The Swelling Has Gone Down

You know those folks here and there that ask you for money to support advocacy groups? You know, they lobby Congress and write legislation that helps out their pet causes and they want your money to help them do that? Oh no, I don't mean oil companies or Southern California Edison- you pretty much have to give them your money, and they use your money- well I guess it's their money- to let politicians" know what will make it easier for them to make more money. That's democracy- your representative knows what you want, not by what you say directly- but by where you spend your money. Clearly we want what's best for oil companies because we give them so much. Isn't that a convenient arrangement?

Anyway, I don't mean them. I am referring to those people you may see in public places that ask you to support this or that cause that's not funded via inelastic demand (think.... think back to high school economics... what is that?) You know, causes like human rights concerns, environmental issues, affordable housing- junk like that. That's the people I mean. I'm one of them. Specifically I'm one of them. (If you've developed link fatigue- I'll tell you, I'm working for an environmental advocacy group.)

That may seem an odd move for me to make, but two conversations I've had (in the two days I've been with them) I think may explain more than anything else I could say.

Coworkers were asking me the general introductory get-to-know-you type questions this morning and after I said a little bit about my background and schooling someone said, "So why are you doing this? I mean most people don't go from talking about Jesus to environmentalism?" I said that's exactly why I was doing it.

Later in the day another coworker was telling me about the creative ways people say "no." Various responses informed by premillennialism made the list. I wonder if he's ever encountered the Friends youth pastor that told me not to recycle so that we could run out of everything and make Jesus come back? It is a small world...

Pain Hurts

Not to say that it isn't brought about by poor judgment and choices, delusional self-conception, an inability to articulate or contextualize one's experience, no impulse control, etc... but the pain of adolescents is real. Often expressed as mopiness, cruelty, or histrionics, but real nonetheless.

What I often wondered though is wether it was exacerbated by bad music. Does teen poetry performed by complainy pop-stars do anything more than give a mopey temperament yet another thing to mope about?

I don't know. But I do know that, this morning, music is carrying the weight drugs can't.

Now that I write it... I think I already knew that.

I don't know why I'm not still in the hospital hooked up to a machine that is steadily delivering pain-killers... Oh wait, I do know why- I'm poor.

Yesterday, I traded this
for this.

It feels much worse than it looks.

Good Morning Opiates
The Smiths Library

Who Are These People?

It turns out, crocoduck is a very popular search item.

I mentioned it as I LIVE BLOGGED! the debate of the millennium. Kirk Cameron showed a picture of a crocoduck that disproved evolution and therefore scientifically proved that you have a creator and therefore scientifically proved the existence of God and therefore scientifically proved that you're a sinner therefore scientifically proving that you need Jesus. He would probably say that at some point he was joking. Though where I would locate the end of that joke is probably different from where Kirk would.

Remember, I grew up Catholic so had a whole different type of cuckoo to believe. Bread literally turned into flesh, wine literally turned into blood. (Even though all of my literal senses suggested they were still bread and wine.) The Baby Jesus couldn't have cried or caused his parents any of the grief that babies seem to cause. Stuff like that. Stuff that Evangelicals scoff at and poo poo as silly. Stuff that only a superstitious papist could believe- not like the scientifically provable idea of irreducible complexity that proves a design that therefore proves a creator that is God, or the perfectly tenable proposition that humans and dinosaurs played with each other. I'm a late comer to the culture that assumes scientists are atheists or that evolution is evil.

So- is Kirk Cameron... I'm sorry, now I mean KIRK CAMERON... is KIRK CAMERON really putting all of these things in a big pile and saying this is the way the world is? So that if you deny Christ, you're denying a fact? It's like trying to deny gravity? it's not like not understanding gravity- or being ignorant of why things fall, it's like trying to say things don't fall. Is that what this is about? Oh sure those crazy Romanists on one side with their voodoo don't make sense, and those mystics with their flighty ecstasy on the other are just nuts- but here we have a Christianity that's all facts and order.

I don't think we realize what's at stake with that. I mean, I know that what advocates of Intelligent Design, Creationism really, that's what these supposed critiques of evolutionary theory are all about, want to do is give religious and moral propositions some sort of factual certainty, but that's a really bad idea (the attempt is a bad idea- the project itself is impossible).

Just to be clear, Intelligent Design isn't science. Once you look at something you don't yet understand or can't figure out and say, "That's 'cos of God," you're not "doing" science. You can say it, you're just not saying it as a scientist- or if you're already not a scientist, you're not making a scientific proposition. But it's not theology either, well, it's not Christian theology. Maybe it's some sort if anthro-theistic positivism. It's hard to categorize because it doesn't make sense, even if we really, really, really want it to.

It seems it is little more than a desire to make faith not faith, to confuse what one can say is a fact with what we believe, to make God something like "the car is in the driveway or the car is not in the driveway," something that requires no devotion or relation, only observation and assent. That hardly sounds like the transcendent God only identifiable as I Am and known through various experiences, after which one says God is a shepherd, God is a provider, God is a healer, by which one means, "God has shepherded me," "God has provided for me," "God has healed me..." It certainly doesn't sound like knowing God through Jesus.

"What canst thou say?" (a Quaker thing) doesn't mean, "Are you on the same page as us?" It certainly doesn't mean "You know Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs and someday we're all going to fly naked through the sky, don't you?" It means what can you say?

Don't say what you can't say. And certainly don't, with your fingers crossed, try to build silly rhetorical structures that let you to pretend what is impossible for you to say is inevitable.

So maybe a crocoduck is the perfect symbol for this.

If I Die Tomorrow, Send the Qweenbeen Flowers
Submission- Sex Pistols
Clap Your Hands!- Clap Your Hands say Yeah
I Can't Win- The Strokes
Outlaw Blues- Bob Dylan
Misery- Green Day
Pictures of You- The Cure
Let's Go To Bed- The Cure
Give It Up Turn It Loose- James Brown
Nature Boy- David Bowie
Everything is Broken- Bob Dylan
Lover Man- Sarah Vaughan
Auf Achse- Franz Ferdinand
The 59th Street Bridge- Simon and Garfunkle

It Is Finished

Have you ever come across a book or poem that made you think, "This is what language is for."? Have you ever been acutely aware of your existence as measurably better than it had ever been or could ever be and realized everything else will pale in comparison? Have you ever been so drunk you were asking if anyone dared you to knock your own teeth out of your head with a flashlight? That's dumb. But I just discovered something that makes any other internetting superfluous. This is what anyone who has ever done anything on the globe spread web or put pen to paper has aspired to do. (You could learn a thing or to here, Oxfam and UNICEF- you with your uninspired text and images). "This" being McSweeney's Internet Tendency.
Let this be an example for you:

"PROS AND CONS OF THE TOP 20 REPUBLICAN
PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES

ZOMBIE RONALD REAGAN
Pro: Probably the most Reaganesque candidate available; if stoked with the brains of the living, should operate in an acceptable fashion.

Con: Long-dead eyes lack that magic twinkle; inhuman groans negatively impact "Great Communicator" status.

YOUR MAMA
Pro: Strong personality; nurturer; kind; strict when she has to be; always shows up at soccer games or school plays; skilled at managing a busy family.

Con: Upon her election, nation would be instantly vulnerable to any number of verbal attacks about president being so fat, so ugly, so stupid, etc.

CHUCK HAGEL
Pro: Could potentially deliver his home state of Nebraska to the Republicans.

Con: Risks losing votes of near-sighted supporters of Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Heidegger, and Nietzsche who think the ballot says "Hegel."

PROS AND CONS OF THE TOP 20 DEMOCRATIC
PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES.

BILL RICHARDSON
Pro: Appeals to all Latino voters with the last name "Richardson."

Con: New Mexico is legally part of Mexico; therefore, he's constitutionally ineligible.

JESUS CHRIST
Pro: Could draw some initial interest from the Christian right until they research his actual positions in a deeper way; likable; strong leadership qualities.

Con: Unkempt; pretty far left; messianic complex.

YOU
Pro: Gained valuable exposure as Time magazine's Person of the Year; seems to be Internet-savvy.

Con: Ever since the Time thing, you've been awfully smug.

You're It

Our church property got tagged sometime this week. Someone thought displaying their name and affection for pot belonged at church.

I guess.

I get that most people have a problem with tagging or guerilla and public art. I don't per se. I also don't put a lot of tagging into a category distinct from other forms of visual territory marking. I mean whether it's Chaka, Ronald McDonald, or Howard Schultz, they're trying to invade my visual field for similar reasons. It's tempting to label youth subculture behaviors as deviant or destructive or somehow savage and not on the same level as corporate propaganda or cultural iconography- it's tempting but dishonest. I'm not saying it might not be deviant (though it fits in with our cultural norm of plastering everything in sight with branded images), destructive (though the case can be made that a lot of graffiti art improves bleak public spaces), and savage (show me image advertising that isn't), but telling me that you've served billions of hamburgers at every turn is too. If I have to look at someone's propaganda, there are better and worse things to look at. Most public images are designed for a 50 mph toddler aesthetic. That is, they're made so a toddler could recognize it going by at 50 mph. The more insidious the brand, the more banal the image. Not much beauty or design there.

Anyway- that's just to say, I'm not opposed essentially to graffiti. That said...

420... on a church fence... that no one but people in the parking lot can see?

Lame.


ed.- I can't load images right now. Maybe I will later- I'm sure it would add so much to the post.

It's a Caricature Not a Choice

-Abortions for all
-Booooooo!
-Very well, no abortions for anyone
-Booooooo!
-Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others
-Hoorraaaayyyy

I suppose somewhere in the world there might be someone who thinks of abortion as akin to cleaning out your ears. I don't know them, but that doesn't mean that they don't exist. I also suppose somewhere there might be someone who thinks a woman considering or doctors performing abortions should be executed. Those are possible. But I would bet most people are somewhere else with their thoughts.

The people I know who have had abortions didn't think of it as a procedure like having their tonsils removed or clipping their toenails. I also don't think they needed somebody telling them what they did, or were considering was wrong. Well... I don't think what they needed me to do was tell them that they were wrong. (But clearly I'm a homo relativist hippy... what else... humanist- I don't know. What else are we calling the boogey men these days?). They also didn't seem to need a reminder that the decision they were making involved another being- person if you prefer. It was a difficult decision because of that. For some, I guess that's what puts that kind of decision out of bounds- or makes it something that can't be a decision. There is no choice to make, you're pregnant- you stay pregnant. Life is life. (Although I've often heard sex described as the choice that has been made and pregnancy as the consequence- sort of like being pregnant and raising a child are the punishment for making the choice to enjoy sex. That's what you get.) But for others it seems those are the factors that ultimately make it an issue of personal choice- it's the kind of decision that can only be personal, even if it's made with counsel, guidance, etc...

Whatever- what I wanted to get at was the use of fetal symbols to protest abortion. I don't know if you've ever seen this done, but some people have used little fetus symbols to protest abortion. It's often a picture or sculpture of a fetus or images of aborted fetuses that are used. In at least one case, someone got their hands on an actual fetus and used it as a tool of protest.

It seems to me that they have a couple of purposes. One might be to gross you out- to remind you that abortion is a gross thing- it's bloody and messy. Yuck! Because it's distasteful you shouldn't do it. Another reason, probably more likely, or if not more likely, at least better, is to remind people that fetuses are cute, and kind of like a person, so what you're thinking about doing should make you feel bad and guilty. (In case you didn't already.) But then, if you didn't, would a picture or small sculpture of a fetus make you feel bad and guilty? Probably. But so bad and guilty you would not have an abortion? I don't think it would. But I don't think that's the end of that.

If I were someone else I would have the perfect solution to that. I mean I have the perfect solution, and if I were someone else I would execute it. I would make A GIANT PROTEST FETUS COSTUME! Something bigger and cuter that can really get in someone's face. It could put its thumb in its mouth or play the guitar and dance around. It could wear t-shirts or oversized trucker hats with sentimental sayings on them.

Like I said, I would do this if I were someone else. As it is, I find it very offensive. Offensive- but I must admit, probably effective. Then people would see that life is life.

As it is, it's not so clear is it?

Anyway, I'm soon going to have a surgery to remove my tongue ugly. (It's gross and distasteful but I must have it done). I should be fine, but should things go not according to plan I want two things, actually three things- the first is that a clear DNR/DNAR order be honored, second that anyone who says "It was meant to be" or "God's teaching qweenbeen a lesson" or some such of that nature should be hit in the shin with an aluminum baseball bat, and third, I want my corpse to be freeze-dried, pulverized, and used as fertilizer- where will be left up to local codes but I think it would be funny to be sprinkled about the pumpkin patch and the in-law's backyard.

So that's that. DNR me. Is that clear?

Unless of course someone has the bright idea to make a giant pantomime skybalon- and they go around dancing and playing a steel drum to remind everyone that life is life. Even if its revived from cardiac or respiratory failure and has suffered serious brain damage and won't be able to complete its dissertation proposal or go back to teaching and growing pumpkins or playing with dogs or having sex with his wife or being snarky. Life is life.

Then we will have no choice- or you will have no choice. In that case, if I am in some sort of persistent vegetative state, feel free to dress me up in silly outfits or write the word "Balls" on my face. It's what I would've wanted.

Clever Appropriate Title
Hell Yes- Beck
Please, Please, Please...- The Smiths
Battle Royal- Duke Ellington
All Along the Watchtower- Bob Dylan
Big Time- Peter Gabriel
Jesus Walking on The Water- Violent Femmes
I Bleed- Pixies
The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth- Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
World's a Mess; It's In My Kiss- X

Oh Right...

I forgot to mention another kind of racist.

The Dead Kind.

"The Rev. Jerry Falwell, the television evangelist who founded the Moral Majority and used it to mold the religious right into a political force, died today shortly after being found unconscious in his office at Liberty University. He was 73."

LA Times

The Grapes of Stupid

I don't know if it's due to a change in the season, something in the water, moon phase, magnetic fields, pollen, or what but some people I know are saying some very stupid things. We all say stupid things, but lately some of the stupid is of a specific flavor. It tastes like privilege with an undertone of guilt and a strong AM radio finish.

I know a good number of people who would not have anything to do with Rush Limbaugh if they knew him, but nevertheless listen to him.

I don't mean they just hear what he has to say on the radio. I mean they take what he has to say as the way to understand their world. I don't suppose it's necessary that we gain understanding or insight from people who are perfect. Actually, I guess I would say it's not possible that we listen to only the perfect- but I think we at least prefer the trying. Or we should.

But here we have someone utterly contemptible- well beyond the way most any of us are contemptible- who holds sway over so many that would prefer their gurus be virtuous or tell themselves they would find the way Rush Limbaugh actually lives to be offensive to their moral sensibilities.

It's ironic that so many people who would see themselves as preservers of purity and virtue look up to such a model of self-indulgence and cynicism. Well, it's ironic or calculated. Though I wouldn't describe many of the Limbauphiles I know as calculting. Earnest. Variously threatened. White.

Oh that's right. That's where I was headed. This is about race. This is about racism and the kind of racist you are. We are types of racists and in at least a couple of corners, I'm hearing nonsense that is almost word for word Rush (no, not that Rush) or clearly inspired by other AM monkeys.

I'm not suggesting Rush Limbaugh or the KFI morons make people some type of racist. But being a kind of racist makes some people want to listen to Rush Limbaugh and other KFI jerks.

A long time ago I said I would come up with some sort of field guide or quiz about what kind of racist you are. Well, I'm still not ambitious enough to do that, but recent events have added more types o' racists to my previous.

So without definitions, this is what I had before:
"Federline" racist
"Sleep With the Help" racist
"They're Just Good at It" racist
"Would You Want to Live Next to Them?" racist
"You Know- The Tall Guy With Curly Hair Wearing the Red Shirt Standing By the Door" racist
"She's Very Articulate" racist
"I'm Just Sayin' They Should Learn English" racist.

Those are pretty good, but hardly all inclusive (and shouldn't we be inclusive when talking about race?). I have added these:
The "Kick The Dog" racist-
AKA the "I Somehow Think Illegal Aliens Are Ruining My Way of Life So When Confronted With One of the Challenges of My Existence I Respond With, 'Arrrgh, Those Stinkin' Illegal Aliens...'" racist
The "I Can't Spell 'Surpereor,' But That's What I Am" racist
The "When I Say, 'Why Don't They Just Learn to Be American,' I Mean, 'Why Don't They Learn to Be Normal,' and When I Say, 'Normal,' I Mean, 'White'" racist
The "I've Never Really Thought About It, But Now That You Mention It, My Family and Life Are Worth More Than Yours So That Justifies the Neglect of Your Life and Family So That You Can Take Care of Mine" racist
The "I Can Say It If They Can" racist
The "I'm Uncomfortable With Labels of Ethnicity Because I Imbue Them With Value" racist
The "Laughing for the Wrong Reason" racist (that could be explained by a Venn diagram with Dave Chappelle is Funny/Satire on one side and Carlos Mencia is Funny/Stupid on the other. The overlap is this type of racist)
The "It's About Heritage, Not Racism" racist
The "I Like Everything But Rap" racist

So much racism. I guess at some point you just have to draw a line and say, "That's it." This is that line. I don't mean, "That's it, I can't take anymore racism." What am I going to do- become a hermit? I mean, "That's it, I have to stop writing this list because I could go on forever." There are probably as many types and hybrids of racism as there are people. We're all unique in our racism; isn't that very special?

Maybe at some point this summer I will actually come up with a quiz so you know what kind of racist you are. Or maybe at some point this summer, probably in August when it's 109 degrees and I'm short tempered and tired, I'll just tell you what kind of racist you are.

It's Cool, Some of My Best Friends Are Racists
Ten Years Gone- Led Zeppelin
New York- Sex Pistols
Blackbird- TheBeatles
Buckets of Rain- Bob Dylan
Prettiest Star- David Bowie
Roll Plymouth Rock- Brian Wilson
Find My Way- Soulfood 76
Give it Up Turn it Loose- James Brown
The Seeker- The Who
Pictures of You- The Cure
Blackhole- Beck
Nowhere at All- Lou Reed
Smokestack Lightning- Howlin' Wolf

Zing

Stay Gold
skybalon: Did you know Susan Hinton was 16 when she wrote The Outsiders? Can you believe that; what were you doing when you were sixteen?
Qweenbeen: Nothing good
...

Qweenbeen: Meeting you.

If There's Such a Thing as Love, I'm In It
skybalon: ... I also don't think it makes any sense having a category like gay because it assumes there is something that is not gay that we understand as anything clear or that we can look at something and say "see, that's heterosexuality; that's homosexuality." I think it has more to do with how we come to understand our own sexuality and want to describe ourselves as normal against something vague. I mean how old were you when you knew what gay was?
Qweenbeen: ... How old was I when I met you?

As Long As It Looks Like I'm Listening...

Last night on Countdown, and in today's NY Times, it's reported that a contingent of Republican representatives confronted MY PRESIDENT with the reality of at least the political situation regarding Iraq.

They are reported to have said conditions need to dramatically improve or more Republicans would desert him. MY PRESIDENT's reported to have said he does not want to leave this fiasco with another president- certainly not a Democratic president. And so he was willing to listen.

Considering how much MY PRESIDENT hates accountability and his inability to publicly change his mind, this seems somewhat promising- like when you see your torturer go for the rubber hose instead of the beaded whip. That's something that might brighten your day.

But three things concern me.

1.) These stories are based on leaked reports of a political event. It provides another opportunity for the president to lift some spirits and maybe touch somebody's soul without really doing or committing to anything that might remedy some of the disaster all around him. There's really no there there. It's just another moment of image; in the residential section of the White House, he was playing the compassionate listener, the father who understands and suffers with his children, but still knows best. Instead of a flight suit or his brush-clearing gloves, he wore a cardigan and as thoughtful an expression he could muster.

John Boehner said "It was very healthy."

Another at the meeting said, “I walked away from it feeling I got a chance to make my points."

See, everyone, daddy's a listening cowboy.

Isn't that very special? It was healthy, I felt listened to. Doesn't that seem exactly how you would feel after a meeting with this guy?
I really do think about this video too much.

2.) Even if this does indicate a change in MY PRESIDENT'S perspective, the dynamics of the collective discussion on what a withdrawal might look like have created a very limited range of possibility. For too long people have been framing this in terms of "stay the course" or "cut and run." I absolutely think that's the fault of Republicans who have tried to paint anyone in any way critical of the war as freedom hating cowards living in a pre 9/11 world emboldening Al Qaeda and not supporting the troops.

Why, my very own David Dreier came out just the other day with a line about the Democrats turning their backs on the troops because they wanted, along with the majority of Americans, to find a way to responsibly withdraw from Iraq.

I'm afraid we currently lack the imagination or creativity necessary to consider options other than "Throw more bodies into the mill" or "We're done, someone else can clean up after us." MY PRESIDENT hates internationalism, we continue to blame the Iraqis for the mess we created, MY PRESIDENT can't even work with people of the same party who are not loyal enough, how will we build real coalitions and do the work necessary to stabilize Iraq? Even as you read that, are you able to think that "stabilize Iraq" can mean anything other than send more people with guns?

3.) Another "even if this is true" concern has to do with how well thought out and planned everything else MY PRESIDENT has done. I'm sure I know plenty of 28 percenters who could give me a list of success stories but I still worry we'd get Shell and Exxon supervising a bunch of recent Bob Jones and Liberty University graduates to work on a stabilization and withdrawal as successful as the Great Missile Defense Net in the Sky that was all the rage before 9/11... no, not that... the pre-war intelligence gathering... no... Katrina cleanup... no... the WTC/9-11 memorial... hmm... the Medicare Drug program... no... environmental protection and leadership... no... C'mon, there's go to be something- Oh lower taxes right! That's something that... led us... to an amazing $8,000,000,000,000 debt. But who cares? That's not even a real number.

So maybe we really have turned a corner. Or maybe we realize that farther up the street, there really is a corner and we could turn it.

Most of These People Are Dead or Broken Up
Waiting in Vain- Bob Marley
Getaway- Stereophonics
I Fall to Pieces- Patsy Cline
Battle Royal- Duke Ellington
Back in The Day- Erykah Badu
Oh My Golly- The Pixies
Morning Bell- Radiohead
It's the Sun- Polyphonic Spree
Nobody Else But Me- Stan Getz
Maria La Bandida- Jimenez
You Can't Stop the Prophet- Jeru The Damaja
You Ain't Goin' Nowhere- Bob Dylan
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead- Warren Zevon
Reality- David Bowie
I Just Wasn't Made for These Times- The Beach Boys

I missed the Colbert Report for this. I know I would've found that more spiritually edifying than whatever this was.

But here's what we learned... hmmm... If the road built a car it would be a BMW... Men who dye their gray hair are more successful professionals and will probably be fired or sued for sexual harassment... Martin Bashir lied to us- he said they would prove whether God exists. I am no more clear on the matter than a half an hour ago.

And of course people are choosing their winners. No surprises I'm sure. If you went in for the Rational Response Squad, they're your victors. If you went in for Kirk and Ray, they won. I think it's much easier to tell who the losers are... At least me for choosing to stay up.

I understand that Kirk and Ray want the opportunity to make an evangelistic invitation, but it seems a bit out of the bounds they set to be scientific. My conscience... pray... even using the term "creation" to infer a creator rather than existence don't seem things you say unless you're talking about or coming from a position of faith. That's not scientific.

Finding hell and the ugliness in the Bible personally distasteful doesn't prove or disprove anything either. And who says God, or religious things are logical? Well I guess people do, but that people do doesn't mean that it's a proper use of the word.

That was lame. I should've just gone to bed... or watched it and complained to The Qweenbeen like I normally would. And is Martin Bashir the regular host of Nightline now? What a joke.

Ugh- creationism isn't science, but then asking to go to God's creation factory isn't really a rebuttal to the claims of creationism.

The crocoduck kind of rules. But I thought they were going to talk about proving the existence of God without resorting to faith. Why is Ray now talking about the Bible and a fallen world? Those don't seem like scientific claims... for anything.

Well at least the Rational Response Squad provides... well an even match.

Oh I just got an Automated Geocache Owner Notification- I know the log book is soaking wet and the pen doesn't work. That's part of the charm of "Friendly Pine."

So Kirk and Ray are going to absolutely prove God's existence scientifically without using faith.

I don't think any of those words mean what they want them to mean.

It's the greatest question of all for Nightline faceoffs- 'nuff said

Wait a second Martin Bashir. Isn't that the guy that interviewed Michael Jackson at Neverland? Well he seems to have the gravitas this topic requires.

Ahh memories... that should disqualify you as a journalist

Hey, Kids, Goatee, Txt, MySpace... To The EXTREME!!!

I'm going to have my finger on the pulse of Evangelical culture tonight. I'm going to totally LIVE BLOG the atheist versus Christian debate to prove God exists on Nightline. RADICAL!

I've never done anything like that. I'm TOTALLY STOKED, BRA!!!

Have The Rolling Stones Killed

Stop Stealing My Pants wants to take me to a concert as a birthday gift.

Clearly, as anyone can see by looking at my playlists, I like too many great bands. How can I choose?

She called it a We're Just So Busy Gift- as in I'm giving you a gift that's going to force you to spend more time with me. I'm considering taking the joke another step further and picking a band that neither of us would like- is Deal or No Deal still taping? That would be good and unpleasant. Oh I know- a Republican debate. The awkwardness will make it a very We're Just So Busy event.

I was actually dropping hints for something like this birthday past but no one loved me enough to take me to see The Pixies. I would actually very much like to see a performance of Madam Butterfly


Oh, and guess what I'm watching tonight.

Oh The Way Glenn Miller Played...

Do we realize when we appeal to BIBLICAL VALUES it doesn't mean anything specific, but it is entirely possible it can mean this?

And Yet You Start to Reply- Heavy Words Are So Lightly Thrown

We seldom think about the religious claims we make much further than the claim itself. Maybe it's because sometimes they are nothing more than calculated kowtowing claptrap... what else... craziness... caca... I guess the first worked well enough. Sometimes it's just cynical code for, "Of course you can trust me; listen to my God-talk." Politicians are especially good at this. It makes a certain type of sense that in the church-going, God Bless America-ing, Pray for the Troops-ing, 10 Commandments Monument Building climate of Congress only one representative, Pete Stark, honestly says he is an atheist. It's a sad type of sense, but a type of sense nonetheless. Maybe we're all playing the same game- we're just saying what we think we're supposed to say and then doing whatever else (after all, works are dead- right?). Maybe most Americans want their politicians to at least pretend they're playing the same game as everyone else.

That may be too cynical. It is too cynical- maybe politicians aren't the best population to sample. Maybe it's a matter of our religious claims being sincere but shallow- the equivalent of a birthday greeting to a seldom seen uncle.
"To a Great God On This Special Day: Your Ways Are Just Purrr-fect"

It seems earnestly shallow.

The Qweenbeen delivered a wedding cake this weekend. Part of the reception was outside and the wind was having a go at the decorations. Eventually the wind died down- as it does- and someone said, "God loves His children." (I don't know if she capitalized the pronoun in her speech, but I am assuming she would have). I suppose this could have been in response to anything- a warm spring, the cake, 600 dead Iraqi civilians last week. Who knows for sure (other than the lady that said it)? I think she meant it in regards to the wind dying down. That's how she/we knew God loves His children.

I doubt that if the tables and umbrellas had blown away she would say, "God does not love His children." Well, I would hope she would not come to that conclusion because of the wind. But saying, "God loves His children," in response to the wind stopping suggests an awful lot I don't think she/we would mean to suggest.

I think what she really meant was, "I am glad the wind died down- it's easy to feel grateful and loved when things go the way I like." I am probably making more of her comment than she would have. Which is still problematic if we're supposedly talking about God- if she didn't mean all that much by it, isn't it vainly invoking God? As far as commandments go, mightn't "God loves His children" in this case be somehow worse than a sincere "God damn such and such" if some such and such is really damn-worthy? And as far as being a faithful response, mightn't the latter be more than the former?

But we're not always cynically motivated or all that shallow. Maybe we just say things we don't understand or fully appreciate. Maybe we really mean what we say only we don't understand what we mean. We really think we can say "even though all fall away because of You, I will never fall away," or, "it is good for us to be here, let us make three tabernacles, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah," or even, "You are the Christ, Son of the living God." But when it comes down to it, we just don't know what it means to say something like that.

And then to make things worse we pretend we can safely build theocratic systems on our flimsy foundations- or no, what's worse is we do build theocratic systems on our flimsy foundations.

I'm temperamentally and theologically fond of the Quaker traditions of silence, and waiting, and being creed wary, and living in a way that corresponds to what we realize we can't say about God. I'm troubled by the contemporary Evangelical tendency to try to give life to statements of faith, and trying to find just the right name or acronym for some curriculum or other, and letting words rather than actions serve as metaphors of faith.

Still I'd Leap in Front of a Flying Bullet For You
Bump It- Erykah Badu
Never- Cat Stevens
I Don't KNow What To Do With My Life- Buzzcocks
Dig It- The Beatles
Koka Cola- The Clash
Bob's Uvula Who?- Green Day
Something Against You- The Pixies
Freddie Freeloader- Miles Davis
Isobel- Bjork
Guerilla Radio- Rage Against the Machine

We Have Many Beautiful Pinatas for Your Birthday Celebration, Each One Filled With Little Surprises

I just had a birthday.

So did these folks.

I'm not one to make a big deal about my birthday- though I don't mind if you are. Advancing in years isn't much to me, advancing in maturity is. Not that I am mature. I still snicker at the word booty and passages like Ezekiel 23 in the Bible. Things like that. Not mature at all. Why just the other day I asked Grandpa if he wanted his soda in the can.

...

You may be too mature to get that
...

I am maturing. I can see differences between skybalon today and skybalon of days passed. For one thing, old skybalon (meaning younger) had no problem performing minor surgery on himself. Old skybalon had a very liberal sense of what counted as minor surgery. Old skybalon would've thought something like this was something he could take care of on his own.

Now skybalon thinks better. Experience, connections, sensitivity to others, other stuff.

So happy birthday to me.

Did you know that May 1st is also a legal US holiday? It's Loyalty Day. No kidding. "The holiday was first observed in 1921 as 'Americanization Day,' and was intended to counterbalance the celebration of Labor Day on May Day which was perceived as communist." That's right, celebrating the weekend, a 40 hour work week, ending child labor, honoring work instead of mammon- that's communist.

What can you do? Different folks have a different sense of what loyalty is. Some people are surprised to hear I un-ironically have a gigantic American flag. Some people are surprised that I consider myself a patriot. But some people think you can only be loyal by being on the side with the sticks.

Does that make sense? It will.

What A Smart Little iTunes
One Flight Down- Norah Jones
South of the Border- Patsy Cline
Won't Get Fooled Again- The Who
Theme From "Mr. Broadway"- Dave Brubeck
Groovy Situation- Gene Chandler
Rebellion- The Arcade Fire
I Fought The Law- Green Day
I Started Something I Couldn't Finish- The Smiths
Black Math- The White Stripes
Whatsername- Green Day
Sing It Again- Beck
Retired Woman...- Jad Fair and Yo La Tengo