Oh Thank God

"One Republican Senator, Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, voted against the legislation. He was joined by seven Democrats: Barbara Boxer of California, Richard H. Bryan of Nevada, Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Barbara A. Mikulski of Maryland, Mr. Dorgan and Mr. Wellstone."

NY Times

So he remains God's prophet.

It's All of The Same...

Back in the day when I taught Neo-Fascism (high school economics)-

Oh that's right I was a high school social-sciences teacher. You didn't know that? Oh well, I was. Isn't that something? Good times.-

So, back then, it was a challenge to get the private Christian high schoolers to see the meaninglessness of the label "liberal" as far as our economics or politics was concerned. One of the things we did to that end was investigate how WorldCom collapsed. Remember that? WorldCom. It was a current event at the time and though it happened on W's watch, it was easy to pin on Clinton, so the little right-wingers could get into it and it taught an important lesson.

Anyway, we looked at WorldCom's apparent growth and collapse, and one of the things that was plain as anything to them, was the state made the legal arrangements that made conflicting interests no longer conflict. They understood that commercial and investment banks merging benefited "someone" and with my heavy-handed browbeating they learned that someone was the Wall St. bankers who gave money to the lawmakers who made the legal arrangements that made these new banks possible. These new banks could buy the stocks of companies like WorldCom as an investment bank with money from their commercial bank side and then inflate its value and use this inflated value to buy other "telephone" companies inflating the value even more and then do this over and over again with the new bank handling each deal and collecting fees for doing so. This could go on and on and on forever. It was a win-win. Until it wasn't. Except for those for whom it still was.

The kids could see that this was no accident or flaw in the machine but a design of the machine. In fact, I got some of these kids into hating the repeal of Glass-Steagal before hating the repeal of Glass-Steagal was cool (if only because young people love to hate people who get to take advantage of unfair situations even if they don't hate unfairness itself). None of us saw this coming- the great fake money collapse of the 21st century- but we could see that where and how the cogs of the legal machine were set, they were set in such a way as to benefit those who set them.

Duh.

But even back then it was about fake value, fake money. But that fake money represented the possibilities of real power to those that made and benefited from the legal arrangements that made the fake real.

This wasn't about liberal or conservative.* Those labels only mean something to class collaborators and fat cats. (Okay take it easy, Karl) This was about wealth and the way it manifests itself- making politicians rebel and keep the company of thieves, and all that. It reveals a little bit of what's hidden behind a veil of legitimacy.

Anywho... If any of that was a candle, this is a flood light. I know, I know, he uses bad words and doesn't show proper deference to religion. What are you gonna do?

Here, at least read this:

"People are pissed off about this financial crisis, and about this bailout, but they're not pissed off enough. The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d'état. They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations."

This is prophetic work for our dispensation- for good, bad, or other.

* Though I might add it was about big government. The lack of government oversight made the bad worse, both in terms of the lack of governmental oversight or concerted citizen power acting as a check on the dismantling of existing banking regulations and the creation of new ones that made the financial arrangements that led our present crisis- but they are kind of the same thing, aren't they?

So in this case, it would make sense to do what your gut might tell you: blame Clinton
Idioteque- Radiohead
Anywhere's Better Than Here- The Replacements
What's Behind the Mask- The Cramps
The National Anthem- Radiohead
Baba O'Reilly- The Who
I Ain't Got no Home- Bruce Springstein
Soul of A Man- Beck
Summertime Rolls- Jane's Addiciton
Don't Talk- The Beach Boys

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

I Think You're Cool, Homer Simpson

Sorry, we'll save you a seat at lunch tomorrow.

The National Religious Campaign Against Torture is just that... a national religious campaign against torture. Longtime readers of my tubesdiary are probably sci-fi/fantasy fans but have also likely come across me mentioning it before.

Unfortunately, it's existence as an inclusive religious campaign makes it suspect in the eyes of many evangelicals who know other religions are confused at best or demonic at worst. So even if evangelicals wanted to join a more concerted effort to end torture, it would not be the NRCAT.

Perhaps recognizing this, the NRCAT set up Evangelicals for Human Rights. They drafted the Evangelical Declaration Against Torture. If you were in the Sunday school class wherein we covered that document you may know it, otherwise, probably not. It was a bit too direct for evangelicals and a bit too evangelical for broader interest.

Oh we just set up the game, you can play next... Eh, we got tired of playing this game.

That's just not how evangelicals do things. This is how evangelicals do things. We take something that many folks would consider a Christian concern, peace for example, and then turn it into an acronym like P(retty) E(xhausting) A(ctually) C(onfronting) E(mpire) so we don't risk making people fell bad about themselves or losing attenders.

Oh, acronyms, what would our church life be without you?

In the world of at leasts, at least action through acronym is action.* The more prevalent mode of contemporary evangelical action is spiritualizing a concern in a way that suggests something only matters to your insides. As far as this goes, Billy Graham was the king. My favorite (if I may torture the word favorite) example of this is the way he offered an interpretation of the My Lai massacre:

"Perhaps it is a good time for each of us to re-evaluate our life. We have all had our Mylais in one way or another, perhaps not with guns, but we have hurt others with a thoughtless word, an arrogant act or a selfish deed..."

Yes Billy, I drank the last of the milk this morning knowing someone else in the house may have wanted some for their cereal. That is just like murdering unarmed men, women, children and babies, forcing them into an irrigation ditch and shooting them as they cower, bayonetting infants in front of their mothers, and rape... don't forget the rape. Drinking milk is my My Lai- The real My Lai has noting to do with me, after all, I wasn't there so how could it? I feel bad about drinking the milk but much better about My Lai. Thanks, Billy.**

Theater 12? Nooo, we were in theater 10. Oh man... Oh well.

So EHR is a good idea, right? It's things like that that folks like Glen Stassen, Ron Sider, and Jim Wallis, might use to get evangelicals like James Dobson, Rick Warren, and Tony Perkins on the same page. Well, not literally on the same page, the latter have not signed the Declaration.

So on the one hand, there is this group and document that show, "See, there are evangelicals who think following Jesus means more than filling buildings and opposing THE GAY." On the other hand, this group and document likely mean very little to those evangelicals whose raison d'être is filling buildings and opposing THE GAY. Oh, be nice. Okay. Whose emphasis is a kind of self-actualization via Jesus.

Anywho... It brings to mind the present use of the name Friends/Quakers among Friends/Quakers who are not all that interested in being Friends/Quakers although it seems there is a stranger, webbier dynamic at work among Evangelical Friends than with the above. And of course this depends entirely on what I think it means to be Friends/Quakers, and I'll be the first to say I don't get to say what that is. Though, I will say that people (not Quakers) are often surprised by the present... guardedness- that's a good word... by the present guardedness of Evangelical Friends when it comes to being Friends/Quakers at all let alone emphasizing any of those more distinct points that have made Friends Friends.

I don't get to say what makes a Quaker a Quaker, but it seems other folks think active pacifism is a part of the picture. At least...

There's a story The Monster Machine tells about a professor of his asking about Quakers in class. So The Monster Machine volunteers a description- pacifism, a certain understanding of sacraments, simplicity. You know, the very things you probably think of when you think of Quakers (unless you happen to be one of us). And all the while, there's another student behind The Monster Machine growing more and more agitated until she finally says, "That's not what we're about at all." (or some such- it's your story, you tell it, The Monster Machine).

So this is a setup.

To what will have to wait. And it's waiting.


* Though I think we ought to recognize how dangerously blinding this type of church behavior is. We should talk about that some time.
** Let's make "Thanks, Billy" what we say when we find a way to let ourselves off the hook.

Siamese Dream is what Bivouac could have been
Bivouac-Jawbreaker

These Floors Are Dirty as Hell, and I'm Not Gonna Take It Anymore!

When did being Wally George become a real career?
It's weird. You'd think you could actually pinpoint the moment in time that over-the-top stoner fodder became a news network's mainstay.




Friends, there comes a time in every man's life when he has to look the potato of injustice right in the eye...
So What- Miles davis

Orange or Green Today?

So my wife is, somewhere in her ancestry, Irish. We play along a bit with the St. Patrick's Day, mostly by punching each other. Hey-ooo!

Anyway, the whole color thing- she's protestant, so orange, right?

But she comes from a long line of folks who embodied poverty and cultural exclusion. That seems green to me.

But her more immediate ancestry has bought in and is very much a part of the hegemon... So... orange?

Of course the embrace of stereotype and the idea of Irish sort of transcends concerns about orange and green.

I guess that makes it very much a matter of white.

Once again... Hey-ooo!

Pomona Matters

Before the Lovely Elizabeth was born, The Qweenbean was much more sympathetic to the idea of moving to Pomona. She's thinking maybe south Claremont is the most we could handle.

She's so bourgeois now.

It's got a bad reputation around here, so you may be surprised to know that its property crime levels are at about the national average. It's violent crime, on the other hand, is higher than the national average. That's because of its gang and drug problems.

So don't do drugs or join a gang and you'll be fine.

In any case I used to think that it would be important for folks that care about where and why they live, folks like me and the Qweenbean, to choose places like Pomona.

Now I think, "Maybe not as bad as Pomona".

It turns out the president will be visiting the Edison electric car center in Pomona this Thursday. That seems like the kind of visit you get from your great grandkids... when it's not Christmas.

If the president's coming by on Thursday, I expect the city to be walled and under the control of The Duke by Saturday.

It Takes One to Know One

"The funny thing is, of course, that socialists know that Barack Obama is not one of us. Not only is he not a socialist, he may in fact not even be a liberal. Socialists understand him more as a hedge-fund Democrat -- one of a generation of neoliberal politicians firmly committed to free-market policies."

Billy Wharton of the Socialist Party USA in the Washington Post.

Told ya.

St. Jon the Evangelist

There is a good deal of hand-wringing over the looming death of evangelicalism. For good or ill, younger folks, at least many of those with whom I speak are finding less and less that resonates with the many-headed, yet faceless, beast that has dominated Western American Christianity for the better half of a century. And this is terrifying older folks who have gone, and are still willing to go, to the mattresses over matters of confession and practice. It's not that confession and practice don't matter to a lot of these younger people, it's rather a matter of confession and practice being shown in something other than confession and practice. That is, they seem to have little interest in worshipping a god that is all about creating well-trained parrots.

I suppose that has to happen if the Good News remains good news, but I wonder if this is helped along by the fact that evangelical churches largely agree to be happy accomplices to the powers that want to destroy us.

Oh, this is about Jon Stewart again.

Movements die, and evangelicalism as a movement is/was not long for this world, but how much does a comedian acting as a prophet help to pull the plug? Stewart is willing to clearly lay out the picture and call evil what it is, while we, as churches, suggest this is no concern of ours, it'll be fine because God tells us we don't have to worry, or worse we say it's our job to support the oligarchs that want to determine an existence for us wholly at odds with what it means to be human (as far as Christians may be concerned).

While You Were Sleeping

If we have another child it will be named Jonathan Stewart [skybalon]


or

Rachel Maddow[nominalized] [skybalon]

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Barring that possibility, they ought to be declared Servant of God*. God knows the church can use the inspiration.

* Without their needing to be dead- we're not Catholic after all.

A Facebook Game and Open Letter to The States I've Not Visited

Alabama
Alaska
Arizona X
Arkansas X
California X
Colorado X
Connecticut X
Delaware X
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois X
Indiana X
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky X
Louisiana X
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts X
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri X
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada X
New Hampshire
New Jersey X
New Mexico
New York X
North Carolina X
North Dakota
Ohio X
Oklahoma
Oregon X
Pennsylvania X
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee X
Texas X
Utah X
Vermont
Virginia X
Washington X
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming

The rest of you states, really? C'mon.
Missouri only made the list because it was in the way, how do the rest of you have a chance?
First of all, I'm from California, the one state that has everything the rest of you can only offer piecemeal. Beautiful deserts, forests, beaches, mountains, farms, ghettoes, Beverly Hills and Brawley, Berkley and Newport Beach, 40% of the Pac-10 (or half if you count soccer), the Pacific Ocean?!
Over-crowded prisons? We've got them.
Under-funded schools? Check.
Except for you, Kentucky, we don't have a Big Bone Lick; I'll grant you that.
The point is, other than my own wanderlust or a magnanimous visit, there's no reason to see most of you.
Alabama, if I want depressing poverty and racism, I'll go to San Bernardino.
Thanks anyway, Nebraska, we have our own oppressively featureless landscapes.
Secondofly, I've met enough of your folks here to know what I'm not missing.
North Dakota, I know folks who had the talent, ambition and wherewithal to leave Bismarck, why should I go to see those left behind?
Slack-jawed yokels, hippies, old money, white supremacists, debutantes, illiterate Oaxacans, Persian Jews, movie stars, middle-management nobodies. We've got it all covered.
Don't take this to mean I think you don't matter.
Mississippi, what would we be without you? California would be just one place closer to dead last in spending per pupil.
Florida, without you, California would be that much closer to being first in the number of divorces.
So keep on being what you are and doing what you do, rest of the U.S. California will keep on doing it better.
Sincerely,
[skybalon]

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

You're Fighting the Last War, Pops

Long time readers of my webworld diary risk alienating friends and family but may also recall my brilliant assessment of the previous presidential campaign's race-based strategies. In short, I said I thought the racial "othering"* of Obama wouldn't be the success it had been for Republicans in previous campaigns because the "signifiers,"* when compared to the actual Barack Obama, just didn't stand.

I think the same applies to the use of "socialist" among those lunatics and intellectual cripples trying to tie some vague fear of the misunderstood to Obama's social and economic policies. So just as the clumsy use of racism backfired (in the US, against a black man, of all things), I think the "socialist this" "socialist that" nonsense won't fly and may, in fact, backfire.

First, when one describes any of the present policies as socialism, and means that as an argument against them I think, "This person's a bit silly, they're just not someone I can take seriously on this matter, perhaps I should change the subject to building pigeon traps".

In order for this bit of crazy to carry any weight, I'd have to be of a like-kind of crazy. I'm not, so it turns me off and leads us to something else. It's the kind of point that can only be a point for those who see it as a point, as such it's the kind of thing that builds the walls of stupid higher and reduces the possibility of reaching anyone not already comfortably settled in that garden of dumb.

See. It's self-defeating in its self-buidling.

Secondly, like the "I guess I'm not that scared of black people if Barack is black people" phenomenon that won over enough white folks, the concrete comparisons that may follow from "It's Socialism, BOO!" may have the effect of opening people to socialist policies that the rest of the western industrialized world finds good and helpful.**

There's no Evil Empire, Joe Mc Carthy. Your clicks and clacks invite comparisons to Sweden, Canada, England, and Germany rather than the Soviet Union.

The what?

Exactly.

"You mean socialist like our allies? Okay... That sounds pretty good."

"You mean a single payer healthcare system could be like the fire department? That's not scary. That just sounds like good social and economic policy."

* Wonk wonk wonk
** Though Obama's policies are not socialist so what they're actually open to may be something else cleverly disguised as the socialism they think they're open to. What? Maybe I'll come back to that.

Below The Bible Belt

The only things as scenically regular through the South as kudzu, Cracker Barrels, and vasectomy reversal ads are porn superstores. These aren't hidden on back roads or disguised with innocuous names like Upland's The Toy Box. Right smack on I-40, with "ADULT SUPERSTORE" signs doing their best to [insert penetrative violation alluding verb here] the sky, porn store after porn store makes sure the denizens of Real 'merika have all the porn they need.

Someone's keeping those places in business.

I used to wonder if those people knew about the internet. Turns out they do.

The god-haterz at Harvard (abetted by the god-haterz at New Scientist magazine) discovered a correlation between lots of church-going, fag-hating, AIDS-thanking, and on-line porn-buying.

We all know correlation is nothing more than correlation and who knows what they're using the "adult" material for. Perhaps it's for enhancing perfectly licit marital relations. Is that possible, or do TRADITIONAL VALUES preclude that? Somebody help me out here, I am apparently far removed from the world of TRADITIONAL VALUES.

According to the article, they do give it a rest on Sunday. That's quaint. Almost Kinkadesque.

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

They Can Have My Gold When They Pull It From My Cold Dead Teeth

I've noticed the reemergence of a golden thread running through the various paranoid media outlets I visit. (I hate myself.) If you're a certain type of paranoid, now is the time to invest in gold.

Well... I suppose you don't have to be paranoid to turn to gold to offset currency instability, but I'm sure this ad is meant to appeal to a specific someone:

Someone not necessarily concerned with inflation or currency exchange. Someone that still has foodstuffs left in their Y2K stockpile. Someone who generally feels haunted by some vague fear but who is also much more terrified now than they were of even Y2K.

I've said before that we have experienced a kind of apocalypse, and now we see it is a zombie apocalypse- Obama seems to be raising the Clinton dead for his administration. So sure, I can see why you'd be afraid. But gold?

I've never understood why gold is so valuable generally, but it seems especially worthless if things are about to go horribly wrong.

Like so much of contemporary Conservatism, I think hyping gold is a move to squeeze a little more blood from REAL AMERICANS (thick-skulled rubes) who are only too happy to dig their own graves if they think it means they're taking the next guy's plot. (I should think of a more artful way to construct that image- it seems like a good one.) The fear on which selling gold depends seems not only a scam but also a misdirection. When there's a run on gasoline and bullets... and football pads, S&M gear, mohawks, dune buggies, and Tina Turner anthems- then we'll know it's all over. But by then it'll be too late, and who's going to want your shiny yellow rocks then?

What Was The Phrase I Like Girls Used- "'Something' Kill"?

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

The above is from a speech Martin Luther King, Jr. gave at a church a year before his murder. You probably don't know it. Saying stuff like this makes you less cuddly and gets you killed.

So there's a rash of MLK-Obama merchandise hitting the streets and following that is a move by the King estate to make sure they get paid. I suppose that seems right. I suppose it also seems right to tie the two men together. Actually, it must seem right because folks all over the place were using some sort of "content of character" "color of skin" "dream this or that" construction to color the historic significance of Obama's election.

Sure, I am all farklempt by Obama's election. I think it marks the possible end of one world and the dawn of another. I know that sounds like hyperbole, but try to imagine this happening a generation ago. There is something significantly different about America simply because of the color of our president elect's skin. But at the same time, Obama's not magic simply because of the color of his skin. To be more pointed, he did not/will not, as the convention goes, come along to magically make "white people" better for the sake of their narrative. White people still largely went for the erratic, intemperate, injudicious McCain over Obama. Was it because McCain was white? Maybe. Was it because Obama was black? I want to say "yes". But that's only slightly here or there.

The symbolic significance of Obama's victory is not in the magical transformation of racist folks to not racist folks but it is in the transformation it portends for the face of a nation. Nationally, white people voted more often for McCain. I am not saying every white person that voted for McCain was a racist (not any more than the average American anyway). I am saying, the majority of white people did not vote for the brown guy. The election of a person with dark skin to the White House does not indicate the end of racism (duh), so let's not be too back patty about what Obama's election means in that regard. But there is a transformation worth mentioning: the old, rural, white people that voted for McCain are dying and the browns are participating in greater numbers. Simply stated, the group among whom Obama did the worst is not long for this world. That, along with the conceptual shift does signify a change worth noticing. Still, white folks voted for the white guy, brown folks voted for the brown guy- not really a "dream fulfilled" moment. But, there was a brown guy for brown folks to vote for, so...

But to the Martin Luther King, Jr. point. Again, though there were obviously plenty of people who could look past skin color to some type of content, it's hard to describe this as a dream fulfilled. I recognize that it is something new and in a world of "at leasts" it is something good. But that seems a bit secondary and we ought to be careful about how much MLK dust we apply in this case.

It was not King's goal to get a dark-skinned person elected president. While that occurrence could mean something to and for what we might call the soul of our nation, King's call was to the revolutionary power of the Gospel, not the attrition of racists.

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

And a Pony

So The Blonde Buddha feels pretty confident that Obama is going to be the next president. Polls are putting him in the 50% neighborhood right now but to my mind that's evidence of why he could very well not be. That anywhere around 40% of polled voters could have been paying any kind of attention, I mean any kind, even the most accidental glance at a local news teaser, and still support the intemperate, erratic, incoherent McCain (let alone McCain-Palin) speaks volumes. If it's not closer to 70-30 in the next week, I will remain unconvinced about Obama's prospects.

Call me cynical, or aware of the intense racial bigotry, fear, and political machinations that rule, I just don't think such a small margin indicates a victory for Obama. Oh sure, if all you white devils want to surprise me, I'll take it. But it will be a surprise.

That said, if Obama is the next president it will symbolize quite a victory and milestone for the US but that should in no way let anyone feel like they are off the hook. Especially don't feel that Obama is a liberal in any significant sense of the term, or that his election will be the dawn of the worker's paradise. He seems a good, willing to listen to smart people, judicious, and fair-minded guy but he's no leftist and the people that got him here (and maybe there) will have to push for at least five things in an Obama presidency. (Five possible things- not like "everyone gets jetpants!" or"nationalize the oil companies"). In no particular order:
With the bailout passing, the next administration will have its economic work cut out for it to address the mortgage issues this bill (and administration) doesn't.
Take advantage of the opening in a health care discussion to push hard to bypass insurance companies and stop employers from being responsible for providing coverage,
Withdraw from Iraq without a stopover in Afghanistan (this really should be number 1, but I said in no particular order, didn't I?)
Stop torture. Plain as that. (and kudos to McCain for being willing to utter the word at the debate).
Get a Federal energy plan with thresholds and goals at least as good as California's (at least)

That's not that tall an order. And it is an order.

The Invisible Hand is Strangling You

How do you determine the value of something for which there is no market?

What are you, some kind of jerk? Why would you even think a question like that in this day and age?

Stop thinking like that and think like this:
There could be anything in this envelope- winning scratch-off lottery tickets, a lovely bit of string, the pink slip to a broken car, art work, keys to a safe deposit box, cash, an IOU for a large sum of money, RAM, cigarettes, the deed to a house, nothing. Who knows?

I know, but other than me who knows? Point is, you don't know, but that shouldn't stop you from offering me money for it. Offer me something reasonable. $100. And don't think of your offer as a purchase, rather think of it as an investment. Invest $100 in this mystery envelope. Now it doesn't matter what is in the envelope because it is worth at least $100 once you give me $100 for it- but wait, in that instant that you gave me $100, you took the first step in this envelope's potentially infinite increase in value. If you're willing to give me $100, how much more would the next person be willing to give you? We don't know. So you just got this envelope for a steal. This envelope could go for $10,000, $100,000, $1,000,000,000- whatever. You got it for $100?! You're a financial genius.

Now I feel a little bad for letting it go for $100, but I am a man of my word. It's yours for $100.