The Return of the Know Nothings

An article in this Sunday’s NYT Magazine lamented the politicization of science – specifically, the extent to which global warming denial has become a knee-jerk Republican stance.

Now, I can fully appreciate the Republican position. They’re pro-business, and the nasty truth of global warming could result in laws or restrictions that cut into corporate profits for major donors. I’m a little less comfortable when Illinois Republican congressman John Shimkus says the government doesn’t need to make a priority of regulating greenhouse-gas emissions because “God said the earth would not be destroyed by a flood.” He apparently takes the fable of God’s covenant with Noah as a rational basis for discounting that possible future, thus obviating any action.

The article also notes that the Tea Party’s “anti-intellectual, anti-establishment, anti-elite worldview has brought both a mainstreaming and a radicalization of antiscientific thought.” I blogged well over a year ago about the teabaggers’ anti-intellectualism, prompted in part by opinions of conservative columnist David Brooks. It’s clear that TPers aren’t impressed with academic credentials.

Back before the Civil War there arose a political movement that called itself The American Party, a semi-secret organization that was primarily concerned with curtailing immigration by German and Irish Catholics. Its members came to be called “Know Nothings” because when pressed by outsiders about their party they were instructed to reply, “I know nothing.” It’s also interesting to note that their platform mandated daily Bible readings in public schools.

Antebellum Know Nothings accepted their name on account of their secrecy. Today’s Know Nothings would probably assume the mantle as a point of pride – for an entirely different reason.

Some may say that the jury is still out regarding human-caused climate change, but citing a Bible story goes beyond knowing nothing. The old Sunday School song “How do I know? / the Bible tells me so” isn’t a testimony to knowledge but to a willful belief in folklore. And folklore has no place in shaping the laws of a civilized nation.

Scratching TPers

Observers of the turmoil in the Middle East are both excited and wary. These are populist uprisings, but will they result in new militant Muslim regimes?

Observers of the turmoil in the Midwest are equally excited and wary. Will this populist uprising have any effect on the new militant Republican regimes?

People rebel when their leadership doesn’t reflect their wishes. Public servants in Wisconsin feel their state’s new leadership has betrayed democracy – the voice of the people as expressed through collective bargaining. Citizens of some Middle Eastern countries obviously feel their leadership has been oppressive; the question is, what do they see as the remedy – democracy or sharia?

This leads me back to my main argument with the teabaggers. Granted, I was put out with their hypocrisy from the start: accusing Obama of dictatorial leanings when they’d previously given a pass to W and his abuses of power. And in their opposition to overhauling health insurance, let’s not forget the “keep your government hands off my Medicare” mentality. But, open-minded guy that I am, I’m willing to concede that their advocacy of “fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free markets,” as expressed in their recent gathering in Phoenix, is worthy of intelligent debate. And if this crowd has its way, I’m up for a laugh; the proof will be in the pudding. But is this all they want?

What really bothers me is that teabaggers are wolves in sheep’s clothing. Scratch a TPer and you’re more than likely to find a social conservative.

In America’s rebellion scenario, social conservatives see liberal leaders as a threat to the bedrock of the family as challenged by gays and abortionists. It’s clear that the religious right’s remedy is an American version of sharia, since they unabashedly invoke “God’s law”; given the chance, they’d restore prayer to public schools and display the Ten Commandments in every courthouse (along with sending gays to the back of the bus and extending voting rights to fetuses). And true to conservatives’ black-and-white thinking, anything liberal – including labor unions – is lumped in with that which must be opposed.

Why are social and fiscal conservatives so often one and the same? I suspect it’s largely a Calvinist thing, morality and frugality going hand-in-hand. But when it comes to activism, it’s also a reaction to their feeling that government is telling them what they can and can’t do. What they don’t see is that government telling them they can’t impose their religious beliefs on society safeguards the liberty they purport to defend. They think they’ve been robbed of the freedom to practice their religion, when what they really lost is the freedom to ram it down everyone else’s throat.

While we can’t be sure whether Middle Eastern protesters want to create new Islamic republics in the Iranian mold, we know exactly what American demonstrators have in mind. Union members are looking for justice (remember that concept?); those opposing them are looking, deep down, for their own form of sharia.

So when teabaggers come to power, it’s their hidden agenda I fear the most.

In further praise of cheese...

Another cheese-related early memory:

When I was very young, my family went to a church that had a signboard out front on which was placed the title of the upcoming sermon, whether to entice passers-by or simply to provide a preview for the congregation I’m not sure. I remember one and only one such title, for what was presumably a Thanksgiving-theme sermon: “A turkey dinner or a cheese sandwich?” I don’t even remember the sermon itself, but I suppose it made the analogy of salvation being a sumptuous feast contrasted to the spartan cheese sandwich of an unsaved life.

Given what I believe today, I’m more comfortable with the reverse analogy: that life is a turkey dinner of over-bloating unnecessary distractions, while the simplicity of the Tao is all one needs.

Why did this sermon title stick in my head? Was I so fond of cheese sammiches at an early age (Velveeta on white) that I cast my lot early? To this day, cheese and bread strike me as the real feast – although I admit that I’d prefer it be a hunk of Stilton and some LaBrea whole grain, or perhaps herbed brie with a baguette.

Christianity could argue either analogy, but I can’t help but feel that today’s American Evangelicals identify more with salvation-as-feast. This is the promised land. God provides for us in abundance. There’s no need to settle for second-best. If you want something, just pray for it. Pass the stuffing.

So now you’re thinking that the Last Supper featured a 20-pound Butterball? No way! It was Easter-time, Dude – think Honey Baked Ham!

I can has pasteurized processed cheez food?

As I tried to think of how I might express solidarity with Wisconsinites, I of course immediately thought of cheese. True, I could wear a cheese hat while out and about in my Arizona town. But better still to partake of cheesy comestibles.

When reviewing my cheese preferences, however, I realized with chagrin that most of my favorites are from elsewhere. Gouda from Holland. Stilton from England. Brie from France. Jarlsberg from Jarlsberg. And I confess that even my favorite cheddar is from Vermont.

But while at the supermarket, my eye was caught by an old favorite right there on the shelf next to the powdered milk: Velveeta! I don’t know for sure that they make it in Wisconsin (I can’t seem to find any reference to where it comes from), but since it’s [allegedly] a dairy product and Wisconsin is America’s Dairyland, I figure there’s a fair probability that some of the state’s milk goes into it.

Mmmm, Velveeta.... Takes you back, doesn’t it? Grilled cheese sammiches. Melted on a burger. Mac & cheese. Or just Velveeta on white with mayo in my school lunchbox. One of my earliest childhood memories – I couldn’t’ve been more than 5 – involves my parents having company and my preparing Velveeta and Ritz crackers to serve the guests. Even then I knew what people liked (and I suspect they liked cute kids more than Velveeta).

But when you’re a kid, Velveeta is like Chef Boyardee or Chun King – it’s what you eat before you discover the real stuff. I only wonder how many adults still shamelessly consume it when they aren’t merely humoring a five-year-old. Googling on “Philly cheese steak” along with Velveeta produces an embarrassing number of hits.

Even Kaukauna comes from Illinois (Wisconsin milk maybe?), so I guess I’ll do my solidarity thing with some BelGioioso’s sharp provolone or asiago.  And make my mac & cheese with the real thing. I just find Velveeta a little scary – almost as long a shelf-life as stupidity.

Civility on the dance floor...

I clicked-through on the headline reading “National Institute for Civil Discourse to open at University of Arizona”; but the tab in my browser truncated it to “National Institute for Civil Disco...” Which I find a much more interesting prospect.

Not that I don’t think civil discourse a worthy endeavor. It’s entirely appropriate, just not likely to occur. Call me a pessimist; I prefer to think of myself as a realist.

But we obviously need more civil disco. Take, for instance, that clown who went into a disco a few years ago with a gun in his pants that went off. That’s pretty friggin’ uncivil. And I imagine a lot of people are hitting on one another in those clubs – what could be more uncivil than assault? But I understand at least that a lot of those who go to discos are in the business of spreading ecstasy. That sounds like a good start. Evangelical, even. There was a time when discos were a hotbed of cocaine use, so it’s good to know things have improved. Now if they could just do something about that music. If it hasn’t improved since the Bee Gees and Village People, it’ll take a lot more than civility to help the disco scene.

Hats off to the U of A for instituting this much-needed effort!

Get ready, sports fans...

With a big windstorm hitting the east coast and blowing down the National Christmas Tree, I think it’s pretty clear. Our Muslim president has called in the power of Allah to deal a blow to Christmas – and on Presidents’ Day weekend! Double perfidy!

Just how did Allah manage this? Was Jehovah catnapping? Or busy keeping watch over activities in the Middle East, looking for easy inroads? If His eye is on the sparrow, why did He take it off the tree?

There’s obviously trouble brewing in Heaven. A major Battle of the Gods is shaping up, and soon the other deities will be forced to take sides. Maitreya Buddha may be called off the bench. There’s word that Thor might come out of retirement. The big question is whether Allah will sneak the Antichrist into the lineup. But watch to see who Shiva will cast his lot with – I suspect that could be a deciding factor.

Broadcast rights for the contest have yet to be determined, but Fox News will likely get the nod. (And we all know who their viewers will be pulling for.) And I suspect everyone will find that the commercials will be especially worth watching. “Burning Bush” fireplace logs (“they never go out!”). Uncle Noah’s survivalist supplies. Plus a new Charlie Tuna ad devoted to feeding large groups of people.

Heck, we all knew it was coming, but having that tree blow over was a sure sign. A promo spot, if you will. Holy guacamole, it’s gonna be a great game!

Form over Function in Wisconsin

So let me get this straight. Teabaggers are supposed to be anarchists, distrusting government every step of the way. Yet they’re staging a counter-demonstration to the protesters in Wisconsin, who object to the state’s attempt to take away the collective bargaining rights of civil servants. The Wisconsin protesters want to ensure that government won’t push schoolteachers and other public employees around; the teabaggers object to this???

I realize, of course, that the TP people (is this label less objectionable? or does it just make them sound like a bunch of ass-wipes?) are offering a knee-jerk response in support of cost-cutting and of the state legislators and governor they just voted into office. And they’re also making a knee-jerk response in opposition to unions – another example of a “them” out to get “us.” But besides this, they’re providing yet another example of how they ignore the whole concept of justice. (That’s knee-jerk, too.)

According to the NYT: “FreedomWorks, a Washington group that helped cultivate the Tea Party movement, said it was trying to use its lists of activists to turn out supporters for a variety of bills aimed at cutting the power of unions – not just in Wisconsin, but in Tennessee, Indiana and Ohio as well.”

It used to be that unions were the voice of the people against the power of big business – and when it comes to oppressive overlords, you can easily substitute government, whether federal or state (which, I believe, is the whole point of the teabaggers). So why is it that a grassroots movement that purports to be the voice of the people is opposed to the most formidable expression of popular power that has ever emerged in this country? Are they just jealous? Wait, let me guess: unions = socialism. Sheesh. If someone pointed out to them that a political party (or movement) is analogous to a union and that voting is akin to collective bargaining, would that double-bind be enough to fry what passes for their brains?

A former boss of mine used to wisely counsel against placing form over function when making decisions, and that’s exactly what the teabaggers are doing. The Wisconsin protesters have thrown tens of thousands of flies into the ointment of the TP agenda. And it’s clear now that promoting that agenda – come hell, high water, or popular protest by citizens just like themselves – counts for more than people.

Ignorance made cool...

Seems I missed Charles Darwin’s birthday. Oh well, you can’t keep up with everything.

But according to an article I just read, scientists kept it kinda low-key anyway for fear of ruffling too many fundamentalist feathers. But they persevere, God love ’em [sic], in the hopes of convincing some kids that science is cool.

There is a struggle over coolness, however. A few times when I’ve cleaned out my spam folder, I’ve noticed messages from an outfit promoting “Almighty Bible,” so decided to investigate. What it is, is a graphic-novel rendition of the scriptures, complete with apps, to show kids that the Bible also is cool.

Frankly, I find this worrisome. To present the Bible as what it is – a collection of often-inscrutable writings passed down through the centuries – provides necessary context. To modernize it for today’s electronic media suggests that it’s as relevant as an iPad. I know there’ve been biblical picture books before, but I don’t know that such prior publications had ever promoted coolness so aggressively.

Let me suggest the danger in this through a thought experiment for kids. (Adults, you can participate too.) Imagine a vast hall like a convention center or an indoor stadium. And imagine thousands of feathers floating in its emptiness – but the interior is so vast that the feathers are yards apart. And imagine that they’ve been floating there for longer than anyone alive can remember. The hall is like the known universe, and each of those feathers is a galaxy. Take just one of those feathers and imagine a speck of dust on it; that’s Earth. The speck gradually appeared and will eventually disappear. But it has no more importance than other specks on that or any other feather. And the same must be said for any message purporting to convey the truth for all of the feathers, or even for the whole hall.

So on the one hand, we have a demonstration of the vastness of the universe and the insignificance of our human existence. And on the other, we have modern people attempting to convince children that Bible stories are true – that the age of the Earth can be measured in thousands, not billions of years – and are true for all of Creation. And if kids can see this on their iPads, then they know it must be true. Hey, kids, check this out! God created the world in just seven days! Is that cool or what?!

Science had better get on the stick. The coolness gap is widening. And ignorance along with it.

It’s Limbo Time! (or: Somebody call me a cab...)

I’m one of those people who don’t watch TV. Had a satellite dish before moving upstate, but after losing free sports feeds over the years my viewing frittered down to The Daily Show and The Sopranos. Now I stream the former and have DVDs of the latter, and there’s nothing on the tube that commands my interest anymore – so much so that we don’t even have dish or cable.

But I’m a veteran viewer of classic 70s/80s sitcoms – MTM, Newhart, Cheers, Taxi, MASH, Barney Miller, WKRP – and haven’t watched any such series since Seinfeld called it quits. What these great comedies all had in common was terrific writing delivered by great ensemble acting. Occasionally I’d come across something like That ’70s Show in reruns where the writing left something to be desired but the cast managed to lift the script to a level of enjoyment. (Plus, okay, I admit Laura Prepon turned me on.)

Appreciated Frasier and 3rd Rock but never became stay-at-home-and-take-the-phone-off-the-hook addicted. Moved on to a few Brit shows like AbFab, Master of the Glen, and As Time Goes By (reruns of which remain our sole viewing vice). And believe it or not, I never saw Friends – mostly as a matter of principle – so consequently lack any comprehension of why such a fuss is now made over Jennifer Aniston’s every move.

But when I was visiting a relative and had occasion to sample some of today’s fare, I was appalled.

Granted, it was a thin sample: The Big Bang followed by (let’s not mince words) Shit My Father Says. Each of them seemed to rely on penis references, or maybe I just hit a good night. Interesting (even “fascinating”) to see William Shatner in an ostensibly comedic role, but not enough to watch again. Beth assures me, based on a previous visit, that another night’s tandem of 2½ Men and Mike and Molly are just as popular and just as bad (apparently “nut sack” stood in for penis in the former). She suggested I witness them for myself before posting this blog, but I’m willing to take her word for it.

But the big jaw-dropper was catching reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond – four in a row on TVLand. I had never seen this show, but was given to understand it had been phenomenally popular and was possibly even good – after all, it won Emmys. But it appears the bar for quality in sitcoms has been seriously lowered. (Anyone for limbo?) The writing was wretched, the situations trite, the characters utterly two-dimensional (with Peter Boyle sadly wasted as he wrestled with dismal lines). It kind of struck me as an anti-Seinfeld: lame, pedestrian, cast in the mold of dozens of family sitcoms that had come before it ... in short, phenomenally boring. Seinfeld joked about being about nothing; Raymond hit the bulls-eye. (And what’s with the blond kids? Was the milkman Scandinavian?) While I admit I may have been harsh to judge Bang and Shit on the basis of one viewing – at least the Bang characters were as appealingly eccentric as those from 3rd Stone (although that, granted, is the whole premise in each case) – four Raymonds showed me nothing other than commercials I’d never seen.

I take it that the big must-see comedy these days is 30 Rock (also The Office: checked it out once and thought, well, okay, let me know when I’m supposed to laugh), but frankly I’m afraid to watch – so if anybody with deep experience in the classics has any current recommendations, I’m open to suggestions. Meanwhile, I’ll just replay my MASH and Seinfeld DVDs, thanks, and keep an eye out for a good price on Taxi.

Here's to the State of Mississppi

A license plate honoring a Klansman?

I've already said what I have to say.

But as Phil Ochs so eloquently put it:

Here's to the land you've torn out the heart of;

Mississippi, find yourself another country to be part of.

So help me...

The other day I needed to have something notarized. Technically speaking, what I needed was to have my signature witnessed on a legal document, and I also had the option of having two people “not related by blood or marriage” attest that it was me who had with my own hand applied my name.

I could have just trotted it over to my neighbors, but then that would have required some explanation, if only for civility, of what I was having them put their John Hancocks to, and while they’re lovely people I didn’t care to go into details. And I don’t live in a neighborhood that gets a lot of foot traffic, so I couldn’t’ve just hauled a couple of strangers in off the street. I suppose I could have taken the document down to the square and accosted passers-by until I found two who were willing to sign without caring what it was, but then I’d run the risk of some joker signing “Mickey Mouse” and I wasn’t sure that it would slip by unnoticed. So it was easier to just drive up to the credit union where I banked and have the receptionist, who was a notary, do the deed. They provided the service free for members, so all it was costing was my time.

I presented the form – not even the entire document, just the final page requiring my signature, and she didn’t ask to see the missing pages or question their purpose. She took my driver’s license to confirm my identity, entered the transaction in a logbook, and had me sign off on the entry. Then it got wacky.

Because the legalese of the form where the notary was to fill it in began “sworn to me this day...,” she advised me that I’d have to swear an oath. And so she had me raise my right hand while she rattled off a stock statement in which I attested to the truthiness of the transaction and ended “so help you God.” Not wanting to muddy the waters by pointing out that (a) it was merely my identity as signatory that was at issue and not any question of “truth,” and (b) I was an agnostic, I simply muttered “yes” and she cheerfully applied her stamp, handed over the form, and told me to have a nice day.

There was no indication on the form that, had I gone with the dual witness option, such a gesture would have been required. (There was nothing even to verify that two witnesses were in fact real people, so I suppose I could have talked my in-laws into doing it using fake names.) But notarization went the whole nine yards – not only ascertaining the authenticity of the notary (via the stamp) but also requiring me to “swear.”

Just this small example of how the system works makes me kinda glad I never pursued my high-school notion of becoming a lawyer.

Guilt – the Silent Crippler of Young Liberals

Okay, let me get this straight. According to the NYT, social psychologists have suddenly realized that their ranks are underrepresented by people whose political values tack to the right. And so they’re making a concerted effort to attract them.

Talk about liberal guilt. After all, these are people who stand up for oppressed minorities, so they’re not about to tolerate oppression within their own group.

And it’s very decent of them. (I made it a point to not say “mighty white of them.”) You don’t really expect Republicans, for all their big tent pretensions, to do whatever is necessary to ensure they have enough Hispanics or blacks. Just like you wouldn’t expect an organization of biologists to make sure they had a few token creationists, just for balance. But here are these liberal social scientists who, garsh darn it, just want to be fair.

I think they’re really missing the point. The fact that they and many other soft-side academics tend to be liberal is nothing to feel guilty about. It comes with the territory. (“Liberal arts?” Duh!) Training in such disciplines makes one open-minded. Even the one closet conservative cited in the article tilts right only with regard to fiscal matters, and there’s nothing unusual about that.

The article says that some in the Society for Personality and Social Psychology seek an “affirmative action goal” of 10% conservative membership. Just so they can feel better about themselves, I’m sure. Wouldn’t it be more to the point of their calling to ascertain why any of their peers would be social conservatives at all – and seek to convert them?

Revenge of the also-also rans...

There’s a movement afoot to ignore Sarah Palin for a week. Would that we could – but it would be much like trying to ignore a squeaky floorboard or a nagging tooth. If she’s not nattering on about Ronnie Raygun or weighing in on Egypt (after having somebody help her find it on the map), she’s trying to trademark her name. (Sheesh. I mean, if your last name is Mxyzptlk, fine, but really...)

Pursuant to my recent post about presidential auctoritas (or lack thereof), I started to wonder which failed vice presidential candidates in recent history have ever garnered so much attention. Then I started to wonder just who those failed v.p. contenders were, since it’s sometimes hard to even remember the successful ones.

Here, then, a list of presidential tickets going back to Ike:

• 1952: Dwight Eisenhower/Richard Nixon over Adlai Stevenson/John Sparkman
• 1956: Eisenhower/Nixon over Stevenson/Estes Kefauver
• 1960: John Kennedy/Lyndon Johnson over Nixon/Henry Cabot Lodge
• 1964: Johnson/Hubert Humphrey over Barry Goldwater/William Miller
• 1968: Nixon/Spiro Agnew over Humphrey/Edmund Muskie
• 1972: Nixon/Agnew over George McGovern/Sargent Shriver
• 1976: Jimmy Carter/Walter Mondale over Gerald Ford/Bob Dole
• 1980: Ronald Reagan/George H.W. Bush over Carter/Mondale
• 1984: Reagan/Bush over Mondale/Geraldine Ferraro
• 1988: Bush/Dan Quayle over Michael Dukakis/Lloyd Bentsen
• 1992: Bill Clinton/Al Gore over Bush/Quayle
• 1996: Clinton/Gore over Bob Dole/Jack Kemp
• 2000: George W. Bush/Dick Cheney over Gore/Joe Lieberman
• 2004: Bush/Cheney over John Kerry/John Edwards
• 2008: Barack Obama/Joe Biden over John McCain/Sarah Palin

I never would have guessed Sparkman and Kefauver. And it’s only because I was politically aware during my late teens that I remembered Lodge, Miller, and Muskie. But after that it was kind of a blur. Who the hell was Lloyd Bentsen anyway?

But what’s notable is the fact that most of these people simply faded into the woodwork, except for Bob Dole who made another bid for high office after twenty years. And of course John Edwards, who went on to capture other headlines. But no failed v.p. candidate went on to win the presidency since Franklin Roosevelt ran with James Cox against Harding in 1920. Before that, you have to go all the way back to John Tyler, who was v.p. on a regional Whig ticket in 1836 and then succeeded William Henry “We Don’t Need No Steenking Coat” Harrison as president in 1841.

This is not to suggest that Ms. Palin isn’t entitled to exercise her aspirations. Gerry Ferraro remained active in politics, although with her sights set not quite so high; Joe Lieberman stayed in the Senate, although I’m not sure to what purpose; and Dan Quayle of course went on to become a successful potato farmer. The real issue is, just because she was nominated for our second-highest office doesn’t give her opinions any more validity than those of, say, Jack Kemp. What confounds me is that people – and the media – continue to hang on her every word. It’s the same as breaking news about Lindsay Lohan. Is there some reason we should care? 

So continuing that thought, why not ignore Sarah Palin on a regular basis? Except of course for blogs that mention her in order to advocate ignoring her.

And while we’re at it, how about a Palin/Lohan ticket in 2012?

Two Edges

As I’ve commented before, the dual concept “liberty and justice for all” doesn’t get a lot of play in right-wing circles. Not only are teabaggers preoccupied with the former, the latter has come under suspicion by Beck and his minions. Now I’m reading about the latest efforts by the wife of Clarence Thomas to serve as an advocate for “liberty-loving citizens” and “ambassador to the Tea Party movement” via a trio of organizations that sport “liberty” in their titles: Liberty Consulting, Liberty Central, libertyinc.

Listen, folks, I’m not knocking liberty. It’s a wonderful concept; I’m all for it and think we should have more of it. But why is it that justice doesn’t get equal time? Maybe it’s because of conservatives’ short attention span.

When you read the Declaration of Independence, it’s easy to get caught up in an expression like “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” that comes near the beginning. I suspect, however, that many people are so enamored of this phrase that they don’t bother reading on.

As it turns out, that’s the only mention of “liberty” in the whole document. But when it gets down to brass tacks, “justice” is cited three times: the signers’ complaint that King George “has obstructed the Administration of Justice” and the statement “We have appealed to [our British brethren’s] native justice” but they “have been deaf to the voice of justice.”

It’s clear that the Founders were as much concerned with justice as with liberty. And I suspect they would have roundly approved the wording “liberty and justice for all” in the Pledge. The irony is, “justice” has become a cause identified with oppressed people – the “Them” that stands opposite most citizens’ conception of “Us.” It’s as if l&j had to be divvied up; and since blacks, Indians, laborers, migrant farm workers, the poor, you name it, have usually been associated with cries for justice, upstanding Americans have opted for liberty as their cause. “Deaf to the voice of justice” indeed.

Now if there were only some way of convincing our politically fundamentalist citizens that justice – justice for all, including anyone fucked over by the law, by the courts, by the wealthy, by banks, by corporate shenanigans, by any person or entity unfairly granted privilege – is nothing to shy away from. Come on, teabaggers, it’s a two-edged sword.

I Liked Ike

Some people are making a big deal over celebrating Ronnie Raygun’s centennial. I realize that he’s a hero to conservatives, so they’re as entitled to him as liberals are to JFK. Each of those two presidents represents a kind of ideal, even though each has aspects (one a philanderer, the other a bumbler) that don’t hold up under close scrutiny.

Problem is, when you go back and look at post-WWII presidents, each of them has detractors with legitimate gripes. Only Eisenhower seems to emerge relatively unscathed. You just don’t mess with a war hero. Or at least (sorry, McCain) one of that stature.

It’s difficult to disassociate Ike from the era with which his name is linked. After all, it was a time of rampant cold war paranoia, overzealous red baiting, Jim Crow, and sanctimonious public morality (such as in response to nascent rock ’n roll). The only real dissidents were beatniks, and they pretty much kept to themselves. But Eisenhower himself had an air of authority and at least was savvy enough to recognize the problems coming with the “military industrial complex.”

Ike was a guy that a majority of Americans seemed to respect, and just consider how respect went out the window after he left the White House....

• Kennedy – blew the Bay of Pigs, was hated enough to be killed
• Johnson – mired us in Vietnam
• Nixon – yes, he was a crook
• Ford – a bumbler who pardoned a crook
• Carter – a wimp in a Cardigan who stranded the hostages
• Reagan – gave us voodoo economics and Contragate
• Bush I – mo’ voodoo, and stopped short in Iraq
• Clinton – victimized by the right for a loose zipper
• Bush II – an idiot
• Obama – victimized by racists and Islamophobes

What do all these guys have in common? They’re all politicians! I think America lost its shot for another Eisenhower when Colin Powell declined to seek the presidency – and we apparently have his wife to blame for that. (What would Mamie say?) Leaders with auctoritas are few and far between. Too bad Ross Perot didn’t have it.

So for those celebrating Reagan, all I can say is “party on” – with the knowledge that it’s pretty much limited to your party. You have to go back another 20+ years to find the last time we had a president for all Americans. Trouble is, it was an America we wouldn’t want to go back to.

Let us bray...

Why didn’t anybody tell me that this morning was the National Prayer Breakfast? Was it a potluck? I could have made a coffee cake or something. Or at the very least stopped somewhere for donuts. (Nothing filled, of course, just “holy” ones.)

Prayer and belief-in-a-deity-that-answers-prayer form a kind of self-stoking mechanism. If people didn’t think their prayers could be answered, they wouldn’t bother believing in God. But as long as they cling to the notion that there’s a kindly old gent in the sky who sometimes takes requests, they’ll go ahead and seek divine intervention for their own desires, failings, or bad luck. It’s kind of a fallback position.

Prayer on a national scale is, to my mind, entirely too suggestive of trying to get God to choose sides. The fact that we’re probably the only nation that does this no doubt convinces those who participate in the ritual that it just might work. After all, who’s He gonna listen to except those talkin’ right to Him? (That’s right, God is Travis Bickle.)

But it ain’t prayin’, it’s brayin’ – the participants puffing up their own sanctimoniousness behind a façade of public piety. Didn’t Jesus have something to say about guys like that?

Prayer seems like a contradiction in a nation steeped in Calvinism. Believers are always insisting “Thy will be done,” as if to say “Here’s what I want, God, but if that’s not cool, then go ahead and do what You were gonna do anyway.” As if He wouldn’t. And for those who are really into the notion that God’s plan is already decided, how you gonna change His mind? Why even try?

I have no idea what requests were sent up during the NPB. Maybe somebody even ordered up a Grand Slam. But you can bet God must be getting a little tired of all this holier-than-thou nonsense He sees in America. Maybe if it were a National Prayer Barbeque (with a keg), everybody could loosen up a little.

Today’s forecast: 50% chance of schadenfreude

The blizzard barreling across the county the last 24 hours produces a gut reaction for some of us not affected by it: Glad I’m not in its path!

News of tragedies often provokes empathy, genuine sorrow for lives needlessly lost. But news of bad weather impacting other people produces, in me at least, a giggle of relief.

Not that I’ve never been on the other end. Living in the desert for 29 years, I watched the rest of the country marvel that we could tolerate temps of 110 day after day. Then I got my satisfaction in the winter.

Now that I’m living in a more temperate climate – although still in the “arid west” – I share the inconvenience of paralyzing snowstorms, although admittedly not as often or on such a grand scale. (It just doesn’t take all that much to paralyze a city of 40,000, but 10 inches was enough to immobilize the guy who was coming to fix the snow blower I was unable to use.)

So to all my friends and family scattered across the storm’s path, I really do extend my empathetic best wishes. But I’m smiling with relief that it didn’t affect me.

Because my overnight lows in the single digits for two nights running, with sub-zero wind chills, are about all I can handle right now.

Calling Gliese 581, Come In, Over...

A front-page feature story in Monday’s NYT describes the efforts of scientists to find an answer that’s bugged us for a long time: is there anybody else out there?

Such efforts can seem agonizingly slow. Sending out probes and studying the prospects for life-sustaining planets is pretty much a crapshoot when you consider the vastness of the heavens. Which is why I think the whole undertaking is a monumental waste of resources.

Supporters have a rationale: “as astronomers keep reminding us, humanity will eventually lose Earth as its home, whether because of global warming or the ultimate plague or a killer asteroid or the Sun’s inevitable demise. Before then, if we want the universe to remember us or even know we were here, we need to get away.”

That rationale, I believe, contains two flaws.

First is the notion that if we screw things up we can always move to a new neighborhood. Talk about setting an example for the kids! Let’s just pack it in and head for someplace where climate change, microbes, or vagabond space junk can’t find us. What if the brainpower being devoted to space exploration were directed instead toward solving the very problems they’re suggesting we run away from?

Second is the idea that we’re worth the universe’s recognition. We think of ourselves as a pretty nifty outcome of natural selection, but in the big picture we’re hardly a blip. And if all the UFO sightings have any basis in fact, it seems likely that no space-faring race that’s cruised by has considered us worth contacting yet (except of course for the random abduction and anal probe). Maybe the fact that we’ve got our eye on the cosmos while we haven’t cleaned up after ourselves has them a little concerned. Face it, we’re just a teeming mass of bad karma.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big sci-fi fan, and am even now juggling DVD re-viewings of Babylon 5 and Farscape while reading an Ian M. Banks “Culture” saga in between. But one thing seems clear to me: to venture out into space, a species needs to be not only technologically capable but also worthy.

When you think about it, humanity’s worthiness leaves a lot to be desired. So let’s not waste our own time and money on this search. If they’re out there, they’ll let us know – if  they want us to know, that is. Wouldn’t it be more worthwhile to give them a reason?

Eddication Nooz

A new survey of high school biology teachers reveals that only 28 percent follow established guidelines for teaching evolution – and that 13 percent advocate creationism.

That’s just swell. Apparently there are educated adults who were charmed enough by collecting bugs or watching birds to want to teach life science to students. Only problem is, they themselves apparently didn’t study biology.

But why let this concern us? I’ve recently learned that similar situations exist in other disciplines:

• 18 percent of earth/space science teachers believe the moon is made of green cheese
• 26 percent of chemistry teachers lack proper training in lighting Bunsen burners
• 43 percent of physics teachers do not know the purpose of vectors
• 27 percent of math teachers suspect that Pythagoras stole his theorem
• 14 percent of English teachers cannot quote the i-before-e rule
• 34 percent of Latin teachers don’t know the words to “Gaudeamus Igitur”
• 22 percent of French teachers have never heard of French ticklers
• 19 percent of Spanish teachers believe Cervantes was not born in Spain
• 24 percent of history teachers continue to support the theory that the earth is flat
• 57 percent of civics teachers have lied to get out of jury duty
• 17 percent of music teachers do not know the difference between sharps and flats
• 21 percent of art teachers support finger painting for the secondary curriculum
• 63 percent of shop teachers admit to hitting their thumbs with hammers
• and 92 percent of phys ed teachers believe that students enjoy gym class – the other 8 percent are just sadists

Fundamentally speaking...

I’ve dropped the name Julian Jaynes a couple of times in this blog without observing that his book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (1976) was responsible for blowing my mind thirty years ago. Jaynes hypothesized that, due to an anatomical feature of the brain, humans once obeyed voices in their heads that they attributed to “the gods,” and he backs up his theory with a lot of convincing evidence from antiquity.

Without attempting to support or refute that argument here, I’ve come to observe a close correlation between Jaynes’s theory and the way fundamentalists think. I’m referring here not only to Christians who take every word of the Bible as truth; I’m also thinking of political fundamentalists, a.k.a. constitutional originalists, who want to govern the United States as if it were stuck in the late eighteenth century.

A similarity between religious and political fundamentalists can be found in Jaynes’s ideas, and it’s really quite simple: some people would rather defer to a higher authority than think for themselves. They need somebody to tell them what to do. And if voices in their heads aren’t there anymore (but who’s to say they aren’t?), sacred texts will do.

Take for example the Ten Commandments, which stand at the cusp of religion and law. Hebraic tradition has it that Moses went up to the mountain and Jehovah personally dictated the commandments, which ol’ Mose dutifully chiseled into stone. All these centuries later, not only do people still subscribe to those rules but modern lawmakers also seek to enshrine them in public places – all because of their purported provenance. Ancient texts say that the laws came from God, therefore they must have come from God, therefore they are to be forever revered. It’s the next best thing to Yahweh whispering in your ear.

Laws aren’t carved in stone anymore. They have to take into account the times in which they function. Context is everything, and coveting thy neighbor’s ass doesn’t resonate much nowadays (unless of course one replaces “ass” with “42-inch flat-screen TV”). But thanks to Antonin Scalia and his cronies, our Supreme Court often operates from the mind-set that what was good enough for the Framers is good enough for us today.

This isn’t rational judicial thought. It’s nothing but fundamentalism that blindly defers to authority. And as with our forebears who responded to auditory hallucinations they mistook for divine instruction, many people today wouldn’t presume to question authority. It’s just another instance of black-and-white thinking, with shades of gray (or the exercise of gray matter) not welcome.

When I consider the extent to which conservatives – and many if not most of my fellow citizens – take pride in this deferral (which is usually cloaked in the veil of tradition so as to defy challenge), it saddens me to think that thinking for oneself bears such a stigma.

And the irony is, that’s how this country got started.

{snap!}

I think I’ve tipped my hand that I’m a bit of a political junkie. Between exposure to the news media and the blogosphere, it’s hard not to be if you’ve got the least predisposition.

But every so often, something goes {snap!} in my brain and I just can’t take it any more – “it” being the hype, the hypocrisy, the overall histrionics of those we elect to public office. This latest occasion was triggered [sic] by the events in Tucson and the realization not only that no unified call for gun control would come out of it but also that the gun nuts would clamor for even more license to shoot first and ask questions later.

And so the {snap!} resulted in my not bothering to watch Obama’s state-of-the-disunion address or even read reports of it. And I wasn’t surprised to later learn that not one breath of that speech had been spent on our national obsession with firearms.

One of Bill Maher’s guests last week was Ronnie Raygun’s old budget director David Stockman, who has either made a sharp turn to the left or, more likely, stood still while the GOP veered even further right. He had the guts to flat-out state that the 2nd Amendment was a product of its era and that today gun ownership is no longer even necessary within the context of its original intent – that of guaranteeing a free militia. Those who defend the right to own guns either tautologically fall back on the right itself, or else claim the need for armed defense against their own government.

The NRA insists that it’s people, not guns, inflicting any harm. Well, guess what? It’ll be people, not guns, responsible for any necessary rebellion against repression that gun nuts feel so determined to stockpile weapons for. Did an armed citizenry force Ben Ali out of Tunisia? Will guns overthrow Mubarak in Egypt? Or is it just a matter of putting enough angry bodies in the streets with rocks and molotov cocktails to make their will known? But as with Rep. Cohen’s ill-advised comparison of Republican untruths to Nazi propaganda, say anything as often as the gun lobby does and everyone will believe it. Meanwhile, 2A supporters who envision themselves manning the barricades are living in fantasyland – or more likely frontierland, complete with coonskin caps.

So what is the real state of our disunion? It’s “situation normal, all fucked up.” I doubt that anything will ever unsnap my bemused outrage over creationists or teabaggers or stupidity in general. But as far as I’m concerned, the political process is beyond hoping for rational results – and beyond getting worked up over.

Either/Or

As I watched the Tucson memorial service, the pagan-tinged invocation by a person of mixed Latino/Yaqui blood made me think “this is going to make Limbaugh, Beck and company apoplectic.” Aren’t we supposed to be a Christian nation?

That got me back to pondering the Right’s black-and-white thinking, and it suggested what might well lie at the root: the whole Christian attitude of exclusivity.

This is essentially a Protestant phenomenon: you’re either saved or you’re not. Roman Catholicism always offered more loopholes in terms of absolution, penance, confession, and intercession, not to mention the whole Purgatory scenario. But for Protestants, you either believe or you’re damned for all eternity. And when you think about this country’s Calvinist and Puritan heritage, that attitude goes hand-in-glove with capitalism. (And let’s not forget the whole racial bit: if you’re not all white, you’re not white at all, so never mind that Obama has an Anglo mother.)

The problem with the Protestant mindset is that it’s totally locked in. You just can’t get a true believer to accept shades of gray. Unfortunately, it extends to our president’s skin, to the evils of socialism and gun control, and to any form of thinking that requires an open mind.

Got Vitriol?

The shooting of Gabrielle Giffords has unleashed a storm of emotion from which I am not exempt. Having lived in Tucson for 29 years, I’m familiar with the scene of the crime, the medical center, and the friendliness of the community. I had helped elect Giffords to her first term.

Tucson always seemed like a pocket of sanity in an otherwise reactionary state. Our Republicans were reasonable, not like the nutjobs up in Mesa. So after I’d moved upstate to Prescott and began reading about teabaggers staging protests in the Old Pueblo and vandalizing the congresswoman’s office, I was a bit startled by the lack of civility.

But I’m just as startled by my own lack of civility in one regard. Because I have to wonder if the victim had been Clarence Thomas or Sarah Palin whether I would have cheered. In that scenario, I might have said to myself, “They had it coming, those who live by the sword (or by an advocacy of blanket gun rights) die by the sword.” It might have seemed like some kind of justice. But then Gabby Giffords supported gun rights, too.

We live in a sick society. Westboro Baptist is sufficient proof. Unfortunately, as long as I’m willing to imagine a gunsight on a wingnut, I’m no less sick than anyone.

Now the Right is coming down hard on Sheriff Clarence Dupnik for suggesting that conservative talk radio/TV bears much of the responsibility for keeping people in a state of agitation and planting suggestions that armed violence is an acceptable means of redress. They insist that Dupnik has unnecessarily politicized the incident. That reaction was to be expected. But it is not defensible.

I continue to believe, as I have stated before in this blog, that the Right is guilty of too much black-and-white thinking. Health care reform equals socialism. Any form of gun control necessarily leads to disarming citizens. If you’re not with us in the war on terror, you’re against us. Now it seems that anyone calling for civility in political discourse wants to curtail freedom of speech.

I’ve tried my best to be amused, but now it’s hard not to be disgusted. And while this tragedy forces me to recognize my own flaws, there’s no question in my mind about who in this sick society is sicker.

You want fries with that?

A triple whammy in today’s NYT....

A feature story on page 1 reports on how today’s kids are so besotted with technology – addicted to texting, video games, etc. – that they don’t pay any attention to their studies. It’s no wonder our international standing in education is slipping, and our jobs are going overseas....

Meanwhile, Tom Friedman’s column, with no acknowledgement of the news story, talks about the very hole we’ve dug for ourselves in education....

But the capper comes in the adjacent column by Frank Rich about the popularity of Sarah Palin as both political and media figure. Because what he observes is that “it’s anti-elitism that most defines angry populism in this moment, and, as David Frum, another Bush alumnus (and Palin critic), has pointed out, populist rage on the right is aimed at the educated, not the wealthy.”

Swell. Not only are we getting more stupid, we have a grassroots movement spreading the word that it’s “in” to be stupid. I’d say we were a nation of sheep, except that would be an insult to sheep. At least they’re productive. But how many kids today know that’s where wool comes from? (Or even what wool is?)

So who’s going to rescue the next generation? Not the fundamentalists; they want the Word of God to be swallowed unquestioningly. Not the Republicans; they want to cut funding to education. Not the teabaggers; they equate good grades with elitism. And don’t expect the kids to bootstrap themselves; they’re too hooked in to their iPhones to give a shit.

I once had a doctor whose examination room was decorated with photos of bums with cigarettes, bearing captions like “Smoking is Debonair.” So let’s expose kids to pictures of middle-agers flipping burgers with the message “Texting beats studying any day.” But I guess if we expect them to notice, we’d better send it to their phones.

Atheists Unite! (or not...)

I wasn’t entirely surprised by the article in today’s NYT about freethinkers advertising their [lack of] beliefs. I’d already been aware of the Freedom from Religion Foundation’s campaign putting up billboards in major metropolitan areas with messages like “Imagine No Religion” and “Sleep In On Sundays.” Now it seems that other groups like the American Humanist Association and American Atheists are joining the competition for “market share” among disbelievers, now that our numbers have grown.

As an agnostic (and decidedly not an atheist – I find the Tao far too unfathomable to presume to make any claims about it, yea or nay), I’ve been somewhat wary of confrontation. Even though I’m totally opposed to the intrusion of religion in public life, I don’t think in-your-face messages do much except preach to the choir and antagonize believers. So when I got a mailing a couple of years ago asking me to donate to the FfRF, I gave it some thought, had them send me a sample newsletter, and decided I didn’t really relate to their agenda. I just didn’t see billboards as a sensible use of donors’ money. Instead, I chose to support Americans United for Separation of Church and State and their mission to maintain a level playing field through lobbying and the courts.

But this new campaign of the AHA has made me prick up my ears, because what they’re doing is pointing out religious texts that “advocate fear, intolerance, hate and ignorance.” And that’s a good thing, because it’s more potentially constructive to make believers realize how misguided their belief system is than to simply throw razzberries at them. I look at it as judicious blend of FfRF’s confrontationalism with AU’s rational approach. (BTW, I’ve often wondered why neither FfRF or AU is listed as a member of the umbrella organization Secular Coalition for America; maybe they’re too jealous of market share.)

So sure, I still take the position “whatever gets you through the night” when it comes to not hassling believers too much, just as long as they don’t try to inflict their nightmare on me. But if I were a better human being – a humanist, perhaps – maybe I’d give some thought to pointing out to them how what they believe is truly disruptive. Because if people would only shed their misguided beliefs, maybe we’d all get a better night’s sleep

S&M, Republican Style

You have to hand it to the Republicans, they know how to work a crowd.

This had already been pointed out by Thomas Frank in What’s the Matter with Kansas? And you’d think that once people had this explained to them they might slap their foreheads and say “How could we have been so gullible!”

But one should never underestimate the stupidity of the American electorate. The GOP didn’t need to use social issues to get what they wanted in the midterm elections. As ever, “it’s the economy, stupid.”

Forget the smoke and mirrors; it’s all done with rhetoric. The Republicans want to shoot down health insurance reform, so they cry “big government!” and “socialism!” – despite the fact that most Americans would never want to give up Social Security or Medicare. When their target is spending, they cry “deficit!” – despite the fact that entitlements and defense carry the load, and that the GAO estimates that Obamacare will actually reduce it. When the issue is taxes, their battle charge is “cut!” – despite the fact that extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans will only add to the deficit. The trick is to raise only one issue at a time so as not to reveal how one argument shoots down the other, which is appropriate for the average voter’s attention span. And as Charles Pierce points out in Idiot America, if something is repeated often enough and with sufficient gravitas, it’s accepted as truth.

The bottom line is, this agenda doesn’t serve “the American people” that the GOP constantly invokes. It benefits big business and the wealthy. Just like it’s always been.

Come to think of it, it is all smoke and mirrors. Wielded so deftly that most people don’t even know it. Except that, as with most s&m, the victim is saying “don’t stop, hurt me more.”

Freshness Guaranteed!

”There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, 

and it has a longer shelf life.”
– Frank Zappa

Christine O’Donnell certainly proves the point. As does Sharron Angle. As does Jim DeMint. As does, and did, and continuously will, Sarah Palin. Moonbats may show poor sense on a lot of occasions, but why do wingnuts seem to be so uniformly, certifiably stupid? Maybe it’s all that fluoride in the water that their Bircher forebears tried to warn us about.

The recent survey showing atheists in America are more knowledgeable about religion conversely shows just how ignorant many religious Americans are. I was startled (but really wasn’t) to read about Gary Bauer addressing the recent Value Voters Summit (which also hosted O’Donnell) in which he derided Islam, pointing out that the “Creator” is mentioned in the Declaration of Independence and that “That’s not Allah.” What does it take to educate someone that different cultures have different names for the same [alleged] deity? And, while we’re at it, that deities are no better or worse than how we define them?

But stupidity is not selective. Atheists and humanists recently gathered to decide how in-your-face to be toward religious America, with “accommodationists” and “confrontationalists” throwing brickbats at one another. As disunited as Democrats – I guess there’s something to be said for a lack of lock-step thinking. Digging in heels instead of making an effort to work together doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. That of course describes the last two years in Washington, which seems to have been ground-zero for a stupidity bomb.

Frank was right. It’s super-prevalent and it has a lo-o-o-o-o-ng shelf life. Rest assured that the stupidity we witness today will still be just as fresh when the 2012 elections roll around. And still just as hard to swallow.
 

Everything but why...

Watching a wasp cruise by while I was sitting on the deck first made me grateful that we hadn’t had as many this year, then made me think as always about the line from Dylan Thomas’s A Child’s Christmas in Wales, in which he remarks upon receiving a book that tells him “everything about the wasp but why.”

The same holds for scientific explanations of reality. We can conjecture concerning the mechanics of the Big Bang and come close to explaining how; we just can’t put our fingers on why.

Is the Universe here because Someone or -thing wanted it here? Does existence boil down to a volitional whim? If so, where did that whimsical entity come from? How did It amuse itself before touching off the BB? And where did It get Its sense of humor?

This is of course the hardest thing of all to wrap one’s mind around. Next to second-guessing death, it’s why we have churches. And considered too long, to the point where wrapping becomes unwrapped, it’s why we have loony bins.

So when it comes to contemplating the Universe, especially while gazing up at the night sky when it’s hard not to, it becomes a little crazy-making to ask why.

Better perhaps we should content ourselves with asking why not.

The Worst Thing

In a novel I’m reading, a character poses the question “What’s the worst thing that ever happened?” The answer is “The Holocaust.” And since I’ve just come off watching the “World At War” series on dvd, I find that’s not an inappropriate reply. The fact that a madman was able to sell an entire country on his racist agenda and undertake the cold-blooded extermination of six million Jews – more than 11 million people in all if you count Hitler’s other “undesirables” – undoubtedly qualifies as the most horrendous event in human history. And while there have been other genocides, none have been pursued to such extremes. Stir in the fact that the perpetrators were supposedly civilized twentieth-century Europeans from a country that had made significant contributions to Western culture, hardly “barbarians” like Pol Pot, and it’s even more grisly.

But is it the worst thing that ever happened?

Genocides are events, set pieces in history. 9/11 is another – pretty horrendous, but still overshadowed by what the Nazis did. What had been the worst thing before the Holocaust? The senseless slaughter in the trenches of WWI? It’s all a matter of perspective; maybe Asians or South Americans would point to something else.

But “worst things” can be turning points instead of events. Think of things with less horror but longer lasting repercussions: the invention of the internal combustion engine and the double whammy of its effect on the atmosphere and demand for oil ... the decision of the Roman Catholic Church to forbid birth control and its impact on overpopulation in the third world ... the introduction of the slave trade to North America and its consequences for American history and society ... the creation of the atomic bomb, with immediate horror to be sure and producing years of anxiety for those of us who were taught to “duck and cover,” but whose worst implications may even lie ahead....  (Readers, feel free to submit other suggestions.)

So a horrendous occurrence may be shocking, but the impact of a decision or invention can be just as harmful in the long run. And we may not even know how devastating they are until it’s too late. But lack of decision can also have an impact – and with that in mind, I would like to nominate for “worst thing in the world” the fact that human beings haven’t yet outgrown the fairy tale of “God.” There’s no specific event, no turning point. But the fact that we still lead countries in His name, kill in His name, even hate fags in His name, and then wonder why He doesn’t intervene in wars and genocides makes us not much more enlightened than our “uncivilized” ancestors.

Be Very Afraid: The Truth(iness) is Out There

The prevailing political winds seem to be blowing nothing but fear. You take it in through your lungs and it goes straight to your brain. Wingnuts are afraid that Obama is a closet Muslim and will lead the country down the road to socialism, while lefties like me are afraid that Republicans are practically pissing themselves for the chance to trash social security and Roe v. Wade. (The difference of course being that liberal fears are totally legitimate.) Everyone’s going ape-shit over fearful speculation, imaginations are running berserk. If there were a stock market for fear futures, that would be where to put your money because it’s going to keep going up. Just the mere concept of Stephen Colbert’s “March to Keep Fear Alive” is as close to truthiness as you can get.

About the only good thing you can say about fear is that it doesn’t discriminate. It infects left and right, rich and poor. Is there any American out there who isn’t afraid, who’s truly fearless? Just send them a piece of mail with “Internal Revenue Service” in the return address and see what happens: a puddle. And I’m not talking about around the feet. Because as FDR famously said, we have nothing to fear but fear itself...and the boogeyman. Death, taxes, and now, of course, jihadists.

This invites a tangential thought: are jihadists fearless? Think also of Japan’s kamikaze pilots in WWII; each undertakes a suicide mission seemingly without fear. Why? Because the individuality I talked about last time has been subjugated to a higher cause. So why are we Americans so full of fear? Maybe because as confirmed individualists we have more self at stake. Not to mention more stuff. (That stuff’ll get ya every time...)

In a world fraught with uncertainty, this much is dead certain: if the Republicans retake the government, their agenda will be to restore the (sub)standard operating procedures of the Bush-Cheney era. And just like the WMDs in Iraq, truth and reason will become figments of the imagination. But not fear. Under that regime we’ll always be able to count on the certainty of fear.

Is this what Americans pine for?

His Mysterious Ways

The Gallup poll I recently cited revealed the religiosity of various nations, including the fact that less affluent nations are more religious, more affluent less so. One exception to the rule is the United States; another is the Persian Gulf states. Funny thing about that.

Consider that the word Islam itself means “submission to the will of God,” and a popular adage in Christianity is “not my will but Thine be done.” Among the devout, individuality is suppressed – also a hallmark of Buddhism, a significantly less bellicose faith – and rightly so. I’d go so far as to say this is what distinguishes a religious from a secular society, except that the US fiercely defends individualism while brandishing its religiosity like the sword of an avenging angel.

So are Americans hypocrites, or is our particular brand of Calvinist Christianity to blame? Maybe it’s a matter of psychological projection whereby we assign our desires to God and take that as justification for our actions. God wanted us to wipe out the Indians and expand our borders, to destroy [godless] Communism, to take a stand against socialized medicine, to hold fast to our firearms. And now He probably wants us to bomb Iran. In the meantime, we credit Him with our affluence and assume we must be doing His will to have achieved this kind of success.

(And why should it be any surprise that atheists in America are more knowledgeable about religion? To open one’s eyes, one first needs to be able to see.)

We’re not alone, of course, as it would appear that some residents of the similarly affluent oil-rich PG states, birthplace of al Qaeda, feel they have an inside track on the will of Allah. Maybe they see His having put all that crude under their feet as their own justification for translating their will into His and back again.

So in the end, it’s not Thy will but mine be done. That ol’ God sure works in mysterious ways.

Message at the Bottom of the Cup

In an excellent NYT op-ed piece entitled “The Founding Fathers Versus the Tea Party,” Ron Chernow lays out a compelling assessment of how teabaggers have glamorized our forebears to the extent of ignoring the contentiousness that prevailed when America was born. Aside from his refresher course in history, what struck me most was this comment:

The Tea Party Movement has further sought to spruce up its historical bona fides by laying claim to the United States Constitution. Many Tea Party members subscribe to a literal reading of the national charter as a way of bolstering their opposition to deficit spending, bank bailouts, and President Obama’s health care plan.

As I began to read this, the first thought that leapt to mind was that they “lay claim to the Constitution” the same way that they wrap themselves in the flag. But when I got to the part about “a literal reading,” I couldn’t help but compare that to the tendency of many (perhaps most?) conservatives to be fundamentalist Christians.

Each of these proclivities reflects the same shortcoming: an unwillingness – or inability – to think things through. Why assess a situation when appealing to patriotism should be enough? Why question anything if it’s there in black and white?

Granted, the U.S. Constitution at only [sic] 200+ years old is a bit more relevant than the Bible. But it still reflects an 18th-century state of affairs that couldn’t have anticipated today’s, any more than early belief in the Bible could have anticipated advances in understanding that blow creation myths and miracles out of the water.
 
Sacred writings are not sacrosanct. And if they’re looking for a reflection of reality, today’s Founders-invoking patriots could just as well be reading tea leaves.

Why do Republicans wear red suspenders?

Imagine your house is burning down and, in a market-driven economy, there are two competing fire companies. You suspect that fire company #1 may even have started the fire, so you call #2 and they come and do their best to put it out. Only it’s still smoldering after months, so you’re a bit miffed. Not to mention choking on the smoke. You’d like #2 to come back and finish the job you called on them to do, except that #1 – the one that may have started it – is blocking the road so that #2’s trucks can’t get through and is insisting they can do the job better. (And they assure you that their crews don’t include any illegal immigrants or gays, either.) And since from your perspective #2 ain’t doin’ squat, why should you throw them your business again?

And so when the Republican leadership held a press conference in their shirtsleeves to present their “Pledge to America,” I couldn’t help but question their choice of costumes. I would have found it a lot more credible if they had come out dressed as firemen.

You know, the kind from Fahrenheit 451: the book-burning, truth-denying, repressive thugs who start the fires to begin with.

In search of friendly skies...

I’m in the midst of planning some air travel, so if you’ll excuse me I need to rant about how much I hate US Airways.

Nearly all of my travel is to visit family near Philly. And for the 30+ years I’ve lived in Arizona, the hassle-free options have been Southwest and the-airline-formerly-known-as-America West. When I lived in Tucson, I either flew AW to Phoenix or Vegas to connect to a nonstop, or SW to Vegas for same (since SW doesn’t have the Tucson-Phoenix route), or a ground shuttle to Phoenix for either. With either, there was no need for sweating connections halfway across the country (although I had at least one AW plane fail to make it to Phoenix). These days I have to take a ground shuttle from Prescott to Phoenix, but those two airlines still offer the only direct flights.

I came to love America West once I got over hating them. They used to have such a lock on the Tucson market that they didn’t care if they treated their passengers like shit. One of my memorable experiences involved my flight from Philly arriving in Phoenix late and me running to make my Tucson connection only to see it pulling away from the gate and stranding me and half a dozen other people. I had thought there was some kind of rule that if your flight had landed they’d hold a connection, but AW apparently didn’t care. Then came one black day 20 or so years ago when Beth & I flew off for a vacation to the Northwest when it seemed that AW’s entire system crashed, flights canceled willy-nilly, and we ended up rescued by Air Alaska and finally going to bed in Bellingham without clean underwear for the next day.

But after that debacle things bounced back. When I called to book a flight (this being before such action was penalized with a surcharge), a friendly agent was always on the line, sometimes even waiving the fee if I had to change my plans. Whenever I called from back east to confirm a return flight, I enjoyed a brief chat over how the weather was in Arizona. Nine years ago when I had to push an itinerary up due to a family emergency, they bent over backward to accommodate me. The AW staff was uniformly friendly, as opposed to the robotic voices you always got on other airlines. And even though I didn’t fly all that much, one year they rewarded me with elite status anyway, and I admit to having been spoiled by those first-class upgrades. America West had won my allegiance.

Then came the merger with USAir. No more chatty agents based in Tempe or Vegas – instead it was offshore support from people whose first language was not English (this for “US” Airways), and whenever I attempted to trade miles for an upgrade it was like talking to a brick wall. A brick wall that spoke another language and pretended to not understand what it was I wanted. If they were going to take away my reward for flying with them, why should I continue to favor them with my patronage? Even the flight attendants were becoming surly, as borne out by news reports of post-merger labor squabbles, and one who’d come from the AW side and whose jump seat was across from me on a flight admitted that things weren’t what they used to be.

And so I migrated to Southwest with its super-friendly agents and crews. Sure, standing in line for a good shot at a seat got a little old before they revised their boarding system, but at least you had a shot. And today they still hand out snacks and bevvies while US is belt-tightening and selling munchies (at least they were shamed into backing off from selling water). But it’s that lack of assigned seating that I assume gives SW their biggest advantage: if you change your flight, there’s no penalty. Sure, you’ll revert to the prevailing fare, that’s to be expected, but there’s no punitive hundred bucks tacked on.

But hard times have hit the airlines, and while US still offers a number of non-stops between PHX and PHL, SW cut back to one each way. Six months ago I flew back to Philly on SW (with a stop in Pittsburgh but no plane change) and booked a return flight on each airline, preferring US’s schedule but deciding to book the SW one-stop as an alternate – because I knew that if I didn’t use it I could bank the fare for a later flight. And since I also knew I’d lose the money I’d spent on the US flight, I went ahead and took it.

Boy, was that ever a mistake.

Several years ago, AW touted a scientifically designed, more efficient boarding system that let people with window seats on earlier so that people in aisle seats didn’t slow things down by having to constantly get up to let them in. Why hadn’t anybody thought of that before? For my return from Philly I had chosen a window seat with that in mind, but I didn’t know that US had thrown science out the window since I’d flown them last. Turns out I was in the next-to-last group to board, which shouldn’t’ve meant any more than having to get past the guy I was surprised to see in my row’s aisle seat (mercifully the middle hadn’t filled...yet); but because US now charged for every piece of checked luggage, the overheads were already jammed with the steamer trunks that laughingly exceeded the dimensions of the test frame at the gate and to which the agents always seemed to turn a blind eye, and I was lucky to squeeze mine into what appeared to be the last available nook. And the whole luggage situation meant that the boarding process was utter chaos and guaranteed that departure from the gate would be delayed. (Once airborne, they also had the flight attendants hawking airline credit cards and discounts for Sky Mall in addition to food, which I suppose was meant to serve as entertainment since they no longer show movies on domestic flights, the thought of which visual distraction on a five-hour flight had been one of my considerations for flying them again.)

So now I’m planning another trip. The first thing I did was book my return flight on SW using the funds from the old unused ticket in order to lock in a fare and schedule. But when I got around to looking at outbound flights, I was irresistibly drawn to the attractiveness of the schedule and fare for one of US’s non-stops, since SW’s non-stop didn’t get in until late at night and the fare for the one-stop direct flight was surprisingly high (probably due to its being heavily booked by people who wanted to get to Philly without flying on US). And so I proceeded to fill in the blanks for a reservation.

But I just couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger.

I kept thinking about the overstuffed overheads. And the chaotic boarding. And the surly crews. And the now-empty video screens. And the $6 snack box that didn’t have much more in it than SW gave you for free. And the filled-in seating maps that were already relegating me to the back of the plane more than a month ahead of the flight. And the fact that if I had any need to change my plans, I could kiss most of my money goodbye.

So when I reviewed my options again – including a super-cheapo fare on American that involved a connection at O’Hare, on planes that Seat Guru says have been reconfigured by reducing seat pitch in order to squeeze in two more rows, to even consider which shows you how I feel about US – I came to the conclusion that it was worth the extra money and the brief stop in Pittsburgh to fly Southwest’s friendlier skies.

And as soon as I came to that conclusion, my teeth-gnashing anxieties over flying US Airways totally dissipated.

This concludes my airline rant. Cultural-political-religious postings will resume shortly. If my blood pressure has to go up, it ought to at least be over something beyond my control.