I'm That Guy?

So I'm waiting for a friend in front of a local eatery* last night and I am jerked out of the moment. I catch myself resting my hand on my chin and staring at something far away yet not within the horizon. I don't know exactly how long I'd been like that, long enough to somehow get from the corner of Citrus and Alosta to "but if we say we have something to say to matters of sexuality then we're really affirming the reality of a world in which that exists and that seems wholly parasitic on modes of dominance that don't correspond to how we actually live and negotiate our lives with each other, let alone how we ought to if "church" means anything good, and that's what I mean by suggesting we ought to repent of heterosexuality if we imagine we have anything to say about homosexuality..."

Really.

So I snapped out of it because in that moment, in the warm, clear, early evening, the foothills in the distance- temporarily lush, the soft drone of traffic, people all around me coming and going, I was reminded of my college days and walking with a friend past a tired-looking man sitting outside a cafe. His skin was pinched hard around his mouth and eyes as he said to no one, "What your data fail to include is the effect of gravity on the observer..."

I now realize his words were especially for me.

* Eatery? Really?

A message from R-2 appears on the small monitor screen in front of
Luke. He smiles at the monitor and speaks to R-2, as he pulls a black
glove on to cover his wounded mechanical hand
Section 27 (Mental Cabaret)- The Polyphonic Spree
Sea Legs- The Shins
Donatello- Jawbreaker
Come on Eileen- Dexy's Midnight Runners

BOOOOOO

Have you ever received a "bill" for a hospital or doctor's office visit itemizing the cost of each little thing you were offered or that was used in your treatment? For example, when I tried to chop off my thumb, the statement I received for the subsequent treatment showed the cost of the exam, the sutures, the whole vial of numbing agent (though they didn't give the whole bottle), the syringes, etc... It was incredibly expensive.

Typically they have some indication on them that they are not bills. Usually something like "THIS IS NOT A BILL". That's very clear.

A friend of mine learned a fun little secret about those "statements".

They're lies.

He received an itemized statement from his insurance company that a.) did not include the THIS IS NOT A BILL clarifier and b.) itemized things he was sure he did not receive or use, so he called the hospital to give his insurance info and make sure he, or his insurance company, was not being overcharged, and he called his insurance company to find out why he was being charged for things his insurance was supposed to cover.

Turns out, the hospital had already been paid, and the statement he received from his insurance company was, in fact, one of those THIS IS NOT A BILL statements.

Phew.

But the itemized things he didn't use?

It wouldn't be right if someone was being charged for goods or services that weren't used, no? After some bureaucratic back and forth, he was told it was okay if there were a few things overlooked or added to the statement because the amounts on the statement are not what what the insurance company pays. They actually paid about a third of what was listed so there was no need to worry about being overcharged. Thanks for his concern, have a nice day.

Isn't that good news? Isn't that lucky?

The insurance company can negotiate and contract for set rates because of its size and market control, so they pay less than what might otherwise be the market rate* for those goods and services injured and sick people might need.

Bully for them.

I wonder though, why send a statement indicating they paid X when they actually paid less than X? What's that bit of deception for?

A cynical person might say it's meant to make you extra thankful for your insurance company taking the hit. Maybe, if you're doing an analysis of what your insurance costs against what you receive, it's meant to make you think you're getting a better deal. (That sounds like fraud.) Maybe it's meant to make you think "Healthcare costs are out of control", while you shake your fist at the sky.

I don't know.

Here's something else I don't know. If item A really only costs $500 (for example), what's the big idea of charging the uninsured $1500? That's odd, too.

What I do know is that the idea of mandating universal insurance coverage is nonsense. Especially because a.) the above is the kind of garbage insurance companies are up to and b.) insurance companies do not exist to provide health care but make money for their shareholders by minimizing expenses, i.e. paying for your health care.

President Obama (nickname pending) thinks this nonsense makes good sense. That's awful; it's more awful when you consider that before he was President Obama (nickname pending), he understood that the best approach to healthcare was a single payer system.

Oh, but why worry about that? You'll be dead soon and never have to worry about being sick or hurt again. Well, maybe not soon, maybe after a bitter and long battle with a terrible disease brought on by your poor eating and exercise choices, then you'll be dead. Still, it seems political, and you're not political. You're just some schmo who's gonna die from heart disease or cancer. What do you care about health care?

Oh I shouldn't assume. Maybe you're not the kind to be pacified by the sweet release of death. If this is something you are interested in, you should get behind H.R. 676. Contact your representative, and tell them to co-sponsor it. Maybe donate to the Citizens Alliance for National Health Insurance.

* That seems confused. Insurance companies get to bypass the market? That's fundamentally not free-market, isn't it?

I Was Saying Oboooma
Indie via iTunes

Building and Repairing Bridges is Liberal?

If you put up with me all the way to the asterisks in the last post, kudos to you.

I am ready to believe that this bundle of thumbs approach to Republican argument is a strategy meant to further move a corporatist state agenda. (Here comes my unique cuckoo.) Tying Obama to a leftist agenda and describing his policies as socialist obscures what is actually left.

Subsidizing insurance companies and calling that healthcare reform is not socialism. Indefinitely occupying Iraq with tens of thousands of whatever-euphemism-is-used military forces is not leftist liberalism. Escalating the war in Afghanistan is not socialist. Taking our money and giving it to banks in the hope they lend it back to us is certainly not socialism (though that policy began under a "conservative" president). Continuing Bush administration secrecy is not being a good pinko. I don't write this as a disillusioned Obama supporter, I write this as a person who values leftist politics.

Obama's not a leftist. Or, if he is, he's a leftist in the same way President Jesus was a conservative. And just like dum-dum support of President Jesus pushed thoughtful, genuine conservatism off the table, calling Obama's overarching ideologies socialist confuses what is socialist. That's fine if that's what you're after- in fact, it seems strategically brilliant if that's what you're after, but it seems like you would only be after that if you were The Man and if you're reading this you are very likely not The Man.

Calling Obama's agenda socialist makes sense if a.) you're a dummy or b.) you're trying, for whatever reasons, to co-opt the label to limit the possibility for leftist reforms. Wether that's good or bad to you consider this, the President Jesus years saw so many "conservatives" hop on a band-wagon loaded with such glaringly non-conservative baggage that Ron Paul could seem presidential.* Real advocates of a small government, fiscal tight-fistedness, and anti-imperial foreign policy could only stand by with their hats in their hands while being a conservative came to be a matter of clobbering homosekshuls with the KBR version of the Bible. That may be a lot of things- stupid, shallow, plutocratic, anti-Chrsitian, what have you- but it is not conservative. So while conservatism was hobbled we had a country that could pursue an imperial vision, unchecked executive power, illegal spying on its own citizens, torture, kidnapping, TARP, etc. That is some coup.

So where will we be if we have a similarly confused notion of what is socialism or what is liberal? Will politics largely be a matter of aesthetic choices? We'll allow Obama to continue with the above but everyone will know we're liberals because of our Shepard Fairey-ized pictures. Blah blah blah, point being, I'm the kind of paranoid/crazy that could believe entrenched corporate interests only benefit from Joe The Plumber conservatives on one side and Apple® liberals on the other (as if it were a matter of sides).

Maybe the upshot of this is Dennis Kucinich will someday seem presidential.

* At this, you should shudder like Sideshow Bob getting whacked in the face with a rake handle.

It's Not About You... Just Kidding It Totally Is

A couple of whiles ago I met the chaplain for the Lakers. He's exactly the kind of person you would think the chaplain for the Lakers ought to be. He's tall, good-looking, broad-shouldered, and gregarious. His voice has a bright, laughing timbre that, no matter what he says, makes you think he's done you a favor by speaking- a favor made all the more gracious because he's the chaplain for the Lakers but he's willing to waste time talking to you. (You're no Derek Fisher- you're not even a Luke Walton.)

I heard him give a chapel message. It was something positive and uplifting, I'm sure. I've forgotten it. That's not necessarily an indictment of my memory or his "sermon". Through most of it I was distracted by thinking how terrible it must be to be the Lakers' chaplain.

Let alone the awful actions of people associated with the team*, his job isn't to care for or shepherd the people that make up the Lakers institution. He can't be concerned with making disciples of Christ. His responsibility is the maintenance of the institution for which he is a chaplain. Those responsibilities may involve doing churchy things here and there, but it doesn't involve being a church or making Christians. Someone needs prayer? Pray. Someone feels glum? Cheer them up with some motivational words. Someone has twelve illegitimate children scattered across the country? Well, that's what paternity suits are for. He may preach, he may pray, he may lead Bible studies, but ultimately his job is to serve the Lakers.

Of course all that only seems terrible to me because I would see it as frustrating, misguided, and most importantly, at cross purposes with the Gospel. And of course, I only see that because I see the Gospel as something challenging, transformative, and freeing. If I were smarter, if I had any sense of self-preservation, if I would just accept that all Jesus wants to do is give us all a great big hug, then I would see that making people capable of feeling good about themselves just as they are is really what the Gospel is all about.

I bet I could do that if I started drinking more.

* Except for that Jerry Buss. Total class.

High School Skybalon Sure Did Relate to This Charming Man
The Smiths-The Smiths

Consumerist Passover

Considering we keep hitting 90+ degrees, you would be forgiven for forgetting that Halloween is this Friday. However you will not be forgiven for thinking a Sarah Palin costume is clever. There is time to think of something better. You will think of something better.

There is also time to make sure you don't do more to damage the already laughable reputation of Christians surrounding their Halloween hum-buggery (that makes me laugh). To that end I offer this:

A Brief Guide to the Best and Worst Treats You Can Give
These are the worst items you could hand out on Halloween. If you think it is an act of generosity or good Halloween cheer to give any of these, you deserve whatever property damage follows throughout the year.
Raisins
Unshelled nuts
Loose change
Bible tracts
Fruit of any kind
These last two are asking for broken windows.

I would describe the following as borderline offerings. They are easily better than the above but may also be seen as a bit lazy so it's a bit of a gamble to give them out. You may avoid a yard full of egg shells and toilet paper, but don't be surprised if morning reveals a path of candy from your door to the sidewalk.
Bazooka Joe gum and that other brand of rock hard wax paper wrapped bubble gum... Empire Bubble or some such
Hershey's Miniatures: Krackle
Generic colorful transparent suckers and hard candies
Packs of gum- specifically, Wrigley brand 5 packs
Neopolitan Chews

Of course there are hundreds, if not thousands, of good candies and treats that can be given out on Halloween so a list of the best could never be definitive nor final. I guess all it can be is a list of candies and treats you should give me if you don't want me to egg your house.
Chocolate and Peanut Butter Taffies
Pixie Stix
Any full-size candy bar (except for those awful awful Zone style diet bars you can buy in bulk at 99 cents stores.)
Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
Pencil Toppers/Erasers (Seriously, kids under 10 go crazy for that kind of junk- so do I)
Balvenie Scotch

So How Do We Tell If She's Made of Wood?

I get it.

I just want to put that out there at the beginning so that if, when reading this, you think, "You just don't get it," you will know that I, in fact, do get it.

The McCain-Palin campaign can't possibly believe that the intense fear and white resentment they are stoking will not hit a ceiling. Granted, Republicanism of the past 40 years or so has been very successful in its adroit use of fear and racism, but everything has a shelf-life, no? No. Maybe?

Who knows?

Anyway, this intense push to identify Obama as the embodiment of terrorism, a different America, the scary "other" we don't know, could work, but if it does, it won't work in the way it has in the past.

Background please- Okay, when Bush I used racial fear and resentment against Michael Dukakis, the people you feared remained a faceless swarthy mass. Scary to be sure, but scary without a body or name. Scary because it was without a body and name. It wasn't the black kid behind the counter at McDonald's. You like him. And it wasn't the Mexicans mowing your lawn (probably Guatemalan, actually, but brown south of the border is all Mexican, right? ). Those guys are okay. Quiet, unassuming, hard-working, deferent. You weren't scared of them, but that wasn't the object of your fear. You were scared of the composite sketch, the unidentified welfare queen, the Latino male 17-23 y.o. with a slight build. Eesh, that is scary. That's the Southern strategy and it worked, especially as a form of white on white violence.

It got all kinds of people to forget about politics as it actually affects their lives as humans and worry about matters of identity wrapped up in things like Flags, Gods, and Sex, so they became perfectly willing to wage war against themselves.

Whatever.

But Barack Obama has a face. His face. He's got a name. Sure it's a weird name, but you see him and you're not actually afraid. You realize he's not so bad. Sure you still hate BLACK PEOPLE, but Barack isn't BLACK PEOPLE. He's Barack. He's like the Mexican that married your daughter versus the ILLEGAL ALIENS that are stealing your country. The faceless other can't be faceless when it actually has a face.

So it won't work like that, but like I said, it could work.

Intensifying the fear and anger will do just that- intensify the fear and anger. And even though it won't break through the lunatic 20-30% that you can see on the YouTubes, it will give that minority a momentum disproportionate to its mass.

Only lunatics were calling Bill Clinton a terrorist or radical leftist, but the fear and resentment of that era sprung up in a federal building in Oklahoma City. Now, our mainstream candidates are only steps away from calling the opposition a terrorist. (That's mainstream, folks... Volks.)

If McCain and Palin were not the Republican ticket, they could probably still fill beer halls by offering the rhetoric that they have resorted to. It wouldn't be hard to find plenty of people "mad as hell" or a bunch of frustrated white guys who are desperate for someone to affirm their belief that Obama is a secret Muslim terrorist. We would probably be able to see it for what it is though- crazy.

But maybe that crazy will strike fear into enough people that they don't want to risk an Obama presidency, not because of Obama, but because of the crazies who could not accept their secret Muslim, radical Christian, gangster elitist, terrorist president.

It is perhaps a much more brilliant ploy than it appears on the surface. Or maybe it's the only thing McCain has left since he's faced with the unsavory prospect of running as a Republican in a post Atwater-Rovian context.

Whatever the case, 30% could sometimes be enough. Historically, 40% has been*.

It may actually be a fear of white people that keeps Obama from the presidency. Ironic, no?

*This line is a cray historical allusion. You can disregard it.

Irony Can Be So Ironic
Wishlist- Pearl Jam
Come as You Are- Nirvana
86- Green Day
Soozy- The Briefs
America Is- Violent Femmes
Lover Man- Sarah Vaughan
The Function- Talib Kweli
3 Speed- Eels

Hey, Kool-Aid

As pathetic and difficult to watch as Sarah Palin's public performances have been since the convention (since she's had to rely on her own words rather than read someone else's crafted zingers), I think she's doing exactly what she's supposed to do.

I was reading an article that is essentially a collection of quotes from Sarah Palin supporters explaining why they are Sarah Palin supporters.

"'She's real. Everyone can identify with her,' said Karen Rinehart, from Pinkerton, a suburb of Columbus, who praised her clarity. 'She has five kids. I have six.'"

"'She came from a middle-class family. She did it with conviction and grit,' Plessinger concluded. 'God's in charge. I'm voting for God first.'"

"'It's her integrity,' Smalley said, 'what she has done for her state, and yet she is able to have a family, a career, a husband. It just gives woman hope that we can do it. She is sassy and we like sassy.'"

Seriously?

Yes.

Whatever.

I really can see why people like her.
She's a bit of a hole. People can project whatever they want on to her and support her for that.
She is the perfect American candidate, she feeds our narcissism that requires our leaders be some type of "just like us" though there is no single "us" and the "us" that Palin is is actually a small minority of the country. It's the next manifestation of "who would you rather have a beer with?" That is completely irrelevant, but that's how enough of us think.
She's a religious nut of the type that thinks there is an essential value to being that type of religious nut that overrides any other concern. Believing the Flinstones is plausible history is a good thing. Trying to find out how to ban books with the word "Gay" in the title is exactly what she should be doing.

In fact, I think the worse she does in the public eye, the more REAL AMERICANS will support her. She's that perfect naught or place holder for a people terrified of the necessary difference and messiness of democracy.* Whatever you feel you are up against, Sarah's going to overcome it, and since she's just like you, you are going to overcome it. Take that Elitists, and that Liberal Media, here's a poke in the eye Evolutionists, knee to the groin for you Secular Humanism, Economic Insecurity, Swarthy Masses, Condoms in School...

But that's for our imbecilic selves. I think she also has a very important ideological role. I mean she doesn't just exist because of our insipid narcissism, she also serves the destroyer.

She's Ronald McDonald.

She is a mascot, a clown meant to make it easier for us to swallow poison, to want the poison. That's exactly what she was at the RNC, a good-looking package communicating someone else's words to make venom palatable. Read about what she's done to Wasilla. Don't think of how little experience she has or what she hasn't done. Think of what she did do, what she would want to do. Imagine her ideology writ large in the US.

If you're not scared of that... Well... I'd say turn off the TV and go read a book but you'd probably pick your Bible (Oh snap!)

*Isn't it ironic how the idea of REAL AMERICANS is incredibly Anti-American, if America is an ongoing democratic experiment that is. Don't ya' think?

The More Things Change...

I was reading the text of FDR's inaugural address today and because I'm a jerk, I was thinking how I could annotate the text with alternative contemporary statements by our leaders.

So I could take for example the "Only thing we have to fear " portion and contrast it with President Jesus' commercial for the bailout in which all he could do was try to terrify us into acting. Then when you read the less well known "nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror... paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance" you might chuckle.

Or when you got to "Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment" I would embed a YouTubes of President Jesus and the Maverick saying the "fundamentals of the economy are strong, blah, blah, blah."

Maybe when we got to the part of the failed, incompetent, rulers abdicating, we might get wistful or nostalgic.

And if you could bear with it all the way to the discussion of using the Constitution to address the problems... well perhaps by then you're eyes would be too full of tears to read.

I should just let the speech speak for itself:

I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impel. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.

In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.

More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.

Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.

Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live.

Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation asks for action, and action now.

Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our natural resources.

Hand in hand with this we must frankly recognize the overbalance of population in our industrial centers and, by engaging on a national scale in a redistribution, endeavor to provide a better use of the land for those best fitted for the land. The task can be helped by definite efforts to raise the values of agricultural products and with this the power to purchase the output of our cities. It can be helped by preventing realistically the tragedy of the growing loss through foreclosure of our small homes and our farms. It can be helped by insistence that the Federal, State, and local governments act forthwith on the demand that their cost be drastically reduced. It can be helped by the unifying of relief activities which today are often scattered, uneconomical, and unequal. It can be helped by national planning for and supervision of all forms of transportation and of communications and other utilities which have a definitely public character. There are many ways in which it can be helped, but it can never be helped merely by talking about it. We must act and act quickly.

Finally, in our progress toward a resumption of work we require two safeguards against a return of the evils of the old order; there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people’s money, and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency.

There are the lines of attack. I shall presently urge upon a new Congress in special session detailed measures for their fulfillment, and I shall seek the immediate assistance of the several States.

Through this program of action we address ourselves to putting our own national house in order and making income balance outgo. Our international trade relations, though vastly important, are in point of time and necessity secondary to the establishment of a sound national economy. I favor as a practical policy the putting of first things first. I shall spare no effort to restore world trade by international economic readjustment, but the emergency at home cannot wait on that accomplishment.

The basic thought that guides these specific means of national recovery is not narrowly nationalistic. It is the insistence, as a first consideration, upon the interdependence of the various elements in all parts of the United States—a recognition of the old and permanently important manifestation of the American spirit of the pioneer. It is the way to recovery. It is the immediate way. It is the strongest assurance that the recovery will endure.

In the field of world policy I would dedicate this Nation to the policy of the good neighbor—the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others—the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors.

If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each other; that we can not merely take but we must give as well; that if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress is made, no leadership becomes effective. We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline, because it makes possible a leadership which aims at a larger good. This I propose to offer, pledging that the larger purposes will bind upon us all as a sacred obligation with a unity of duty hitherto evoked only in time of armed strife.

With this pledge taken, I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army of our people dedicated to a disciplined attack upon our common problems.

Action in this image and to this end is feasible under the form of government which we have inherited from our ancestors. Our Constitution is so simple and practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form. That is why our constitutional system has proved itself the most superbly enduring political mechanism the modern world has produced. It has met every stress of vast expansion of territory, of foreign wars, of bitter internal strife, of world relations.

It is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority may be wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure.

I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or such other measures as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption.

But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, and in the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis—broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.

For the trust reposed in me I will return the courage and the devotion that befit the time. I can do no less.

We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of the national unity; with the clear consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values; with the clean satisfaction that comes from the stern performance of duty by old and young alike. We aim at the assurance of a rounded and permanent national life.

We do not distrust the future of essential democracy. The people of the United States have not failed. In their need they have registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action. They have asked for discipline and direction under leadership. They have made me the present instrument of their wishes. In the spirit of the gift I take it.

In this dedication of a Nation we humbly ask the blessing of God. May He protect each and every one of us. May He guide me in the days to come.

What a nerd.

No War But Class War

This post is not for babies

There.

In a previous post I made passing mention that we are the kind of people that would be up in arms (figuratively) if half of the money used to kill Iraqis were offered as reparations or used to build Iraqi infrastructure (legitimately and competently). I think a similar phenomenon is at work with the presently debated Wall Street hand out.

So there's some debate about compensation limits, the degree and nature of oversight, how or whether to address housing issues, and just how we will own what we are about to own. But that's it. We have, "Give us a blank check," on one side, and, "No, no blank check for you," on the other. For many of us, these are legitimate points of debate. This is what we must hammer out in order to pass this legislation. They are legitimate points of debate because we are idiots.

You've probably heard the $700 billion price tag- that's an imaginary number. Imaginary because it's 700,000,000,000 but also because it's only meant to address the outstanding moneys owed at a single time- ("The Secretary’s authority to purchase mortgage-related assets under this Act shall be limited to $700,000,000,000 outstanding at any one time") It is not how much this will all cost us in total related expenditures. That limit is fixed (on paper anyway) in the trillions. But let's pretend that is the number. Let's pretend that $700,000,000,000 is how much money we will ultimately shell out, give or take a million. That's how much we say would give to these companies, and when I say companies I mean the people that created these "hybrid instruments" and insurance schemes that deliberately and predictably orchestrated this meltdown.

You've got that, right? This wasn't an accident.

This was not the result of Free Market capitalism. You must put out of your head the idea that anything called "The Market" exists anywhere but in high school economics texts. This was the result of actual people seeking the legal allowances and avenues for systems of mergers and lending machinations to make themselves and their cronies very rich. There is nothing "Free Market" about lending out $1000 when you only have $10 in hand. That is an artifice, it is a created possibility. We built the world that allowed this to happen.

And we say we don't believe in magic anymore. Pfft.

And now? Now we are willing to give at least hundreds of billions of dollars to this "emergency".

This should echo. We should have in our memories the USA PATRIOT Act and the congressional authorization to wage a war on terror. Both were legislative moves we had to make else we would meet certain ruin. Both were sold as necessary for our protection, necessary for our safety- just like the notmurder and nottorture done for our protection.

So we will let it happen. We want it to happen. And it says a lot about who and what we are.

Idiots.

Just as we'd be upset if we considered giving $250,000,000,000 to Iraq to rebuild their country, I'm sure we would consider it out of the question to devote even half of the proposed bail out one time limit ($350,000,000,000 to give it a name) to a single payer health care system, as an investment in educational infrastructure and resources, as a housing subsidy disbursement, or to even fix our screwed-up roads.

But this is happening. It will happen. We can efficiently and quickly create the means for a successful and well orchestrated bail out. Rich people, you don't know, are too rich to be left hanging. But people you do know with medical debts, people you know who are a paycheck away from foreclosure, people you know who are squeezed out of the housing market, people you know that have to forego college?

Fuck them. Perhaps you should tell your neighbor next time you see them.

I'm sure we could cynically say, "This is simply the nature of power, and there it goes looking out for itself." Or we could look at our national financial priorities and rationalize it as a matter of "personal responsibility" that we don't take care of each other. Sometimes we get a glimpse behind the veil and see someone's turning the screws. That's an eye-opening moment, and we feel our cynicism is justified. But this isn't that. There's also nothing exceptionally revelatory to say we don't care much for poor people however we rationalize it. No, here we are confronted with something far worse than those things; here we realize we have been cowed into participating in our own destruction. I'm sure we call it something else, though.

Our hands are not clean in this. We are not ignorant. We see exactly what's happening. We're eager for it to happen, to borrow a metaphor, like asses in heat, sniffing the wind. We are damned idiots. Really idiots; it's strong enough and perfectly appropriate.

Look it up.

Anyway...

Goddamn #1:
Pretty much all of Section 2, b. but especially:
(2) entering into contracts, including contracts for services authorized by section 3109 of title 5, United States Code, without regard to any other provision of law regarding public contracts;

Goddamn #2:
In exercising the authorities granted in this Act, the Secretary shall take into consideration means for--

(1) providing stability or preventing disruption to the financial markets or banking system; and

(2) protecting the taxpayer.
[I'm sure this is put here as a joke at our expense]

Goddamn #3:
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.
[This makes actions outside of the law within the law. That's magic for you- the kind of magic that makes torture nottorture. Hooray.]

Hopeless.
These are the strangers we love.
It's after them we will go.

You could call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 to contact your representatives, but what could you say about this? I guess you could at least ask them to [redacted 'cos I'm a baby too sometimes] and say your name before it's over.

So what's the phenomenon at work? I think we call it freedom.

Sighs all around.

Solitude

"Whoever takes up the subject of theology discovers himself immediately, recurrently, and inevitably banished into a strange and notoriously oppressive solitude. In our old church hymnal we used to sing with emotion a song by Novalis containing the line, 'Be content to let others wander in their broad, resplendent teeming, streets.' These words might sound very appropriate as a slogan for theology; however, they would not be altogether honest, for who at bottom would not really like to be an individual in a greater crowd? Who, as long as he is not the oddest of odd fellows, would not like to have his work supported by the direct or at least indirect acknowledgment and participation of the general public, and understood by all men or at least as many as possible? As a rule, the theologian will have to put up with pursuing his subject in a certain isolation, not only in the so-called 'world,' but also in the Church... This isolation must be endured and borne, and it cannot always be easily borne with dignity and cheerfulness."

Karl Barth Evangelical Theology

Good Lord

Ugh. I know symbols are substance in our political world. I mean we generally don't care about the actual policies and records of politicians as much as we care about their symbolic resonance with what we claim to believe, but c'mon.

I won't say here that I don't think the Bible affirms the conventional claim that life begins at conception or that even if it is implied, that the life that has begun is worth the same as that of the born, born men that is. I could and it's an argument worth making, but that's not necessarily here or there at the moment. What is here and there is the proposition that Sarah Palin is pro-life. I guess I should say Pro-Life... No. PRO-LIFE.

Right- so I get that what we're supposed to see the symbolic value of Sarah Palin having a vagina, saying "Life Begins at Conception," and submit to the meme that at 40-some years of age she knew she would be having a child with Down's Syndrome (never mind that the latter seems to make manifest the idea that the decision to have a child is not a concern for the state and so is a point for the CHOICE side if those sides are really a matter of sides and points.) I get it. And because I get it, I know we're supposed to ignore that Sarah Palin as a matter of policy chose to reduce the spending Alaska's state legislature recommended for a program that assisted unwed teen mothers. So she opposes successful programs for teaching teenage girls how to not get pregnant, doesn't believe there may ever be a reason to terminate those pregnancies, and then reduces the money for those programs specifically addressing the consequences of those policies. None of that matters because she's PRO-LIFE, and like many who say they are PRO-LIFE, we needn't see what she actually does as a result of that. She supports life in the abstract. Just like she rejects CHOICE in the abstract, though in the particulars it's the very thing she endorses for her own daughter (and on the state's dime I might add).

I know I know, it's easier to think of a Pro-Choice position as a Let's Murder Babies position, but remember, at it's core it is about personally wrestling with the matter, just as Bristol Palin did, to come to a decision privately. And that fact seems to fit perfectly with the intense dissonance of sense and symbolism of Palin as an artifact and in the content of her acceptance speech that goes beyond this issue of LIFE.

Symbols are substance, and yikes to that. I don't mean we can reject the substance of symbols, I mean yikes to what she symbolizes. The fear and venom of last night's speeches was nuts. Especially from her. She represented and used the same condescending cynicism and dismissive arrogance that saw Purple Heart Band-Aids and Flip-Flops at the last RNC. Of course this time it's in a cuter package.

If one of the DNC points is believed, "John McCain cares, he just doesn't get it," then the contempt and hatred she has for the democratic movement (deliberately little D) and enthusiasm that may be as much a response against the last eight years as they are a response to Obama's symbolic candidacy, illustrate that as a Romanticized "small towner", Sarah Palin gets it, she just doesn't care. She understands the concerns of average Americans, she just looks down on them when they organize to address those concerns. She understands that her own daughter, facing a teenage pregnancy confronts a challenging personal choice, but others are not afforded the same grace. She says, as a good conservative, that personal decisions require personal responsibility and we don't bear each others' burdens, making the actual existence of her and her family the very embodiment of IGMFY. Which I suppose is worse than not caring, it's contempt.

I recognize that I'm out there. I mean, I know thinking John McCain is not a hero because he dropped bombs on civilians is not something normal people think. The symbol of the war hero is important to us (except, as I mentioned, at the last RNC). So is what Palin might represent: small-towniness, straight-shooterism, the virtue of the average. But behind that, in her actual policies and her role as the voice for this contempt, is fear and war, and not a fear of the strangers "over there" against whom we must wage war. I mean she represents and talked about, as did the other speakers, a fear and war against the very people whose identity she claims.

Her role is that of a giant middle finger. If we don't see that, yeesh. Good luck.

The Title of This Post Should be "ZING!"

I know few people actually read the swill put out by the likes of Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, or Jerome Corsi. I mean, I know the books they put out are national best-sellers, but it would be hard to call what the majority of their fans do with the books "reading". Pawing at the pages, furrowing their brows in frustration at the strange squiggles on the paper, prominently placing them on their shelves to give a veneer of legitimacy to their outlandish beliefs- we could call it that. But "reading"?

No.

If you are eating any of the nonsense that feeds the Obama=Things That Scare Me phenomenon, any examination of said nonsense probably doesn't matter to you. Obama is somehow both a secret Muslim and a reverse-racist Christian. A ghetto thug and a Harvard elitist. Too inexperienced and a Washington insider. That's cool. But if you would, nonetheless, at least like to read an hilarious sentence related to Jerome Corsi's latest hit piece, you could do worse than this:
"The book has already had more holes shot through it than one of Dick Cheney's hunting partners."

The Jokes Just Write Themselves

Russia moves closer to war with Georgia over South Osseti

"The Georgian Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, issued a statement calling on the international community to 'give Russia the message that invading the territory of a sovereign state and bombing its territory is unacceptable in the 21st century.'"

LA Times

Where's he been?

A City on a Hill

Pakistan's ruling coalition parties say they will begin impeachment proceedings against President Pervez Musharraf.
BBC News

Ugh. Those poor Pakistanis struggling with democracy. I don't mean struggling as they are with military juntas, the assassinations of opposition leaders, ensuring free and fair elections. I mean their struggle to understand, as we clearly do, that impeachment has no place in a democracy.

I Say Potato, You Say... Wait, How's That Gonna' Work

Sometimes people who feel the need to justify why they are not a Christian via Christianity's many foibles use the division of Christian traditions/denominations as a reason to reject the ideas and practices of Christianity. Does that make sense? What I mean is, for some it's possible to look at all the various and incompatible yet passionately defended expressions of Christianity as evidence that there can't be anything worth committing to, with the infighting itself providing a "See, it's all bunk," opportunity.

First of all, people looking for that opportunity should realize it's perfectly acceptable to be indifferent to all manner of things. I think we are blessed to live in an age wherein it is unnecessary (more and more so anyway) to justify why one would not be a Christian alongside the many other things that one is not. Go with it. You don't live with Bushido, or feudalism, or Magik, or Shaktism, or chivalry and you do so- or do not do so- without justification. That's fine. It can be just like that if you let it.

Just leave it alone. No. Stop. Don't pick at it or mess with it. Go on, you have nothing to say with it.

Hmm... Maybe, if you can't stop, it's likely because it's more a part of you than you'd like it to be, in which case you're stuck with it. Sorry.

Secondofly, haven't you heard the justification that denominations/traditions are like different flavors of the same thing? Each denomination contributes something unique to the broader body but is uniquely for itself. You could say it's similar to what happens when ordering a pizza for a large number of people. I like mushrooms but not olives. So-and-so likes olives but hates onions. She likes pineapple but won't eat meat. Who's-his-face has to have anchovies. What's-his-stink likes everything except bell peppers. It's a big confusing mess, but when we all come together and make our contribution we finally have something we can all agree on and consume: a pizza with half cheese and half everything from which some people can pick off the things they don't like. It's like that, right? Or it's like a restaurant that serves something for everyone. It's all one pizza or it's all one restaurant so there's really not the division that some people see. It's all a matter of flavors and preferences piled on top of the dough in the pizza trope or prepped by Latin American immigrants in the back a la the kitchen metaphor. Isn't it one big happy family of consumption?

Ugh, really? You think so? How could you think something like that? Your faith as a matter of consumption and no more than aesthetic preference? Yeegads that's awful. How much more shallow could we be? He likes dunking but she likes sprinkling; we say Jesus is in the cracker but they say around, but who cares because those are matters of taste? Yeesh.

A friend and I, The Brownloveshark, if you must know, were talking about the Lord's Supper (as it's called in some places) this past weekend and I was getting all excited about the possible beauty of a Friends perspective on the matter. I was also getting pretty despondent about the emptiness of some of our actual Friends practices and statements about it. But then I was quickly cycling back to optimism in thinking about the allowance for the diversity of practices that are technically possible given our position on the matter in our present version of Faith and Practice. Then I took a nap with my baby. Then I made dinner.

Anyway, I don't believe that one who says "Jesus is literally in this piece of bread" is in the same camp as one who says "around" the piece of bread nor are they of the same camp that says, "Skip the bread all together." Same camp? Pfft. It's not even the same planet. Those are completely different ways of seeing the world, of understanding how humanity relates to divinity and vice versa. I don't believe Jesus is literally in a piece of bread, or around a piece of bread, or symbolically present with a piece of bread (though I will drink wine) and not believing those things is at the core of the content of my faith which is my relating to God. I will say though, if you believe that a piece of bread is somehow a conduit for God's love, if you really believe that, you'd better eat that bread as a matter of relating to God. I don't so I won't. But whether one does or not, it's a matter of the most important type of commitment and a source for the deepest kind of difference.

Really.

It's not the same thing. However in our present Evangelical context we try to overcome that difference by saying we are united by agreement in the doughy core of faith. (Well, some Evangelicals are more honest and say Catholics aren't a part of the deal, though how they then excuse Lutherans and Episcopalians is a matter of dishonesty. But it's the best kind of dishonesty: religious.) So our written statements of faith carry the life of our bodies and we say if we agree on these basics then there is no division among one group that says by practice you really must consume God's grace through this bread and another that by practice says we symbolize the reception of God's grace in ritually eating this bread, or between one that says in its actions women are by their very nature unable to have religious authority over men and another that says in its actions men are just as qualified as women to be church leaders (see what I did there?), or one group that shows marriage is only for the pairing of a penis and a vagina and another that shows... Oh wait, no. Not that last one. They are out of the fold no matter what they say. Am I right? (High five). My point is, this Statement of Faith phenomenon, this imposition of agreement is a type of unity, but it is not the unity of "The Lord's Supper" or anything that might be called "good news".

I suppose it's necessary, if we're committed to an idea of God bound to a kind of geometric certainty that these very real differences be washed away so the diversity of practices give way to a unity of statements. After all, it's not a very coherent world that would have Jesus present in a piece of bread and not present in a piece of bread. So, in a world of certainty we skip over the bread and emphasize the Jesus, but by emphasizing the Jesus we destroy the practices in which Jesus is known in life, well at least the lives people live as existing humans. But who told you to be committed to an idea of God bound to geometric certainty? Well, aside from those silly men who got all wrapped up in their Logic or Philosophy 101 classes and parlayed that into Christian radio shows, who told you? We, well Christian "wes" are not committed to a broad philosophical or logical concept of God; we say we're into the God revealed by the story of the Bible. But, and this is a big "but" we often seem to think that this God revealed in the Bible should be like the God of Philosophy 101 and that puts us right back into this whitewashed Christianity trap. (See how unfortunate it can be to take your college underclass years too seriously?)

Pathetic.

As Friends, sometimes we say that our practice of Open Worship is Communion. We've come together as like-minded people, we've sung this, we've read that, we've said such and such, and now we have a time to reflect on what we've sung, read, and said and if inclined, share those reflections with others.* And that's pretty good. I mean, to get people who, if pressed, would be revealed as more different than similar to come together in an act of devotion is laudable. In this respect, the pizza bit is maybe something to affirm. But insofar as it remains a matter of conformity to these external media, it's not communion. Maybe we could call it looking in the same direction, collective worship, sharing in devotion, shared assent and affirmation, something like that. But when we call it communion, well, that's where I say it's a sad thing if only because we settle for less (I say "if only" because I'm sure it's more). It's one of the sadder aspects of Evangelical Friends that we confuse the Word of God with the word of God and imagine an awkward and wooden conformity to the latter can be communion with the former.

That we can collectively say "P-I-G" means "pig" is a simple matter of human cleverness and should not be called communion. Our getting together periodically to say "God is big, hooray" is of similar stuff. It may take a degree of work and ultimately be impressive, but let's not call it communion. It is us becoming and being with us. Or if I make a concession and say it's a kind of communion, I can only say it's communion among humans. Again, given our histories and regular demonstrations of how divided we are, human communion could sometimes be a step in the right direction, but a step that should be taken cautiously given our tendency to replace division with domination. But God with us communion, something divine and transcendent, the communion of the Word taking on a body and setting up his tent among us, that is something else. Unfortunately through what we've sometimes accepted as communion, we make it all the more difficult to be struck with the divine.

When we come together, in our Evangelical Friends Meetings for example, we do so as people who are on the same page. We are an "us". And as I've said already, that being "us" is not communion. Saying "God is big" in unison is not the rending of the veil that opens the Holy of Holies. It may, at times, most times, create a thicker and thicker insulation that adapts us to each other but prevents us from being in communion with God. The process of becoming more and more adjusted to each other does create community, but it depends on exclusion. The unity of those who know "P-I-G" is pig is not the fellowship, to refer to a model, of a Gentile and a Jew, a woman and a man, a free person and a slave, clean and unclean sharing a table. I don't mean there is a miracle in the meal, I mean that there could be a meal is the miracle. The revolutionary, dying to one's self, new life grace, is not the act but is seen in the act of people who ought not be together sitting at a table with each other.

I suppose we can say there's magic in some food and when we eat it we take in God. We could also replicate 1st c. Asia Minor to the last detail and say we are part of the same community as the true church so we have communion when that is done. Or maybe we can be more sophisticated and pick certain practices and rules we think are mentioned in the Bible that ought to be retained and repeated and somewhere in that is communion. No one will stop us. But I think as Friends we can have something else, especially when we recognize silence is not for reflecting on what we've said or done but on what God does do. Silence is not the thing we must do to build unity, but the starting point to seeing our practices as the barriers that God overcomes. It's the reminder that all our language fails, even, especially even our well-crafted statements of faith. It's the recurring starting point of a life together in solidarity through difference rather than an erasure of difference. It is knowing and showing that Christ is here to teach us.

We have the faintest hint of that in our current version of Faith and Practice (I'd better be careful or it may not be in the next). Of course there's a whole lot of else and inertia to deal with and most people don't want to do that even on their best days, and with our ever-growing fear of difference and willingness to draw faithless lines in the sand, we may not be presently experiencing our "best days".

But we can hope, and you know what they say, "Poop in one hand, hope in the other, and see which fills first." Oh wait, that's not encouraging.


*Of course, not every meeting in our Yearly Meeting cum Annual Conference practices Open Worship nor would they say this is a description of how they do it if they did. Whatever.

Then Who Can Be Saved?

So The Qweenbean and I somehow ended up on new mailing lists and are now receiving junk mail from groups that clearly have no idea who we are.

One of these bits of propaganda is full of housewares that we could not afford financially or morally. Take a look at this:
It's the Kohler Purist Hatbox Commode. It's $3,000 (I'm including tax, though I figure if you can afford this, you can also afford a way to avoid paying the tax). You put poop in it. Phew, I almost used a bad word there.*

I saw it in the EXPO catalogue that came in the mail yesterday. The rest of the catalogue is full of all kinds of things that I find offensive, but it barely scratches the surface of the kind of world that exists in which this is a good thing.

When I used to remodel rich people's houses I learned there was not only a huge chasm between me and rich people, but also a difference between having a lot of money and being wealthy. Rich people have a lot of money. Sure. A rich person may buy this toilet. Rich people buy lots of things you or I, as not rich people, can look at and see as marks of their richness. But wealthy people are more. In one sense, wealthy people live in a world where it's unnecessary to display the marks of their riches because there's no need to differentiate from those without. It is not about contrast because they/we create the standard for what is. Does that make sense? I mean wealthy people have more than money. They have the power that wealth is; the power to create a world in which we say it is fine to buy this toilet if one can afford it. If one has earned the money to pay for it, it is their right to use the money as they see fit. There is no burden on them to justify this type of life because that is life. It is the kind of life that says it is possible to earn this type of money. It is possible to deserve this and it would be wrong for anyone to try to stop you.

I don't think poor people are more wholesome than rich or wealthy people. If we think there is somehow a greater level of decency or kindness among THE POOR, perhaps we ought to re-examine ourselves and be sure we are not romanticizing evil- especially if that romanticization allows us to be comfortable with the way things are. Poor people are just rich people without money. And if we say God shows a preference for the poor (clearly God must- since there's so many) I don't think we say it is because the insecurity of being poor is better than the stability of having access to resources- starving is better than being fed or dying from preventable diseases is better than receiving healthcare, secure and reliable shelter is worse than living on the street. When we read of prophets in the Old Testament offering woes to those who are comfortable, when we read of Jesus saying we cannot serve wealth and God, do we see that as having to do with owning stuff? Do we see material goods as the problem? Are we saying we affirm the idea we exist as bodies but abhor that these bodies should be cared for? Or do we see that the challenge is against those who are comfortable because the source of their comfort is not in the things but in their ability to pervert justice, the ability to call evil good. I don't mean the error any of us may make when we act selfishly, thoughtlessly, or autonomously and say we had good intentions. I mean the ability to destroy life by writ. The ability to justify ourselves by saying discover rather than conquer, liberate rather than invade, employ rather than steal, evil is good, bitter is sweet. That's wealth.

Last night, Classic Grandpa reminded us that there are those who may steal with a gun and those who steal with a pen. That's exactly what a Classic Grandpa would say. Hippy folky. We should also see that there are those who steal and destroy and what they do we call neither stealing nor destroying.

* Tony Campolo used to do this magic trick in which he would be speaking about acts of evil in the world and then use a bit of what we call "vulgarity" and then comment on how people were probably more upset about the bit of vulgarity than they were about the acts of evil. That's funny magic.

Softly in the Background
Pet Sounds- The Beach Boys

You Say "Mommy" Like It's a Bad Thing

Longtime readers of my blog likely suffer eyestrain and numbness and tingling of the fingers due to poor workstation set up but may also remember that the Qweenbean was what they call RIF'd. That means she was laid-off by her school district because California state funding is besieged by the tyranny of tax-dodging whiners who want to destroy the state's public infrastructure and curse our future to ruin. Plus, they got theirs so screw everyone else, right? It's an ownership society.

Anyway, she's... we've been a little stressed out because the bacon I bring home is made up of those chewy fat pieces that don't seem to cook or chew easily and you can hardly raise a kid on that. Plus, she really enjoyed her job, and she was good at it. That is a whole other source and type of stress. Something she enjoyed, something that was good, something that was fulfilling was taken from her. Drag.

I've spent enough time in a classroom to know who is and isn't a good teacher. The Qweenbean is a good teacher. I was recently speaking with an acquaintance who told me how difficult it was to be a teacher because "kids these days"* are so disrespectful and don't want to learn. He had seen classrooms- or at least one classroom- wherein kids were jumping around, yelling at the teacher, not listening, and generally doing the sorts of things that might discourage one from being a teacher because it plants the idea that kids these days are disrespectful and don't want to learn. He was telling that story to prove how horrible public schools are and thank God for the gift of private and home-schooling, but that may only be slightly here or there. In any case I've seen classrooms like that too. I've known kids who are instigators in classrooms like that. I was a kid who was an instigator in classrooms like that. I realize that there are worse and better environments but what a kid will try to get away with is largely dependent on the kind of environment the teacher creates, whether the classroom is public, private or "home". Whether a kid will act disrespectfully or act as if they want to learn largely depends on what a teacher will let a kid do.

The key is not whether students are allowed to pray in class, or whether their pledge to a piece of cloth includes the phrase "under God", or whether science as a discipline concerned with the natural world makes reference to a super-natural world. The key is teachers who care about student's learning and see teaching as a profession or vocation rather than a job. The Qweenbean is one of those teachers. She is a person who sees the art of teaching as transforming kid into students. Anyone... most anything could transfer data from one location to another, from one brain to another; that is not teaching. Imparting the range of data in a field (a range of data that changes over time) creates little more than well-trained animals. Good teaching, whatever the subject, involves discipline. I don't mean beating children, at least not in this instance. I mean the training involved in developing in someone the skills necessary to learn. I mean the art of turning someone into a student, a learner. Of course her subject area does involve the transfer of data, and these days, the data she transfers are seen as worth less.

I know that to many, the value of Home Economics, or Family and Consumer Science as it is called in districts with some sense of self-preservation, is less than that of Algebra or Physics, or, closer to the truth, curricula specifically designed to prepare students to vomit answers onto a standardized test, but there is no convincing argument for eliminating those programs unless one is committed to the destruction of any sense of a future common weal.

So that's what was taken from The Qweenbean, and with the best or most condescending of intentions people have been telling her that it's okay because with the baby coming she'd rather be "a mommy" anyway. It's good to have lost this because now she can focus on being a good momma. To that, she has been less and less inclined to be patient.

It's not such a strange thing that the idea of a mother is abstracted in a way to keep women in "their place," abstracted in a way that serves dominating interests, abstracted in a way that fosters the destruction of public education. That's what we tend to do with abstractions: steal, kill, and destroy. Oh, maybe that's too much.

At the very least, we ought not think that being a mother- or rather "a mommy"- requires The Qweenbean accept this disappointment and the conditions that led to it. Or maybe, being a mommy does while being a mother doesn't. Maybe mommy and momma are the words children use to refer to their parents, and though I only write out of my butt on the matter at this time, it seems what a child thinks a parent is and what a parent must be are two different, too different ways of being. Actually, only one is a way of being, the other is an idea that a child has and in this case, in the wrong hands, is used to impugn The Qweenbean's desire that she be a teacher and have a child. It makes sense for a child to think of a mommy, it does not for an adult. "When I was a child" and all that.

That said, she has an interview next week with a new school district. Depending on whether you think she ought to be a mother or a mommy, you may or may not want her to get that job.

*Is there another expression that reveals better than this that what the speaker means is "Stuff I don't get is weird and probably wrong"?

Here Is Something You Can't Understand

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. — Framingham police say a 13-year-old middle school student pulled a knife on his teacher in the classroom and demanded money so he could buy a video game.

Fox News

It's possible that Fox News is emdumbening. But reading my internetsjournal is emsmartening, so you break even.

In any case, I've yet to play the latest GTA. No one loves me enough to buy me a PS3. I could only say out of ignorance that playing the game does or does not cause violence.

It's clear though, that not having the game causes violence.

Take that, video game haterz.

The lesson from all this then: I will totally kill you if I don't get a PS3.

Love: There Is No Such Thing

Let's pretend for a moment that facts are things that can be falsified. We'll say something can be a fact only if it is the kind of thing that we can say either is or isn't. With that we'll say that there are certain things that can be described or proposed accordingly. For the sake of convention, let's call those things matters of objective reflection, and so we'll say that matters of objectivity are indifferent or accidental. More specifically, the more certain of a thing's objective factuality you may be, the less it is a matter of concern to you, the observer.*

We should see that this would be a way of talking about things; stuff like: the box is open, the cat is on the roof, the girl is tall, the earth orbits the sun. Whether there is any confusion over what we mean by open, roof, tall, earth, sun, those are the kinds of things that can be communicated, clarified, or translated even if they are not universally known. It is a matter of spatial existence and logical possibility. Open is the kind of thing that a box may be and a box is the kind of thing that may be open. So- to be clear- I don't mean it as a matter of perception- there is no "But, man, did you ever think, like, the box that exists in your mind, is, like, it's like, totally different from the box that's really there?" I mean A is A.

Though I would hate to use the word "true" for things like that, for now, let's say those things are what we would say are objectively true. I would prefer that we would say those things are facts, but as long as we're clearer about what we mean, we can say they are objectively true. Or maybe, to avoid that nonsense, let's say they are a matter for objective speculation.

Well, now that the map has been unfolded, we may see it is a very limited field dealing with matters of that kind. We may see further, that if it were possible to catalogue every last thing we may call a fact so that we have a full scale, detailed description of every thing that is and so also is not, we would have only that. I mean, if you had a complete account of those things about which it is possible to give a factual account, that is all you would have. You would not have anything more than an arrangement of facts; you would most certainly not have any inkling about what ought to be, what is right, what is wrong, what is good, or most importantly, at least if you are concerned with actually existing, how and what you ought to do.

But we are supremely concerned with how and what we ought to do. Well, I am anyway.

I'm losing interest too so I should probably cut to the chase. [There's the concern] What I'd like to get at is that the "oughts" of what we do, as much as we'd like them to be, are not fixed or certain like facts. It is a matter of commitment and decision- drifting in air. Those things that are the most meaningful to us are the most meaningful to us. They are very much not things about which we may be indifferent, objective, or dispassionate. To borrow an idea, if we could cease to be, those things would not matter, and only what was objective or fixed would be of import- only they wouldn't be, because we would not be, so nothing could be of import. Things can only be important if there is some concerned me to be concerned with what is important. But if some thing is objective- it is indifferent to me and it's factuality is not a matter of my concern. I guess, though, if nothing matters, then nothing matters, and that's a bit of a relief. Or it would be if there was some me that existed to be relieved, but there wouldn't be so who cares? Not me, but only because there is no existing me to care. Got it?

No? Do you not buy that? Do you say there is actually some you that is concerned with living, some you that has being, that has to exist in your skin? Do you realize how crazy that sounds?

Hmph. Well, crazy or not, let's go that route. Let's pretend you really are there, things really matter to you- some you is concerned with being. As absurd as that might be, I guess we can pretend it's possible. But with that you'll have to confront that if you really exist, and are some living you, then you cannot accept the relief that not-being allows. You cannot rest in the certain security that frozen not-being offers. Do you really want that?

I mean, it's not like you'll die if you accept not-being. Well, you will die someday, I mean you will not die just because you accept not being. My dogs are alive and seem as happy as pigs in poop; they don't have to confront being. You could do that. Maybe you've been doing that- and have seemed as happy as a pig in poop- just like my dogs. It might be better for you to stick with that. Do you really want to confront uncertainty? It could be miserable. It could be crazy-making. Sure it seems like humans should be being something more than dogs- but it only seems that way. You have to decide to be committed and live as if it is that way, and commitment is hard. It requires commitment. Maybe what you'd prefer is obedience. That works for a lot of people. It's all mapped out and when you get the range of what to obey just right, you could coast for a while.

Coasting seems like a nice middle passage between being and not-being.

But coasting doesn't seem like it would make much sense of concerns like love or justice, and I'm kind of convinced that as a human- a human that's busy being- I am concerned with love and justice. I guess we could think love or justice might be the systematic application of a certain range of "things" to obey. Like each time I give the Qweenbean a flower I have applied a thing of love and so love is a matter of giving more and more flowers. Or applying a thing of justice would mean something like taking the life of anyone who ever took someone else's life.

In fact (hah), love seems like the very kind of concern about which I am completely concerned. Love seems like it cannot have objectivity and requires commitment to a way of being, not not-being. If I am not being, or if I am coasting in obedience, love wouldn't matter. Doing the x,y, and z of obedience would be enough. But love matters- at least to me. Love seems to require a commitment through what cannot be known, almost as if it's a matter of faith and not certainty. Justice likewise.

It would be silly to say we have to live. We don't have to do anything. But to live, to have life- I mean to really have life in a way worth having, a way that is affirming, abundant, full- it seems I have to be willing to commit to uncertainty and be concerned with living.

Or not.

They Say I Got Brains But They Ain't Doing Me No Good
Pet Sounds- The Beach Boys

* We'll say we don't mean that you must exist in order to articulate or express the thing as a fact or give it some existence via your knowledge. That's just dumb.

Your Manager Says for You to Shut Up

The second to the last sentence of that last post was rough:
"It should be deeply troubling to a people that want to be this community that responds to the Word of God to say and do something like, "What does the Bible say about slavery?" and then interpret some texts in The Bible that use the word slavery as having some directly instructive relation to our understanding of slavery in the same way we would understand a sign that read "No Swimming Without Lifeguard Present" posted on a fence surrounding a swimming pool has a relation to whether we should swim- and even that's not enough information to know whether we should swim."

Goodness, that's one sentence?

It's at least one sentence.

I could have made it much simpler by saying: "The Bible is not like a 'No Parking' sign, and any people who think it is ought not call themselves 'the church'."