A Blaise of Glory

With one foot stuck fast on earth and the other leaping toward heaven, you'll just spin in a circle...

But you won't get called for travelling.

So I lied about not posting again today

In Portuguese, Baroque Means Irregularly Shaped Pearl

I frequently think of myself as dumber than I might be. When I get some insight into how others might think of me, I am surprised by how they appear to see me. To wit, I just opened a letter from my school's financial aid office that I've let sit here a while (dumb) to discover that they are offering me a bit more free money this year (indicating they think I am not so dumb- Or at least, I proved myself to be less dumb than they thought I might be).

This is all I'll be posting today; I have a paper due in the morning. But if you remind me I'll write about an interesting movie I saw last night, some thoughts I had about what it might mean to be a "seeker friendly" church, an apparently great church in Oregon, why we can't have nice things, why I'm not crazy or how I discovered at least one other person as crazy as me. Those sound like good things don't they?

You Know The Sound You Make When You Are Fingering Your Collar Because You are Very Uncomfortable With Something? That's the Title of This Post

Here's a yikes story from AlterNet. I guess for some people this means, that in addition to hating America, I hate Jews too.

You May Have Already Won

So here's the prize for the latest Red Letter Headline game:

A 1911 Liberty Head Nickel and a Bicentennial 50 Cent piece. I wonder if there is an intended poignancy in the prizes.

See how great I am? I don't make you scroll all the way to the bottom of a long rambling post to see what you're playing for. This is mine to give away, so no need to worry that you might have to have lunch with me if you win.

These can be yours if you guess the source of the last Red Letter Headline.

You're Talking A Lot, But You're Not Saying Anything

So I was writing about the unreliability of quotes the other day and it turned into something else. As I think about it, what I cited, the kid who plagiarized and fabricated events, was probably more about the practice of believing whatever you believe and creating a narrative that comforts you in that belief. It wasn't so much about the unreliability of quotes, or if it was about that, it was only obliquely.

Maybe what I was thinking about quotes is connected to that. Or maybe there is nothing in either of those ideas and I jumped quickly from one to the other because I couldn't rest steadily on either.

That said, I'm returning to it.

Outside right now, there are birds doing "it" on a hand rail.

What does that mean?

There are birds doing "it" on a rail. That's true. At the moment I write this, there are birds outside the window, doing "it." How convenient that Spring is in the air.

"It" is sex. DId you guess that? If you did, it wasn't because "it" always means sex. If you didn't know that, it wasn't simply because there is no clear antecedent to "it" in that sentence. That's a strange one. There isn't a single idea that "it" always refers to. In fact, that's the fun thing about "it." It can refer to any number of things. The coffee burned me. It was hot. That movie was lame, it didn't make sense. The van ran over her. It killed her. It can mean coffee, a movie, a van, or whatever else you want it to. That doesn't mean words mean nothing- or rather anything. In this case it means that's the purpose of "it." Its purpose is to be a reference to something else- a specific something else that can be any thing.

In "doing 'it,'" something similar occurs, but rather than a regular antecedent or reference to anything that preceded it, its meaning comes from something else. We generally know what it means by where we see "it." In the case of "doing 'it'" though, we know what it means because of who we are. That is, in "The dog has cancer; it will die," there appears to be a meaning of it that does not depend on the reader. But "it" in quotes, as in, "There are birds doing 'it'" means something that depends on writer and reader for meaning. "It" doesn't mean sex, except that it does because we say it does, and who "we" are is a specific community with boundaries.

Does that mean that we understand everything that way just because we can understand some things that way? Well, I would say "mostly yes," but that's not my point. My point is, in this case, the quotes let you know there is something more.

If I say something like, "She's really 'pretty.'" You should know I mean something other than what we generally mean by pretty with that. The quotes show you that when I say she is pretty, you probably shouldn't believe that's exactly what I mean. You should probably guess she is something other than pretty and you need to know more about me, her, the context, our values regarding pretty, and who knows what else, to know what I do mean. A regular meaning of pretty might be the starting point for what I mean, but we can't leave it at that. We can't so much rely on an agreed meaning of pretty when I put it in quotes, even if we could otherwise.

Also when I say something like, Cyndi said, "I wish you were dead" you would need to know that it refers to more than what is said. In fact, alone, the words in quotes aren't very reliable. Despite a huge life insurance policy, Cyndi doesn't really wish I was dead.

So the quotes say there is something else going on, but they also say this is what occurred. She said that she wishes you were dead is different than she said, "I wish you were dead." We need to give this occurrence meaning.

She said, "I wish you were dead." That is something that actually occurred. There is a moment when that happened. But knowing that it happened is not the same as knowing what it means. My President said, "We do not torture." (Ahh ha ha- you knew it would come to this.) That happened too.

But what do these happenings mean? "I wish you were dead" does not mean what it appears to mean, though it is a fact that she said "I wish you were dead." "We do not torture," does not mean what it appears to mean, though it is a fact that My President said "We do not torture." What is the meaning we give these things? Well you could say that my wife and My President are liars. But that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Their words are false, they say what they don't mean. Or they mean what they say, but what they mean isn't simply in the words that leave their mouths. Maybe both statements would benefit from a rim shot and a laugh track. Maybe those statements depend upon who says them and who we are for meaning. Maybe these are acceptable lies based upon who you think you are. Or maybe they aren't lies at all based upon who you are. Maybe one is a lie and one isn't.

Who am I, what is my identity if I know the first is a lie but it's okay? What do I value, what do I overlook? Who am I if I know the second is a lie but it's okay? What do I value, what do I overlook?

...

I'm paying up on the lunch I owe Bob today so rest assured, the Red Letter
Headline game is still on and people actually get their prizes.

I Heard an Orchestral Version of Baba O'Riley and Liked It
Gingerbread Boy- Miles Davis
Noose- Tripping Daisy
Prick- Tripping Daisy
Cancer For the Cure- The Eels
There Is No Greater Love-Dizzy Gillespie
Freedom of Choice- Devo
A Quick One, While He's Away- The Who (2 x's- I really like this song)
Testify- Rage Against the Machine
Forever Young- Bob Dylan
You Are the Sunshine of My Life- Stevie Wonder
A Commercial- Dead Kennedys

Ladies in the House I'm Calling Out To Ya'

That last post was pretty long. I thought I would also post something for those of you who might not care to read as much but still need the cool that I have to offer.

So via Boing I came across this:


It's a megaphone hat available on ebay. Could you believe that you ever knew happiness without this? Buy it.

Well I Wanna Be One

I fabricated a quote once. Conservative blogger, Ben Datruth, quickly fell from prominence almost as quickly as he ascended to it for doing that- for that and revelations of plagiarism too. Considering I get almost 5 visitors a day... almost, I figured I should come clean about my past before the wave of humiliation heads my way. Check the link so you know what I'm talking about, otherwise I may make even less sense.

So like a said, I once fabricated a quote. Not in the same way Liar O'Liely did. And I haven't plagiarized. What I did do was offer my friend a quote on a paper she was writing. I don't remember exactly what I said. I just remember that she needed a perfectly phrased quote to put just the right touch on a paper she was writing so I gave her one. She cited it as an interview and me as an authority I wasn't. I made up a quote and she got away with it. Fibby Mc Redstate, made something up and he lost his job. But maybe not his credibility.

He said the president and Tim Russert said something they did not actually say. He was making something up to support what he believed. He made it up to support what others believed. He made it up to endorse what he thought should be true, could be true, and to reinforce what he already lived as true. So, as far as he was concerned, it was true. Not because it actually happened, but because, given the proper conditions it could have happened. As far as he was concerned, those conditions to make it possible were there, but the actual event not occurring was just an inconvenient matter of the sensible world. It wasn't that it couldn't happen, it's just that it didn't happen. He believed it to be a possibility and it seems pursuing that possibility made him quite ambitious.

Still, why the quote, though? Why make something up? Even if Mr. Pants-on-fire wanted it to be an actual event, he knew it wasn't- how does that benefit him? If you know something's not true, it's not convincing you, and if you offer it in response to someone else, they likely won't be convinced of your position just by a quote... But I guess in this case it was more an issue of proving the president said something he really hadn't to make others look wrong. He just hoped no one would check up on his sources. I guess that still speaks to the issue of him living according to what he wanted to be true rather than what actually was. What he wanted to have happened, could have happened, so he just said it did happen. But it didn't.

So if you haven't checked the link, here's the deal: Ben believed that the president, during the 2000 campaign, would have said he was committed to a balanced budget unless there was a war. The president didn't say that. He just said he would maintain a balanced budget. So, because he hadn't maintained a balanced budget and eliminated a surplus, some people have a reason to question the president's "straight-shooteriness" and fiscal responsibility. Now, we already know how much I must hate America. This isn't about that. I am not concerned with the political issues in this. I am interested in the questions about truth, belief, and I guess what quotes are worth.

Here are some things the president really did say:

"Now I understand some say, 'Well, maybe they're just isolated' -- you know, the kind of people that are angry and took out their anger with an attack. That's not how I view them. I view them as people that believe in something. They is have an ideological base. They've subverted a great religion to meet their needs. And they need places to hide."

"There's an interesting debate in the world, is whether or not freedom is universal, see, whether or not -- you know, there's old Bush imposing his values. See, I believe freedom is universal"

"The way I put it was, there is an almighty God. One of the greatest gifts of that almighty God is the desire for people to be free, is freedom."

"Iraq is a part of the global war on terror. In other words, it's a global war."

"I mean, Americans cannot understand the nature of how brutal these people are. It's shocking what they will do to try to achieve their objectives. But it really shouldn't shock us when you think about what they did on September the 11th. It's the same folks, the same attitude, same frame of mind."

"D'Tocqueville, who's a French guy, came in 1832 and recognized and wrote back -- wrote a treatise about what it means to go to a country where people have -- associate voluntarily to serve their communities."

"Anyway, you'll be confronted with some stuff. Hopefully, our job is to make sure you're confronted with less issues, like being hooked on oil. One of the issues that we're confronting with now that I hope you'll not have to confront with is jobs going elsewhere because we don't have the math and science skills and engineering skills and physics skills that are taught to our children here."

Here's an interesting one from the same event, though not from the president:

"I have a comment, first of all, and then a real quick question. I want to let you know that every service at our church, you are by name lifted up in prayer -- and you and your staff and all of our leaders. And we believe in you. We are behind you. And we cannot thank you enough for what you've done to shape our country."

What do we do with these? Do these mean anything? I mean, if I already have a sense that the president isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, these will support that, but other than that? I mean, just sitting here as disembodied quotes they don't mean much, do they? Do they refer to a meaning beyond the words in them? Many of them don't follow basic grammatical rules so it's hard to describe them even as simple statements... Holy crap! I just discovered something. We have a totally post modern president.

Watch- if I say:

the dog runs

You know what that means. There should be a fairly regular, agreed meaning to everyone that understands those words apart from context and what not. You have a sense of what that means that does come from you; whatever idea pops into your head is yours. I feel I have to say that; but you could make a strong case that the words represent something with an objective meaning. This sentence doesn't really serve post-modern theory to well. The article "the" limits the subject to something specific. A dog is... well a dog, and it runs.

Oh but if I say:

and the dog you know a dog its gonna do that okay running

Oh I'll be nice- how about some punctuation?

And the dog- you know, a dog, it's gonna do that... okay... running.

What can you say about that? I guess you could say that the foundational ideas are there enough to know what's going on. You have the concept of a dog, you have a concept of running and that's enough to know that a dog is running. But you'd be a liar.

You need to do something with those other words: the "you" and the "know," the conjunction. Then there is a definite and an indefinite article, what should we do with those? There's what appears to be a sentence right in the middle of it: "it's gonna do that." Oh sure you can make sense of it, that's what you do.

If you put those words into someone's mouth though, especially a not so articulate, prone to malapropisms, loose associating, someone, you can know what it means. You know what it means in a particular context- because of various relations. That I can even pretend to punctuate that sentence depends on agreed meaning in an imagined context rather than a single objective meaning of those words.

It's not as easy as that, but I can't believe Ted Haggard is as ga-ga over this president as he is. Or maybe that depends on what the definition of "is" is.

Maybe, I'll come back to the quotes thing. But this is probably further than anyone would've read so I'm going to stop.

It's Houston, Not Houston
Hummingbird- Wilco
She's An Angel- They Might Be Giants
Rambozo the Clown- Dead Kennedys
Sit Down Servant- The Staple Singers
Gouge Away- The Pixies
Where Is My Mind?- The Pixies
Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough- Michael Jackson
Baba O'Riley- The Who
Blue N' Boogie- Dizzy Gillespie
Wishlist- Pearl Jam
Hypnotize- The White Stripes
Message of Love- The Pretenders
Crazy- Patsy Cline
Country Death Song- Violent Femmes
Satisfaction (I Can't Get No)- Devo

My Dog's Name is Duke

Hey, Duke, guess what happens when you reject me for a PhD program?

We both lose.

First and Foremost...

I guess I need to accept that it is possible to say, "Oh we got a spot up close- Thank God," and really mean something by it. I tend to be thankful for big picture things... maybe because I am so suspicious of my subjectivity. I figure I should be wary of being thankful that I am not like other people or being thankful for the destruction of my enemies. But this is how petty I am...

Acolyte 1-Thank God the bus was late today; I almost missed it.
Acolyte 2- Dammit I'm gonna be late to my job interview.

Thanks for this, thanks for that- I am so great the sun shines only on me. I am the end and glory of creation; I deserve so much. Pardon me, nobody, you're hindering my ascent. Excuse me, other nobody, in what way do you serve my gain? Oh you don't, well get out of my face because I am busy thanking God for stuff; if you have nothing to contribute to the list you must have no purpose. I say, " Good day to you madam."

"Thank God, we're not having chicken again." "Thank God we didn't miss the previews." "Thank God that's over." "Thank God Foucault protects the particular from metaphysical imperialism." I get it. I'm the one with the problem if I don't see it as simple as that.

Why can't I get over that? What a baby.

So, I'm watching the sun come up and thankful for the morning and a day that has never existed before. I thank God for the relief I feel that the CPT members are not dead. I thank God that more than my relief is at stake. But I can't keep making a list.

I just have a sense of my smallness, God's presence, and feel grateful.

Whatever Doesn't Kill You Makes You Wish You Were Dead

So if you're keeping score Danny Lopez and Bob Ramsey have each won the Red Letter Headline Game. However Bob's victory was tainted by the scandal of Cyndi claiming ownership of something that I'm pretty sure is... was mine. I remember the Scholastic Book fair where I got them. I remember reading them when I was a kid. They were in my stacks of old stuff. Nonetheless, Bob's getting lunch on me instead of those books. There's probably some lessons in there about marital compromise, the nature of possession, and the narrative of our histories but I'm not interested in learning any of that right now. As you may have learned from other posts, I have a tear in my abdominal wall. I do not, though, technically have a hernia.

I have all the pain and immobility of a hernia without the trouble of a surgery to repair it. You only get that if your intestines actually come through; right now I just have a tear in what was my inguinal canal, the opening through which they'll come... if they ever want to. It hurts... a lot.

You have an inguinal canal too. If you're a boy, it's the passage that your testicles should descend through into your scrotum. You have these canals if you're a girl, you just don't have a scrotum to carry your balls in. Well I guess to be accurate, you have a girl scrotum, but your girl balls stayed floating around in your abdomen... freak. If you want to palpate your inguinal canal you can. Here's what you do:
Follow your pelvic crease down to the inside of your leg. Can you feel the big 'ol tendon for your adductors at the crest of your pubic bone? Good. Move just interior to that. Now find the canal. If your a boy, it's roughly inside where your scrotum attaches to your body, if your a girl, it's below your mons veneris, at your girl scrotum, or your labia majora if you want to be all womanist about it. Can you feel the layers of flesh and tissue "above" your pelvis? If you can, you're in the right neighborhood. Okay, you should be able to feel a channel through the layers of muscle and fat exterior to the bone. Reach your finger up. Okay, if you have a tear there, you should be on the ground right now. maybe turning pail, possibly crying. Got it? Good.

That's where my pain is. It's not as bad as it was. It used to feel like someone put my testicles in an hydraulic press and was crushing them long after I asked them to stop. Now it just feels like someone has stabbed me in the pelvis with a knitting hook and is pulling on it.

I have pain medication. If I take it during the day, though, I don't get much done. When I take it at night, I forget everything I did during the day and wake up feeling a bit hungover. It's perfect for school.

But despite all this, I'll keep on trucking. If I understand things correctly, pain will make me better. Not only is there the great literary tradition of afflicted authors, but I have scriptural warrant too. Talk about a thorn in my flesh; what a great blog I must be writing here.

So keep reading. This pain can only mean things are going to get even better: better insight, more irony, better Red Letter Headline quotes and prizes. Good grief, if the quality of my blog is directly proportional to my pain, I can't wait to see what I do. And it's all for you; imagine the potential for your personal growth because of my pain. I must really really love you.

When You Get to Hell, Tell 'Em Aaron Sent Ya'
My Name Is Jonas- Weezer
Inner City Blues- Marvin Gaye
A Day In The Life- The Beatles
Ben Kenobi's Death/Tie Fighter Attack- John Wiliams
Waiting- The Rentals
Crosseyed and Painless- Talking Heads
Flauta y Timbal- Tito Puente
Regrets- Ben Folds Five
Where You Lead- Carole King
A Quick One While He's Away- The Who
La Negra- Mariachi Folklorico de Mexico

Huzzah

Congratulations to the most recent winner of the Red Letter Headline contest. Bob Ramsey knew the quote, "When you're slapped, you'll take it and like it," came form The Maltese Falcon. No one does general violence and misogyny like the communist Dashiell Hammett. Congratulations, Bob.

You Star Wars nerds missed a really great opportunity for some fantastic franchise material put out by Scholastic in cooperation with LFL. But don't let your miserable failure here keep you from missing out on future opportunities to be a winner. And the rest of you, who knows what fantastic prizes will be up for grabs next? Keep checking back here for more chances to play and win!

When You're Slapped, You'll Take It and Like It

-When you explore that cave, you should take oxygen tanks, there is the very good possibility of encountering gasses that can prove deadly to you and your party.
-What are you talking about hippy? There won't be any gasses in there, it would be a waste of time and energy to take oxygen tanks with us. We're just gonna run right in and out. It's a quick jaunt to the main cavern where we'll just grab the jade monkey and hop right back out.
-Well I have no doubt how quickly you can get in and out, I just think it's a mistake to go without oxygen tanks.
-Well I think you're stupid.
-You know it's my job to know about stuff like this, I know what I'm talking about when I say you will have people die if you come across these poisonous gasses and don't have the right stuff with you.
-What are you a psychic? Nobody knows the future. See you later, jerk- Hellooo spelunking.

...

-Holy crap we got people dropping like flies in there. pant pant Geez, there's like these crazy fumes that are killing a bunch of us. We got about 1000 feet into the cave and, man, pant pant people just started keeling over from these crazy gasses. Who would've thought that could happen? I mean poison gasses! Really, who could've seen that coming?
-Are you serious... I told you not even a moment ago that this could happen. I said if you went in there without oxygen tanks you would-
-"Could," you said, "could" and "if" and things of that nature. Besides you're talking about, like, alternate realities and stuff. You're trying to say that in some ideal universe of forms, maybe, that there is a perfect picture of how this could've turned out. I'm in the real world, we have no way of knowing if oxygen tanks would've saved us form poison gasses.
- Blink... blink
-What? ... Well, we don't.
-Well did you get the jade monkey?
-Turns out there's no jade monkey... and you're fired.

BE A WINNER
Now's your chance to be like Danny. Be the first to correctly tell me where the Red Letter Headline in this post is from and who said and you'll win this:
The Star Wars Treasury of Storybooks!
That's right, FREE STAR WARS STUFF!

Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding, Confetti Falling From the Ceiling

We have our first ever winner in the "Name The Source of the Headline Quote" contest. Danny Lopez of Jesus Drinks Mexican Smoothies guessed correctly. The quote was "He's evil, but he'll die. So I like it."

Tell 'em what he's won!

Danny you've won a handmade wooden stashbox from the Andes of Bolivia.
You don't have to keep drugs in it, boxes of this size are just called stashboxes.

Danny was the first and only entrant; so his answer, "Brush With Greatness," wins. Had a subsequent contestant also given me the name of the character that said it (Mrs. Hoover, I believe) along with the same information Danny gave, I would've handed the decsision to the judge (me). But this contest is now over.

Don't give up though, keep reading and keep your eyes open for the next Red Letter Headline. You could be the next to win one of hundreds of fabulous prizes I have to give.

It Is Well Past Lunch

You ever have things to do but you can't get to them becasue something is gnawing away at you like that weird diggy creature Kahn put in Paul Winfields ear? I would've just gone to bed, but I couldn't without posting this. This topic seems to have inspired more back and forth commenting than any other, and some things, I don't like to leave hanging. While I think a better discussion is how peacemaking is more than not fighting, I said in a comment I would post this, so I am.

In the following I am not conceding that invading Iraq was an appropriate intervention at this point nor am I conceding that the rationale, any of the changing rationale, justify the decisions made. What I offer is a response that is too long, and so beautifully written (wink), it shouldn't stay in the comments, but is really a response to a comment.

In contrast to what my posts have been lately, I am going to be brief because a.) longer posts tend to not be read b.) my usual tangential, loose associating style is not appropriate for this. This being this: I am not just attacking the W administration because I hate America and think we should let bad guys kill us all because I hate America so much. I hope that the following will show, that intervention is not a do something or do nothing proposition, that many "somethings" can be done, and in this case the something that is done is done in a way that is worse than it could otherwise be.

We Don't Want the Smoking Gun to Be a Mushroom Cloud
The administration waged an ominous prewar campaign that Iraq was an imminent and dangerous threat that required an immediate preemptive invasion. If that was true, it was the job of the administration to follow the advice of those whose job it is to know how to wage war successfully. This has not been done. If it was not true then... well whatever.

Because we are engaged in a war that has been initiated unnecessarily and unjustly, I would say every person that has died because of it is troubling, but as I said, only for the sake of argument, I will assume we had to invade Iraq. That being the case...

We Will Be Welcomed as Liberators
War architect, Paul Wolfowitz and others, mistakenly assumed that the US would quickly and easily transfer authority to Iraqis because we would be welcomed as liberators. This assumption, in part, led to the belief that fewer rather than more troops would be required. This was a policy decision made in opposition to career Pentagon officials who requested a number close to 400,000 for the invasion who said, based on experience, an immense force was necessary not only for invasion but for stability during occupation. Pentagon officials based this estimate, in part on experience in the Balkans where some NATO/UN forces were in fact viewed as liberators but the realities of war required a large suppressive force in place to prevent an insurgency from developing.

The architects of the Iraq War policy instead thought a small agile force would quickly overwhelm the Iraqi army (which the Pentagon did not doubt) and easily transfer power to the existing Iraqi power structure. The administration did not anticipate resistance therefore they did not commit the necessary forces to prevent the current problem. To say that the Army War College based their recommendations on something other than experience is absurd. Career military leaders requested a force of 400,000. Administration officials denounced those numbers as crazy and said a number closer to 75,000 would be needed. After negotiating, less than 150,000 went. As experienced military predicted, the lower number of forces led to a chaotic occupation that has proved more deadly to occupiers and occupied.

A Rush And a Push
Policy makers decided, in opposition to military leaders, that a quick rush to Baghdad was necessary; Rumsfeld has said that this in fact saved lives. Military officials dispute this. This rush was in line with the administrations picture and promotion of the new type of military policy described above. This assumption is contrary to what US Naval Institute reports and senior Army and Marine Corps officers suggest, that the rush not only bypassed conflicts with those that would build the insurgency but prevented US forces from maintaining a presence that would foster stability. Sending fewer troops than the Pentagon originally wanted and an illusory policy of a blitzkrieg style push to the capital combined to create a worse situation for US forces and Iraqis.

You GoTo War With The Army You Have
Speaking in the third year of an offensive war, Rumsfeld suggested the lack of armor on vehicles and soldiers was a function of logistics. It wasn't because the US was caught off guard, it wasn't because there was a pressing need to go to war, it was because of policy and execution that soldiers and vehicles remained unarmored. At the time he said that, nearly half of the US casualties were caused by IEDs and these casualties, deaths and injuries were made worse by a lack of armor. The administrations lack of preparation led to the deaths of more military.

Pre-war misinformation and misstatements aside, the Bush administration decided to go to war in Iraq in a specific way that has led to the death of a greater number of Coalition forces and Iraqi civilians. If this is among the most brilliantly executed in history, it's a wonder we are a superpower. The picture that emerges is not one of a single mistake that has led to the situation now, rather it is a series of bad choices and unwise moves that has made Iraq a far worse and far deadlier situation to everyone involved. This isn't in comparison with an idealized perfection but a picture of bad policy and execution- moves that would get a CEO (not in a family business) fired, moves that have gotten many people killed.

Even if one is of the mindset that an invasion of Iraq was the only option, the above shows it has not been done well. Even if we don't wonder about motives, we see it was handled poorly. If anyone was committed to an unrealistic idealized version of the world, it is this administration. An administration that has shown itself to be committed to its illusions so much so that 2314 Americans have died and more than 30,000 Iraqis. I am not speaking of the illusions of prewar intelligence and motives. I mean the illusion of a quick entry and suppression that sent young people to kill and be killed against the advice of those who know how to wage war. If you check the links below, it's not a bunch of unshowered, flower wearing hippies saying the administration has been wrong. It is career military people, some of whom have lost their jobs for saying as much.

Here are links to various sources. Some more.

So this doesn't address why I don't think such a military intervention was appropriate in the first place. It doesn't address ways of making peace before war seems an inevitability. (Those discussions are better because so many people imagine pacifism is simply saying, "I won't fight" rather than about working/struggling towards a goal non-violently.) Rather, it's simply against the notion that this invasion is all for the best in this best of worlds.

So much for short.

The words developed and handled were corrected. It was pointed out to me that nothing you say is true if you can't sple.

-Me

Oh The Hilarity You Miss Not Being Me or My Wife (Single Tear)

Exhibit A
-Skybalon's Wife- Oh we should all go on a cooking tour of Italy
-Skybalon- If you wanted to do that you should've married a homosexual
-Skybalon's Wife- I thought I did... Hey-Ooooh
-Outside Agitator- Ouch
-Skybalon- That's going in the blog
-Skybalon's Wife- ...
-Skybalon- ...
-Skybalon's Wife- Maybe you shouldn't, isn't that like the 3rd entry I've called you gay in?
-Skybalon- Well you would know best.

Exhibit B
-Complainy On Top Chef- Don't talk to me like I'm a f~cking five year old!
-Skybalon's Wife- I don't think I know any f~cking five year olds.
-Skybalon- You don't any five year olds?
-Skybalon's Wife- I don't know any f~cking five year olds
-Skybalon- ... You mean five year olds that you would call f~cking?
-Skybalon's Wife- Right
-Skybalon- ...
-Skybalon's Wife- ...
-Skybalon- What about five year old Hitler?
-Skybalon's Wife- No, I bet at five he was all right

And What Have You Done Today...

Or more pointedly, what had you done by the time you were 17? (Go to the link). I'm clearly assuming I don't have any teenage readers... But in case I do, here you go:

One Last Thing

So that last post was a bit long. I barely kept my interest to the bottom so can't expect anyone else would care to read that far. That being the case I thought I would make sure you knew the rules of the game:

I was playing this game with JonShoe wherein my post titles would be taken from movies and he would try to guess what they were from. He was able to get them more often than not. That's good, but for whatever reason I stopped doing that as much. I'm going to try to get back to that and open the game up to everyone. I will use more than movie quotes, that is they could be from TV shows, books, commercials, or some other source that tests your cultural literacy. So here're the rules: If the title of a post is in red, that is, red, it's a game quote. If you are the first one to respond with the correct citation and who said it, that is character and work, you'll win something good. If it's a disputed quote, get your own blog and make whatever rules you want- I get to say from where I culled said quote and who is right.

So who said it and in what? If you are the first to guess, you win this:


It's a handmade wooden stash box from Bolivia. That's kinda' cool isn't it? Really. There's a prize for this.

He's Evil But He'll Die, So I Like It

So Slobodan Milosevic is dead. I figure you knew that.

...oh right- Reader Discretion Advised and All That...

Back in the day when he was alive and orchestrating the murders a lot of people were unsure how to approach, or even if to approach, the problem. There were a number of reasons for this and one that shouldn't be underestimated is the sense with which people looked at genocide. It was largely seen as this monster that would have required the type of commitment WWII required. Part of that was because the genocidal monster that was Nazism required a huge international commitment to fight and Powell under Bush I, learning from Viet Nam, believed that US troops should not be committed to something that could not overcome political wariness or would be left under-supported because of political concerns. The commitment he felt the Balkans required could not be politically supported, therefore he would not commit US forces to the Balkans.

What wasn't really appreciated was that the genocide in the Balkans wasn't like WWII. The fighters there were not only not like Nazis, they were not like the Viet Cong either. For example, the Serbs sieging Sarajevo were mostly conscripts who were only recently gangsters or men of fighting age who had as an alternative to lobbing mortar shells on an unseen enemy, jail. They weren't trained soldiers, were largely uncommitted to their cause, and fled when faced with opposition. They would sit around the hillsides of Sarajevo in their machine gun nests with their mortars terrorizing civilians in the city below. UN forces were under strict orders to not intervene- they were to only deliver relief supplies. When they did begin to face opposition in the mid-nineties, they offered little resistance. When they were bombed by NATO they caved. When war criminals were arrested, there were no reprisal killings. The comparatively small, 11 day NATO bombing campaign in '95 led to the Dayton Accord. It was followed later by the much larger '99 campaign, followed in turn by the ousting of Milosevic and his being handed over by his own people for war crimes.

As smart as Colin Powell might be, he was wrong about what the Balkans would require. There was plenty of guff going around about the value of the Balkans, the slippery slope to a quagmire, the violent history of the region and other reasons to not intervene. The left (and I mean the real left that is composed of anarchists and communists- not the straw man left created by the right wing echo chamber that includes everyone from Ted Kennedy and Jon Mc Cain to Che Guevara) decried the imperialist or fascist motivations of the US, and boy did the right have something to say about this. No one other than W (as a governor no less) said, "Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." Weird. Rick Santorum said, " [The] President... is once again releasing American military might on a foreign country with an ill-defined objective and no exit strategy. He has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation's armed forces about how long they will be away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy." I guess he was saying he was... against it? And Clowny Mc Liar, I mean Sean Hannity said, "Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?" What was I talking about- politically expedient hypocrisy? No wait no, the way and why nations go to war. Okay.

The conflict "ended," and no Americans died in the conflict- not that that is the measure of success but it shows how mistaken Powell was. Many voices that today defend the current war in Iraq and accuse its critics of undermining the country and helping the enemy attacked the Clinton administration for this intervention; still, his administration helped build an international response and executed it in an international context. Whatever that's worth. This isn't to say it wasn't dangerous or should have been entered into lightly and was not accompanied by the atrocities inevitably present in war. People were brutally killed, smart bombs landed on busloads of civilians, and ruthless revenge for genocidal barbarity was always a threat if not an intermittent reality. I am not saying the intervention in the Balkans was a happy-clean fun war. What this shows is that if it is going to be done, it is possible to bring criminals who happen to have armies at their command to account in a way that is very distinct than the way it has been done in Iraq, and bad leadership or policy has real consequences.

Now I happen to be non-violent, or if you prefer, a pacifist. I happen to be non-violent because I am a Christian. Now some will take this to mean that I am right out of any discussion on the question of war. Just like some imagine that if you do not whole hog dig the war in Iraq you want terrorists to take over America. That's a dumb thought. I happen to think people like me are necessary when it comes to questions of war, much like in Christian tradition, the "Law" is necessary to let you know how bad you are. I do not imagine that a nation-state will act the same way I, or the Church, would. A nation will resort to violence, and that is their right, though doing it may not be right. To some this might void my pacifist standing, for others this might seem contradictory or a cop-out that allows me to have my cake and eat it too. Maybe. It may also be that if I wasn't so violent and militaristic in my youth I may not feel the need to be non-violent now. If it helps, you could think of my non-violence as a personal weakness and when I mature in my faith I'll be comfortable with killing. In any case, when a nation inevitability resorts to violence, it is an inevitability that can be mitigated, though not made good.

So why do I mention Milosevic? Well it's news people- you can't live with your heads in the sand! Oh no- wait I was making another point. The military NATO/UN intervention in the Balkans was an evil. But it was done in a way that mitigated the potential for greater evil. That doesn't make it good, it just makes it better than what it could have been. The US led effort to oust the Taliban is an evil too. But, like the Balkans, it is largely being done in a way that makes it better than what it could have been. Though, we are learning that resources are being diverted from this conflict to support Iraq, perhaps making it more difficult to finish, perhaps not. In any case, we are learning, every day, more and more, that the war in Iraq was not planned, initiated, or waged... how to say it... well. The leadership has been neither wise nor accurate in waging this war. They have, through their choices, made a bad situation worse.

To that, some may say, "Well if it's evil, why not just be as evil as we wanna be?" Well I guess you can, but you're gonna make things far worse than they would otherwise be. "Well isn't all evil just evil?" you say. Perhaps, but I say, "What would you rather do: steal money from your mommy's purse to get cash to buy your drugs or go down on some overweight, mouth-breathing, bald guy in an adult bookstore restroom so you could afford a quarter gram of speed that turns out to be mostly clumps of plastic, that you smoke in the back seat of a burned out abandoned Plymouth Valiant in the L.A. River?" They're both evil, right? Neither is good and should be called such, but one is worse than the other. Or maybe you'd be just as happy in either situation. A person in either situation is in bad shape, but I tend to think the latter is worse.

Is it at all possible that Saddam could have been removed from power without us being in the situation we are currently in or without the deception and bad judgment that preceded it? I think so. I think the Balkans illustrate this. Could things be worse? Of course, but I also think they have already been made worse because of the... evil of the administration. Now the use of that term might strike some as unseemly, but a.) if that is the reality of the human condition, why balk at using the term? and b.) to a certain extent, if we do not see the limitations and evil of our actions and substitute what we do for the good of what God does then we don't really expect God to do anything. It's okay to call evil evil.

It's right to say that Jesus being killed was evil. That's what it is. The joke of a trial, the chanting for his death, Barabbas' release, Pilate's spineless acquiescence, Jesus' friends fleeing, Peter's denials, Jesus' murder are all evil things. To recognize that does not impugn God. And it's not fate or "the long run" that overcomes that evil. God does. But it doesn't mean those things are then good.

I was a dating dick in the bad old days. I was mean, selfish, and dishonest to girls that liked me. I know things now because of that that are good but I was evil and any of the number of horrible things that I did to a girl in those days is not good because there is now a good because of God. It's not the long view of time that makes bad look not so bad. If you were to say something like that to Origen he would tell you you are wrong and don't understand the nature of your faith. Then again, he was declared a heretic... after he was dead... and the church needed to function in an imperial context. So call evil evil but know that's not all there is.

I don't doubt, that in the mouths of some, evil is used to end any discussion of an issue. If an administration is evil then anything I say or do against it is justified. Isn't that the argument supporting so much of what passes for justice right now? It's okay to detain people indefinitely because they are evil and we are good. It's okay to redefine torture because we are good and can be trusted to only torture a bit. It is wrong to question what the administration decides because it is good and they are fighting evil. That's the way it is used by those who have no understanding of their own guilt or who are happy with it. But that's not what this is about. I am not ending the discussion by saying what is evil. I am using it to point out an origin, a place to start from and lead to where we can be better. "Good enough" or "at least better than" are seductively and falsely comforting. I am better than I was but I pray not as good as I'll be.

That may be a bit abstract and, for some, less than constructive. Eh, well...

It helps our consciences to think of war as some reified function of valor, duty and love of country, that's not what it is. I am not speaking ill of the type of altruism that is a part of why some people join the military. I mean Slobodan Milosevic died in jail instead of in power because other people died gruesomely. Somebody's brother was killed. Somebody's mother was raped. Somebody's father is simply missing; Milosevic died in jail rather than in power. The former is better than the latter, but that doesn't make it good. It just means it's better to lose one eye than two. Saddam too, will probably die in prison rather than in power. But that doesn't, now lead us to say the same thing we might about Milosevic. In this case, because of the actual choices made we are blind, deaf and dumb, rather than just blind.

One Last Thing
I was playing this game with JonShoe wherein my post titles would be taken from movies and he would try to guess what they were from. He was able to get them more often than not. That's good, but for whatever reason I stopped doing that as much. I'm going to try to get back to that and open the game up to everyone. I will use more than movie quotes, that is they could be from TV shows, books, commercials, or some other source that tests your cultural literacy. So here're the rules: If the title of a post is in red, that is, red, it's a game quote. If you are the first one to respond with the correct citation and who said it, that is character and work, you'll win something good. If it's a disputed quote, get your own blog and make whatever rules you want- I get to say from where I culled said quote and who is right.

So who said it and in what? If you are the first to guess, you win this:

...Uh... Blogger isn't loading images right now... so... you have to just picture it. I'll show you when it's loading again.

It's a handmade wooden stash box from Bolivia. That's kinda' cool isn't it?

I Have a Tear in My Abdominal Wall That Hurts A Lot
Jesus of Suburbia, et al - Green Day
Mr. Knight- John Coltrane
London Calling- The Clash
Do Ya- ELO
Warning Sign- Talking Heads
Bring The Noise- Public Enemy
Outer Space Doesn't Care About You- The Briefs
Girl, You Have No Faith In Medicine- The White Stripes
Overture- The Who
Guerilla Radio- Rage Against the Machine
No Surprises- Radiohead
Shelter From The Storm- Bob Dylan
Ed Is Dead- The Pixies
Miles Ahead- Miles Davis
Same Dress New Day- Tripping Daisy

Slow News Day

I hope I've done this correctly. I got "tagged" with this by Bob a long time ago and I'm figuring this is how I'm 'posta do it. If'n I'm wrong, sue me.

Four Jobs I've Had
-Lifeguard
-Waiter
-Social Worker
-High School Teacher

Four Movies I Can Watch Over & Over
-I Heart Huckabees
-Raising Arizona
-Zoolander
-Monty Python and the Holy Grail (like anyone who spends this much time online could put something else)

Four Books I Have Read Over and Over (I'm saying other than books o' the Bible- I read some of those a lot)
Barrel Fever -David Sedaris
The Innocents Abroad -Mark Twain
Breakfast of Champions -Kurt Vonnegut (he's a Jr.)
The Sickness Unto Death -Soren "Funny O" Kierkegaard (I know that sounds pretentious but I keep reading it 'cos I don't get it- see that's not pretentious)

Four Places I've Lived
-Azusa
-Glendora
-San Dimas
-Santa Barbara

Four Places I've Vacationed
-Patzcuaro and points around, Michoacan
-New York, NY
-San Francisco, CA
-Portland, OR (that might seem like a lame place to vacation, but I heart Portland)


Four TV Shows I "Love"
-The Office
-Arrested Development (sigh)
-The Daily Show
-I really got into Project Runway and think I will be as into Top Chef

Four Favorite Dishes
-Buffalo Wings
-Pancakes
-Toro (Fatty Tuna) Sushi
-Brownies

Four Websites I Visit Daily
-AlterNet
-Salon
-Boing Boing
-BBC News
(What a jerk I must be)

Four Places I'd Rather Be Right Now
-Post course-work
-With W and Ted Haggard in their weekly prayer meeting/conference call... Really is that where I would want to be right now? I don't know... That's what I'm putting... Okay. Assuming it's right now that's where I would want to be.
-With Cyndi, making improvements to a newly purchased home in P-Town
-Being congratulated for presenting such a brilliant paper at AAR

Four Things That Make Me Warmly Happy
-Watching my animals play
-Feeding wild birds
-Seeing people win
-Talking to strangers (sometimes)

My Addition Four People in the Public Domain (Celebrities) I've Met
-Jim Wallis
-Whoopi Goldberg
-Jesse Jackson
-Jack Hayford (I served him prime rib and about $375 worth of alcohol... not really. It was $500 worth of alcohol. Oh that's not true either. I don't remember what he drank.)

Four People I'm Tagging With This
-Patrick
-Danny
-JonShoe
-Brenda

What He's Typed Will Be a Window Into His Madness

If you don't like long posts then you won't like this. It is, in all, a long post. But it is also a collection of little posts- sort of. It's what happens when I second guess myself about what I should or shouldn't post.

THE SET-UP
So if you remember, I wrote the "Defense of Torture" post last Tuesday. How self-referential. It's not much but you can see what I've been occupied with, in part, lately. It may not seem like it, in my treatment of the subject, but I am really bothered by the fact that as a nation we endorse torture but are so quiet about it. I figure we should be whole hog for it and completely defend it as a great thing that should be done everywhere and to everyone or put an end to it. Anyway, the next thing I was working on was an exercise in seeing things form another person's perspective. Even though the president has a very low approval rating, there are still a number of people that think, with everything they know now, he is doing a great job and would vote for him again if he was running today. I wanted to understand, not conservatism- I understand that and am quite conservative about a few things myself, but the mindset that religiously apologizes and supports this president no matter what. That is the point that I can't relate to.

So I was going to take something like lying about not spying on people without wiretaps and look at it from another perspective. Questions about the possibility of objectivity aside, I was going to craft a defense of it- not the act of wiretapping, but the lying about it first off. That's what I was going to try to frame. Then I would frame the wiretapping itself. But as I was doing that, I was getting angry. I can frame a position and defend it as rational, but I could not accept it as right. So I quit that, because I was offending myself and started this...

THE RANT
I'm a pretty fair-minded guy. I try to see and understand where people are coming from and get a sense for who they are and why they do what they do. You can be absolutely convinced of something and be certain of your rightness in it, and I will try to see why you think "X" is good. I don't just mean in matters of taste either. For example, I don't happen to think being dunked in water is much of anything when it comes to churchy stuff. But I understand that for some people it might be the turning point of their lives and if they didn't do it they would just die.

That said, I have to admit I could not conceive people voting for Bush twice. I was blind-sided by that one. I think it perhaps speaks to my lack of cynicism that I was unable to understand how controlled by fear people were and I could definitely not then appreciate just how absurd things would become in the future which is our now. (I'm leaving out my thoughts about how much of our elections mirror Latin American electoral irregularities to make another point.) I thought, "Drag- Iraq is gonna get a lot uglier before it gets any better," and "Ugh- there goes Alaska." All because people didn't want to change horses midstream or some other crapical nonsense like that.

I didn't vote for Bush the first time. I was one of those jerks that voted for Nader; I've done a lot of things I regret. I was also a Deaniac until he tried to find religion. That was awkward. Then I counted my losses and figured, if I'm not voting for Bush, it was Kerry or bust. I know I could've voted for anyone I wanted to in California and it would've gone to Kerry no matter what- I guess I was atoning for my Nader ballot four years prior. I write this in the interest of full disclosure; I've never been a fan of W, but I never thought things would look like this. I do not hold any illusions about what kind of people generally seek power, but I am astounded by the level of vileness we now tolerate.

When I wrote that last sentence, I started to get angry. I was angry at imagining people who think the president is not only doing a good job, but a job that is "the good." But I continued...

I'm not talking about policy decisions or ideologies I disagree with. There are plenty of those, I am rather focusing on outright deceptions, lawbreaking, and a disgusting moral deadness that makes me sick. Can you sense a bit of a tone change here? Setting aside most of the first term, not because the "My Pet Goat" term was good, but for the sake of the post I'm sticking with the second. In just the second, take your pick: the illegal Plame Leak that endangered at least one CIA operative and who knows how many more for the sake of political points, cherry picking intelligence on WMD and distorting intelligence on the same to excuse an invasion of Iraq, saying no one could have anticipated the extensive destruction of hurricane Katrina AFTER being briefed about the extensive destruction of hurricane Katrina, authorizing warrantless, illegal wire taps and lying about authorizing warrantless, illegal wiretaps, endorsing torture and lying about endorsing torture. Any one of them is outrageous and a couple of them are impeachable offenses. It shows you how truly unimaginative I am that I was so concerned about drilling for oil in Alaska. I never thought DOJ lawyers would ever say, "even if the tactics were considered [torture], detainees at Guantanamo would have no recourse to challenge them in court." Really that's where we are. I'm writing "What the hell?!" but thinking WTF. Who are we?

So I am angry. But I don't leave things external, I can't help but bring things back to me and the church- I am so selfish

Admittedly I am tired of the assumption that because I am an evangelical Christian, I am a fan of the president. I am tired of the assumption that these somehow correspond with each other. In one sense, that's just a silliness I need to get over. People who call themselves Evangelical Christians tend to have supported W and largely still do. On the one hand, in some way, I can deal with that and still be a part of the community I am. What I can't do though is let it be thought I support this garbage, what I can't do much more of is stand by as we collectively ignore it. I am tired of our silence that is tacit approval and I'm tired of pretending that thoughtful Christians can disagree about wether torture is good or lying to engage in a war of aggression is right. That certain Evangelicals have the influence they do in this government and public sphere but do not use it to clearly speak against these things disgusts me. Go ahead and cite Romans 13. Forget everything else about our Constitutional form of government wherein law governs and not the whim of a single administration. We'll pretend that doesn't exist. It may say the governing authorities have the right to do whatever the hell they want but it does not give us the right to stand by and say it is good.

Just like I could not agree with someone who said my dad cheating on my mom was good, I cannot agree with someone who says these decisions, these actualized choices, are good. Maybe that just makes me a baby. Maybe I'm the one with a problem because I can't just say things will be good in the long run so they must be good now.

So I stopped writing this because it was getting myself frustrated, but I couldn't write anything else without dealing with this. That's just weird. So, I thought I might address it obliquely. and came up with this:

Burning Down the House/Reichstag
I know I can seem paranoid. I know I can over-react to things. My wife once had to drag me from a supermarket checkout because I was ranting about bread. I needed a loaf of bread so grabbed what I thought was a cheap loaf. But it was an expensive loaf misplaced on the cheap loaf shelf. Expensive may be relative- if you think nothing of filling up your H2 with premium from Shell instead of the regular unleaded from ARCO and drive it to your 7 million dollar home above Sierra Madre, $4 for a loaf of bread may be nothing. But to me $4 seems a bit much for a loaf of bread.

So when the cashier rang up my sale I was surprised at the price. I said something to that effect. She suggested I could go get the cheaper loaf. She's right I could've, but I was suddenly gripped by principle. I started in on some nonsense about food production, ownership, poverty, and the farce of supply and demand pricing that is foisted on our children blah blah blah. Oh I paid four dollars for the bread, but she had to know I was against it. That was dumb, my wife grabbed me by the arm and said, "Nobody cares about your bread, let's go." She wasn't my wife at the time- all I can say about that is she's very lucky I am so forgiving.

Anyway- I know I can be crazy. That said, I still wonder. I wonder in the same way someone might wonder in Berlin in the late Spring of 1933 about how "weird" things might get in the future. I wonder if someone being fired for a bumper sticker won't be news someday. I wonder where our talk about torture (as it were) will lead us....

Then I stop with this. Then Tom Fox is found dead. Then I decide to post this. And it is all bracketed by a trip to the hospital for a hernia.

So there it is. Now it belongs to the ages though none of it is finished. And I think that's how I like it and want it.
Because things aren't finished.

Gonzales Defends U.S. Policy on Torture/Gonzalez Defends Policy on Adultery

LONDON -- The U.S. attorney general defended his country's treatment of terror suspects against criticism from Europe and elsewhere, saying Tuesday that the United States abhors torture and respects the rights of detainees.
AP Wire

"The U.S. abhors torture and categorically rejects its use,"
-Oh, I absolutely hate adultery- it's bad, it's awful.
-Then why are you dating other women?
-Well, you know, that's not adultery. I don't know why you call it that. I'm doing it for you.

"The United States has always been and remains a great defender of human rights and the rule of law,"
-Hey I wouldn't have married you if I didn't think marriage was something valuable and worth sticking out, dating other people helps me do that.

"I regret that there has been concern or confusion about our commitment to the rule of law."
-I'm sorry that you seem to think my dating other people means I don't really value our marriage or the commitment I made. You just gotta get those crazy ideas out of your head

"We are aware of no other nation in history that has afforded procedural protections like these to enemy combatants,"
-I don't know how your other husbands do things, I'm doing a pretty good job of limiting my dating to just one or two other people
-I don't have any other husbands
-Well there you go, what are you complaining about? I'm the best

"If we went around this room, people would have different definitions of what constitutes torture, depending on the circumstances,"
-Look not everyone is going to agree about what constitutes adultery. Some people might think my having sex with other people is adultery, some people might think just going on dates with other people is adultery. Just buying tons of porn could be adultery- I'm not them. I know I am totally emotionally committed to you. Whenever I'm with anyone else, I'm thinking of you. So the fact that you think I am committing adultery is not only wrong, but it's insulting and if I can be frank here, just a little bit insensitive and ungrateful on your part

They Hate Our Freedom

I'm not dead and in honor of that here comes some Hack

Al Franken has done USO tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh haven't. Even though he was and is against the invasion of Iraq, Al Franken has literally risked his life going to Iraq to entertain troops he doesn't think should have to be there. Rush Limbaugh has risked his life flying around in an Oxytocin haze. Al Franken is an America-hating hippy. Bill and Rush love America.

Not that the above means anything in relation to the following:
US service personnel are denied web access to Al Franken but not Bill or Rush. This isn't some random filter blocking either. It is the result of someone deciding what is and isn't good for personnel to read.

Isn't that funny?

Ah Crap

So if you don't here from me again it's because I'm dead. I had to ride home from school in the rain last week and it looks like I'm going to do it again tonight.

Won't it be weird if I do die on the way home and I have this left here as my last post?

I hate riding in the rain.

You Do Not Understand the Power of the Dark Side

I know I said I didn't get any gay on me when I saw Brokeback Mountain but I watched the Academy Awards last night- almost from beginning to end. I didn't watch the whole show, it was interrupted by a trip to Target for cat food (how's that for mind-numbingly lame blogging minutia?), but I don't think any of this supports my claim that I am gay free.

I figure this won't help either: I love George Clooney and Jon Stewart. George Clooney pulled a classy Michael Moore- in that he made a very pointed political point without being a jerk about it. I would probably see that differently if I weren't part of the Gay Agenda or didn't believe all the Liberal Media lies. But what can I say? I was moved. And speaking of Liberal Media lies, Jon Stewart was the perfect host- connected enough for the age but far enough removed to mock the whole thing as an outsider. Brilliant... I guess I should say, "Fabulous."

So there it is then. Despite my being attracted to women, as turned off as I am by the idea of homo-genital contact (as the Church calls it), forget that I've never been in a fraternity (Oh didn't you know? Oh man, frat boys are gay as a whistle), I guess I'm gay. Drag.

That's what happens though. I guess those are the rules. I should've trusted those who knew better than me- like Michelle Williams' old school. Her conservative Christian alma mater condemned her for being in Brokeback Mountain because it promoted a lifestyle they don't promote. They don't mean it promotes sheep ranching or being killed by homophobic teens. (Oh right, SPOILER WARNING for that last sentence). It promotes the gay.

See, I thought to promote something you needed to make it look appealing and somehow advance it- like the word says. I thought you needed to cause some kind of forward movement for a cause or idea. I thought because I didn't find the gays of Will and Grace clever or funny I was fine. I thought because I liked having sex with my wife- a girl- I wasn't in danger of catching gay. But Brokeback Mountain really was a promotional tool; even though it made homosexuality seem about as appealing as being Al Rocher... at a Klan rally. (I don't know if that joke worked- I was trying to give the impression that I was saying being Al Rocher was unappealing enough in itself. Was that clear? Maybe that joke needs to be spoken to make sure the timing is right.) It talked about the gay, so it promoted the gay.

Anyway, now I know, that merely being about gay was moving the gays forward and seeing pretend gay was a subtle but seductive recruiting tool. Had I known then that someday I would be doing something as gay as watching the Oscars, curled on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, eating a cinnamon roll with my wife, I would've gone to see Yours, Mine and Ours instead.

How subtly my being was subverted.

I should've remembered my time teaching in a conservative Christian school. I briefly taught "Health" (?!?). When we covered the sex portion I wasn't supposed to talk about contraception because it would encourage the kids to have sex. Our school's pregnancy rate was just a bit higher than the national average. And that was without the encouragement to do it. Imagine how much higher that rate might have been if we had given them tacit approval to have sex by explaining to them how to avoid pregnancy if they were going to have sex. It boggles the mind.

I wonder what that would make the school's teen pregnancy rate compared to France's. The overall US teen pregnancy rate is more than four times France's and the school's was about 1% higher than the national average so... uh... ours was... also more than four times France's. I wish someone had promoted math to me. Ahh, but our school's abortion rate was zero. That's better than the overall US rate, which is three times as high as the rate in France. So our school had a lower teen abortion rate than the USA and France... as far as we knew. I guess we have no real way of knowing that because parents getting their kids abortions or the kids themselves probably would've probably kept it a secret. So...uh... how about Crash winning best picture? That was something.

Man, I just realized I've been promoting teen sex and the gay all this time. Ugh- stop. Okay no more gay. I mean no more "that of which we do not speak." And, teenagers, don't have sex. You'll die.

I'm going to go shoot a deer now.

You Can Take the Boy Out of the Catholic Church, But You Can't Take the Catholic Church Out of the Boy

I wonder what kind of creepy searchers will come across this post because of the title.

So today is Ash Wednesday. It doesn't mean as much today, and by today I mean "these days"... I guess I should just say that then- It doesn't mean as much these days to put ashes on your head as it might have if you were you 1300 years ago- or if you were Job. Having ashes on your head is now kind of a cultural identity marker. That's something but not the same something as shaming yourself, or being in mourning for what you've done, or trading your pride for a mantle of humility. Maybe there is some benefit to putting a glob of palm ash on your head and saying "I'm one of those people," but that's not the main point of putting ashes on your head.

Just so I'm clear, I don't go for the devotional penance that wearing ashes is but I appreciate the penitential sentiment of ash wearing. That is, there isn't really an act that is necessarily penitential in itself but the expression of penance, or more specifically a sense of mourning or sorrow, is good and needed. Only, wearing ashes isn't it. Even if it ever was, it's not now.

If you were to put ashes on your head on any other day, you would likely get odd looks and somebody at some point would probably tell you there was dirt on your head; but few would think "Oh that girl must be in shameful mourning." Doing it today, and by that I mean "today," may be odd but it doesn't require explanation. Depending on the neighborhood, everyone else might know what you were doing or it might take a couple of beats for them to think "Oh right, Ash Wednesday" but it's not going to be much more than a means of identifying with a group. I guess I'm not thinking as diversely as a good hippy should but I'm pressed to think of a place I could go in my neck of the woods where ashes on the forehead would be inexplicable. The assumption is: It's Ash Wednesday, I guess I'm supposed to be sad or something- I dunno. Anyway, whatever the assumed meaning is, it might be a problem because it likely isn't A.) good God, I'm sorry and B.) now that I am sorry I want to suffer with you.

It's supposed to mean quite the opposite of what we take Christianity to frequently mean. While on the one hand it is a big deal, quite an amazingly big joy and hope-filled deal, that God became human so that the inverse might happen, on the other hand, it happened because of our sin and so that we could be as abject as God is in that turn. Drag.

Now most of the time I am fine with saying, "Well if that's what it means to you, then go for it," but in this case, it's not just for "you." This is supposed to be a time to let other people know we are mournful and humbled- (not for bickering over who killed who). I don't know if a smudge of ashes on my face says that. Even if we "authenticate" it by explaining the symbolism and accompany it with just the right melancholy minor scale and lighting, it's a bit navel gazey. It's just for us, ashes don't mean much to everyone else. I guess mourning and shame themselves, don't really have a place in our culture. So if I really want to, how do I tell people I'm all about suffering so that I can be like Christ in his death- I mean other than actually doing it of course? If I wanted to substitute that for some symbolic penitence or humility what could I even use?

Crying? Balloons and flowers? Nothing works. Then I guess we're stuck with actually being penitent and humble. Dang,