And Some Have Greatness Thrust Upon Them

Well, I must say, I am both surprised and deeply, deeply humble. Surprised because my inbox this afternoon contains this notification: "Congratulations! joining the eBay Silver PowerSeller Program!" Despite the dubious English, I plunged on ahead to the message itself. It seems I am now a Silver PowerSeller, apparently because I've "been on a super sales streak" for some little time now. Among the perquisites and honorifics that now ascend to me are the right to have the "PowerSeller icon" () next to my User ID, not unlike badge of honor. I am also now entitled to "PowerSeller Priority Support via email webform and phone support at Silver level and above," which I'm pretty sure is good, and I shall be able to hobnob with my fellow PowerSellers via a "Discussion Board"--a proper noun, no less, so you know it's important--where I have no doubt we shall indulge in the cyber equivalent of sitting in gree-leather wingback chairs smoking cigars and drinking brandy.

And yet, despite this towering achievement, I feel a sense of humility, a small still voice that says perhaps--just perhaps--I am not worthing of such a distinction. Why, you ask. Why, as I stand at this pinnacle of greatness, do I hesitate, why does my Mighty Mouse not jump immediately to "Go to the PowerSellers Portal"? Can it be a deep-seated fear of success? Can it be insecurity to associate with other, possibly greater PowerSellers? Can it be feelings of guilt at pole-vaulting over other, lesser mortals whom I would now leave behind?

Or could it b that I've never sold a damn thing on eBay?

What Works, What Doesn't

That Worked!

It is a sign of our times--and not a good one--that one finds himself amazed and gratified when something actually works as it's supposed to.

A recent case in point: Last week I acquired a new iMac, and am in the process of porting files, adding software, etc. One of the pieces that was missing was an infrequently but well-liked application called RadioLover, which allows one to record internet radio for later listening.

Miraculously, I had the order confirmation from when I had purchased the software in 2003, which included re-downloading instructions. I followed them, installed the software, entered my ancient registration number...and say presto! it was up and running! Strange but true!

---

That Worked...Eventually

Meanwhile, I spent the better part of two days horsing around with the Apple AirPort Express that arrived in Friday's mail. Not quite the plug-and-play exercise that Apple would have you believe. First, Airport Utility refused to "find" the AirPort Express, which was plugged in some three feet distance. Well, plugged and unplugged, and the iMac was restarted and restarted. Finally I had the bright idea of running the Ethernet cable not from the DSL router to the unfound AirPort Express, but rather from the AirPort Express to the iMac, and, behold, they began to communicate! Thus able to configure the AirPort Express, it was on to creating the wireless network.

That proved more problematic. Actually, creating the silly thing was easy enough...as I discovered while doing it over and over and over again. Getting the network to stick around so that I could instruct AirPort to use it was the tricky part. Many attempts, re-attempts, restarts, and words that are inappropriate to the Easter season. By late Friday, I had about decided to pack everything up and ship it back to Apple.

Saturday morning I dinked around with it some more, did a "factory reset" of the AirPort Express, and for no reason that I can think of managed to create yet another network that, this time, appeared in the AirPort menu and seemed inclined to last awhile. Indeed, I was able to get the iMac online wirelessly, even though the AirPort Express stubbornly continued to display a blinking amber light instead of a steady green light. Eventually I got tired of looking at the blinking light, ran AirPort Utility for the 10,000th time, and managed to correct whatever problems it was having.

All seems to be working well now, and the wireless network seems to be working well on my daughter's MacBook Pro as well as the Dell Inspiron laptop I have on loan from my workplace. But what a colossal pain! Occasionally one wonders about Apple's much-vaunted reputation for simplicity!

As We Say

Time for another batch of quotations, drawn from the daily e-mail A Word a Day. Sign up for this excellent service at http://wordsmith.org/.

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I need someone to protect me from all the measures they take in order to protect me. -Banksy, street artist (b. 1974)

The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human. -Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and hence clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. -H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)

Words are the small change of thought. -Jules Renard, writer (1864-1910)

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it -- and stop there -- lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again, and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one any more. -Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)

Society is composed of two great classes: those who have more dinners than appetite, and those who have more appetite than dinners. -Sebastien-Roch-Nicolas de Chamfort, writer (1741-1794)

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. -Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)

If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning, etc., beginning from his youth and so go on to old age, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last! -Jonathan Swift, satirist (1667-1745)

Faith which does not doubt is dead faith. -Miguel de Unamuno, philosopher and writer (1864-1936)

The door of a bigoted mind opens outwards so that the only result of the pressure of facts upon it is to close it more snugly. -Ogden Nash, author (1902-1971)

Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

It is not life and wealth and power that enslave men, but the cleaving to life and wealth and power. -Buddha (c. 563-483 BCE)

It is not how old you are, but how you are old. -Jules Renard, writer (1864-1910)

Our heads are round so that thoughts can change direction. -Francis Picabia, painter and poet (1879-1953)

Society is like a stew. If you don't keep it stirred up you get a lot of scum on the top. -Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)

Like cars in amusement parks, our direction is often determined through collisions. -Yahia Lababidi, writer (b. 1973)

He who postpones the hour of living is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses. -Horace, poet and satirist (65-8 BCE)

Love-Hate?

It's not often I find myself agreeing with Bill Donohue of the Catholic League. In fact, I think this is the first time he and I have been anywhere near the same wavelength. But life is strange, and outrageous events may create outrageous alliances. Here, via Catholic Online, is what Donohue has to say about John McCain's thrilled acceptance of the endorsement of notorious anti-Catholic bigot John Hagee:



Catholic League: McCain's Next Move
3/7/2008

Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights

“So no one should take from my criticism of McCain on this issue that I in any way think he is anti-Catholic."
NEW YORK, N.Y. (Catholic League) - Catholic League president Bill Donohue issued the following remarks today regarding Sen. John McCain’s ties to Pastor John Hagee:

“Now that he has secured the Republican nomination for president, and has received the endorsement of President Bush, McCain will now embark on a series of fundraising events.

When he meets with Catholics, he is going to be asked about his ties to Hagee. He should also be asked whether he approves of comments like this: ‘A Godless theology of hate that no one dared try to stop for a thousand years produced a harvest of hate.’

“That quote is proudly cited by David Brog in his recent book, Standing with Israel. Both Brog and Hagee clearly identify the Roman Catholic Church as spawning a ‘theology of hate.’

“This is nothing if not hate speech. There are so many good evangelical leaders in this country—Dr. James Dobson, Dr. Richard Land, Tony Perkins, Gary Bauer, Dr. Al Mohler, Chuck Colson—and none has ever insulted Catholicism. To be sure, they have expressed theological differences, and that is to be expected; that is all fine and good. But they have never sought to denigrate Catholicism.

That’s what makes this situation so outrageous. Of all the great evangelical leaders, the one McCain cites as ‘the staunchest leader of our Christian evangelical movement’ just happens to be a Catholic basher.

“In 2005, when I was fighting with those senators who were making it all but impossible for pro-life Catholics to get on the federal bench, I said the following: ‘So as not to be misunderstood, let me repeat what I’ve said before: the Catholic League believes there are no anti-Catholic senators.’ That remains true.

“So no one should take from my criticism of McCain on this issue that I in any way think he is anti-Catholic. If anything, John McCain has been a good friend to Catholics. But he and his staff have thus far grossly mishandled this issue. We await their next move.”


In case you're unaware, here's the deal: Televangelist Hagee, who has charmingly referred to the Roman Catholic Church as “the Great Whore,” an “apostate church,” the “anti-Christ,” and “a false cult system” (indeed, he cites the Catholic Church as Hitler's inspiration for the Holocaust), last week endorsed McCain, who said he was "very proud" to receive the hatemonger's blessing.

At the time I had this thought: More than once, I have been informed by someone whose opinion I did not solicit that I could not "call myself a Catholic" and a member of the Democratic Party. The flip side of this would be that "good" Catholics can only be Republicans. Well, now they have a Republican presidential candidate--all but nominated--who has enthusiastically accepted, after prolonged wooing, the endorsement of a Catholic-hating bigot.

Leaving me to wonder what "good" Catholics will now do. Do they vote for a godless baby-killing Democratic candidate (whoever that may be) who does not cleave to the church's party line? Or do they vote for the GOP candidate who embraces a Catholic-hating TV preacher but who spouts the right kind of rhetoric?

I'm only kidding--I knew all along that they'd come up with some way of lamely justifying McCain's buddy-buddyness with Hagee, and now the McCain camp

Now the McCain camp has thrown them just the sort of bone they'll need to pretend they're not doing what they're doing, viz., backing a candidate who in turn is backed by someone who would just as soon see them dead. Here's what's come out of the Not-So-Straight-Talk-Express in light of the Hagee scandal, per the Associated Press:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain repudiated any views of a prominent televangelist who endorsed him last month "if they are anti-Catholic or offensive to Catholics."

If. If? Has there ever been a better non-repudiation? Can it really be that Senator McCain, who is quick to point out that he sent a couple of kids to Catholic school, really not see that Hagee and his comments are offensive, are incendiary, are hate-filled? Note too that he doesn't repudiate Hagee--and he certainly doesn't reject Hagee's endorsement--but rather falls limply back on stating that he doesn't agree with everyone who endorses him.

But he doesn't do very much to distance himself from Hagee...or, more to the point, the equally hate-filled voters who agree with Hagee's bigotry. Rather, he's trying to win votes from both Catholic and Catholic-bashers.

Once upon a time I had a fair amount of respect for the Arizona Senator, and was one of those who thought it would interesting if he ran as John Kerry's VP back in 2004.

Now he's emerged as just another politician who will do anything, say anything, roll in any mudhole with any pig, just as long as it translates into votes.

Passages

I started to write this almost a week ago, but have been too busy and too interrupted to complete it. So here you have it "as is," unfinished, unpolished, and with no warranty expressed or implied.

---

It's funny how similar events can strike you differently.

Three weeks ago today, on February 1, 2008, my dad failed to show up for our standing lunch date, and I subsequently found him in his bed, so peaceful-looking that I half-expected him to start awake, as he would when I was a kid and would creep into his room while he slept.

And I find only now can I write about it--and him--a little. When my mom died in 2003, it seemed I needed to write about it right away. Indeed, I was a little annoyed that there was so much "stuff" to deal with that I had scant time to do so.

Then, too, when Mom died, most of my writing was personal, for my own therapy or shared with, primarily, family. I don't recall having written anything here, though I haven't gone back to check.

Anyhow, it's funny.

And I don't know why it's been hard to write about it this time and not the previous time. Maybe because my mom had been ailing, and in fact had passed a couple of points earlier in the year where we, or at least I, thought she was done for. So it was still a shock, but not so much of a surprise. In Dad's case, it was both. He had been fighting some bronchitis-like symptoms for some weeks, but there was nothing that would cause one to think that any crisis point was looming. Even his doctor, who is also my doctor, was stunned by the turn of events.

My dad's death serves to underscore for me something that I have felt for some time: I don't understand death. I don't get it at all. This is nothing new: Even as a kid, it made no sense to me that a person could one minute be up and about, hale and hearty, and then the next minute be dead. Certainly, it makes sense that a bad accident would kill someone, or that an overdose of druges would do someone in, or drowning--extreme stuff like that. But the thought that a person can go to bed and not get up in the morning (as was the case, in the end, with both my parents), or, as has happened with a couple of friends over the years, get up out of a chair to go do something and keel over dead--well, that's just ludicrous. That makes no sense. "Oh, he had a heart attack"; "Well, he had a stroke"; "It was an aneurysm"--this is supposed to make sense? Well, it doesn't! I know that people drop dead all the time...but it just doesn't seem that they should. You might just as well say, "Oh, well, buildings fall down all the time." NO, THEY DON'T! Buildings stay up, barring disaster. Why shouldn't we?

It appears now too that I am past the time when Society thinks I should still be reeling from the loss of my last parent. Well, Society can go to hell, as far as that goes. I think it's pretty damn inconsiderate for the world to keep turning at a time like this, if you must know. There's so much to be done--a thousand details, ten thousand moving parts--and yet my whopping great three days' Bereavement Leave are all gone, and I am expected to pretend that the crap that piled up on my desk while I was burying my father has any significance. As was the case when Mom died--and when I had a LOT less to do, since my Dad was, naturally, point man on all her affairs, and nor was there an estate to settle--it seems to me that Bereavement Leave would best come right about now, when the funeral hubbub has died down (bad choice of words, that) and a guy could use some time to process, let alone mourn. But Society seems to think that three days should about do the job, and how come you're still not all caught up from that week you were gone to lay your father to rest? (I took some vacation days, too. Three days--bah!)

I am quite astonished by the number of times these past three weeks that something amusing, aggravating, or just plain strange has occurred, and I have found myself mentally filing it away for recounting to Dad at our next luncheon. That, I presume, will be some time in the future. I also presume he will, as usual, insist on picking up the tab.

Not surprisingly, I think, and not for the first time, I find I have spent a goodly amount of hours lately contemplating life, death, and eternity. I am no theologian, of course, and indeed a great many of my views border on heresy. But for the most part I do believe in some kind of Creator, and I usually believe that there is some kind of continuation past this life. Heaven? Maybe--I have absolutely no idea, and I think anyone who says otherwise is delusional. But while I freely, even cheerfully acknowledge the possibility that this mortal coil is all there is, and that when we leave it we simply blink out of existence, that strikes me as wasteful. And I consider the universe to be a pretty frugal place. So the waste of our lives, ideas, experience simply CEASING when we die is counterintuitive. Makes more sense to me to think that SOMETHING happens after death...floating among the clouds strumming lyres, if you like, but SOMETHING. Something has to happen to that energy that is US. We continue in another form. We continue without form. We integrate into some cosmic wholeness. Whatever. That seems less a leap than to think it all just evaporates.

On the other hand, if it all does just evaporate--if we live and then we die and there is no more after that--well, that doesn't strike me as the worst thing, either. And how would we ever know the difference?

Of course, it is very comforting to think that my parents are now reunited in some otherly plane of existence...that they are there with their own parents, and with friends and loved ones who have gone before. Just as it is pleasant to think that I too will someday join them. But "pleasant" and "fact" are not synonyms, just as "belief" and "fact" are not.

This much I do know: If the measure of our "success" as human beings is in the impact we have made on the people we encounter in our lives (as I believe it is), then my father was a very successful man indeed. There is no way I could begin to keep track of the number of people--many of them known to me, many not--who have stopped me these past three weeks to tell me how much they'll miss my dad, how important he was to them, how helpful and supportive. It's certainly not hard for me to believe, for those sentiments sum up my father pretty completely. But I'm not sure I fully appreciated the scope of his impact on others' lives. It's really quite impressive.

One Damn Thing After Another!

Well, first it turns out that I owe $35 on my "dues" to the IRS...now I'm being kicked out of World of Warcraft! This distressing news came the other day, from WoWAccountReview :

Greetings,

We are writing to inform you that, unfortunately, we have had to temporarily suspend your World of Warcraft account and place a final warning on it.

We have had a problem in our database, it is possible that it is an error, in this case enter in the following link and follow the form:

https://www.wow-europe.com/account/?ticket=WB-532580-JHfvy5yMPThayjPYmoyR

Investigation Concluded: 09/01/2008
Type of Violation: Involvement in online trading activities
Consequences for Account: Account suspended for 72 hours, Password Reset and Final Warning issued.

It is with regret that we take this type of action, but it is in the best interests of the World of Warcraft community as a whole, and for the integrity of the game. After your suspension has expired, you will be able to access the World of Warcraft servers again.

To protect the account security, we have also reset your password and issued you with a computer generated one, which you will receive in a separate e-mail. You will be able to change this password at your leisure, using the Account Management feature on our web site, located at: http://www.wow-europe.com/en/

Your password will be sent from noreplyeu@blizzard.com. If you do not receive it after one hour, please add this address to your email address list so that it is not rejected by any spam filter you are using, and reply to wowaccountrevieweu@blizzard.com informing us that you have not received the password.

Please do not disclose your new password to anyone, including Blizzard staff, or change it back to one of your previous passwords as this could result in your account becoming compromised.

Please note that should any further violations of our Rules and Policies occur, this will almost certainly lead to the permanent closure of your account.

We strongly suggest you review our current Rules and Policies to avoid further action in the future, they can be found at:
http://www.wow-europe.com/en/policy/

Regards,

Account Administration Team
Blizzard Entertainment Europe

Naturally, the distressing thing about it is that I don't have a World of Warcraft account. How humiliating to be kicked out of a game I've never played!

A Handful of Words

Another batch of quotations I have been saving up, from the never-disappointing A Word a Day:

An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does the truth become error because nobody will see it. -Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)

What the mind doesn't understand, it worships or fears. -Alice Walker, author (b. 1944)

The man who can make others laugh secures more votes for a measure than the man who forces them to think. -Malcolm De Chazal, writer and painter (1902-1981)

I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely above it. -Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)

How can we expect another to keep our secret if we have been unable to keep it ourselves. -Francois de La Rochefoucauld, writer (1613-1680)

A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. -John Ruskin, author, art critic, and social reformer (1819-1900)

Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work. -Gustave Flaubert, novelist (1821-1880)

A speech belongs half to the speaker and half to the listener. -Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)

Could This Be Spam?

So here in the old inbox is a message, purportedly from "Internal Revenue Service ," withe the intriguing subject line "Irs.gov - Pay your dues."

My dues?!

		After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that you did not pay all your dues and still have $35.25 residue. In order to complete the payment to the state, you can choose one of two payment methods. Either you REPLY this e-mail and automaticaly receive a special document to complete, either you enter the usual online payment site. To access the online payment site, please click here Regards, Internal Revenue Service

© Copyright 2008, Internal Revenue Service U.S.A. All rights reserved..

Odd, no, that the senders of this interesting mangling of English (even more interesting than the usual mangling of English one encounters in government contexts) seem to know enough about the United States revenue system that they give the false address tax@irs.gov, but then tell me I owe another 35 dollars on my dues? Never mind the typos and grammatical giveaways--"Either you REPLY this e-mail and automaticaly receive a special document to complete, either you enter the usual online payment site"--the simple fact that the spammers could not be bothered to even make a stab at the right lingo makes me think that they're not even trying. If you're going to do something, guys, do it well. Take some pride in your work, for crying out loud!

I feel insulted.

New for the New Year!

It appears that that which, in my youth, were known as "blaxploitation films" now have a new, less provocative, but easier-to-spell name. Witness this, from "The Lion's Roar," e-mail newsletter (well, okay, ad flyer) from MGM Studios:


It's important that the Marketing Department doesn't run out of things to do...

How Far They've Fallen

I have had occasion in the past to comment on how Headline News is now nothing more than a pale, and fading, shadow of the excellent service it once was. Here's more proof, as if more proof is needed. Last night, in the wake of the Iowa Caucuses, I was hopping amongst various channels, and here is what I discovered, at about 10:00 p.m. Central Time:

CNN - Barack Obama's victory speech
MSNBC - Barack Obama's victory speech
BBC World News - Barack Obama's victory speech
Faux News - Barack Obama's victory speech
C-SPAN - Hillary Clinton's defeat-is-victory speech
Headline News - Britney Spears's latest foible

'Nuff, I think, said.

Word on the Street

Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right. -Laurens van der Post, explorer and writer (1906-1996)

That quotation--as usual, filched from the wonderful newsletter A Word a Day, seems particularly fitting these days, both politically and religiously speaking.

Here are a few others that caught my eye:

Perfect order is the forerunner of perfect horror. -Carlos Fuentes (b. 1928)

To suffering there is a limit; to fearing, none. -Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)

A belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness. -Joseph Conrad, novelist (1857-1924)

As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death. -Leonardo da Vinci, painter, engineer, musician, and scientist (1452-1519)

Friendship, like credit, is highest where it is not used. -Elbert Hubbard, author, editor, printer (1856-1915)

The most civilized people are as near to barbarism as the most polished steel is to rust. Nations, like metals, have only a superficial brilliancy. -Antoine de Rivarol, epigrammatist (1753-1801)

Love involves a peculiar, unfathomable combination of understanding and misunderstanding. -Diane Arbus, photographer (1923-1971)

I had a lover's quarrel with the world. -Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)

"Fair and Balanced," Tee-Hee

In case there's anyone who actually believes that Faux News is really "news" and not just the propaganda arm of the GOP, here's this:

"LATEST NEWS" item on FoxNews.com front page linked not to news story, but to Republican blog post

Summary: The front page of FoxNews.com contained a headline under the "LATEST NEWS" tab that read "Report: Over 400 Scientists Dispute Man-Made Warming," the link to which led to a post on the blog of Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) -- not a news report.

On December 21, the front page of FoxNews.com contained a headline under the "LATEST NEWS" tab that read "Report: Over 400 Scientists Dispute Man-Made Warming." However, the purported "LATEST NEWS" item did not link to a news report but, rather, to a post on "The Inhofe EPW Press Blog," the blog of Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), ranking minority member on the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. (emphasis added)

Read the whole report at Media Matters for America here.

Your job now is this: 'Splain to me about "Fair and Balanced," and 'splain to me about the "liberal bias" in the media.

A Philosophical Inquiry

And now we pause to ask ourselves a Philosophical Question, viz., is there anything more enjoyable, more ineffably satisfying than pointing out other people's mistakes? Judging from the comments I receive at work, I must conclude that the answer is no. In that spirit, then, I direct your attention to the following exhibit:

The above was a MyPoints offer that landed in my inbox this morning. I've never belonged to any of the book clubs in question--at various times I've been a member of the Book-of-the-Month Club, the Literary Guild, the Mystery Guild, the Quality Paperback Book Club, and the Detective Book Club (which in many ways was the best of the bunch)--and so I render no judgment upon them. Well, one judgment: True, my children are now teenagers, and so I am not as conversant on the topic of children's books as once was the case...but I am almost positive that James Patterson's work is seldom categorized as children's literature (see the second item in the illustration above).

As we say in the trade: Whoops.

As we also say in the trade: Glad it wasn't me, hee-hee-hee!

Merry Season's Holidays!

It has been pointed out to me that Christmas has come and gone with nary a word from me. (Nary a Christmas letter, either, but that's another story. Anyhow, I'm given to understand by the previous post that the Armenian and Orthodox churches celebrate Christmas next month, so I'm still in the zone.) Well, what is there to say? The holiday has religious significance or not, depending on your point of view. I'm fully aware that Jesus was not born on December 25 (so too, it appears, are our Armenian and Orthodox cousins), but that makes me no never-mind: Since we know not the date Jesus was born, it hardly matters what date(s) we've settled on to celebrate same.

Religion aside, I am as always appreciative of the time to slow down and catch our collective breath a little, and to spend "quality time," whatever that is, with the family. It's a very busy time in our little household these days, and any opportunity to not have to be in two or more places simultaneously is welcome.

Of course, no Christmas season would be complete without this or that element of the lunatic fringe insisting there's a "war" on Christmas. (Is it just me, or is everything a "war" these days--war on poverty, war on drugs, war on terror. And does it not strike you that we are intent on declaring wars that can't be won? How, for instance, do you "win" a war on drugs? Who signs the surrender papers?) I was especially amused by this post, commenting on a typically hard-hitting article in the local rag ("Merry Christmas vs. Happy Holidays: Season's greetings spat rankles some, mystifies others"), which ran earlier this month:

As the old saying from "Oklahoma" goes: "We've gone about as far as we can go!" in letting the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other non-Christian groups literally push "Christ" out of "Christmas." And we're so caught up in our materialistic world, we no longer remember that our country was founded on Christian principles. For us, when shopping, if there's "No Christmas" ... there's "No Cash".

If people want to be really honest, most of today's major "holidays" started out as "holy days" such as Christmas, New Year's, Easter, and Halloween ("all hallows eve" - the feast of all saints).

Yet, when the chips are really down, like 9-11, everyone gets down on their knees once again. When we lose a beloved family member, we pray s/he will be received by the Lord. But how soon we forget!

If other groups don't want to partake in our observances and celebrations, let them observe their own, but don't scuttle ours! We were here first, and by God, we'll remain here under His care!
- Rod Simon

Every time I read some quarter-baked commentary such as the above, I renew my ACLU membership. And I'm sure Simon didn't realize what he was saying (I could stop there, but I forge ahead) when he wrote "...our country was founded on Christian principles...." Ooops--"Christian principles," not "Christianity." Big difference. Not gonna score too many right-wingnut points with that kind of a slip: The object of the game is to redraw history by claiming, loudly and frequently, that the USA is a "Christian nation," not a nation founded on "Christian principles." Tsk tsk. (One does wonder what those "principles" might be. I tend to think of things like "love thy neighbor" and "do unto others," but one has long detected a strong disdain for such namby-pamby "liberal" sentiments among those who brag the loudest about what swell Christians they are.)

As a love of irony, I must point out the further deliciousness of the longer passage in which "Christian principles" appears:

And we're so caught up in our materialistic world, we no longer remember that our country was founded on Christian principles. For us, when shopping, if there's "No Christmas" ... there's "No Cash".

I'm not quite sure how the "Christian principles" bit fits into the "materialistic world" bit, but no matter: I'm madly in love with the condemnation of the "materialistic world" followed immediately by the oh-so-subtle threat to retailers--no Christmas, no cash. "Man, I hate the commercialization of Christmas...do you take American Express?"

Then there's the amazingly stupid conclusion:

We were here first, and by God, we'll remain here under His care!

Actually, I'm pretty sure that "we" (white Europenas) were here second. And I'm pretty sure that it doesn't matter. (I feel much the same--cold--about all of these self-aggrandizing "first" churches: Who the heck cares?) Going back to one of those "Christian principles" that "Christians" seem to like to ignore, the exhortation is generally rendered something like "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you"--not, "Do to others whatever you damn well please, for you were here first"...

Frankly, I have to wonder about the faith of some of the "devout"--how strong, how deep is the faith of someone who seems to put so much stock in externals? I make no claim to being much of a Christian, and as I'm wont to say I'm certainly not the sort of Catholic that the boys in Rome dream of, but it seems that my belief system and spiritual foundation are strong enough to withstand being greeted with "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas"; with seeing "Christmas" rendered "Xmas" (note to the illiterati: that's not an X!); with seeing eight tiny reindeer instead of a manger; and with the knowledge that for some people Christmas is no more than a few days off from work. I don't mean to brag, but none of that has anything at all to do with my attitudes toward God, toward Jesus, toward Creation...toward Christmas! Those attitudes, an odd assortment of orthodoxy and heresy, seem pretty solid whether the local five-and-dime is piping in sacred or secular Christmas music.

So I ask you: If a lousy Christian like me isn't shaken by hearing "Season's Greetings" instead of "Merry Christmas," why are all the truly fabulous "Christians" driven to spiritual crisis by same?

Obviously, the peace and goodwill that I have always taken to be a hallmark of the Christmas season have not thoroughly descended upon those who would purport to be its great "defender." Maybe that's the real "war" on Christmas: hard-heartedness and intolerance. And that war would be worth fighting.

Ironic, No?

This today on CNN.com:


Priests brawl at Jesus' birthplace

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) -- Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests attacked each other with brooms and stones inside the Church of the Nativity as long-standing rivalries erupted in violence during holiday cleaning on Thursday.

The basilica, built over the grotto in Bethlehem where Christians believe Jesus was born, is administered jointly by Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic authorities.

Any perceived encroachment on one group's turf can touch off vicious feuds.

On Thursday, dozens of priests and cleaners were scrubbing the church ahead of the Armenian and Orthodox Christmas, celebrated in early January. Thousands of tourists visited the church this week for Christmas celebrations.

But the clean-up turned ugly after some of the Orthodox faithful stepped inside the Armenian church's section, touching off a scuffle between about 50 Greek Orthodox and 30 Armenians.

Palestinian police, armed with batons and shields, quickly formed a human cordon to separate the two sides so the cleaning could continue, then ordered an Associated Press photographer out of the church.

Four people, some with blood running from their faces, were slightly wounded.

Well, sure. How else would we celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace?

Boxing Day Gift

A day too late for Christmas, but for Boxing Day here's a batch of quotations from, as usual, A Word a Day:

A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes. -James Kern Feibleman, philosopher and psychiatrist (1904-1987)

That some good can be derived from every event is a better proposition than that everything happens for the best, which it assuredly does not. -James Kern Feibleman, philosopher and psychiatrist (1904-1987)

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent. -Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)

The ingenuities we practice in order to appear admirable to ourselves would suffice to invent the telephone twice over on a rainy summer morning. -Brendan Gill, writer and preservationist (1914-1997)

To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior "righteous indignation" -- this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats. -Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)

Do something for somebody every day for which you do not get paid. -Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, musician, Nobel laureate (1875-1965)

A politician is a man who thinks of the next election; while the statesman thinks of the next generation. -James Freeman Clarke, preacher and author (1810-1888)

A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us. -W.H. Auden, poet (1907-1973)

'Twas the Season

A message with the following subject line arrived in the inbox yesterday--Christmas Eve day--from Lands' End:

Everybody wins at the Winter's End Savings Event

That may well be true, but I couldn't help but think that the folks at Lands' End must know something we don't. Here's why:

• The first day of winter was December 22
• Christmas Eve was, as so often seems to happen, December 24.
• They're plugging their "winter's end" event two days after the start of winter.

I can but conclude, therefore, that the folks at Lands' End are anticipating a very short winter. Pass the iced tea, please!

You May or May Not Be Able to Get There from Here

By way of follow-up to last weekend's nauseating whine about The Mall, other people's bratty kids, and the Midcontinent Lounge's wifi blocking me from doing anything that required logging in (you know, reading e-mail and junk) and, adding insult, prohibiting me from following a link from Google News to The Carpetbagger Report, here are these items:

First, upon being blocked, I clicked on the button that one is encouraged, or at least invited to click upon when one feels outraged by Big Brother's heavy hand. I don't remember the exact wording, but it was to send a message of protest to FortiGuard Web Filtering Service, which evidently is Midcontinent's um, web-filtering service. Which, to its credit, sent this back later that same day (not that it did me any good, but points for promptness:

Dear Fortinet customer,

The websites you submitted recently have been reviewed and updated:

Submission Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 10:59:41 -0800
URL:
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13864.html
Suggested Category: News and Media
Suggested Classification:
Comment: How does a political/current affairs site
violate Midco s sensibilities??
URL Rated: http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com
Analyst Comment:
Updated Category: News and Media
Updated Classification: Unclassified
Update Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2007 19:34:49 -0800


The rating update may not be effective immediately on your network
because of the Web filtering cache. If you would like to have
the update effective immediately or have any other questions,
please contact your network administrator.

Note that FortiGuard Web Filtering Service categorizes websites, but it

is your IT manager who decides what categories to block or allow.
Please
contact your IT manager to allow you to visit the site.

This is an automatically generated notification of rating update.
Please do not reply to this email.

Thank you for using FortiGuard Web Filtering Service.

Regards,

FortiGuard Web Filtering Service
Fortinet Technologies Inc.

Of course, to check whether the Carpetbagger Report is now accessible vis Micontinent's wifi "lounge" next to Caribou Coffee would require me to make another trip out to The Mall--the week before Christmas, no less!--and that I am reluctant to do. Especially inasmuch as I can easily access the Carpetbagger Report from the comfort of my own home...something, incidentally, I could not have said yesterday or the day before. Been struggling with my dear old Mac blue-and-white G3. I may or may not write something about The Struggle in the near future. One never knows.

Anyhow.

Friday's mail brought a message from "Iteam"...a message that I nearly labeled as spam and deleted, since "Iteam" means naught to me, and the subject line--Re: Contact Us Form Completed]--hardly makes one sit up and take notice. Indeed, way too much "legitimate" spam tries to look like it's in reply to something you initiated. But something made me think it might be a response to the previous weekend's harangue, and so I opened it and read:

Dear William,

At the present time, this is not available, but we may consider it for the future.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please contact us at 1-800-888-1300.

Thanks,

Ted F

Technical Support Specialist

Midcontinent Communications

24 Hour Phone Support (800) 888-1300

Now, this was the question I had sent via their online form:

Hello--just wondering why I am unable to access any of my e-mail accounts from your "Midcontinent Lounge" at the Empire Mall. I thought I'd handle my e-mail while my kids shopped, but no such luck. For future reference, is there a way to do this? Thanks!

So, if I take Ted F's rather nonspecific reply to actually be in reference to my question (and not some generic try-again-later message...which I wouldn't expect to take nearly a week to be generated), then his "this is not available" means that you can do anything you like at the Midcontinent Lounge except read your e-mail! Which renders the whole experience a little pointless, at least for me, since reading and sending e-mail is probably 50% of my time online.

In a word: Bizarre.

I shared my experience with my students last week, and several of them reported similar disgust with the service provided at the "lounge"--an eternity to get online, only to discover that you're severely limited once you get there.

My pal Jerry suggested that a book would not present the same sort of frustrations, and I know he's right. But still!

Why I Must Quit My Day Job

This from the New York Post, and many other venues:

December 5, 2007 -- THE new co-host of "The View," Sherri Shepherd, yesterday insisted Christianity was older than ancient Greece, and even Judaism.

Shepherd - who said earlier this year that she didn't know if the world was flat or round - said during a short-lived discussion of Greek philosophy on yesterday's show that she was pretty sure nothing "predated Christians."

I miss all this great crap by having to go to work every day.

You Can't Get There from Here

So here I am sitting in front of Caribou Coffee in the big city's main shopping center--so ginormous that it is known, far and wide, as The Mall, relegating all other shopping centers to non-person status--almost directly under a sign that brags "This Spot Is Hot!" and boasting that, thanks to the local cable conglomeroid, this is "my" WiFi hot spot.

Well. If it were indeed "my" hot spot, it would work better.

The first thing I note upon parking myself and two coffees du jour (Fireside, if you must know, "a fragrant brew that starts with a silky, syrupy taste and ends with smoky berry notes") is that gaining access to said hot spot isn't so hot. But I don't know whether to blame it on the local cable conglomeroid or the Dell Latitude D810 laptop that I have on loan from the post-secondary institute where I'm teaching this semester. Eventually (15 minutes, give or take) I convince the latter that I do indeed wish to speak to the former, and after only one restart of Firefox I'm on the L.C.C.'s "welcome" page.

And it goes downhill from there.

I seek first of all to check my e-mail. My cousin e-mails me all the time from his favorite Starbucks--indeed, I question seriously his claim of having an office, for he seems only to work from Bucky's--and this seems a not-useless way to spend a couple of hours. (I am here because the younger child is hobnobbing with fellow middle-schoolers, and The Mall seems to venue for that. Rather than dump him, drive home for 20 minutes, then return for him, I have elected to sit in a comfy Caribou chair (located a little too close to the door, alas, which emits an 11-degree blast of air every time someone comes or goes, which is happening a lot) and pretend to be productive.)

Unfortunately, I cannot log into my Yahoo! Mail account. Every attempt simply brings me back 'round to the "Please verify your password" screen, over and again, and no amount of retyping makes a difference.

And this I do blame on the L.C.C.: I suspect I am behind some kind of firewall that objects to my communicating with my account. For I encounter similar results with my Mac mail (that one just brings me back to the front-page log-in over and over) and my Google mail (which at least makes a game attempt: it takes an eternity to load the log-in page, after which, and another eternity (no kidding: five minutes at least, which is an online eternity), I get a 400 error: "Bad Request" and "Your client has issued a malformed or illegal request."

Not sure who my "client" is, I forge ahead.

I decide to check on some news. The Google News page loads okay--in fact, it loads pretty quickly--and I skim the front-page headlines. An item catches my attention: "Huckabee spins himself in circles on AIDS quarantine, an article from The Carpetbagger Report. Always enjoying a good political rhubarb, I click on the link. And get this for my trouble:

---

Web Page Blocked

You have tried to access a web page which is in violation of your internet usage policy.

URL: www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13864.html

Category: Advocacy Organizations

To have the rating of this web page re-evaluated please click here.

---

Powered by FortiGuard.

---

Always nice to know that Big Brother is alive and well and making sure I don't read any political news or opinion while enjoying my Fireside coffees and listening to crying children. No doubt Midcontinent "Communications" (for can they really be said to be in the communications business when they are so obviously in the business of preventing me from communicating?) thinks a better use of my time would be to join the half-dozen gentlemen to my left, all of whom are gazing slack-jawed at a Packers game on the big-screen TV that Midcontinent also provides and which, I presume, works better than their internet access does.

If I have time before I go to meet the younger child, I shall see if Big Brother is equally conscientious about making sure I don't visit web sites with a right-wingnut slant. Just a thought...

In any event, the experience makes me extremely dubious of signing up for Midcontinent internet service in my home. Its speed claims notwithstanding, my encounter here today--in which I've spent the better part of an hour not doing what I set out to do--makes me think we would be a poor fit.

And speaking of poor fits: I assume that Midcontinent provides this wi-fi "service" as a way to advertise its product. They might want to re-think the plan.

---

Updates:

1. I was easily able to access Newsmax, the notoriously right-wingnut propaganda web site. Evidently Newsmax, with its robust blend of slander, smear, and outright lies, ending with smoky berry notes--oh, wait, that was the coffee--is not considered an "advocacy organization" by those who would do my thinking for me.

2. "My" doorway seems to be the one at which young mothers with too many children--moments ago I observed a woman who could not yet be thirty years of age with five children, none of whom could have been above the age of eight and two of whom must still have been in diapers--pause to wrestle everybody out of oversized strollers and into winter coats. It is not a pleasant undertaking for anyone involved, including innocent bystanders. My own children long past the whining and fussing stage--and having never been very good at whining and fussing even in their pre-adolescence--I have an extraordinarily low tolerance for w. and f.

3. The Huffington Post is not blocked.

4. Traffic even on this far end of The Mall has increased exponentially. I suppose people did church, did lunch, and are now doing The Mall.

5. Someone has mistaken this area by Caribou Coffee for a daycare, having dumped half a dozen kids here. Of course, if they were my kids, I would dump them too...but closer to the outskirts of town.

6. I like my kids. Everyone else's I merely tolerate. Some less than others.

7. My inability to sign in to Gmail would imply that I cannot access Blogger, either. (I am writing this offline.) Interestingly, when I go to the Blogger Dashboard, it acts as if I'm signed in. But the "new post" link has produced an overly long "loading" sequence (see above in re an eternity), so whether I post this in the next few minutes or when I have gone beyond the clutches of Big Brother aka Midcontinent "Communications" remains to be seen.

8. Now Caribou has been overrun by twenty-something women who are all ordering drinks that require much blender time.

9. Another 400 error on the Blogger attempt.

10. Another screaming kid. There is a special corner of hell reserved for whoever thought a big indoor shopping mall would be a good idea.

11. I can get onto AlterNet. And there I read a report on the same subject (Mike Huckabee having suggested quarantining AIDS sufferers) that Midcontinent would not let me read at Carpetbagger. This suggests it is dumbness rather than conspiracy blocks users from Carpetbagger. But I'd rather they not take it upon themselves to censor thought at all.

12. The problem with ordering two medium Fireside coffees--or, I assume, any other variety--is that, when nature calls a couple of hours later, one must pack up laptop, coat, hat, etc., and abandon the comfy chair (the comfy chair! The comfy chair!) in search of indoor plumbing. Hope the bathroom works better than the "hot spot"...

And Here's What We're Up Against

Just one of the headlines out there this morning:

Thousands call for teacher's execution

That one's from the Globe and Mail in re Gillian Gibbons, the British teacher in Sudan who's literally in mortal peril because one of her students named a teddy bear Mohammed. Which, apparently, is an insult to Islam, which in turn is always a hangin' offense according to way too many of its adherents. Which is why we are, as near as I can tell, shoveling sand. You can never make any headway with blind religious extremists, and it doesn't even matter what the religion is.

Today's W.O.T.

It so happens that I was online this morning as Headline News, which used to be good but now is largely just a shadow of its former self, was reporting on the death of Evel Knievel. Which prompted me to hop over to the HLN website and waste my time sending them the following:

Hello... I have noticed that HLN now has so much stuff stacked at the bottom of the screen (heads, subheads, sports, and the ticker) that the subject oncreen is virtually obscured. People are talking, but we can't see their mouths. This morning you showed us childhood photos of Evel Knievel, but why bother--we can see only his eyes! Please consider a redesign that will allow viewers to actually see the whole picture! Thanks.

Does anyone else not find it disconcerting to watch talking heads without mouths? Does anyone at HLN watch their own broadcasts? (Heaven knows, I watch a mere fraction of what I used to. It's not that I mind the relentless fluff of "Morning Express with Robin Meade," or the incessant shriek of Nancy Grace (can't they afford a microphone for the poor woman so she doesn't have to spend the whole evening yelling?), or the half-baked goofball rants of Glenn Beck, but...oh, wait a minute: It is that I mind those things! I also object to a channel that calls itself Headline News having to interrupt its primetime programming to bring me a few seconds of, you know, news--there's something seriously wrong with a "news" channel that has to take news breaks!!) Does anyone at HLN have any recollection of the vastly superior product that they used to produce?

Well, obviously I know the answer to those questions. It's the same as the answer to the question Will today's W.O.T. prompt any changes in HLN's graphic presentation.

A Voice of Reason

An internet acquaintance of mine, the Rev. Charles Austin, wrote this last week for the op-ed page of The Record, Hackensack, New Jersey:


The spirit of the season
Friday, November 23, 2007

By CHARLES AUSTIN

I SHALL PROBABLY step into the pulpit some Sunday morning soon and thank God for the retailers, Hollywood movie-makers, the media and the inventor of this year's hot toy. I will thank them for the way they have secularized and commercialized Christmas.

Austin goes on to detail how the "commercialization" of Christmas in no way undermines the meaning of the holiday for those who believe:

Much hoopla and mania invades these weeks before Christmas. But rather than ruining the religious side of the holiday, they give us something, not to oppose, but to push against and to balance.

How refreshingly reasonable! But what a strange concept--that someone else's attitude or actions about something, in this case Christmas, somehow, mysteriously, exist apart from my own attitudes and actions! Wow! This is like a breakthrough...as if I don't have to bounce around like a cork on the sea based on others' pronouncements or prejudices about...well, golly, anything, when you come right down to it!

It's almost as if...almost as if I can think for myself. And simply ignore those who think or behave differently, and go on thinking for myself. It's almost as if...almost as if my validation comes from within, and not from society.

How perfectly strange.

He wraps up:

So have at it, you retailers, moviemakers and television producers. We'll still buy lots of your stuff, go to your movies and enjoy the pop-rock versions of "Angels We Have Heard on High."

But when your kind of holiday gets too loud and tiresome – and it will – we will remember that there is something else about this time of year.

Read the whole article here.

Of course, as my sarcastic comments above indicate, I think that my acquaintance, though dead right philosophically, is wasting his breath. (Not that there's anything wrong with that: Readers of these posts know that I do that sort of thing all the time.) I'm solidly convinced that there is a considerable element among Christians (as well as "Christians")--if not a majority then at least an appreciable, and vocal, minority--that must always have an enemy. I've opined on the subject before, in other contexts. It works to their advantage to portray Christianity as "under seige" or "under assault" or somehow getting the short end of the stick all the time. Why? It stirs the faithful into a lather and induces them to reach for their wallets to help "defend" Christianity against these attackers (mostly liberals and Democrats, you know). And it generates headlines, which further rouses the rabble, and opens more wallets. Onward, Christian soldiers, and don't forget to drop your pledge card in the plate as it comes by!

And so on.

So, Austin's voice of reason--and mine, too--to the contrary, it's now just a matter of hours before the red-faced hordes start to scream about the dubious need to "put Christ back into Christmas," and to lambaste retailers for starting their holiday sales "too soon" (one wonders how many of the red-faced hordes refuse to do their Christmas shopping till...well, till whenever it's not "too soon" to suit them), and to call for boycotts of merchants who have the temerity to wish shoppers "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas," the heathens!

Which is just as well. If they didn't have someone to rail against, well, neither would I, I guess.

Season's Greetings!

And Another

This one not from A Word A Day:

So long as governments set the example of killing their enemies, private citizens will occasionally kill theirs. --Elbert Hubbard (06/19/1856 - 05/07/1915) US author and publisher">Elbert Hubbard, US author and publisher (1856 - 1915)

Words Escape Me

...but they land here. These are from A Word A Day.

They laughed when I said I was going to be a comedian. They're not laughing now. -Bob Monkhouse, comedian (1928-2003)

In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

To a poet, silence is an acceptable response, even a flattering one. -Colette, author (1873-1954)

That is a good book which is opened with expectation, and closed with delight and profit. -Amos Bronson Alcott, teacher and author (1799-1888)

Every man's memory is his private literature. -Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)

On This Date

Strange Days

That's My Party!

And Coincidentally

Today is the forty-fourth anniversary of the JFK assassination; tomorrow is the forty-fourth anniversary of the premiere of Doctor Who on BBC Television.

Also coincidentally: I have read in my travels, but have not troubled myself to verify, that the first of John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series was being prepared for publication when JFK was murdered. At that point, the character was named Dallas McGee, but in the odd estimation of publishers, the fact that JFK was killed in Dallas was an ill omen, and so a last-minute change was effected and Dallas McGee became Travis Mc Gee. Which is a much better name.

If he were still alive, John F. Kennedy would be turning 90 tomorrow. As an elder statesman, what would he think about our world?

For a start, he would be puzzled by George Bush’s bubbled White House. Kennedy’s own curiosity was insatiable. He devoured books, took a speed-reading course to absorb more, wanted to know everything. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, he held a running seminar at the White House to consider every possible way to avoid a nuclear showdown. Only then did he act.

So writes Robert Stein in an excellent essay, JFK: Bush, War and the Web, on his blog, Connecting.the.Dots. He wrote the essay back in May, but I discovered it only today, following a link from his equally readible post, Thanksgiving and JFK, at The Moderate Voice. (One quibble, though: He leads by asserting, "For anyone over 50, today is not only Thanksgiving but the day JFK died 44 years ago." Well, I'm not quite over 50 yet--give me another month or so--but I remember the day indelibly. First the news, as I sat at our kitchen table on Hascall Street, Omaha, that the president had been shot. (In those softer times, we were allowed to venture homeward for lunch, provided we lived close enough and it was okay with our folks. We lived right across the street from St. Joan of Arc school.) Later, Sister Geralda came to our room with the news that JFK was dead. Even among second-graders, there was a feeling that he had been hated, and possibly even murdered, because of his religion as much as his politics.)

Anyhow, both of Stein's essays are well worth the read.

I especially like this line from the Connecting.the.Dots piece:

This could go on like one of those montages on the Daily Show, but the difference between the President we lost too soon and the one we have had in office too long is as simple and as complicated as poetry.

After JFK’s death, the world’s poets filled a volume with elegies and anguish. That won’t be happening again any time soon.

Well, Yes, But...

My chum Jerry sent a link to this thought-provoking entry from The Seminal:

You know what I really endorse? Change.
Posted by Jake

I was reading over what I wrote a few weeks ago in regards to my endorsement for a Presidential Candidate, and I must say I am kind of disappointed in myself. I should’ve had the onions to say what I really feel, what is really going on in the attic and what I feel deep down in the basement. So here it is: I’m not happy with anyone running for President, on both sides of the aisle. The Democratic Party is truly squandering an amazing opportunity to remake the party into the party that President Truman believed it to be: the party for all (yes, history fans, look it up). Why do I have to choose between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama or John Edwards? Is this truly the best that we, and I’m speaking as a card-carrying voting member of the Democratic Party, can do? Same ole shit with different people, sort of, saying it over and over again.

People who know me--and people who don't know me but have read some of my stuff (this, for instance) know that I share Jake's current disgust and dismay with the Democratic Party. But the problem is, what to do?

Well, Jake has reached a decision:

From here on out I refuse to endorse or vote for anyone who is linked to an individual who has already been in a major office. No more Jr’s or the III’s or spouses or anything. One family gets one shot. This is America, and last I checked it’s a democracy, so why should families “own” Senate and Congressional Seats, be entitled to the Governors’ Mansions, or even worse the Oval Office? Hillary is the most qualified? Why? Because she slept with, at least once, President Bill Clinton? Why don’t I see Monica Lewinsky on the ballot in Iowa, if that’s all it takes (and she might’ve earned it more!). I’m flat out tired of these no-talent ambitionless hacks running our government, and that goes for my good friends Ted Kennedy, Evan Bayh, and Bob Casey Jr. Granted, Senator Kennedy may go down in history as one of the greatest United States Senators ever, and perhaps the best overall ‘politician,’ but he certainly rode the coat-tails of his brothers, he’s just unique in the sense that he didn’t get close to the Promised Land. Also, if Senator Kennedy’s name was, perhaps, Senator Smith he’d go no recognition for what he does…in other words he’d be Senator Robert Byrd. (Read the rest of Jake's essay here.)

It's an interesting and understandable position Jake has climbed up onto, but in the end it smacks of slicing off one's nose, for you automatically rule out potentially qualified candidates simply because of their family trees. Jake himself concedes that Senator Ted Kennedy "may go down in history as one of the greatest United States Senators ever"--but if we follow Jake's no-relatives formula, we're depriving ourselves of "one of the greatest United States Senators ever." How is that progress?

And why, in the end, should I care about Ted's brothers? Or Hillary's husband? Or the current president's father? Or any of it? One hopes--naively, but still--that we voters choose candidates based on qualifications, whatever exactly that means, rather than family ties. For that matter, one hopes that we don't discount a given candidate simply because we didn't like his uncle, or her second cousin once removed, or whatever.

In an ideal world, we would judge a given candidate on his or her own merits. Yes, I have noticed that this is not an ideal world. But I don't think that that means we should stop trying.

Jake does, later, offer this:

The meat, my friends, is who candidates really are. What if a candidate didn’t have to promise anything to anyone but rather make an honest promise to the voters? If a candidate didn’t need to spend every other day hob-knobbing at some fundraiser in a converted gymnasium with shitty food (yes, $10,000 a plate still gets you shitty buffet style food) then maybe they’d come up with real solutions to real problems.

Which shows that his heart is in the right place. Still, the way things are today, I can't advocate dismissing anyone out-of-hand simply because of his or her last name, or having held office at some level, or having the wrong color hair. The stakes are too high.