelmingly, the guardians of those affected agree on that course of action; and when they can't, then it's up to the courts to decide. Also overwhelmingly, Americans approve of this system of dealing with these tragedies.

Support for this system has recently been strengthening, not weakening. Ironically (if that's the right word), for the first time ever, a baby was recently taken off life support in Texas in defiance of its mother's wishes, using a new law put into place by a past Governor of that state--one George W. Bush.

The good that's come of the Terri Schiavo situation is simply that it's gotten many people to look at this unpleasant scenario and think about their own wishes and how to make them known to their loved ones. I think it's very likely that a huge number of Americans now know a whole lot more about the issue than they did a month or two ago. That's a good thing.

Americans have also seen an extremely clear example of what government ought not to do--I'm speaking, of course, of "An Act for the Relief of the Parents of Theresa Marie Schiavo," passed hastily by Congress in blatant disregard for the rule of law and the separation of powers. So far, it's the only thing that's ever gotten George W. Bush to come in to work during one of his many and prolonged vacations (since he's not really the President, I guess he's not needed that much in Washington. He's apparently resumed his pre-election habits, spending roughly two-fifths of his time on vacation). Americans have correctly seen this "Act" as a cynical political one. That's also a good thing, as it's a clear example of a distinction people haven't been making a whole lot lately.

You know the people I really feel for? Not Mrs. Schiavo, whose brain I'm reasonably convinced doesn't permit her even a remote semblance of consciousness. Last night I saw on the news a right-to-life protestor who said, through sobs, "this is tearing me up inside." I believe her. I felt genuine sympathy for her feelings.

But we as a society can't base our laws on that.

The Quotidian Meander

Deism and whence it arises

2005-03-24T07:44:00.000-06:00

The great thinkers of the Age of Reason were not infrequently deists, meaning that they professed to believe in a God but didn't accept the common stories concerning the particulars. This didn't stop them from laying into the Bible and the Christian mythos with gusto, hacking out great swaths with scythes of logic.

Mostly, this stemmed from the same concern the ancient Romans had: that religion was necessary to help keep social order. As Benjamin Franklin put it, "If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it?" Voltaire, especially, was anxious about the societal ramifications of unleashing a godless rabble on the world.

But one error the great rationalists themselves made was to presume that all people in all times have commonly conceived of a God and worshipped accordingly. This isn't so; hundreds of millions of people over half the Earth and at all times in history have practiced religions that don't posit a God. The religion I profess, Buddhism, doesn't have or need Gods, at least in the forms in which I choose to understand it.

Insofar as the apprehension of God is a common or usual human trait, it seems to me that it arises from two things. The first is the psyche: to Freud's Id, Ego, Superego we might add Ultraego, which could be defined as the individual's needs and wishes regarding morality and fairness, revenge and punishment, comfort, sympathy, and protection from terror, detached in the mind from the realm of the relative and removed to the plane of the absolute. And the second thing is merely that every human being has had parents. The God-idea is the child's perception of the father elevated in the mind to the transcendent. It's right there in the language, at least of Christianity.

The Quotidian Meander

Not-belief

2005-03-23T16:14:00.000-06:00

In the beginning of Jennifer Hecht's delightful book Doubt: A History, there's a brief quiz readers can use to gauge themselves on the scale of belief and doubt. I scored as a "hardcore" atheist.

Funny, but I've never considered myself an "atheist" at all. Belief in a thing is one thing, but not-belief is not a proper subject for belief! How can somebody reasonably define themselves in terms of something they don't think exists?

Let's put it this way. I don't believe in mole people who live in cities a mile underground, or a population of fire-people living on the surface of the sun. Let's designate "people who believe in mole-people" as "moleists" and "people who believe in sun-people" as "sunists." According to those definitions, I'm both an amoleist and an asunist. (Aren't you? I hope you are.) But I would never define myself according to those things.

Being an amoleist, you see, is not much of a thing to be. It is not a proper peg upon which to hang one's hat. It doesn't make much of an introduction: you wouldn't shake a stranger's hand and say, "Hi, my name's Mike, and I'm an amoleist. So, where do you stand on mole-people?"

I would assume that most people, rather than proudly identifying themselves as amoleists, simply never think about mole people, because there is no evidence for any such thing, and the idea violates science, probability, and logic, and is completely preposterous.

And so there you are.

The Quotidian Meander

The News 2009

2005-03-21T08:04:00.000-06:00

America, 2009 -- In a stunning development, the United States has its new official religion.

The new "Faith-Based" Congress, having overturned the separation of Church and State in the United States and added "The God Amendments" to the Constitution, has for two years been struggling with the question of which Christian faith shall be the new officially sanctioned religion of the country.

The voting has most emphatically not gone as planned.

The Protestant coalition, originally considered the front-runners, were devastated by internal dissention between traditional Protestants on the one hand and Pentacostals, Baptists, and other "born again" faiths on the other. The Born-Agains' insistence that non-Born-Agains are not actually Christians perhaps understandably antagonized the latter.

Atheists, who are after all citizens and do get to vote in the national referendum, were upset by "The Hebrew Initiative" of the charismatic Catholics, which called for re-instituting "Separate But Equal" doctrines for Jews, calling for certain run-down areas inside large cities to be set aside for Jewish residents. So they threw their support behind the tiny extremist ecstatic group known as the Snake Handlers.

"It was just a joke at first, really," said a spokesatheist.

Mormons, whose claim to be the only home-grown religion at first seemed to give them an advantage, eventually threw their weight behind Catholocism in an effort to stymie the more aggressive Protestant groups. Faith-healing groups offered to support the taking of multiple wives if Mormons agreed to support laws requiring the Laying-On of Hands, so Mormons formed their improbable alliance with the Snake-Handling party also.

Frightened by a conservative Evangelical threat to have the Pope declared a devil in "The New America," and unsure of how a religion headed by a devil could receive equal treatment under the law, Catholics also shifted their endorsement to the Snake-handlers. This survived the announcement by Snake-Handler leader Alby "Venom-Breath" Fugstead that his group would have no objection to official protections for priest pedophilia.

For some time it looked inevitable that the Evangelical coalition would triumph in the referendum anyway, surviving the Falwell-Robertson schism--that is until the arch-conservative Reconstructionist component of the Evangelical Coalition made it known that it would militate for a sweeping overhaul of the nation's laws, seeking to place Leviticus over the Constitution. Leviticus calls for death by stoning for any number of sins and sinners, including people who won't barbecue in their back yards (that bit about the sacrifice of a bull making an "odor pleasing to the Lord").

It appears that the threat of numerous death penalties for various sins of cooking were too much for gourmet Protestants, and these defected in sufficient number in the referendum for the improbable result to occur:

The Snake-Handlers have won. Ecstatic Christian Snake-Handling is now the official religion of the United States.

All citizens will be required to handle poisonous serpents in an ecstasy of the Lord's protection, while singing hymns and "witnessing" aloud the Lord's triumphs.

If you do not have access to poisonous serpents, they will be provided for you.

Allelujah!

Copyright 2005 by Michael C. Johnston
The Quotidian Meander: http://www.quotidianmeander.blogspot.com

Law and Sin

2005-03-19T11:46:00.000-06:00

Law in a free, modern, pluralistic, cosmopolitan society should not be based on religious concepts of sin. The Congress right now is attempting to act as a Taliban, or as something similar to the ruling council of the Mormon Church: determining private matters on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the terms of a religious ideology. Congress is attempting to pass a "law" to keep one particular brain-dead woman on life support.

Where you or I happen to stand on this particular issue in terms of our own values is irrelevant. The point is, we don't want the government meddling in private affairs.

I've noticed recently some examples of basic misunderstanding of the simple term "blind justice." A group protesting a court decision featured a woman with a large sign that said "JUSTICE IS BLIND," and of course there's now a pop TV show called "Blind Justice" that features a blind cop as the hero. Wrong connotations in both cases. What "justice is blind" really means, of course, is that laws are instituted for the good of everyone based on democratically agreed-upon* principles of rights vs. freedoms, and then applied "blindly" to all alike. In other words, real justice doesn't take into account your wealth or social status, your skin color or ethnic group, or the absolutist dictates of a particular religious faith. And law must be monolithic: we do our best to establish generalized codes of behavior, and then we depend on empowered authorities to apply the laws as fairly and impartially--as "blindly"--as possible.

That is, we're not interested in having authorities apply their own standards. We don't want cops in a southern town agreeing among themselves to persecute local blacks, for instance, or judges favoring certain defendants because they go to the same church. We don't want authorities exercising their power for its own sake, or according to the dictates of small groups to which they happen to belong.

When the public body that makes the laws begins to apply prejudiced individual standards on a case-by-case basis, something is seriously wrong in America.

The Quotidian Meander

* They are "democratically agreed-upon" in that a majority of our elected representatives must approve them.

We're All Cousins

2005-03-18T09:28:00.000-06:00

I got this nice idea from Richard Dawkins, the evolutionist.

Everybody knows that we all have a lot of ancestors. We each have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and so forth--the number doubles each time you step back another generation.

If you go back to approximately the time of Jesus, say 32 generations, that means you have approximately 8 1/2 billion ancestors. Go back only a little further, and you have trillions.

Trouble is, there weren't eight and a half billion people on the Earth when Jesus was alive. In fact, there have never been eight and a half billion people on Earth--there are only six and a half billion now, and there are more people alive now than have ever been alive at once before.

So what does this mean? Only that not all of your ancestors were unrelated people. Jeff Foxworthy has a joke that goes, "If your family tree has no branches, you know you might be a redneck." But the fact is, somewhere back in everybody's family tree, distant cousins were marrying distant cousins. As Dawkins points out, the metaphor of a family "tree" only works for a small number of generations. Then, the metaphor becomes that of a river, because human DNA, and bloodlines, are constantly dividing and recombining, dividing and recombining.

If you're following this, you probably can see another implication of this: you, and I--each human being on Earth, in fact--have ancestors in common.

It's just a question of how far you have to go back in time. With your first cousins, you only have to go back two generations. With your next door neighbor, maybe you have to go back twelve or fifteen generations. With some guy in another country, maybe twenty or thirty. But somewhere back there, you share common ancestors with every other person on Earth.

Note that you don't have to be an evolutionist to believe this, either, because it completely squares with the Bible. According to that story, we're all descendents of Noah, and before that, Adam and Eve.

It turns out that every human being on Earth is fairly closely related, too. Dawkins says that you and I both share more DNA in common with an African Pygmy or an Australian Aborigine than a yellow Labrador retriever has in common with a black Labrador retriever.

Oddly enough, the two strains of human DNA on Earth that are most distant from each other are both black Africans. How that happened, nobody's quite sure.

In any event, one doesn't have to be very observant to notice that we human beings spend an awful lot of time and energy focusing on our differences, on separating ourselves and our group from every other group. And of course, fighting with each other.

It might be a good idea, then, once in a while, to remember that we're all cousins.

The Quotidian Meander

Smack-Dab in the Middle

2005-03-16T16:40:00.000-06:00

We're at this moment smack-dab in the middle of an exciting and active day in practical politics in the U.S. What's happening is that the Republican-everything government is trying to ram a budget through before Congress, the press, or the American people have time to discuss and digest it. One sneaky thing they attempted was to tack on a special-interest giveaway allowing the oil companies to drill in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge.

Well, thanks to a hastily-mobilized grassroots firestorm, they didn't get away with the sneaking part. Debate on the amendment commenced at 10: 15 this morning, and the vote is set for 10:00 or so tonight, and everybody who pays attention now knows what's going on.

This is another example of the radical Republican leadership being completely out of touch with the will of the people. 80% of Americans favor environmental protections--subtract 10% for a worst-case number if you're feeling argumentative--and 90% of Americans don't want drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge! Fudge that number however you wish, the will of the people on this particular matter is clear as the water in an arctic mountain stream. And whatever the exact number is, it has to include an awful lot of hunters, NRA members, Red-Staters, and Republican voters, too. This isn't just some partisan issue.

It might be different if the drilling could make a difference in our dependence on foreign oil (not that our leadership cares a fig for energy conservation, but whatever). But it wouldn't make so much as a dent. The only reason to do it is to allow the corporate greedheads yet another opportunity to make easy profit at the expense of the national interest.

Stay tuned for the results; should be an interesting evening.

The Quotidian Meander