Your tax dollars at work . . . According to the New York Times, President Bush is persisting in his nomination of Steven Bradbury to head the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department. Bradbury is so toxic on both sides of the aisle -- in a lower job at Justice, he signed off on two secret legal memos authorizing waterboarding at detention camps -- that he's already been rejected twice by the Senate. Yet Bush, who said in December that a president has to have "a sound set of principles from which [he] will not deviate," stubbornly clings to the Bradbury nomination.
The Democratic leadership in the Senate has responded by halting all controversial nominations until Bush drops Bradbury's. Even though this means, according to Politico.com, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Mine Safety and Health Review Commission, the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board and the National Labor Relations Board do not have enough members to do their jobs; many federal judgeships are vacant; and the Council of Economic Advisers is in singular tense.
Bush has dug in his heels. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid kept the Senate in pro forma sessions over the holidays so Bush could not make Bradbury a recess appointment like he did with (now former) UN Ambassador Bolton.
How high on the tree can we pee, guys?
Monday, March 31, 2008
Sunday, March 30, 2008
These Are the Impulses Which Must Be Fought
The following (in italics) is an excerpt from news stories about President Bush's March 8 radio address on why he vetoed a bill barring the CIA from waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques:
Bush, who used his weekly radio address to announce the veto, said the program had helped stop plots against a Marine camp in Djibouti and the U.S. consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, and plans to fly passenger planes into a Los Angeles tower or London's Heathrow Airport and city buildings. "Were it not for this program, our intelligence community believes that al-Qaida and its allies would have succeeded in launching another attack against the American homeland," the president said.
"I cannot sign into law a bill that would prevent me, and future presidents, from authorizing the CIA to conduct a separate, lawful intelligence program, and from taking all lawful actions necessary to protect Americans from attack," Bush said in a statement.
This was my response which appeared as a letter to the editor in the Daily News, Bowling Green KY on March 21:
Even in our hyperpartisan political climate, only the most strident Bush supporters could not be sickened by the president's veto of a bill that would ban the CIA from using torture techniques such as waterboarding. In his March 8 radio address, Bush hid behind the term "lawful" to describe the CIA enhanced interrogation program and continued to claim the widely discredited plot to fly planes into a Los Angeles tower as one of the program's successes.
The presidency that pressured the CIA to produce intelligence findings that supported an invasion into Iraq cannot be trusted when its attorney general calls waterboarding legal, nor can its claims of foiled terrorist plots be taken at face value. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has stated that he knows of no terrorist attack disrupted by the CIA's enhanced interrogation methods. He added, "I do know that coercive interrogations can lead detainees to provide false information in order to make the interrogation stop."
The Daily News endorsed waterboarding "in a time of war" on March 11, and syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg characterized U. S. use of waterboarding as a few well-spent minutes. These are the impulses which must be fought. Even if the information obtained is factual, we forfeit our moral standing in the world by sub-human treatment of detainees and create more monsters than we may catch.
Bush, who used his weekly radio address to announce the veto, said the program had helped stop plots against a Marine camp in Djibouti and the U.S. consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, and plans to fly passenger planes into a Los Angeles tower or London's Heathrow Airport and city buildings. "Were it not for this program, our intelligence community believes that al-Qaida and its allies would have succeeded in launching another attack against the American homeland," the president said.
"I cannot sign into law a bill that would prevent me, and future presidents, from authorizing the CIA to conduct a separate, lawful intelligence program, and from taking all lawful actions necessary to protect Americans from attack," Bush said in a statement.
This was my response which appeared as a letter to the editor in the Daily News, Bowling Green KY on March 21:
Even in our hyperpartisan political climate, only the most strident Bush supporters could not be sickened by the president's veto of a bill that would ban the CIA from using torture techniques such as waterboarding. In his March 8 radio address, Bush hid behind the term "lawful" to describe the CIA enhanced interrogation program and continued to claim the widely discredited plot to fly planes into a Los Angeles tower as one of the program's successes.
The presidency that pressured the CIA to produce intelligence findings that supported an invasion into Iraq cannot be trusted when its attorney general calls waterboarding legal, nor can its claims of foiled terrorist plots be taken at face value. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has stated that he knows of no terrorist attack disrupted by the CIA's enhanced interrogation methods. He added, "I do know that coercive interrogations can lead detainees to provide false information in order to make the interrogation stop."
The Daily News endorsed waterboarding "in a time of war" on March 11, and syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg characterized U. S. use of waterboarding as a few well-spent minutes. These are the impulses which must be fought. Even if the information obtained is factual, we forfeit our moral standing in the world by sub-human treatment of detainees and create more monsters than we may catch.
Monday, March 03, 2008
Shut Up and Sing?
I was sitting at the computer reading about President Bush calling for greater power in both wiretapping and reading e-mails while also watching the Dixie Chicks on Austin City Limits. I thought of how the Chicks were run over a few years ago for Natalie Maines' comment in London during the run-up to the Iraq invasion. So many in our society condemned them (a few made death threats against them) for expressing an opposition to the President's war in Iraq that most of us feel now, and yet the Chicks are still held in low regard by many who were once rabid fans.
I don't know to what extent this phenomenon is related to a desire among music fans to not hear "political" messages from artists at live performances. A similar thing happened to Linda Ronstadt when she expressed a favorable opinion of Michael Moore onstage and concertgoers walked out. That incident also happened during the height of public sentiment for the Iraq war, so that sentiment could be a factor. Yet the Dixie Chicks lost their spot on the popular music pedestal even after popular opinion turned strongly against the Iraq war.
Personally, I feel the Bush Administration has exceeded politics and conducted itself in a constitutionally dangerous manner, usurping power for the executive branch in the name of fighting terrorism. Having said that, I don't want to hear a political lecture every time I go see a concert - yet the Dixie Chicks have been steamrollered for one comment and not given the benefit of re-acceptance when the public changed its view.
I don't know to what extent this phenomenon is related to a desire among music fans to not hear "political" messages from artists at live performances. A similar thing happened to Linda Ronstadt when she expressed a favorable opinion of Michael Moore onstage and concertgoers walked out. That incident also happened during the height of public sentiment for the Iraq war, so that sentiment could be a factor. Yet the Dixie Chicks lost their spot on the popular music pedestal even after popular opinion turned strongly against the Iraq war.
Personally, I feel the Bush Administration has exceeded politics and conducted itself in a constitutionally dangerous manner, usurping power for the executive branch in the name of fighting terrorism. Having said that, I don't want to hear a political lecture every time I go see a concert - yet the Dixie Chicks have been steamrollered for one comment and not given the benefit of re-acceptance when the public changed its view.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Grisham on Political Manipulation
Former lawyer, former state legislator, and current mega-selling author John Grisham recently shared his opinion with the Associated Press of how the Democrats have been outmaneuvered by Republicans in elections. "I think what the Republicans have done in past elections is brilliant . . . they've convinced a lot of people to vote for them against their own economic self-interest, and they've done that by skillfully manipulating a handful of social issues, primarily abortion and gay rights and sometimes gun control," he said. "And the Republicans have used those to scare a lot of people into voting for Republican candidates. It's skillful manipulation."
Lest you think the hard-boiled legal/political author is full of hubris, Grisham also threw water on his own literary importance, stating "I'm not sure where that line goes between literature and popular fiction. I can assure you I don't take myself serious enough to think I'm writing literary fiction and stuff that's going to be remembered in 50 years. I'm not going to be here in 50 years; I don't care if I'm remembered or not. It's pure entertainment." He believes he's an entertainer, not a Faulkner or Joyce. But at $9 million earned last year, he's obviously compelling to contemporary readers.
Lest you think the hard-boiled legal/political author is full of hubris, Grisham also threw water on his own literary importance, stating "I'm not sure where that line goes between literature and popular fiction. I can assure you I don't take myself serious enough to think I'm writing literary fiction and stuff that's going to be remembered in 50 years. I'm not going to be here in 50 years; I don't care if I'm remembered or not. It's pure entertainment." He believes he's an entertainer, not a Faulkner or Joyce. But at $9 million earned last year, he's obviously compelling to contemporary readers.
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Clicking Off the Next Year
What's in a number? Why should it matter that a new year is about to click into place on the calendar? Physically, nothing much will be different about January 1, 2008 than it was on December 31, 2007. The rising and setting of both sun and tide will work the same, and the air quality will not be measurably clearer or duller on either side of the man-made dividing line between years on the calendar.
Basically, what change there is from 2007 to 2008 is what we make it out to be, which is to say how we perceive the world, ourselves, our prospects. That will also affect what we do with the world around us according to what we perceive. Aside from the occasional reflexive shying away from things with the number 13, I have never been much on numerology. So it is my opinion that what the end of one number sequence and the start of the next brings is hope. The start of 2008 will bring hope to the minds of many -- that this is when one's life can become better, easier, wealthier, healthier, fill-in-your-desired-outcome-in-the-blank-er.
While I may throw cold water on numerology (and new year's resolutions, by the way), I do not disregard the value of new beginnings, fresh starts, the ritual hitting of the reset button. Sometimes the existence of the ritual is just the extra push we may need to shed inertia and undertake new effort.
So Happy New Year, everyone. Let's look forward, even if it's just for the hell of it, because it sure beats standing still.
Basically, what change there is from 2007 to 2008 is what we make it out to be, which is to say how we perceive the world, ourselves, our prospects. That will also affect what we do with the world around us according to what we perceive. Aside from the occasional reflexive shying away from things with the number 13, I have never been much on numerology. So it is my opinion that what the end of one number sequence and the start of the next brings is hope. The start of 2008 will bring hope to the minds of many -- that this is when one's life can become better, easier, wealthier, healthier, fill-in-your-desired-outcome-in-the-blank-er.
While I may throw cold water on numerology (and new year's resolutions, by the way), I do not disregard the value of new beginnings, fresh starts, the ritual hitting of the reset button. Sometimes the existence of the ritual is just the extra push we may need to shed inertia and undertake new effort.
So Happy New Year, everyone. Let's look forward, even if it's just for the hell of it, because it sure beats standing still.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Today's Quote on Fiscal Irresponsibility (or Hypocrisy)
"It is extraordinary that the president would request an 11 percent increase for the Department of Defense, a 12 percent increase for foreign aid, and $195 billion of emergency funding for the war while asserting that a 4.7 percent increase for domestic programs is fiscally irresponsible" -- Sen. Robert Byrd (D- WV), chairman of Senate Appropriations Committee
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
News Weirdness for Today
Some days the weirdness of people just comes to the fore. This, apparently, is one of those days. Here's what today's news brought to my attention.
A fellow named Timothy Elliott won $1 million dollars on a scratch ticket; he's already received the first $50,000 annual installment of his prize. One problem: he's on five years probation for a January 2006 bank robbery in Cape Cod, and one of the conditions of his probation was no gambling -- including purchasing lottery tickets or being in establishments where lottery games are played. He goes before a judge December 7.
My wife heard Paul Harvey talk about someone burglarizing a shop named Everything Amish. He stole a big screen TV. Um, does this sound like a very un-Amish product to anyone else?
She also heard of a man in Aiken, South Carolina who went to the bank to open a new account. He handed the teller a $1 million bill. Hmmm. Seems the last place you want to go to pass off a bill in a non-existent denomination would be someplace where money is exchanged and transferred -- like, I don't know, a bank. He was arrested for disorderly conduct (he cussed the bank tellers when they refused his deposit) and two counts of forgery (he'd earlier bought cigarettes with a forged check).
Finally, I read of Richard Roberts speaking at a chapel at Oral Roberts University, where he told his student audience that he resigned as ORU president because God told him on Thanksgiving to do so the next day. "Every ounce of my flesh said 'no'" said Roberts, but he said he listened to the divine intervention after praying about it with his wife and his father Oral Roberts.
And so it goes.
A fellow named Timothy Elliott won $1 million dollars on a scratch ticket; he's already received the first $50,000 annual installment of his prize. One problem: he's on five years probation for a January 2006 bank robbery in Cape Cod, and one of the conditions of his probation was no gambling -- including purchasing lottery tickets or being in establishments where lottery games are played. He goes before a judge December 7.
My wife heard Paul Harvey talk about someone burglarizing a shop named Everything Amish. He stole a big screen TV. Um, does this sound like a very un-Amish product to anyone else?
She also heard of a man in Aiken, South Carolina who went to the bank to open a new account. He handed the teller a $1 million bill. Hmmm. Seems the last place you want to go to pass off a bill in a non-existent denomination would be someplace where money is exchanged and transferred -- like, I don't know, a bank. He was arrested for disorderly conduct (he cussed the bank tellers when they refused his deposit) and two counts of forgery (he'd earlier bought cigarettes with a forged check).
Finally, I read of Richard Roberts speaking at a chapel at Oral Roberts University, where he told his student audience that he resigned as ORU president because God told him on Thanksgiving to do so the next day. "Every ounce of my flesh said 'no'" said Roberts, but he said he listened to the divine intervention after praying about it with his wife and his father Oral Roberts.
And so it goes.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
We Are Not At War
It's the pat answer, the four word phrase that is the other side of the coin from "9/11." It is the verbal mechanism meant to put critics of the president's war in Iraq on the defensive, George W.'s trump card whenever our liberties are eroded, our domestic priorities shoved aside, our basic decency closeted in favor of "enhanced interrogation" methodology.
He smiles into the crowd or the camera, and with the air of an explanation of the obvious to a small child he says "We are at war."
No, Mr. President, YOU are at war -- you and your cadre of Cheneys and Rumsfelds. If WE were at war, we would have been asked to sacrifice, to give of ourselves materially and emotionally as we have in wars past. Certainly we would have had more asked of us by you than to continue shopping. Shopping!
The devil is in the details, and a close look at your conduct of this "war" shows no real commitment of your soul, no summoning of the soul of America -- just a half-hearted deployment of military resources and a concentration of power in the executive branch to stifle debate and dissent. What motivated you to go to war in Iraq has still never been revealed. It certainly wasn't the noble-sounding fiction of WMDs under Saddam Hussein's control.
If this were really "the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century and the calling of our generation," as you put it in your address to the nation on the 5th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, there would not be a higher priority given to continued consumer spending to keep economic numbers up than to sacrifice for the greater good. Give up basics like "the greatest generation" did with nylons in the '40s? Heavens, that would be bad for business! Just wave a flag on your porch, watch Fox News, and be scared when we want you to go along with the next shenanegans - that's all we ask of you.
This country is better than you've asked it to be, Mr. Bush. The lip service you've paid to war betrays the shaky rationale behind the Iraq misadventure, which continues to bleed the real war front in Afghanistan dry, not to mention domestic issues like, say, the SCHIP program. You may have fooled the country into invading Iraq, but you can't lead it in a war on terror if, instead of asking for its help, you continuously try and scare it to death. Oh, and tell it to keep going to the malls.
He smiles into the crowd or the camera, and with the air of an explanation of the obvious to a small child he says "We are at war."
No, Mr. President, YOU are at war -- you and your cadre of Cheneys and Rumsfelds. If WE were at war, we would have been asked to sacrifice, to give of ourselves materially and emotionally as we have in wars past. Certainly we would have had more asked of us by you than to continue shopping. Shopping!
The devil is in the details, and a close look at your conduct of this "war" shows no real commitment of your soul, no summoning of the soul of America -- just a half-hearted deployment of military resources and a concentration of power in the executive branch to stifle debate and dissent. What motivated you to go to war in Iraq has still never been revealed. It certainly wasn't the noble-sounding fiction of WMDs under Saddam Hussein's control.
If this were really "the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century and the calling of our generation," as you put it in your address to the nation on the 5th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, there would not be a higher priority given to continued consumer spending to keep economic numbers up than to sacrifice for the greater good. Give up basics like "the greatest generation" did with nylons in the '40s? Heavens, that would be bad for business! Just wave a flag on your porch, watch Fox News, and be scared when we want you to go along with the next shenanegans - that's all we ask of you.
This country is better than you've asked it to be, Mr. Bush. The lip service you've paid to war betrays the shaky rationale behind the Iraq misadventure, which continues to bleed the real war front in Afghanistan dry, not to mention domestic issues like, say, the SCHIP program. You may have fooled the country into invading Iraq, but you can't lead it in a war on terror if, instead of asking for its help, you continuously try and scare it to death. Oh, and tell it to keep going to the malls.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Philip Pullman, Boogeyman Du Jour
I got one of "those" e-mails over the weekend. You know, the alarmist ones circulated by either well-meaning or propagandistic Christian e-mailers about the latest horrible threat to all things Christian. This one is about a new movie The Golden Compass, set for December release and starring Nicole Kidman. The Golden Compass is the movie adaptation of the first book in the His Dark Materials trilogy written by children's author Philip Pullman.
The e-mail (with errors included) states that Pullman is "a proud atheist who belongs to secular humanist societies ... hates C. S. Lewis's Chronical's of Narnia and has written a trilogy to show the other side." It continues with "The movie has been dumbed down to fool kids and their parents in the hope that they will buy his trilogy where in the end the children kill God and everyone can do as they please." The alarm culminates with Pullman and the movie-makers "hoping that unsuspecting parents will take their children to See the movie ... then the children will want the books for Christmas. That's the hook. Pullman says he wants the children to read the books and decide against God and the kingdom of heaven."
So competing for our Halloween fright, we have an accusation of a plot by an atheist author and the "liberal Hollywood elite" to infiltrate the minds of American youth with a major studio movie that has a supposed anti-God subtext, released just in time for Christmas. How many buttons can you push at one time?
A Google search of Philip Pullman reveals the literary success of His Dark Materials (information that my bookaholic wife already knew). The protagonist of His Dark Materials is Lyra, who encounters witches, armored bears, an ominous church called the Magisterium, and travel between parallel worlds. The Golden Compass (U.S. title, original British title Northern Lights) won the Carnegie Medal for children's fiction in 1995; The Amber Spyglass, the third book, was awarded both the 2001 Whitbread Prize for best children's book and the Whitbread Book of the Year in January 2002, the first children's book ever to receive that award. His Dark Materials achieved popular acclaim in 2003, and Pullman shared the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for children's literature in 2005.
That search also turned up a New Yorker magazine article from December 26, 2005 with an interesting, deft insight into Pullman's avowed atheism. In it, Pullman is giving a speech at an English university and relates to a tombstone of a turn-of-the-nineteenth-century woman who, according to the inscription, "shone with superior Lustre and Effect in the great School of Morals, the THEATRE." Amid chuckles at the thought, Pullman insisted such a notion of the theater wasn't ironic -- “We learn from Macbeth’s fate that killing is horrible for the killer as well as victim,” he said, then read a passage from Jane Austen's “Emma” where the heroine is mortified when Mr. Knightley reproaches her for mocking the babbling Miss Bates. Pullman said scripture need not be consulted, for “we can learn what’s good and what’s bad, what’s generous and unselfish, what’s cruel and mean, from fiction.” The New Yorker also quoted Pullman from an unnamed newspaper column that “‘Thou shalt not’ might reach the head, but it takes ‘Once upon a time’ to reach the heart.”
Such a School of Morals, Pullman continued in his university speech, is inherently ambiguous, dynamic, and democratic -- a “conversation.” Opposed to this ideal is theocracy, which demonstrates “the tendency of human beings to gather power to themselves in the name of something that may not be questioned.” Interestingly, Pullman put Khomeini's Iran and the explicitly atheist Soviet Union together as examples of theocracy. He stated that man's impulse toward theocracy will defeat the School of Morals in the end, then continued “But that doesn’t mean we should give up and surrender. . . . I think we should act as if. I think we should read books, and tell children stories, and take them to the theatre, and learn poems, and play music, as if it would make a difference. . . . We should act as if the universe were listening to us and responding. We should act as if life were going to win. . . . That’s what I think they do, in the School of Morals."
Perhaps Philip Pullman is a boogeyman to some, much like J. K. Rowling became when Harry Potter books got wildly popular and the narrow minded among us thought it all a glorification of witchcraft. But I'd rather believe in Pullman's "as ifs" than Rick Santorum's "thou shalt nots" any day. In a far-too-often cynical world, that spirit of resilient optimism slogging through life's mysteries is sorely needed.
The e-mail (with errors included) states that Pullman is "a proud atheist who belongs to secular humanist societies ... hates C. S. Lewis's Chronical's of Narnia and has written a trilogy to show the other side." It continues with "The movie has been dumbed down to fool kids and their parents in the hope that they will buy his trilogy where in the end the children kill God and everyone can do as they please." The alarm culminates with Pullman and the movie-makers "hoping that unsuspecting parents will take their children to See the movie ... then the children will want the books for Christmas. That's the hook. Pullman says he wants the children to read the books and decide against God and the kingdom of heaven."
So competing for our Halloween fright, we have an accusation of a plot by an atheist author and the "liberal Hollywood elite" to infiltrate the minds of American youth with a major studio movie that has a supposed anti-God subtext, released just in time for Christmas. How many buttons can you push at one time?
A Google search of Philip Pullman reveals the literary success of His Dark Materials (information that my bookaholic wife already knew). The protagonist of His Dark Materials is Lyra, who encounters witches, armored bears, an ominous church called the Magisterium, and travel between parallel worlds. The Golden Compass (U.S. title, original British title Northern Lights) won the Carnegie Medal for children's fiction in 1995; The Amber Spyglass, the third book, was awarded both the 2001 Whitbread Prize for best children's book and the Whitbread Book of the Year in January 2002, the first children's book ever to receive that award. His Dark Materials achieved popular acclaim in 2003, and Pullman shared the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for children's literature in 2005.
That search also turned up a New Yorker magazine article from December 26, 2005 with an interesting, deft insight into Pullman's avowed atheism. In it, Pullman is giving a speech at an English university and relates to a tombstone of a turn-of-the-nineteenth-century woman who, according to the inscription, "shone with superior Lustre and Effect in the great School of Morals, the THEATRE." Amid chuckles at the thought, Pullman insisted such a notion of the theater wasn't ironic -- “We learn from Macbeth’s fate that killing is horrible for the killer as well as victim,” he said, then read a passage from Jane Austen's “Emma” where the heroine is mortified when Mr. Knightley reproaches her for mocking the babbling Miss Bates. Pullman said scripture need not be consulted, for “we can learn what’s good and what’s bad, what’s generous and unselfish, what’s cruel and mean, from fiction.” The New Yorker also quoted Pullman from an unnamed newspaper column that “‘Thou shalt not’ might reach the head, but it takes ‘Once upon a time’ to reach the heart.”
Such a School of Morals, Pullman continued in his university speech, is inherently ambiguous, dynamic, and democratic -- a “conversation.” Opposed to this ideal is theocracy, which demonstrates “the tendency of human beings to gather power to themselves in the name of something that may not be questioned.” Interestingly, Pullman put Khomeini's Iran and the explicitly atheist Soviet Union together as examples of theocracy. He stated that man's impulse toward theocracy will defeat the School of Morals in the end, then continued “But that doesn’t mean we should give up and surrender. . . . I think we should act as if. I think we should read books, and tell children stories, and take them to the theatre, and learn poems, and play music, as if it would make a difference. . . . We should act as if the universe were listening to us and responding. We should act as if life were going to win. . . . That’s what I think they do, in the School of Morals."
Perhaps Philip Pullman is a boogeyman to some, much like J. K. Rowling became when Harry Potter books got wildly popular and the narrow minded among us thought it all a glorification of witchcraft. But I'd rather believe in Pullman's "as ifs" than Rick Santorum's "thou shalt nots" any day. In a far-too-often cynical world, that spirit of resilient optimism slogging through life's mysteries is sorely needed.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Majoring in Minors
There was a saying I encountered around the time I was in college or perhaps in my first office job afterward: majoring in minors and minoring in majors. One can call up a lot of forest-for-the-trees sorts of analogies to this phrase, but the point is a warning of getting lost in the trivial at the expense of what's important.
I thought about this as I looked at the bells and whistles bloggers use to decorate their sites. From You-Tube-ish video clips to elaborate webpage templates, there's probably an embarrassingly large amount of what's possible on a blog layout that I don't know about. I notice, however, that when I read other people's blogs I gravitate toward those which have compelling content, however it is displayed, as opposed to those emphasizing an entertaining visual effect.
Obviously, "majoring in minors" can refer to wide swaths of human endeavor, be it personal, social, business, or political. And this is not to mention mixing those areas -- for example, how much focus on self-interest would be "majoring in minors" when compared to the good of society, or how much emphasis on governmental and/or political power would so qualify relative to the rights of the individual.
The realities of our household lifestyle, particularly its limitations, tend to focus attention away from typical middle-class social norms of entertainment. We don't entertain, nor do we socialize away from our jobs or our individual entrepreneurial activities (music for me, handcrafting for my wife). Also, we choose to find ways to utilize resources in a more frugal manner and practice as much self-sufficiency as we can develop. Suffice it to say that the latest exploits of the Kentucky Wildcats basketball team are not as central to my life as they once were.
So it is that my humble blog here is relatively basic in layout. If I could not express an idea worthy of interest to the reader, I would shut the blog down before I'd cover things up with eye candy. This is a vehicle for my expression, not a competition with the elite of the blogosphere, and what I say is more important than how pretty it could look.
I thought about this as I looked at the bells and whistles bloggers use to decorate their sites. From You-Tube-ish video clips to elaborate webpage templates, there's probably an embarrassingly large amount of what's possible on a blog layout that I don't know about. I notice, however, that when I read other people's blogs I gravitate toward those which have compelling content, however it is displayed, as opposed to those emphasizing an entertaining visual effect.
Obviously, "majoring in minors" can refer to wide swaths of human endeavor, be it personal, social, business, or political. And this is not to mention mixing those areas -- for example, how much focus on self-interest would be "majoring in minors" when compared to the good of society, or how much emphasis on governmental and/or political power would so qualify relative to the rights of the individual.
The realities of our household lifestyle, particularly its limitations, tend to focus attention away from typical middle-class social norms of entertainment. We don't entertain, nor do we socialize away from our jobs or our individual entrepreneurial activities (music for me, handcrafting for my wife). Also, we choose to find ways to utilize resources in a more frugal manner and practice as much self-sufficiency as we can develop. Suffice it to say that the latest exploits of the Kentucky Wildcats basketball team are not as central to my life as they once were.
So it is that my humble blog here is relatively basic in layout. If I could not express an idea worthy of interest to the reader, I would shut the blog down before I'd cover things up with eye candy. This is a vehicle for my expression, not a competition with the elite of the blogosphere, and what I say is more important than how pretty it could look.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Work Comp at the Stripper Pole
I read this morning that a woman in Indiana has been awarded worker's compensation for an injury she sustained while performing her job . . . as an exotic dancer.
Quick question: how many people knew that worker's comp covered exotic dance businesses? Not many I'd wager, or this would not be national news.
This morning's report is actually the Indiana Court of Appeals upholding the award to Angela Hobson, who injured herself while dancing on the pole at Shangri-La West club in Fort Wayne on December 20, 2001. Hobson underwent surgery for a herniated disc in her cervical spine, according to court records. The court ordered the state Worker's Compensation Board to determine if she was entitled to double compensation, due to Shangri-La letting its workman's comp insurance lapse.
Marginalize or demonize the exotic dance business if you will. But business is business, and an injury on that job is just as deserving of worker's compensation as an injury in a warehouse or mine. The only difference? Thanks to our culture, it just makes news.
Quick question: how many people knew that worker's comp covered exotic dance businesses? Not many I'd wager, or this would not be national news.
This morning's report is actually the Indiana Court of Appeals upholding the award to Angela Hobson, who injured herself while dancing on the pole at Shangri-La West club in Fort Wayne on December 20, 2001. Hobson underwent surgery for a herniated disc in her cervical spine, according to court records. The court ordered the state Worker's Compensation Board to determine if she was entitled to double compensation, due to Shangri-La letting its workman's comp insurance lapse.
Marginalize or demonize the exotic dance business if you will. But business is business, and an injury on that job is just as deserving of worker's compensation as an injury in a warehouse or mine. The only difference? Thanks to our culture, it just makes news.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Got Nothing to Say?
What to do when you want to say something but you can't put your finger on anything to say? Sounds like blogging and songwriting are not too dissimilar in that respect. Many don't want to make the effort to say something if there's nothing particularly important to say. On the other hand, having nothing to say doesn't get in the way of a great many who go right out and say it; in fact, saying nothing has been done entertainingly at times in both the written and musical media (and if you want to see it elevated to a real art form, look no further than politics).
If there's an answer to the above question, I guess it's this: when in doubt, ponder. It may seem like pointless noodling before you get into it, but it gets your mind's wheels moving, and the destination you didn't see when you were mentally parked may present itself while in motion.
I fear pointless or fruitless action, which may explain why I've always been a procrastinator. This world of limited spare time tends to reinforce that behavior in me. There are times to risk the discomfort, break the familiar pattern, and discover what's lurking in the mind. What you find to say may be important, or it may discover the rock underneath which something important lies waiting to be uncovered.
If there's an answer to the above question, I guess it's this: when in doubt, ponder. It may seem like pointless noodling before you get into it, but it gets your mind's wheels moving, and the destination you didn't see when you were mentally parked may present itself while in motion.
I fear pointless or fruitless action, which may explain why I've always been a procrastinator. This world of limited spare time tends to reinforce that behavior in me. There are times to risk the discomfort, break the familiar pattern, and discover what's lurking in the mind. What you find to say may be important, or it may discover the rock underneath which something important lies waiting to be uncovered.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Droopy Pants and Drippy Laws
Drought has gripped much of the south, while Texas, Oklahoma, and the upper midwest are plagued with storms and excess rain; either way, food prices are pressured upward. On top of the continuing violence in the Iraq mess is the rising boldness of the reformulating Taliban in Afghanistan, who has now taken to kidnapping foreigners. The sub-prime home lending crisis has crept into the general housing market, crimping everyone's home values and drying up credit. Misery and injustice are all-too-abundant.
But what has got Atlanta burning? Baggy pants, if the city council is to be believed.
Yep, Atlanta's city council has proposed an amendment to their indecency laws that bans baggy pants worn to reveal boxer shorts, the kind that urban black culture has made either popular or epidemic (your call). Ladies, wearing that waistline where your thongs show would also be illegal. Councilman and co-sponsor C. T. Martin said "I don't want young people thinking that half-dressing is the way to go. I want them to think about their future."
Their future? We're not talking about a full-torso tattoo. The solution is a lot easier than salt and a stick of butter.
Personally, the half-covered-seat look is just butt-ignorant. How many folks have felt an inkling to get a staple gun and affix some yahoo's britches up above the crack line? And it certainly doesn't look any better on some of the local appropriatin' white dudes where I live.
But the Atlanta amendment, and the similar local ordinances that have passed in Louisiana, is more ignorant than the look it combats. I think we can have a mature discussion of the value issues of hip-hop culture without resorting to dress codes. Besides, all of us adults drew the ire of our parents' generation with the way we dressed and groomed ourselves, from ten-inch pompadours to mod hair to purple hair, from spiked dog collars to the first Madonna look to the once-innocuous flannel shirt.
Though part of me may cheer a beating back of something that just looks stupid to me, we've had way too much government intervention the past few years. And, as I suggested above, we've got a lot more important things to be concerned with.
But what has got Atlanta burning? Baggy pants, if the city council is to be believed.
Yep, Atlanta's city council has proposed an amendment to their indecency laws that bans baggy pants worn to reveal boxer shorts, the kind that urban black culture has made either popular or epidemic (your call). Ladies, wearing that waistline where your thongs show would also be illegal. Councilman and co-sponsor C. T. Martin said "I don't want young people thinking that half-dressing is the way to go. I want them to think about their future."
Their future? We're not talking about a full-torso tattoo. The solution is a lot easier than salt and a stick of butter.
Personally, the half-covered-seat look is just butt-ignorant. How many folks have felt an inkling to get a staple gun and affix some yahoo's britches up above the crack line? And it certainly doesn't look any better on some of the local appropriatin' white dudes where I live.
But the Atlanta amendment, and the similar local ordinances that have passed in Louisiana, is more ignorant than the look it combats. I think we can have a mature discussion of the value issues of hip-hop culture without resorting to dress codes. Besides, all of us adults drew the ire of our parents' generation with the way we dressed and groomed ourselves, from ten-inch pompadours to mod hair to purple hair, from spiked dog collars to the first Madonna look to the once-innocuous flannel shirt.
Though part of me may cheer a beating back of something that just looks stupid to me, we've had way too much government intervention the past few years. And, as I suggested above, we've got a lot more important things to be concerned with.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Overlooked Civil Rights Pioneer Dies at 90
I read today via Rational Review News Digest of the death of Irene Morgan Kirkaldy, a woman who refused to give up her bus seat a decade prior to Rosa Parks' more famous act of civil disobedience. I'd never heard of Kirkaldy's act, which occurred on a Greyhound bus from Gloucester to Baltimore in 1944. She was arrested for not giving up her seat to a white couple and for resisting arrest. The former charge was appealed -- she willingly paid the $100 fine for resisting because she kicked the officer who tried to remove her, saying "Sometimes you are so enraged, you don't have time to be afraid" -- and the U. S. Supreme Court in 1946 struck down the Virginia law that mandated racial separation on buses as an invalid interference in interstate commerce. Kirkaldy was represented by an NAACP lawyer named Thurgood Marshall, later to become a Supreme Court justice himself.
Kirkaldy died last Friday at age 90 at her daughter's home. Her case did not get the notoriety that Rosa Parks' case did, but it led to the first Freedom Ride in 1947, where 16 civil rights activists rode buses and trains in the South testing the Supreme Court decision, and eventually to Parks' famous act in 1955. President Bill Clinton gave Kirkaldy the Presidential Citizens Medal in 2001, the second highest civilian honor a president can bestow. Asked where her courage to not change her seat came from, she is quoted as saying "I can't understand how anyone would have done otherwise."
In an age where courage in the face of governmental power has been lacking until lately, Kirkaldy's passing deserves notice and her actions deserve spotlight.
Kirkaldy died last Friday at age 90 at her daughter's home. Her case did not get the notoriety that Rosa Parks' case did, but it led to the first Freedom Ride in 1947, where 16 civil rights activists rode buses and trains in the South testing the Supreme Court decision, and eventually to Parks' famous act in 1955. President Bill Clinton gave Kirkaldy the Presidential Citizens Medal in 2001, the second highest civilian honor a president can bestow. Asked where her courage to not change her seat came from, she is quoted as saying "I can't understand how anyone would have done otherwise."
In an age where courage in the face of governmental power has been lacking until lately, Kirkaldy's passing deserves notice and her actions deserve spotlight.
Monday, August 06, 2007
Props to Glavine and Rodriguez
As a postscript to my earlier post "The Scandalous Sporting Life," let's note credit where it's due to this weekend's milestones achieved on the diamond. Tom Glavine reached the 300 win plateau yesterday, only the 23rd pitcher to earn 300 in MLB. Also, Alex Rodriguez not only reached the 500 home run mark this weekend, he became the youngest player to get to 500. Already, A-Rod has been hailed as the best hope to reach -- honorably -- the all-time home run record and eclipse that other guy who just tied Hank Aaron's mark of 755 this weekend.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Sometimes It's 'How' Before It's 'What'
The empty page before me now
The pen is in my hand
The words don't come so easy, but I'm trying
This examinant ode to being stuck while writing always comes to mind when I'm, um, stuck while writing. I wonder, often impatiently, why ideas don't come when my conscious mind wants to create and express but my subconscious acts like it wasn't consulted.
Approaches to writing may vary, but I see it primarily in two camps. The one I historically belong to is reliance on motivation. There's just something you find that you have to say, and the writing becomes finding the best way to get across that which you just have to express. The other camp I have started dabbling with, what I call mining your experiences and interests in the hope that you find something that strikes your fancy. You're not particularly moved to write; you just sit your ass down and play with ideas or things that happened or how you see things that happened.
A songwriting book I once read by Kenny Rogers decried the former camp, stating that a certain writer of the First Edition's hit songs did not rely on "fickle inspiration" but on a regimented schedule of writing. My historic mistrust of that camp aside, I believe that it all depends on what you're comfortable with. So I'm dabbling with the mining approach along with the motivation approach to see if I can get comfortable with mining and still produce the level of writing I'm used to. And just maybe I can do away with the dry patches where I'm less inspired and can still create something worth the effort.
All this assumes that real life doesn't get in the way . . . as it does at least occasionally.
Never did decide what to say this time . . . just some thought on how to go about saying something, even when you're not sure and the mind starts as blank as the page.
The pen is in my hand
The words don't come so easy, but I'm trying
- Kerry Livgren, from "On The Other Side" by Kansas
This examinant ode to being stuck while writing always comes to mind when I'm, um, stuck while writing. I wonder, often impatiently, why ideas don't come when my conscious mind wants to create and express but my subconscious acts like it wasn't consulted.
Approaches to writing may vary, but I see it primarily in two camps. The one I historically belong to is reliance on motivation. There's just something you find that you have to say, and the writing becomes finding the best way to get across that which you just have to express. The other camp I have started dabbling with, what I call mining your experiences and interests in the hope that you find something that strikes your fancy. You're not particularly moved to write; you just sit your ass down and play with ideas or things that happened or how you see things that happened.
A songwriting book I once read by Kenny Rogers decried the former camp, stating that a certain writer of the First Edition's hit songs did not rely on "fickle inspiration" but on a regimented schedule of writing. My historic mistrust of that camp aside, I believe that it all depends on what you're comfortable with. So I'm dabbling with the mining approach along with the motivation approach to see if I can get comfortable with mining and still produce the level of writing I'm used to. And just maybe I can do away with the dry patches where I'm less inspired and can still create something worth the effort.
All this assumes that real life doesn't get in the way . . . as it does at least occasionally.
Never did decide what to say this time . . . just some thought on how to go about saying something, even when you're not sure and the mind starts as blank as the page.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
The Scandalous Sporting Life
While we view the looming potential constitutional crisis in Washington, let's not forget that professional sports are broadly involved in scandal. Not forget? Hell, we can't avoid it.
Major League Baseball seems positively embarrassed by Barry Bonds. He's about to break Hank Aaron's all-time home run mark, and only San Francisco Giants fans seem the least bit excited. MLB plans no commemoration if/when Bonds passes Aaron, and fandom has passed judgment on the BALCO-fueled superstar. Someone give him a t-shirt that reads "World's Biggest Asterisk" and be done with it.
The NFL has its own headache with Atlanta Falcons star quarterback Michael Vick, who has been indicted on federal dogfighting charges. With his reported involvement in both dogfights and the cruel execution of losing dogs, few people want to wait until his trial to kick him out of football.
Perhaps the worst scandal is just breaking with NBA referee Tim Donaghy accused of betting on games he officiated. The league's first point-shaving scandal, as the sports press is viewing it, has commissioner David Stern spinning like crazy, calling Donaghy a "rogue, isolated criminal" and hoping the NBA can ride out the storm. Stern has cause to worry, as Donaghy's Pete Rose moment, for which he is being investigated by the FBI, strikes at the very integrity of the game.
Speaking of integrity, don't get me started on the Tour De France, which is seeing doping scandals this year that make last year look like an expedition of Boy Scouts trying for their cycling merit badges.
Throw in NASCAR Nextel Cup crew chiefs that have been suspended for bending rules that got caught in inspections (is Dale Jr.'s chief Tony Eury back yet?) and you have a season of athletic cheating that makes it seem that the halls of Washington have integrity.
Major League Baseball seems positively embarrassed by Barry Bonds. He's about to break Hank Aaron's all-time home run mark, and only San Francisco Giants fans seem the least bit excited. MLB plans no commemoration if/when Bonds passes Aaron, and fandom has passed judgment on the BALCO-fueled superstar. Someone give him a t-shirt that reads "World's Biggest Asterisk" and be done with it.
The NFL has its own headache with Atlanta Falcons star quarterback Michael Vick, who has been indicted on federal dogfighting charges. With his reported involvement in both dogfights and the cruel execution of losing dogs, few people want to wait until his trial to kick him out of football.
Perhaps the worst scandal is just breaking with NBA referee Tim Donaghy accused of betting on games he officiated. The league's first point-shaving scandal, as the sports press is viewing it, has commissioner David Stern spinning like crazy, calling Donaghy a "rogue, isolated criminal" and hoping the NBA can ride out the storm. Stern has cause to worry, as Donaghy's Pete Rose moment, for which he is being investigated by the FBI, strikes at the very integrity of the game.
Speaking of integrity, don't get me started on the Tour De France, which is seeing doping scandals this year that make last year look like an expedition of Boy Scouts trying for their cycling merit badges.
Throw in NASCAR Nextel Cup crew chiefs that have been suspended for bending rules that got caught in inspections (is Dale Jr.'s chief Tony Eury back yet?) and you have a season of athletic cheating that makes it seem that the halls of Washington have integrity.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Counterveiling Force
OK, so there hasn't been an offering here for awhile. I chalk it up to the principles of counterveiling force.
A great deal of frustration was relieved -- lanced like a boil -- with the 2006 mid-term elections. When one sees a political leadership so blindly beholden to patronage, so seemingly pursuant of theocracy, and so ruthlessly in pursuit of consolidating power in the executive branch under cover of fighting terrorism ... and when mainstream society voices support of this leadership on either religious or patriotic grounds, to the extent that dissent is made to appear disloyal to the country ... well, faith in one's fellow man ebbs and contingencies get considered to relocate to relatively dismal urban areas that at least have free thinkers.
These frustrations also acted as a burr under the personal saddle, prompting me to express my outrage into written opinions on the web and in letters to the editor of several newspapers. It was my way to stand and be counted for rational thinking, for the America I had always known before the current administration. It was my individual attempt at a small bit of counterveiling force.
The 2006 mid-term elections served to change the scenery. Instead of managing to scare the American public into falling back into blind faith, the Bush Administration and its party started to get crushed under the weight of its own hubris. A Congressman from Florida known for his stances on child protection became embroiled in a male page scandal. Combined with a book on how the Administration used the religious right while scoffing at them behind their backs, it made the conservative Christians who re-elected Bush in 2004 stay at home in 2006. Support for the Iraq war melted away as the body count mounted without much progress to show, and Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld were seen with a certain disconnect from reality and with a fresh doubting of their competence in prosecuting the war. Democrats narrowly took back the Senate and comfortably captured the House.
There's not the sense in my mind that our country and society are heading down the road to hell without brakes. That is thanks to the counterveiling force of the legislative branch now controlled by Democrats, who now put a check on the executive branch's excesses. The principle of counterveiling force, as I hazily recall it from college, holds that no power will get so great that a counterveiling power will not rise to check it. That principle has been bourne out once again, and while it has made me undermotivated to express opinions at the same rate as before, I rest significantly easier because of it.
A great deal of frustration was relieved -- lanced like a boil -- with the 2006 mid-term elections. When one sees a political leadership so blindly beholden to patronage, so seemingly pursuant of theocracy, and so ruthlessly in pursuit of consolidating power in the executive branch under cover of fighting terrorism ... and when mainstream society voices support of this leadership on either religious or patriotic grounds, to the extent that dissent is made to appear disloyal to the country ... well, faith in one's fellow man ebbs and contingencies get considered to relocate to relatively dismal urban areas that at least have free thinkers.
These frustrations also acted as a burr under the personal saddle, prompting me to express my outrage into written opinions on the web and in letters to the editor of several newspapers. It was my way to stand and be counted for rational thinking, for the America I had always known before the current administration. It was my individual attempt at a small bit of counterveiling force.
The 2006 mid-term elections served to change the scenery. Instead of managing to scare the American public into falling back into blind faith, the Bush Administration and its party started to get crushed under the weight of its own hubris. A Congressman from Florida known for his stances on child protection became embroiled in a male page scandal. Combined with a book on how the Administration used the religious right while scoffing at them behind their backs, it made the conservative Christians who re-elected Bush in 2004 stay at home in 2006. Support for the Iraq war melted away as the body count mounted without much progress to show, and Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld were seen with a certain disconnect from reality and with a fresh doubting of their competence in prosecuting the war. Democrats narrowly took back the Senate and comfortably captured the House.
There's not the sense in my mind that our country and society are heading down the road to hell without brakes. That is thanks to the counterveiling force of the legislative branch now controlled by Democrats, who now put a check on the executive branch's excesses. The principle of counterveiling force, as I hazily recall it from college, holds that no power will get so great that a counterveiling power will not rise to check it. That principle has been bourne out once again, and while it has made me undermotivated to express opinions at the same rate as before, I rest significantly easier because of it.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Miami - Florida International Redux
The unseemly brawl between two football teams from colleges in metropolitan Miami got me thinking about the spoiled brats that pass for athletes among amateurs in such marquis sports locations and among the professional ranks. The fight that broke out at the Miami-Florida International football game on October 14 seemed less like a rivalry gone bad (let’s face it, FIU shares a city with “the U” not a level of program) than an indulgence of posturing that rose to thuggery. It’s the culture of elite programs, elite leagues, and elite media markets that accepts, and often encourages, the chest-thumping, indulge-me-cause-I’m-just-that-good way of thinking.
The Miami Hurricane football program has had a history of thug posing, which made their loss to straight-arrow Jo Pa’s Penn State squad for the 1986 national championship that much sweeter. Yet the intimidating swagger is becoming as commonplace in sports as the next rap CD cover. And the more casual it gets, the bigger the blowups are when things get out of hand.
Examples: the Ron Artest-led fight at the Pacers-Pistons game that carried into the stands and earned Artest a season-ending ban; Mike Tyson, who if he spars with a female boxer on his el-lame-o “world tour” will do in the ring what he used to do to ex-wife Robin Givens and other female conquests, not to mention the threats to eat Lennox Lewis’ children and the actual bites taken from Evander Holyfield’s ear; and don’t get me started on TO, the NFL’s answer to Barry Bonds in extreme talent and zero likeability, except Bonds didn’t try to kill himself or publicly feud with teammates.
Perhaps these are factors behind the NBA refereeing change that debuted in the current pre-season where virtually any gesture toward a referee’s call is subject to a technical foul ... a throwback to the pre-1970s college era where a player had to hold up his hand (horrors!) when a foul was called on him. Commissioner David Stern reportedly wants to get control over players’ deportment toward referees, something he saw as a negative in the eyes of fans and, therefore, bad for business.
Perhaps Stern is dealing with the harvest of pushing the NBA as an urban/hiphop culture sport to sell tickets. But while it could be argued that the NBA influences athletes in all major sports, the fact is pro and amateur athletes in many sports appear to show a deeper, exaggerated sense of self-importance and act as if their opponents (and sometimes their teammates) are theirs to intimidate.
We don't always know where the line is, the one that once crossed is too much. We endlessly debate whether Pete Rose should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame or forfeit a sure spot in Cooperstown because he bet on baseball. But incidents like the Miami-FIU brawl remind me that we should find a collective sense of where that line of behavior is and say "enough" when an athlete crosses it.
The Miami Hurricane football program has had a history of thug posing, which made their loss to straight-arrow Jo Pa’s Penn State squad for the 1986 national championship that much sweeter. Yet the intimidating swagger is becoming as commonplace in sports as the next rap CD cover. And the more casual it gets, the bigger the blowups are when things get out of hand.
Examples: the Ron Artest-led fight at the Pacers-Pistons game that carried into the stands and earned Artest a season-ending ban; Mike Tyson, who if he spars with a female boxer on his el-lame-o “world tour” will do in the ring what he used to do to ex-wife Robin Givens and other female conquests, not to mention the threats to eat Lennox Lewis’ children and the actual bites taken from Evander Holyfield’s ear; and don’t get me started on TO, the NFL’s answer to Barry Bonds in extreme talent and zero likeability, except Bonds didn’t try to kill himself or publicly feud with teammates.
Perhaps these are factors behind the NBA refereeing change that debuted in the current pre-season where virtually any gesture toward a referee’s call is subject to a technical foul ... a throwback to the pre-1970s college era where a player had to hold up his hand (horrors!) when a foul was called on him. Commissioner David Stern reportedly wants to get control over players’ deportment toward referees, something he saw as a negative in the eyes of fans and, therefore, bad for business.
Perhaps Stern is dealing with the harvest of pushing the NBA as an urban/hiphop culture sport to sell tickets. But while it could be argued that the NBA influences athletes in all major sports, the fact is pro and amateur athletes in many sports appear to show a deeper, exaggerated sense of self-importance and act as if their opponents (and sometimes their teammates) are theirs to intimidate.
We don't always know where the line is, the one that once crossed is too much. We endlessly debate whether Pete Rose should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame or forfeit a sure spot in Cooperstown because he bet on baseball. But incidents like the Miami-FIU brawl remind me that we should find a collective sense of where that line of behavior is and say "enough" when an athlete crosses it.
Monday, October 09, 2006
Calling the Kettle Black: Bush, Rove, and Fred Phelps
Why do we stay so polarized? How can it be possible in the first place for cynics to grab hold of the public eye and the power of the government with divisive tactics and positions that once upon a time would be relegated to the end of the political bench? In explanation, let me tell you about a subject I know no small bit about.
The Rev. Fred Phelps, leader of a cult that calls itself the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, has jumped from my old Topeka stomping grounds to the national stage. Preoccupied with homosexuality, Phelps and his mostly-extended-family congregation became moderately well known nationally, and infamous locally, by picketing the funerals of gays who died of AIDS, churches who didn’t take a hard line against gays, parks that were supposed to be locations for gay trysts, and eventually any large local public gathering. His picket signs were garish, graphic, and blunt; the most famous signs were “God Hates Fags” and “Fags Burn In Hell.”
Phelps did what I thought wasn’t possible to grab national headlines; he became even more extreme in his paranoia of homosexuality. He and his WBC followers started picketing the funerals of U. S. soldiers from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, publicly stating that their deaths were God’s punishment of a country that tolerated homosexuality. The reaction of the country outside the Great Plains was all the explosive outrage the middle class can muster. The very idea that a group could picket fallen soldiers in a time of war flew all over the patriotic citizenry and offended sensibilities regarding respect for the dead.
But the rest of the country is learning what Topekans are too familiar with. As deranged as he is, Fred Phelps is a lawyer and a brilliant one. Further, his sons and daughters are lawyers. They have thwarted nearly every legal attempt to rein in their practices. A judge in Kentucky just threw out that state’s law that prohibits protests within 300 feet of funerals.
Moreover, the Phelps Clan (as I “affectionately” call them) utilize a crass but effective strategy. They make their extreme statements, and when the inevitable outrage comes from reasonable people, they bully back against those critics as being enemies of freedom of religion and freedom of speech. Between the constant drumbeat of their hate-filled diatribe and the threats of legal action against any who would oppose their statements and actions, the Phelps Clan wears and demoralizes casual criticism against them until they’re resigned to put up with the Phelps’ extremist conduct.
Karl Rove probably didn’t study the Phelps Clan’s methods. But it’s hard to tell from the way President George W. Bush’s political strategist has transformed political discourse in this country. Rove has done with the Bush presidency as Phelps has done with his anti-homosexual crusade: taken positions that the center sees as extreme, then attack those who react against those positions.
Campaigns no longer run to the center as the conventional wisdom has always dictated. With an evenly divided country, Rove chose to emphasize controversial hot-button issues for the far right (e. g., abortion, same sex marriage) that alienate the center but whip the conservative base into a frenzy and motivate them to go to the polls. With Rove, it’s all about how many of your base can you turn out on election day, not how many in the center can you get to come to your side.
And so it was that in the tight 2004 presidential election the people of southern Ohio decided that Bush should be re-elected over John Kerry. Not, according to exit polls, because Bush was seen as more effective in the war on terror or the war in Iraq. Southern Ohio went for Bush because he was against gay marriage, and a plethora of state constitutional amendments for same sex marriage bans held up and reinforced homosexuality as the great social boogeyman.
As for demonizing the opposition, Bush has demonstrated a mastery not surprising for the reputed loyalty enforcer for his father George H. W. Bush. The Iraq war was sold to America with questionable WMD intelligence reinforced with constant imagery of mushroom clouds and dirty bombs. Critics of the Iraq war were compared to Nazi appeasers. Outrage at Bush’s warrantless wiretapping was met by Bush charging that Democrats don’t want us to listen in on the terrorists.
This is government without consensus, an elbow-your-way-to-the-front approach that cuts the knees out of those who dare speak in opposition. It’s the inevitable fruit of doing the outrageous and casting those who react indignantly as being the “real” extremists.
The Rev. Fred Phelps, leader of a cult that calls itself the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, has jumped from my old Topeka stomping grounds to the national stage. Preoccupied with homosexuality, Phelps and his mostly-extended-family congregation became moderately well known nationally, and infamous locally, by picketing the funerals of gays who died of AIDS, churches who didn’t take a hard line against gays, parks that were supposed to be locations for gay trysts, and eventually any large local public gathering. His picket signs were garish, graphic, and blunt; the most famous signs were “God Hates Fags” and “Fags Burn In Hell.”
Phelps did what I thought wasn’t possible to grab national headlines; he became even more extreme in his paranoia of homosexuality. He and his WBC followers started picketing the funerals of U. S. soldiers from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, publicly stating that their deaths were God’s punishment of a country that tolerated homosexuality. The reaction of the country outside the Great Plains was all the explosive outrage the middle class can muster. The very idea that a group could picket fallen soldiers in a time of war flew all over the patriotic citizenry and offended sensibilities regarding respect for the dead.
But the rest of the country is learning what Topekans are too familiar with. As deranged as he is, Fred Phelps is a lawyer and a brilliant one. Further, his sons and daughters are lawyers. They have thwarted nearly every legal attempt to rein in their practices. A judge in Kentucky just threw out that state’s law that prohibits protests within 300 feet of funerals.
Moreover, the Phelps Clan (as I “affectionately” call them) utilize a crass but effective strategy. They make their extreme statements, and when the inevitable outrage comes from reasonable people, they bully back against those critics as being enemies of freedom of religion and freedom of speech. Between the constant drumbeat of their hate-filled diatribe and the threats of legal action against any who would oppose their statements and actions, the Phelps Clan wears and demoralizes casual criticism against them until they’re resigned to put up with the Phelps’ extremist conduct.
Karl Rove probably didn’t study the Phelps Clan’s methods. But it’s hard to tell from the way President George W. Bush’s political strategist has transformed political discourse in this country. Rove has done with the Bush presidency as Phelps has done with his anti-homosexual crusade: taken positions that the center sees as extreme, then attack those who react against those positions.
Campaigns no longer run to the center as the conventional wisdom has always dictated. With an evenly divided country, Rove chose to emphasize controversial hot-button issues for the far right (e. g., abortion, same sex marriage) that alienate the center but whip the conservative base into a frenzy and motivate them to go to the polls. With Rove, it’s all about how many of your base can you turn out on election day, not how many in the center can you get to come to your side.
And so it was that in the tight 2004 presidential election the people of southern Ohio decided that Bush should be re-elected over John Kerry. Not, according to exit polls, because Bush was seen as more effective in the war on terror or the war in Iraq. Southern Ohio went for Bush because he was against gay marriage, and a plethora of state constitutional amendments for same sex marriage bans held up and reinforced homosexuality as the great social boogeyman.
As for demonizing the opposition, Bush has demonstrated a mastery not surprising for the reputed loyalty enforcer for his father George H. W. Bush. The Iraq war was sold to America with questionable WMD intelligence reinforced with constant imagery of mushroom clouds and dirty bombs. Critics of the Iraq war were compared to Nazi appeasers. Outrage at Bush’s warrantless wiretapping was met by Bush charging that Democrats don’t want us to listen in on the terrorists.
This is government without consensus, an elbow-your-way-to-the-front approach that cuts the knees out of those who dare speak in opposition. It’s the inevitable fruit of doing the outrageous and casting those who react indignantly as being the “real” extremists.
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