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

An Ideological Hammer Forging the Chains of Our Slavery

skybalon: Ugh, Obama's health care proposals are driving me nuts.
The Qweenbean: Hey don't say anything bad about Obama... He's my W.

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.

I Say Collateral Damage, You Say Terrorism, I Say War Hero, You Say War Criminal...

"Washington -- The International Committee of the Red Cross concluded in a secret report that the Bush administration's treatment of Al Qaeda captives 'constituted torture,' according to newly published excerpts from the long-concealed 2007 document."

LA Times

-This again? This doesn't matter any more, it's done with.

-No, no, no. You don't understand, they're only war crimes when bad guys do them.

-Right. And we're the good guys, so what we do is good, even if it is regrettably gruesome.

-Besides, we couldn't be who we are if we didn't do this.


All things considered, I wouldn't think beating a dead horse would be a problem for us, but perhaps there is little left to say about it.

Perhaps, from now on, when it comes up, all I will ask is this:
What kind of god do we serve if this is not necessarily confessed and confronted in our churches?

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

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.

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.

I Hit You Only Because I Love You So Much

So I'm thinking lots about silence these days. To be specific silence as an act, silence as an act of critical language. Blah blah blah...

I write this because normally I offer some clever or funny intro and segue into the subject, but not this time.

I know, I know, I'll write something to make you LOL or say "So true... so true" at another time.

What I have is something to ponder, maybe query style but perhaps not so systematic, around this point. Here 'tis: Do acts of love need verbal justification?

Are loving acts loving, in and of themselves, when they can be done without a need for explanation?
The more we need to verbally justify an action, is it less a work of love?
Is it ultimately self-serving to explain to someone that an act as loving, if it is not understood as such without an explanation ("self" here needing to be understood not merely as some inward sense of agency and consciousness but also including at least a framework and world of understanding that affirms and makes that sense of self possible)?
If, as a Christian, I say, "I do 'such and such' in the name of Christ" am I not actually doing it for self?
How would imagining how to silently show love (that is, without words) be transformative? (And then of course, doing.)
Am I just hearing the lingering echoes of Works of Love here? Ugh, that would be wasteful...

I suppose it might help to think of the things you do with and for those you love and how they are known as such in that world of understanding you share with them.

What?

I mean, you likely know people, live with people, share a world with people that you love- that you live with in love- wherein love is shown in the lives that you live with each other with little, if any, verbal justification. It may actually be that verbal justification diminishes the act to you, even if it would seem to otherwise follow from knowing that you love each other-

"I want you to know, I'm doing this because I love you"...

"I'd really like to do such and such for you, but if I can't tell you that I'm doing it for love, then I'd rather not bother..."

Seems creepy, disingenuous, or sinister, rather than loving, no?

What would you do, if you wanted to show someone you love them but weren't allowed to tell them you were doing it "for love"?
Who could you show?
Who would you have not the least clue how to show?

By the way, I do see the absurdity of using words to communicate questions born by pondering silence or meant to encourage silently demonstrating love but this is meant to be thrown away.

Food Goes In Here

The Monster Machine and I were speaking briefly about Lenten practices, specifically about the "I'm giving up 'X'" bit.

His sense was that it is a bit disingenuous that we talk so much about what we're giving up. I think his exact words were, "They're all a bunch of phonies and I'd like to punch each and every one of them in the [redacted] mouth".

You're right. He is awful.

I, as you have no doubt come to learn, am far more gracious and understated.

Whatever.

There are as many understandings of fasting and prayer as there are people so it might be silly to say, "Isn't Lent supposed to be blah blah blargh?" but who am I to not be silly?

Right.

Let's assume that there is some sense of Lenten practice, fasting from some such or other, that is meant to convey an idea of anticipation and preparation for the celebration of Jesus' victory over the world, and an acknowledgment of the nature of that confrontation between Word and world wherein we're the buttholes* that want to destroy the Word. Let's say it's meant to remind us that the source of our hope is not in anything in the world save Jesus, and that is uniquely as God. It would seem the practice should be oriented about confronting us with that relation.

So... you don't eat perhaps with the the purpose of being confronted with hunger and that with the purpose of bringing to mind the idea that if you don't eat you'll die, and that perhaps brings to mind what you do to save yourself, only you remember you don't save yourself- even by eating, though eating seems like the very kind of thing that would save you because, if you remember, if you don't eat you'll die.

You might despair because you realize that the most seemingly fundamental and life-giving aspects of your existence are for nothing, so if it were up to you you'd be lost. Then perhaps ultimately this relation brings to mind hope and gratefulness because it's not up to you, at least as far as you're concerned as a Christian.

But face it, if you're an American, you're not likely famishing- pear-shaped softies that we are. We generally don't have the kind of relation to food that going without it is all that threatening. Moreover, as Christians (of a certain kind perhaps) we already know that we don't do anything to earn our salvation**. As good protestants, we know "we can't do anything to be saved". It is our mantra.

Except that we do- I mean we do have our "musts" for salvation. We must say the right things and think the right things. And saying and thinking are entirely matters of doing. They are a matter of our doing.

Tangentially, how convenient it is that we say "You could never feed enough hungry people to earn heaven so, though your master says to do it, don't bother except as an accessory," and then we follow that with "What you must do is think and speak 'thusly'". Perhaps "to what" or "for whom" that is convenient is a question we could sit with during Lent.

Back to our doing...

Isn't this doing our security? Rather than food, perhaps it is this foundational Protestant "doing" from which we must rest. Could you stop reading your Bible for forty days? Could you stop gathering with like-minded folks to sing and hear about God's grandiosity these few Sundays? Could you not preach? Attend Sunday School? Teach a Bible study?

No? If you don't do it you'll die?

---

*I use the word "buttholes" in this. Don't read it if this scandalizes your sensibilities. -OR-
Fast from your sensibilities.

**This is just a variation on the theme you likely know- some form of "you can't earn your salvation" "you can't do anything to warrant God's grace"...

I'm Here to Ruin Your Day

So it turns out The Road is soon to be a major motion picture. I'm curious to see how it's been put to film but you should read the book before its release.

Even if it had not been made into a movie, I would recommend the book. I've been recommending it here and there, but my learning that it will be/is a movie has presented a kind of urgency, so...

Here it is: my global recommendation that you read The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It is the greatest theological book of the 21st century.

Really.

I warn you that it is bleak and haunting, conjuring images that are deeply disturbing and indelible, but I don't know of another book* that more plainly or unflinchingly holds a mirror to the reader and demands some sense of responsibility. It's a horrible, horrible book, starkly holding out what it means to be human, and who wants to confront that?

Read it. Quick, before it's a movie.
---

*I'd say we're largely out of the practice of biblical texts doing this, and I can't overstate how shockingly aggressive The Road is in this regard. As such it's a good text to push one into that place.

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.

Let The Market Monitor Volcanoes...

The kids say, "Fail".

Now...?

I just can't stay away.

I tried. Oh how I tried, but nothing could fill the void. Religion, family, booze? Nothing could fill the blog-shaped hole in my heart...

So here my netlog waited. Reliable. Unwavering. Good and faithful little diary. Of course I couldn't leave you forever.

And you, dear, little lambs. Was I gone too long? Had I left you wondering if there was something you had done to keep me away? You might've, but I'm so gracious I won't bring it up now. Let's just savor the sweetness of this reunion and get to what matters, no?

And what matters? You do.

I have something for you. Well, maybe not all of you- those of you for whom my harping about nonsense like torture and war seemed like... harping- I want to share something that will wipe the scales from your eyes.

For some of you it may now seem natural to oppose the occupation of Iraq and escalation in Afghanistan. CIA kidnappings are newly awful to you. Torture is suddenly torture. It is no longer un-American to challenge and question US policy.

Good?

Maybe your conversion is a bit like showing up at AA meetings to get dates*, but who knows where the wind may blow?

For others though, some vestigial principle stands in the way. After securing your salvation with secret prisons all over the globe, torture, and the sacrificial murders of Afghan taxi drivers you're too committed to your dhimmitude. Perhaps, you've surrendered so much of your soul to make sense of euphemisms like "enhanced interrogation", "extraordinary rendition", and "detainee", you're unsure how to proceed in a world where those are nonsense.

I am here for you. Actually, this is here for you:

"The Bush White House vehemently objected to provisions of the law dealing with rape by instrumentality. When House negotiators pressed to know why, they were met first with silence and then an embarrassed acknowledgement that a key part of the Bush program included invasion of the bodies of prisoners in a way that might be deemed rape by instrumentality under existing federal and state criminal statutes."

In case you missed it "the Bush program included invasion of the bodies of prisoners in a way that might be deemed rape by instrumentality". That means sticking things in people's butts.

No I know you're one not likely to make sharp distinctions about homosexual practices. In fact, you're probably someone for whom the phrase "homosexual practices" means something and as such distinctions aren't a part of the calculus. The upshot is this probably counts as gay.

There you go. You can augment your commitment to torture with the fear of the love that dare not speak its name. Never mind that it's not love- it's probably gay enough for you.

Now, with news that the Obama administration is maintaining Bush administration practices and that Binyam Mohammed was tortured in Guantanamo as recently as a month ago you can shake the dust from your outrage (out of practice outrage is still outrage, little lamb) and put it to use.

Apply sexual assault and violence and I'm sure whatever truth or sense of decency has been hindering you will magically melt away.

You're welcome.

* See? I could have written "laid". I am so kind to your delicate sensibilities.

Nations Sign Cluster Bomb Treaty

Well, some nations anyway.

"The first of more than 100 countries have begun signing a treaty to ban current designs of cluster bombs, at a conference in Oslo, Norway.

Campaigners are hailing the treaty as a major breakthrough.

But some of the biggest stockpilers, including the US, Russia and China, are not among the signatories. "

BBC News

This isn't the kind of thing that affects you negatively, is it? I mean, you're not likely to come across a bomblet so you can easily avoid injury. You could probably go your whole life without meeting anyone effected by a bomblet so you'll never have the awkward experience of trying not to stare at some kids stumpy legs or arms.

Besides, we couldn't be who we are without using cluster bombs, could we? And we like us don't we? You at least like you, right?

Yeah.

I thought I was upset by this. I almost called the Capitol Switchboard at (202)224-3121 to do some ranting, but no... I think we'll be okay here.