Linguistic Sleight-of-Hand

This from the Los Angeles Times:

Bishops issue guidelines for Catholic voters
They say church members who back candidates for their support of abortion or other 'assaults on human life' are guilty of cooperation in 'grave evil.'
By Theo Milonopoulos, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 15, 2007

BALTIMORE -- -- Catholic voters who back candidates because of their support for abortion or other "assaults on human life" would be "guilty of formal cooperation in grave evil," according to a statement adopted Wednesday by U.S. Catholic bishops.

The bishops defined what they called "threats to the sanctity and dignity of human life" as human cloning, embryonic stem cell research, racism, torture and genocide. (The rest is here.)

And away we go again.

Well, first off, I do wish the bishops of my church could scrape up equal concern for "the sanctity and dignity of human life" when it comes to those who, as children, were sexually abused by a trusted parish priest--and, for all I know, those children who are still in harm's way. From where I sit, rhetoric aside, the bishops have done a better job of blaming the victims, obstructing justice by playing musical-priests, and insisting that anyone who wants justice in the matter is somehow "anti-Catholic." But evidently that's neither here nor there.

Second, I'm always intrigued by what I have come to think of as linguistic sleight-of-hand in "pro-life" parlance. There's the term "pro-life" itself, of course, adopted in place of the original "anti-abortion" label when some members of the we'll-make-your-decisions-for-you crowd thought that "anti" sounded negative. Which of course it does. So--presto!--they dub themselves "pro-life," 'cause they're in favor of life! Well, sometimes. Not too choked up about those guys on death row, you know. And not exactly incensed about innocent lives lost in a misguided and pointless war in Iraq. Nor are we quite as fervent, quite as organized, quite as "pro" about the people of Darfur. And so on.

So, really, not so much pro-life. per se, as...well, anti-abortion.

Or, more honestly, anti-choice. Abortions are still going to happen, legally or otherwise, just as they happened before Roe v. Wade. The question inevitable comes down to who gets to make the decision.

The other aspect of this linguistic sleight-of-hand (or, if you prefer, dishonesty) is in labeling those of us who support a woman's right to make her own health-care decisions as "pro-abortion."

For the record, no one is pro-abortion. I'm so confident in that statement that I'll say it again: There is no such thing as someone who is "pro-abortion." There is no woman on the planet who takes the decision lightly. There is no one who thinks it's a "good" idea. Those are fabrication invented by the anti-abortion lobby*, a way of demonizing those who hold a contrary opinion.

So, too, is all this "culture of death" nonsense. If you're worried about a "culture of death," dear bishops, then have the stones to really, really come out against a war that was built on the lies and incompetence of the denizens of Pennsylvania Avenue. Be as forceful about it as you are about abortion: Tell politicians that they put their immortal souls in peril if they do anything at all to support this illegitimate war. Ditto fro capital punishment: You've spent the past quarter-century "urging" governors to refrain from employing the death penalty. Gutless. If you're really "pro-life," if you're really concerned about a "culture of death," then start telling these governors that they're going to hell if they throw the switch or jab the needle. And start preaching to your congregations that they're going to hell if they vote for a politician who favors of capital punishment.

Fair, after all, is fair, and honesty is honesty. If you're pro-life, then be pro-life. If you're "pro-life" but also pro-death penalty, then you're not pro-life, are you? You're just anti-choice, and you should have the courage to identify yourself as such.

And so it is that despite my bishops' best efforts to control my thoughts, heart, and consciene, I will continue to use the gifts God gave me to weigh and measure that which is put before me, thank you very much, in full confidence that my soul is not imperiled by my belief that a woman who faces the decision to undergo an abortion is in the best position to decide for herself what she must do--a better position than a bishop, a priest, a legislator, or the nutbar who is so "pro-life" that he's getting ready to blow up the women's clinic.

Indeed, I believe that our souls are more at risk when we abandon those gifts of the Creator--conscience, reason, rationality--and surrender our intellect to someone else. I'm enough of a Catholic to believe in Judgment Day, and I believe that when that day rolls around, it will not count in my favor that even thoughconscience, reason, rationality, and simple humanity told me that X was right, I ignored it because a priest, pastor, a televangeist succeeded in bullying me into doing Y.

And since I am not "pro-abortion," no matter how anyone may wish to tar me, I shall continue in my fervent prayer that our society might someday, somehow reach a point where no woman is confronted with that no-win decision.

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* I use "lobby" purposely, for I have come to believe that there exists a whole industry built on anti-choice, "abstinence only," I-know-what's-best-for-you philosophies. Indeed, I am cynical enough to believe that the last thing these people really want is for Roe v. Wade to be overturned, for it would take away a goodly portion of their reason to exist. If there's no "enemy" then we have nothing to fight, and if we have nothing to fight then people will quit sending us money to fight it. It is in their best interests to be constantly "at war." Ditto for the right-wingnuts who insist on portraying Christianity as "under assault." Nonsense. But everybody loves an underdog, and the "under assault" fiction is invariably followed by the pitch for money to "keep fighting for Christ." As they say, follow the money.

It's All in the Wording

So I'm taking another of these online surveys the other night, and a few questions into it hit this one:

Does your experience with equipment brands at work influence your decision to purchase consumer product brands for your home? For those that there were influenced, check all of the areas that you implemented at home based on your experience at work. Please select all that apply.

Having written a few surveys over the decades, I see immediately the problem with that question, and maybe you do, too. The first sentence is okay, but the second sentence seems to imply a positive experience that prompted me to "implement" an "area" at home. (The second sentence, by the way, is extraordinarily poorly written.) It's just as likely--and has happened on more than one occasion--that an experience with something at the office or in the classroom has convinced me to steer clear of a product or brand. The first sentence above sets the stage for a "good or bad" response, but in the end the survey-taker is simply given a list of product types and asked to check off the ones that "you implemented at home based on your experience at work"--suggesting that you bought such-and-such printer, say, because you liked the model at work...and giving you no place to indicate that you avoided buying such-and-such digital camera because you didn't like the one at the office. (Which was in fact the case for me some years ago.)

Now, in the end, I don't care. I get entered into the drawing for the money I'm not going to win either way. But as a vehicle for gathering information, that particular question doesn't well serve the survey company or its client. Tsk tsk.

Let's Put the "Ho" Back in Christmas!

First this:

Santas warned 'ho ho ho' offensive to women
Wed Nov 14, 9:45 PM ET

SYDNEY (AFP) - Santas in Australia's largest city have been told not to use Father Christmas's traditional "ho ho ho" greeting because it may be offensive to women, it was reported Thursday.

Sydney's Santa Clauses have instead been instructed to say "ha ha ha" instead, the Daily Telegraph reported. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071115/od_afp/lifestyleaustraliachristmasoffbeat;_ylt=A0WTcVQqvTxHlA4ARwCs0NUE)

But then:

Ho, ho, huh? Firm denies telling Aussie Santas ho is bad word
Trainees instructed to say 'ha, ha, ha,' Sydney tabloid reports
Last Updated: Thursday, November 15, 2007 | 4:18 PM ETCBC News
A Sydney newspaper reports that some Santas in Australia have been told not to say "ho, ho, ho" this Christmas because it could insult women, but the firm that hired and trained them denies it. (http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2007/11/15/ho-ho.html)

And the holiday season begins.

Seems About Right

Okay, A Few Words

Another batch of quotations that caught my fancy. Most if not all--as usual--from the most excellent A Word a Day.

Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense. -Robert A. Heinlein, science-fiction author (1907-1988)

No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power. -P.J. O'Rourke, writer (1947- )

Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under. -H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)

We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run. -Roy Amara, engineer, futurist (b. 1925)

They deem him their worst enemy who tells them the truth. -Plato,philosopher (427-347 BCE)

Men hate those to whom they have to lie. -Victor Hugo, poet, novelist, and dramatist (1802-1885)

The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart. -Iris Murdoch, writer (1919-1999)

Unless a good deed is voluntary, it has no moral significance. -Everett Dean Martin, columnist, preacher, and philosopher (1880-1941)

Compared to the drama of words, Hamlet is a light farce. -Anatoly Liberman, professor (b. 1937)

You have your brush, you have your colors, you paint paradise, then in you go. -Nikos Kazantzakis, poet and novelist (1883-1957)

Persons appear to us according to the light we throw upon them from our own minds. -Laura Ingalls Wilder, author (1867-1957)

The real measure of our wealth is how much we'd be worth if we lost all our money. -John Henry Jowett, preacher (1864-1923)

The most futile thing in this world is any attempt, perhaps, at exact definition of character. All individuals are a bundle of contradictions -- none more so than the most capable. -Theodore Dreiser, author (1871-1945)

Exercises in Wishful Thinking and Holding Grudges

Well, now, this is just silly in so many ways. Here's what the Associated Press reports today, as captured in the New York Times and elsewhere:

November 11, 2007
Two Faiths Divided on Women’s Ordination Ceremony
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ST. LOUIS, Nov. 10 (AP) — The Archdiocese of St. Louis and the Central Reform Congregation are on the same side when it comes to advocating for immigrants and the poor, often finding common ground in a zeal for social justice.

But when the Jewish congregation offered its synagogue for an ordination of two women in a ceremony disavowed by the Roman Catholic Church, it drew the ire of archdiocese officials, who vowed never again to work with the congregation.

Bizarre on the face of it, yes? A religious group that is about as far outside of the Catholic philosophy as you can get (you know: the Jesus thing?) allows its facility to be used by a group with whom the Catholic diocese has issues, and so the diocese decides that we can't be friends anymore?

I've said it before and I'll say it again, apparently: What is this, junior high?

It gets goofier:

The Reform congregation’s rabbi, Susan Talve, informed the Rev. Vincent Heier, director of the archdiocese office for ecumenical and interreligious affairs, of the decision.

Mr. Heier told her it was unacceptable. “It’s not appropriate to invite this group, to aid and abet a group like this, which undercuts our theology and teaching,” Mr. Heier said he told Ms. Talve.

Um. Isn't, like, the whole of Judaism "undercutting" Catholic theology and teaching? Isn't any non-Christian religion? Kind of by definition? It's been awhile since my last catechism class, but I'm pretty sure there was something in there about Jesus being the Messiah, the Son of God, and the Savior of the world, and I'm also pretty sure that non-Christian religions don't share that point of view. So, given that every Saturday, at least, there are religious services at the Central Reform Congregation that the St. Louis Diocese would not be in agreement with, why the big dust-up over their allowing a bunch of fringey soon-to-be-ex-Catholics use the building?

In a nutshell: Who cares?

And, P.S., Father Heier: Good job of giving these women free publicity.

I also like this bit:

The women are ignoring the warnings of Archbishop Raymond Burke, who said they would be excommunicated if they proceeded with the ceremony.

Which makes the whole business even more of an exercise in so-what. If the women proceed with the ceremony, the bishop will excommunicate them. (Seems to me that if they proceed with the ceremony, they're pretty much thumbing their noses at the bishop anyhow, but that's neither here nor there.) Wouldn't that by and large take care of the whole thing? Why pick on the Jewish congregation at all? If the ceremony takes place in a bowling alley, would the archbishop condemn Happy Lanes and forbid Catholics from bowling there? Actually, I suppose there's a pretty good chance he would, given the AP report... Okay, try this: If the ceremony took place in a city park, would the archbishop condemn the city of St. Louis and move the diocese to another community?

Which is not to say that the women's quest is particularly sane, either. Those who know me know that, if I were in charge of things, you'd have women priests PDQ. But I'm not, and the sad fact is these bogus ceremonies accomplish absolutely nothing. When it's over, the women can SAY they're priests. But they're not--at least not in the Roman Catholic Church. Wishing doesn't make it so, no matter the ceremony attached. They're not legit, they're not recognized, and they have no standing at all in their church. That is, their soon-to-be-former church.

Here's the final gag:

“This is not a lack of forgiveness,” Mr. Heier said, “but we have to stand for something. It’s a matter of principle.”

Ah. Good to know. It would also be good to know precisely what "principle" Heier thinks they're standing on. From here it kind of looks like the principle of proving that the "leaders" of the Catholic church are, often as not, leading the church further and further in marginality.

Anyone Remember Checks and Balances?

I have been a member of the Democratic Party for over 30 years now, and at no point during those three decades have I been more discouraged with and disgusted by my party than I am at this time. This editorial from today's New York Times pretty much sums up my disgust--which further boils down to, Who the hell in the Democratic Party has enough spine to actually honor his or her oath to defend the Constitution of the United States?

Not bloody many, apparently.

Oh, fear not: Next year at this time I'll be voting for the Democratic presidential nominee, whoever she may be. But I'll say this: My days of donating money to the party are over, at least for the nonce. I'll support candidates as they warrant, but nothing more to the national organization. If "organization" is the word I want...

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November 11, 2007

Editorial

Abdicate and Capitulate

It is extraordinary how President Bush has streamlined the Senate confirmation process. As we have seen most recently with the vote to confirm Michael Mukasey as attorney general, about all that is left of “advice and consent” is the “consent” part.

Once upon a time, the confirmation of major presidential appointments played out on several levels — starting, of course, with politics. It was assumed that a president would choose like-minded people as cabinet members and for other jobs requiring Senate approval. There was a presumption that he should be allowed his choices, all other things being equal.

Before George W. Bush’s presidency, those other things actually counted. Was the nominee truly qualified, with a professional background worthy of the job? Would he discharge his duties fairly and honorably, upholding his oath to protect the Constitution? Even though she answers to the president, would the nominee represent all Americans? Would he or she respect the power of Congress to supervise the executive branch, and the power of the courts to enforce the rule of law?

In less than seven years, Mr. Bush has managed to boil that list down to its least common denominator: the president should get his choices. At first, Mr. Bush was abetted by a slavish Republican majority that balked at only one major appointment — Harriet Miers for Supreme Court justice, and then only because of doubts that she was far enough to the right.

The Democrats, however, also deserve a large measure of blame. They did almost nothing while they were in the minority to demand better nominees than Mr. Bush was sending up. And now that they have attained the majority, they are not doing any better.

On Thursday, the Senate voted by 53 to 40 to confirm Mr. Mukasey even though he would not answer a simple question: does he think waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning used to extract information from a prisoner, is torture and therefore illegal?

Democrats offer excuses for their sorry record, starting with their razor-thin majority. But it is often said that any vote in the Senate requires more than 60 votes — enough to overcome a filibuster. So why did Mr. Mukasey get by with only 53 votes? Given the success the Republicans have had in blocking action when the Democrats cannot muster 60 votes, the main culprit appears to be the Democratic leadership, which seems uninterested in or incapable of standing up to Mr. Bush.

Senator Charles Schumer, the New York Democrat who turned the tide for this nomination, said that if the Senate did not approve Mr. Mukasey, the president would get by with an interim appointment who would be under the sway of “the extreme ideology of Vice President Dick Cheney.” He argued that Mr. Mukasey could be counted on to reverse the politicization of the Justice Department that occurred under Alberto Gonzales, and that Mr. Mukasey’s reticence about calling waterboarding illegal might well become moot, because the Senate was considering a law making clear that it is illegal.

That is precisely the sort of cozy rationalization that Mr. Schumer and his colleagues have used so many times to back down from a confrontation with Mr. Bush. The truth is, Mr. Mukasey is already in the grip of that “extreme ideology.” If he were not, he could have answered the question about waterboarding.

Mr. Bush said Mr. Mukasey could not do so because it would reveal classified information about Central Intelligence Agency interrogation techniques. That is nonsense. Mr. Mukasey was not asked if C.I.A. jailers have used waterboarding on prisoners, something he could be expected to know nothing about. He was simply asked if, as a general matter, waterboarding is illegal.

It was not a difficult question. Waterboarding is specifically banned by the Army Field Manual, and it is plainly illegal under the federal Anti-Torture Act, federal assault statutes, the Detainee Treatment Act, the Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions. It is hard to see how any nominee worthy of the position of attorney general could fail to answer “yes.”

The real reason the White House would not permit Mr. Mukasey to answer was the risk to federal officials who carried out Mr. Bush’s orders to abuse and torture prisoners after the 9/11 attacks: the right answer could have exposed them to criminal sanctions.

The rationales that accompanied the vote in favor of Mr. Mukasey were not reassuring. The promise of a law banning waterboarding is no comfort. It is unnecessary, and even if it passes, Mr. Bush seems certain to veto it. In fact, it would play into the administration’s hands by allowing it to argue that torture is not currently illegal.

The claim that Mr. Mukasey will depoliticize the Justice Department loses its allure when you consider that he would not commit himself to enforcing Congressional subpoenas in the United States attorneys scandal.

All of this leaves us wondering whether Mr. Schumer and other Democratic leaders were more focused on the 2008 elections than on doing their constitutional duty. Certainly, being made to look weak on terrorism might make it harder for them to expand their majority.

We are not suggesting the Democrats reject every presidential appointee, or that the president’s preferences not be taken into account. But Democrats have done precious little to avoid the kind of spectacle the world saw last week: the Senate giving the job of attorney general, chief law enforcement officer in the world’s oldest democracy, to a man who does not even have the integrity to take a stand against torture.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

If All Else Fails

My work (in one of the facets of my, um, multifaceted existence) often requires me to send e-mail to this or that list of Usual Suspects. I believe the bizarre term for this is "burst" e-mail, which makes no sense to me: if it's gonna take me upwards of 20 minutes to get the silly thing in the air, how can it be "bursting"? But I digress.

I have noted, in undertaking the above, both a strange quirk of human nature (and if not strange, at least odd) and a glaring oversight in the version of Groupwise that my employer uses, to wit: Groupwise 6-point-whatever has no "reply to" feature; and no matter how many times I encourage my "burstees" to contact such-and-such source with questions or comments, they invariably hit the reply button and land back in my inbox.

Yes, I realize there are products and services on the market that will do burst e-mail for us, and someday we might come to that. But really, as things now stand, it would be a waste of money for us make a purchase for that sole purpose (we don't do enough, nor often enough). And it would deprive me of the perverse fun of replying to the Usual Suspect, "As indicated in the original message, you should contact X at Y for more information..."

Anyhow, wouldn't it make just as much sense for Groupwise to incorporate a reply-to feature? That would also solve the in-house problem I've encountered, viz., I forward a message to a co-worker, who then replies by, you know, hitting "reply"...which replies to me!

I've written to Novell to encourage them to add the feature to a future release; I wouldn't think it an impossibility, since the free e-mail client I use in real life, Thunderbird, has the feature and it works like a charm.

Of course, so too would reading the line in my e-mail that says If you have any questions, contact X--which usually includes a link and everything--but I once again fly in the face of human nature. Or human alliteracy.

Survey Says...

So here comes another one of the online surveys I sometimes like to take (in return for being entered into a cash drawing that I never win). I click here and click there, and am rewarded with a screen that tells me I must use Internet Explorer to continue. Well, I don't much like Internet Exploder: I use Firefox for web-browsing on both my Mac and the PCs I am forced to use in work settings.

Usually--for this happens occasionally with these surveys--that screen is the end of things, for I won't switch to IE just to take a survey. But on this occasion I noted that there was a "continue" button at the bottom of the screen. So I clicked it. And was taken to the next page of the survey...and the next...and so on. In the end, I didn't qualify for the full survey, but I got the screen telling me I had received "partial credit" and would be entered into a drawing for a lesser prize that I won't win.

Leaving me with this question: Why did they tell me I couldn't proceed without IE when, clearly, I could...and did? Was it a simple mistake? Or some kind of corporate arrangement, a more-strongly-worded version of the "best viewed with" legend we see from time to time online.

Whatever the explanation, I file this under "N" for "not my problem."

Weird, Yes, but...

This in today's New York Times:

November 8, 2007
In a Surprise, Pat Robertson Backs Giuliani
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and MICHAEL COOPER

WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 — They could compete for strangest bedfellows of 2008.

Rudolph W. Giuliani is a supporter of gay and abortion rights who is building his Republican primary campaign around his response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Pat Robertson, the Christian conservative broadcaster, once said permissiveness toward homosexuality and abortion led to God’s “lifting his protection” to allow those attacks.

But there they were Wednesday morning, Mr. Robertson endorsing Mr. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, as “an acceptable” Republican “who can win the general election.”

It was the latest manifestation of the deep divide in the Christian conservative movement over how to balance politics and principle in the coming era after President Bush, who once so deftly brought it all together.

Many former Christian conservative allies dismissed the endorsement as an inexplicable stunt. They noted that Mr. Robertson, 77, had lost much of his influence since the heady days of his second-place finish in the Iowa caucuses 20 years ago when he ran for the Republican presidential nomination.

And so on. Read the whole thing here.

As you know, I like a good weird news story as much as the next guy, but this one is so weird--the abortion angle alone tips it right off the scale--that I have to give it some thought (unlike, say, the Times's story about the priest who's been stalking Conan O'Brien). And here's what I come up with:

Is it--perhaps--possible (just barely possible) that Pat Robertson has some glimmer of realization, a hint of a notion of an innuendo, that nothing in this world can ever move forward so long as the "Christian" right-wingnut camp clings to its take-no-prisoners attitude toward the abortion issue? Is it--perhaps--possible that there is a little ray of sunshine on that so-far bleak and gloomy horizon? Maybe? Perchance? Possibly?

Well, no, I didn't really think so either. Oh, well...nice thought, wasn't it?

Who Gets to Be the Bigger Jerk?

From today's New York Times: "Devices Enforce Cellular Silence, Sweet but Illegal" by Matt Richtel:

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 2 — One afternoon in early September, an architect boarded his commuter train and became a cellphone vigilante. He sat down next to a 20-something woman who he said was “blabbing away” into her phone.

“She was using the word ‘like’ all the time. She sounded like a Valley Girl,” said the architect, Andrew, who declined to give his last name because what he did next was illegal.

Andrew reached into his shirt pocket and pushed a button on a black device the size of a cigarette pack. It sent out a powerful radio signal that cut off the chatterer’s cellphone transmission — and any others in a 30-foot radius.

“She kept talking into her phone for about 30 seconds before she realized there was no one listening on the other end,” he said. His reaction when he first discovered he could wield such power? “Oh, holy moly! Deliverance.”

Read the whole thing here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/technology/04jammer.html

Here is another instance where my superhuman ability to see things from multiple angles simultaneously is a curse. On the one hand, I share Andrew's annoyance--not so much that the woman next to him was "blabbing away" on her phone (all else being equal, I would rather that the person next to me on a plane or train do anything but talk to me but because, in my experience if not Andrew's, people using cellular phones in public places always seem to be yelling into them. On the other hand, I can see the young woman's point of view, too: Presumably, she bought the phone and the overpriced plan with its lifetime contract so that she could talk to her friends! It doesn't sound like she was in a phone-free car on the train; it sounds like she was within her rights to be using the phone where she was--Andrew's big objections seem to be (a) she was "blabbing away" and (b) she kept using the word "like"--but Andrew didn't want her to be on her phone, so he took it upon himself to jam her.

Conclusion: Both Andrew and the woman sitting next to him were being jerks, but Andrew went the extra mile and emerged the bigger jerk. Indeed, it's hard to conclude that Andrew is anything but a control-freak prick.

More evidence from the article's concluding paragraphs:

Andrew, the San Francisco-area architect, said using his jammer was initially fun, and then became a practical way to get some quiet on the train. Now he uses it more judiciously.

“At this point, just knowing I have the power to cut somebody off is satisfaction enough,” he said.

And there you have it--it's the passive-aggressive power trip. Someone is doing something I don't like. Never mind that they're well within their rights: I don't like it. And I need to do something about it. Nothing overt, because (a) they're not actually doing anything wrong and (b) that would require me to have some testosterone in my system. No, I need to do something sneaky, something that no one else even knows I'm doing, and then I can just sit here in my happy space and get my little buzz from knowing that I am the master manipulator of what others may or may not do in my presence. I want you to stop talking: click, I flip a switch and you do. Power!

Seems to me I saw an episode of Twilight Zone like that. It ended badly. One hopes for the same fate for the likes of Andrew--that he'll have an important call to make on a day when someone nearby decides he doesn't like all these people using their cellphones and jams them all. For one of the downsides of the phone jammers is that they immobilize all phone within a given radius, thus inconveniencing innocent bystanders as well as the "offenders."

As is pointed out in the article, such a device could be a real boon to robbers, terrorists, and others who would have a vested interest in thwarting people's attempts to call for help.

The article quotes James Katz, director of the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University, rightly opining: “If anything characterizes the 21st century, it’s our inability to restrain ourselves for the benefit of other people. The cellphone talker thinks his rights go above that of people around him, and the jammer thinks his are the more important rights.”

That's probably not true: My observation of Life in These United States is that people don't think that their rights are more important than others people's; people think that they are the only ones who have any rights in the first place.

And I think Katz is charitably overlooking the thousands upon thousands of impotent jerks who are bound up in an insatiable need to ride roughshod over other people: I don't like this TV show, it should be taken off the air so no one else watches it; I don't like this columnist, the newspaper should drop him so no one else reads him; I don't approve of that artwork, it should be banned so no one else can enjoy it.

I'm reminded of George Carlin's riff on the oddity that is the flame-thrower: "At some point, some person said to himself, 'Gee, I sure would like to set those people on fire over there. But I'm way to far away to get the job done. If only I had something that would throw flame on them."

I suppose we should be thankful that Andrew didn't have a flame-thrower with him on the train.

They've Got My Back!

Wow--it sure is a warm fuzzy feeling to know that the Credit Union National Association Team, an entity whose very existence was only peripherally known to me prior to this morning, is watching out for me! The following Important Message, with the subject line Notice : Security Message from CUNA and sent by Credit Union National Association , arrived in my mailbox at 6:53 this morning:

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Dear Credit Union holder account,

CUNA is constantly working to ensure security by regularly screening the accounts in our system. We recently reviewed your account, and we need more information to help us provide you with secure service. Until we can collect this information, your access to sensitive account features will be limited. We would like to restore your access as soon as possible, and we apologize for the inconvenience.

- Why is my account access limited?

- Your account access has been limited for the following reason(s):

- * November 4, 2007: We have reason to believe that your account was accessed by a third party. Because protecting the security of your account is our primary concern, we have limited access to sensitive Credit Union account features. We understand that this may be an inconvenience but please understand that this temporary limitation is for your protection.

(Your case ID for this reason is THEFT-3150019066.)

- How can I restore my account access?

- This limitation cannot be appealed.

- We encourage you to restore full access as soon as possible.

http://www.cuna.org/update.php


Once you complete all of the checklist items, your case will be reviewed by one of our Account Specialists. We will send you an e-mail with the outcome of the review.

Thanks for your patience as we work together to protect your account.

Best regards,
Credit Union National Association Team

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I say again: Wow. Not only is the tireless Credit Union National Association Team screening my account for me, but they are screening my account in the future! Yep, if you look at Your account access has been limited for the following reason(s), you'll see that the team has "reason to believe that your account was accessed by a third party" on "November 4, 2007"...next Sunday!!!

This is simply amazing, and represents a real breakthrough in online security techniques! Kudos to the Credit Union National Association Team and other time-traveling netizens who refuse to let a little thing like the space-time continuum prevent them from protecting account holders!

Or, as the e-mail has it, "holder accounts." I assume that is the term that has come into vogue in the future.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

So it turns out that I'm not the only one who considers it impossible that October is nearly over. Check out the "hot deal" on this screen capture from the online edition of the local rag...

I Have No Idea What This Means

Add to my puzzlement over what "Christian" electricians, contractors, lenders, and so on might be (would a "Christian" lender, for instance, not charge me interest?), here's this that appeared on my screen today:

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Yes, Christian Health Quote. Again, I have no idea what to make of this. But I have some questions:

• Only the quote is "Christian"? What about the insurance itself?
• Every insurance company or agency on the planet seems to brag about its "100% Free Quote": are there any, anywhere, that charge for quotes? If so, do they run ads touting their "75% Free Quote" or something?
• Is it not interesting that following the link on the ad takes one to a company of a different name that says it's "dedicated to addressing the consumers growing need for information and education about life, health, auto and long-term care insurance"--but doesn't use the word "Christian" except in its banner and copyright line. But they "provide a "one-stop-shop" for consumer's to shop for all their insurance needs." Not their punctuation needs, however

Well, I know nothing about these people (they sell Aetna and AIG and Blue Cross-Blue Shield, so it all seems on the up-and-up and everything, as much as one can expect where insurance companies are involved), and I'm sure they're fine folks. But I have no idea how working with a "Christian" insurance agency would be any different than working with my current insurance agent (who is, after all, a Christian himself, even if he doesn't go around thumping his chest about it). And experience teaches, alas, that them what go around bragging about what fantabulous "Christians" they are need to be watched with hawklike vigilance.

Ditto for drivers who have those fish symbols (ichthys, if you like) on the backs of their minivans. It seems to be the universal symbol for bad drivers. I appreciate the warning, however; that seems a very Christian thing to do!

Water Shortages: Who's Responsible?

This came awhile back from delanceyplace.com:

In today's excerpt--Groucho Marx writes the opening words to his 1959 autobiography "Groucho and Me," and, as is his wont, instantly digresses into a pique:

"The trouble with writing a book about yourself is that you can't fool around. If you write about someone else, you can stretch the truth from here to Finland. If you write about yourself, the slightest deviation makes you realize instantly that there may be honor among thieves, but you are just a dirty liar.

"Although it is generally known, I think it's about time to announce that I was born at a very early age. Before I had time to regret it, I was four and a half years old. Now that we are on the subject of age, let's skip it. It isn't important how old I am. What is important, however, is whether enough people will buy this book to justify my spending the remnants of my rapidly waning vitality in writing it.

"Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough. It always amuses me when the newspapers run a picture of a man who has finally lived to be a hundred. He's usually a pretty beat-up individual who invariably looks closer to two hundred than the century mark. It isn't enough that the paper runs a photo of this rickety, hollow shell. The ancient oracle then has to sound off on the secret of his longevity. 'I've lived longer than all my friends,' he croaks, 'because I've never used a mattress, always slept on the floor, had raw turkey liver every morning for breakfast, and drank thirty-two glasses of water a day.'

"Big deal! Thirty-two glasses of water a day. This is the kind of man who is responsible for the water shortages in America. Fortunes have been spent in the arid West, trying to convert sea water into something that can be swallowed with safety, and this old geezer, instead of drinking eight glasses of water a day like the rest of us, has to guzzle thirty-two a day, or enough water to keep four normal people going indefinitely. ..."

Groucho Marx, Groucho and Me, Da Capo, Copyright 1959 by Groucho Marx, renewed 1987 in the name of Arthur Marx as son, pp. 3-4.

Okay, SOME Conservatives' Hatred

It is one of the oddities of this little blog (perhaps because it's not "really" a blog but rather a, well, eclectic collection of whatever happens to strike me occasionally; and perhaps because it is only an occasional thing) that no one ever comments on it directly. I know it is read by a few people, at least, for every so often one of them will see fit to offer a comment--but never here, only via e-mail. I've reproduced one or two of them in these pages; the vast majority of them are usually so brief--"I agree" or "I don't agree"--that it's hardly worth the copy-and-paste time to put them here.

But occasionally a couple of my far-flung correspondents sees fit to forward something I've written to HIS far-flung correspondents…which sometimes generates a worthy comment that my far-flung sends back to me. It's all very complicated, so I appreciate the far-flungs' efforts.

One of them sent my musings about conservatives' hate-filled existences (okay, make that some conservatives') to a right-of-center friend, and then forwarded back this thoughtful response:

I agree this is worth the read. Not because I agree with much of what is written, however. I am a conservative. I don't hate Al Gore – I applaud him. I believe the climate is warming abnormally and that there is a real human component. I also believe that the actual function that would model the climate is far from known. As one data point to this I offer the average 7-day forecast that is usually only accurate for about two days. I think highly of much of what the Kennedy's have done for America. I also think that if Joseph K were alive and doing business in the 1990's he would now quite likely be in the cell next to Jeff Skilling. Even today, it can be truthfully said that Ted Kennedy has killed more people ( or is that mistresses ) with his car than I have with my gun, and I was in the military for 20 years. I believe for every Rush Limbaugh there is a corresponding Al Sharpton. Ask your contributor to review some of "reverand Al's " comments about the Duke lacrosse players. Have you seen any apology from him yet? I haven't. I find him just as hate-filled and divisive as Limbaugh.

I strongly resist broad generalizations, but I guess if one had to be made then it would be - Republicans lust for power ( Nixon / Bush ) while Democrats just lust ( JFK / Clinton ). At some point in time, don't we have to let the center of the country try driving for a while?

Well, it's fun to get something--even round-aboutly--that someone has actually put some thought into. And I appreciate the writer's abstention from making his disagreement personal (you'd ba amazed--or maybe not--at how many people can't manage that level of maturity). But I'm afraid the writer--let's call him "Bob"--never addresses my point., viz., why do so many conservatives seem to run on an inexhaustible supply of hatred. Why do they hate FDR 60 years after his death? JFK 40 years on? When Al Gore receives the Nobel Prize, why do they attack not just Gore but the Prize itself (to say nothing of fellow Nobel recipient Jimmy Carter, dissed on Fox Noise as "that crazy Jimmy Carter," showing the high regard and respect they have for presidents of these United States. To say that Al Sharpton has said some things as negative as Rush Limbaugh doesn't address the question. To say "I'm a conservative and I don't hate Al Gore" doesn't address the question. (Interesting that "Bob" can't resist taking a couple of swings at the Kennedys, thus illustrating my original point about conservatives' deeply held loathing for that whole family, no?) I'll give "Bob" the benefit of the doubt--and agree with his point about the dangers of "broad generalizations" (except, evidently, where Kennedys are concerned) (and when, by the way, was the last time you saw a narrow generalization?)--and assume that he is one of the exceptions to what I perceive to be the norm of venom-filled conservatives. But much of his rebuttal (reproduced above in its entirety) is of that familiar well-your-guy-is-even-worse variety, which gets us nowhere.

Keep in mind: I am genuinely puzzled by and interested in this phenomenon, especially in the context of so many of these right-wingnuts who trumpet about what almighty great Christians they are even as they wallow in the bottomless pool of their hatred for anyone with a contrary point of view. I literally am at a loss to explain or understand them and their attitude. And I'm afraid "Bob" sheds no light.

I may in these pages have mentioned a friend of mine from college, a young woman of the Republican persuasion, whose standard response, whenever someone in those immediate-post-Watergate days would mention Nixon's transgressions, was "Kennedy was even worse." Pressed for details, she could offer none; it was just that JFK HAD to have been worse, since he was (a) a Democrat and (b) a Kennedy.

"Bob" is probably correct when he suggests that it might be a good thing to let moderates take the wheel for awhile. But I'm still left to wonder why so many on the right wing carry so much hatred around with the.

Where do they get the energy?

I've Heard it Said

Time again for another batch of the quotations I seem to pile up. As is so often true, these are all (I think) from the excellent A Word a Day:

Infidel, n. In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does. -Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914), [The Devil's Dictionary, 1906]

They know enough who know how to learn. -Henry Adams (1838-1918)

No man is clever enough to know all the evil he does. -La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them. -Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)

To see ourselves as others see us is a most salutary gift. Hardly less important is the capacity to see others as they see themselves. -Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)

It seems to me that our three basic needs for food and security and love are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. -M.F.K. (Mary Frances Kennedy) Fisher, writer (1908-1992)

A man who is 'ill-adjusted' to the world is always on the verge of finding himself. One who is adjusted to the world never finds himself, but gets to be a cabinet minister. -Hermann Hesse, novelist, poet, Nobel laureate (1877-1962)

To use bitter words, when kind words are at hand is like picking unripe fruit when the ripe fruit is there. -Thiruvalluvar, poet (c. 1st century BCE or 6th century CE)

After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on -- have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear -- what remains? Nature remains. -Walt Whitman, poet (1819-1892)

It is a very lonely life that a man leads, who becomes aware of truths before their times. -Thomas Brackett Reed, politician (1839-1902)

Political history is largely an account of mass violence and of the expenditure of vast resources to cope with mythical fears and hopes. -Murray Edelman, professor, author (1919-2001)

False Splitting

Now this I find interesting, as someone who has a fondess for words, their meaning, and their origins. I swipe it verbatim from the September 9, 2007, edition of A Word a Day, of which I've written before and will again:

What's common among an orange and an omelet... and an uncle and an umpire? Earlier all these words used to take the indefinite article "a", not "an".

They were coined by a process called false splitting. Let's take orange. The original word was Sanskrit naranga. By the time it reached English, the initial letter n had joined the article a, resulting in "an orange". The word for orange is still narangi in Hindi, naranja in Spanish, and naranj in Arabic.

This false splitting caused what should have been "a napron" to become "an apron". The same process transformed "a nadder" into "an adder", and reshaped many other words.

The n went the other way too. "Mine uncle" was interpreted as "my nuncle" resulting in a synonym nuncle for uncle. The word newt was formed the same way: "an ewte" misdivided into "a newte".

Could false splitting turn "an apple" into "a napple" or "a nail" into "an ail" some day? Before the advent of printing, the language was primarily oral/aural, resulting in mishearing and misinterpreting. Today, spelling is mostly standardized, so chances of false splitting are slim, though not impossible.

Cool, no? Here are a few samples that interested me, from the week's worth of "false splits" that AWAD presented:

eyas (EYE-uhs) noun
A nestling, especially a young falcon or hawk.
[By erroneous splitting of the original "a nyas" into "an eyas". From Latin nidus (nest), ultimately from the Indo-European root sed- (to sit) that is also the source of sit, chair, saddle, soot, sediment, cathedral, and tetrahedron.]

atomy (AT-uh-mee) noun
A skeleton. [From the word anatomy taken as "an atomy". From Latin ana- (up) + tome (a cutting). Ultimately from the Indo-European root tem- (to cut) that is alto the source of tonsure, temple, epitome, and contemplate.]

auger (AW-guhr) noun
Any of various boring tools resembling a corkscrew, used in carpentry, digging, etc.
[From the misdivision of "a nauger" as "an auger". Ultimately from the Indo-European root nobh- (navel) that is also the source of nave, navel, umbilical, omphaloskepsis (navel gazing), and Hindi nabhi (navel).]

nonce (nons) noun
1. The present or immediate occasion.
2. The time being.
[From the phrase "for the nonce", a misdivision of "for then anes", from for + then (the) + anes (one).]

If you find this sort of thing the slightest bit interesting, you really should sign up for A Word a Day. Of course, if you find this sort of thing the slightest bit interesting, you probably already have.

Still More Anti-Catholic Bigotry!

As if we need more evidence that anti-Catholicism is "the last acceptable prejudice," here comes local bigot Robin Kip Speckels again with another ill-informed, half-baked spew of vomitous hatred, courtesy of the local rag. I've written about Speckels before, the last time he decided to vent his bigotry and the local rag decided to help him, and I'm pretty sure this is the last time I will waste any energy on someone who is so obviously poisoned by his own unreasoning biases.

But you never know.

Anyhow, here's the latest. Hold your nose.


Catholicism deceives, seduces
By Robin Kip Speckels
Sioux Falls
PUBLISHED: October 15, 2007

n a Sept. 4 response letter to the Argus Leader, Michael Wensing of Brookings accused me of deliberately misunderstanding Catholic theology and traditions. For the past 10 years, I have learned all I need to know about Catholicism and its unbiblical teachings, which are too numerous to go into detail. I'm not misunderstanding anything.

I am, however, very deliberate in my attempt to unmask what is perhaps the most deceptive and seductive religious system in the world, a system which operates under the ruse of Christianity. Roman Catholicism didn't even exist until after 300 A.D. under the Roman emperor Constantine, who worshiped the sun god and was actually the first pope - not Peter. Sure, they printed Bibles, but the problem is that over the centuries, they have taken the liberty of elevating their own teachings above Scripture. This is called heresy.

Wensing claims that the Catholic Church treasures the Bible. Why then do they dishonor it by making graven images and genuflecting (kneeling) before them? It's the same thing as bowing down and is a blatant violation of the Second Commandment. Why do they pray to Mary and many other "saints" as mediators when the Bible says that Jesus is the only mediator? (1 Timothy 2:5) And what about praying the rosary, which is a vain repetition, something Jesus said not to do? (Matthew 6:7)

Catholicism isn't about Jesus Christ. It's about the Virgin Mary, whom, interestingly, the church hails as "Queen of Heaven and Earth." God condemns the worship of such a queen. (Jeremiah 44:17) I do not hate Catholics, and it isn't my intent to offend or anger them. I simply want to urge them to take a serious look at the things they've been taught in light of the Scriptures.


And now the old, old problem: Where to begin? These bigots invariably follow the same tack, viz., throw as much crap as you possibly can, making it nigh well impossible to sort it all out for any kind of reasoned refutation. But gamely we soldier on...

For starters, there's always that beloved phrase, "I have learned all I need to know..." Speckels would have us believe he has made a decade-long study of Catholicism and come to an informed conclusion. But his diatribe indicates quite the opposite, for if he had in fact pursued any reliable (un-bigoted) sources, he would not be promulgating his half-truths and outright untruths. One can but conclude, therefore, that Speckels has spent the past decade wallowing in such literary gems as support his anti-Catholic prejudice, and now having sufficiently coated himself in muck has pronounced his "education" at an end. He (I think: the byline gives no clue as to gender) knows all he needs to know. Facts will only get in the way.

Of course, Speckels's claim that Catholicism "didn't even exist until after 300 A.D. under the Roman emperor Constantine" is just silly, as is his assertion that Constantine "worshiped the sun god and was actually the first pope." The roots of Catholicism go back to the earliest days of Christianity, and have been growing and evolving ever since. I haven't the foggiest idea whether or not Constantine ever worshiped the sun god, but even if he did that hardly repudiates his conversion to Christianity: With the exception of the Jews who followed Christ, nearly all early converts to Christianity had been pagans. Anyhow, Constantine's importance in legitimizing Christianity can't be overstated...unless you announce that he was "actually the first pope." He was neither first, nor any pope at all. There was an eighth-century pope by the same name, but I'm pretty sure he was a different person altogether, unless Constantine lived to be well over 500 years old. As far as "who's on first"--well, since the pope is the spiritual leader of the Roman Catholic Church, it seems to me that it's up to the RCC, and not Speckel, to decide who their first leader was. If they say it was Peter, then it was Peter. If they say it was Superman's Pal Jimmy Olson, then it was Superman's Pal Jimmy Olson.

Part of Speckel's problem undoubtedly lies in the fact that Catholic tradition is built on a biblical foundation but also believes in the ongoing revelation of the Holy Spirit to guide the church on earth. In other words, the Bible is where you start. We believe that this ongoing revelation comes via the teaching authority of the church, at whose earthly head is the pope. I suspect that Speckels is of a fundamentalist bent, and those folks seem to cling to a belief that God wrote the Bible one day and everything--all thought, all reason, all discovery--froze at that point. And so naturally he would label anything else "heresy." Just as I would label his point of view "foolishness."

Speaking of foolishness: Are we really still hung up on that "graven images" nonsense? When was the last time (or the first) that Speckels was actually in a Catholic church? Certainly, some of the older churches are replete with statuary, but only an imbecile still clings to the belief that Catholics worship or even revere statues. If Speckels had indeed made the deep study of Catholicism that he implies, he would know that Catholics do not genuflect to any statue but rather to what we consider to be the true presence of Christ in the consecrated elements of Holy Communion, which are stored in a tabernacle, which traditionally rests upon the main altar or, in some churches, a side altar. It is true that there often is a crucifix above the main altar, and that there may be a statue of Mary or Joseph near or above a side altar, but that's coincidental. The reverence is being shown to Christ, not to any "graven image." Good grief.

Likewise, had Speckels studied anything that didn't serve to reinforce his hatred of Catholics, he would know that careful Catholics do not "pray to saints"; admittedly, we will say, somewhat colloquially, "better say a prayer to St. Anthony" or words to that effect, but a careful Catholic--and anyone who knows anything about Catholic teachings--will know that (as a priest friend of mine at the alma mater put it all those years ago) "Catholics do not pray to the saints; Catholics asks the saints to pray with us." In other words, my praying "to" St. Jude (patron saint of hopeless causes and therefore a longtime favorite of mine) is in fact my asking him to pray for and with me, just as I might well ask a friend to remember me in prayer if I am going through a difficult time. Catholics believe in eternity, therefore asking St. Jude for prayers is no different than asking your next-door neighbor for same.

I won't fall into Speckel's trap of cherry-picking Bible verses to "prove" his distortions are biblically ordained "truths," but it can't pass uncommented that his condemnations of Catholic practices depends on his first misinterpreting what Catholicism teaches and practices and then condemning that misinterpretation. So he says we pray to saints (untrue) and then condemns that--which might have merit, were the original charge true. It's the same as saying, blue-eyed men beat their wives; wife-beating is a crime; therefore blue-eyed men are criminals. B is true; A and C are lies. As is Speckel's pronouncement that "Catholicism isn't about Jesus Christ. It's about the Virgin Mary." Huh. News to me. Certainly Mary holds a special place of honor in the Catholic church, but anyone who had bothered to study the faith--or even just read the liturgy of the Mass--could not conclude that it's "about" Mary, whatever poetic honorifics are given her. Again, he sets out a lie as if it's truth, and then attacks the lie.

And then--and you gotta love this--he says, "I do not hate Catholics, and it isn't my intent to offend or anger them." Hah! Give it up, man! There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to craft a letter such as this unless your heart is filled with hate AND you want to spread it around. The vague balderdash about wanting "to urge them to take a serious look at the things they've been taught" is, well, balderdash, since obviously he can't be bothered to take such a look. His aim is to spread his poisonous bigotry.

At which point we must also look askance at the local rag. One hates to be all "victim-y," but one can't help but wonder if the rag would publish such a letter if its target was, say, Judaism, or Islam. Would not the editors see it for what it is--smearing a major religion--and shelve it rather than be complicit in spreading lies? And please don't hide behind that loaded word "censorship": For a newspaper to decline to publish a hatemongering letter is not censorshipl it is exercising editorial judgment. Indeed, I should imagine that most daily newspapers receive far more letters than they publish. Are the unpublished letters the victims of "censorship"? Of course not. The rag is under no obligation to print anyone's letter, ever...and one could cry "censorship" only if there were no other avenues to express one's skewed point of view. But there is nothing stopping Speckels from spreading his venom through other sources: He can blog, he can print flyers--hell, he can publish his own newspaper.

So obviously the local rag has decided to lend itself to this kind of bigotry, presumably in the belief that controversy sells newspapers. Its editors, then, are every bit as complicit as Speckels in their anti-Catholic bigotry.

The last acceptable prejudice, after all.

Conservatives' Hatred

Note that that's Conservatives' with an apostrophe on the end, making it possessive, 'cause the question is about their bottomless and abiding hatred for certain people, a hatred that burns with a cold and permanent flame.

I appreciate the irony of such people, who spend a lot of time crowing about what fabulous "Christians" they are and insisting that they represent family values and moral superiority and blah-blah-blah, being stuck in permanent-hate mode, contrary to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, whom they purport to think highly of, but that's neither here nor there.

The springboard for my musings is the would-be-comical-if-it-weren't-so-dangerous outpouring of bile and vitriol from right-wingnuts in the wake of Al Gore's winning the Nobel Prize. I commented the other day on the by-now-typical ramping up of the Conservative Smear Machine to not only hurl mud in the direction of the former vice-president but also, and mainly, to try to discredit the Nobel Prize itself. Imagine! You take an organization that for decades has been honored and revered for promoting peace (and science and literature and all that other crap) by itself recognizing people and institutions that are, you know, trying to help people...and you denigrate and ridicule and smear it when they honor the contribution of someone you don't like.

Rather, someone you hate.

What is this--junior high?

In the course of it, you (via your mouthpiece, Faux News) also take advantage of the opportunity to smear a former President of the United States and Nobel Prize recipient as "that crazy Jimmy Carter," which shows great depth of character and carefully reasoned political analysis.

(An aside: This summer, at one of my kids' events, I overheard another dad complaining to his teenager about Al Franken. He was feigning disgust over Franken's having written a book called Rush Limbaugh Is an Idiot, and pretending to be morally outraged that Franken (read: a liberal) would say something so hurtful about another human being (read: a conservative), and generally indicating that that proved liberals were evil and conservatives were high-road victims. I was tempted to turn around and point out two things: First, the title of the book is Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot (and Other Political Observations); and, second, that Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot. But I resisted the urge, remembering the advice of my father: "Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time, and it annoys the pig.")

Where was I? Oh, yes--morally superior "Christians'" hatred for, well, all kinds of people.

A year or so ago when Emilio Estevez's film Bobby was in release, my wife mentioned in conversation to a friend that she would like to see it. "Not me," the friend snapped. "Those Kennedys are a completely corrupt family." Yikes! Not "I never liked that Bobby Kennedy" or "I think Bobby Kennedy was a phony"; nope the whole family gets tarred as "corrupt."

And why? See, that's what I keep puzzling over--not that right-wingnut "Christians" carry these bucketloads of hatred and venom with them everywhere they go--but why they hate so much, and so deeply, and so widely, and so everlastingly.

They hate FDR. They hate JFK, of course, and RFK, and, apparently, the whole famn-damily, including, I presume, Kennedys who haven't even been born yet. They hate Clinton, both Clintons, all three Clintons (and I recall some truly repugnant things a certain Big Fat Idiot had to say about then-teenager Chelsea Clinton back in the day--a warm-up, apparently, for the right-wingnut "Christians'" current smear campaign against a twelve-year-old kid). Apparently they've begun to hate Jimmy Carter.

And they hate Al Gore like you wouldn't believe.

I've always suspected there was a certain element of jealousy at play, coupled with a subconscious, even subliminal suspicion that the object of vitriol might, just might, have a few things right and thus is to be reviled all the more. Jonathan Chait, writing in yesterday's Los Angeles Times, has a good handle on the Gore thing:

You might wonder why they care so much -- Gore, after all, is obviously not going to run for president, and even some conservatives now concede that global warming is real. The answer is that Gore's triumph is a measure of George W. Bush's disrepute.

Ah, yes--a certain element of jealousy, as I had always suspected. But Chait does an excellent job of measuring conservatives' hatred of Gore against the obvious failure of their darling, George W. Bush:

It's not an accident that the current celebrations of Gore come at a time when Bush's popularity has cratered. Once conservatives mocked Gore as the radical tribune of a tiny political fringe; now it is they who represent the fringe.

Their argument with Gore over global warming is a telling indicator of their weakened position. Suddenly, open debate looks better than absolute clarity. Steven F. Hayward, a global warming skeptic at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, sniffed: "The Nobel will be one more quiver in Gore's arsenal of intransigent moral authority by which he refuses to debate any aspect of the subject and declares the entire matter 'settled.' It's never a good sign when politicians declare a scientific matter settled; we all remember how well that worked out for the Vatican when they told Galileo 400 years ago that astronomy was settled."

So Gore can't declare that any scientific matter is settled? (What about the Earth revolves around the sun -- would that offend conservatives?) Funny what happens when it's your views that are out of the mainstream.

The defensiveness of Gore's critics comes because he is the ultimate rebuke to Bush. Gore, obviously, is the great historic counter-factual, the man who would have been president if Florida had a functioning ballot system. More than that, he is the anti-Bush. He is intellectual and introverted, while Bush is simplistic and backslapping.

Read the whole editorial here.

Of course, Chait's essay still leaves me with the question of why these morally superior "Christians" hate so many other people (see above in re). But I suspect the answers are probably much the same--they hate Clinton and Carter and everyone with the name Kennedy and FDR and probably Fala, too, because they have some vague inkling, some uncomfortable twinge in the brain-stem, that reminds them that maybe, just maybe someone from the "wrong" side of the spectrum has something of value to contribute, has something helpful to say, has an idea that might be--gulp!--right.

And that threatens them. In their small-minded, fear-driven world, everything is and must always be black or white, right or wrong, yes or no. There can be no ambiguities, no compromise: that makes things gray and gray is scary. And so if you disagree with them--even if you're only twelve years old--then you're the devil and must be destroyed at all costs.

This, I think, is part of the reason you don't detect this kind of hatemongering on the left end of the political spectrum. It's fair to say that we lefties have certain individuals whom we love to hate--the current tenant on Pennsylvania Avenue being one of them; Karl Rove, Ken Starr, Richard Nixon being a few others--but our list is pretty short, and pretty narrow (we might have hated Nixon, for instance, but we didn't extend that to Pat and Tricia and Julie, branding the whole clan as "corrupt"), and awfully watery (we may have hated Nixon at the time, but by his death it had degenerated into a strong dislike; certainly none of us will be ranting about him 40 years after his demise, and right-wingnuts continue to do about JFK).

So our brand of "hatred" is pretty thin compared to our morally superior family-values "Christian" friends on the right.

And--hmmm--we liberals tend not to go around trumpeting what swell "Christians" we are, either--even those of us who actually believe in God and try to follow Jesus' teachings and go to church and so on (and, yes, we do exist, as do conservative atheists). Interesting, no? Stay tuned for a future musing on my observations on that score, tentatively titled, "Dear Jesus, Save Us from Your Followers."

Al Gore

Of course, Faux News wasted no time in smearing Al Gore's Nobel Prize award (in typical right-wingnut fashion, they slung mud not only at the former vice-president but also at the Nobel Prize Committee in general, for, among other things, having previously awarded the Peace Prize to "that crazy Jimmy Carter"), but that's to be expected: As the Propaganda Ministry for the GOP, Faux News's mission is to disseminate lies and vitriol against anyone The Government deems an Undesirable--former presidents, former vice-presidents, twelve-year-old kids, anyone who voices a contrary point of view, etc.

Meanwhile, here's this little bit of sanity from Talking Points Memo:

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On Gore

10.12.07 -- 10:05AM

By Josh Marshall

First, before any other yapping and commentary, a big congratulations to Al Gore.

There are several layers of irony and poetic justice wrapped into this honor. The first is that the greatest step for world peace would simply have been for Gore not to have had the presidency stolen from him in November 2000. By every just measure, Gore won the presidency in 2000 only to have George W. Bush steal it from him with the critical assistance of the US Supreme Court. It's worth taking a few moments today to consider where the country and world would be without that original sin of this corrupt presidency.

And yet this is a fitting bookend, with Gore receiving this accolade while the sitting president grows daily an object of greater disapproval, disapprobation and collective shame. And let's not discount another benefit: watching the rump of the American right detail the liberal bias of the Nobel Committee and at this point I guess the entire world. Fox News vs. the world.

And not to forget what this award is about even more than Gore. If half of what we think we know about global warming is true, people will look back fifty years from now on the claims that "War on Terror" was the defining challenge of this century and see it as a very sick, sad joke -- which rather sums up the Bush presidency.

But more than thinking only of what might have been, where can we go from here?

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Nicely done, John Marshall. Expect to be smeared on Faux News in the next day or two.

Take THAT, You Scoundrel!

Last week I got this e-mail, ostensibly from Senator Harry Reid, via the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (whose motto is Send Us Money-- oh, no wait, it's Committed to Electing a Democratic Senate. Sorry. The constant click-here-to-send-us-more-money-to-make-TV-ads-that-no-one-watches links threw me):

Subject: Rush Limbaugh

Dear William,

I normally ignore Rush Limbaugh, but his comments last Wednesday went too far for me to remain silent. It's one thing to call me "Dingy Harry" - it's another to insult our men and women in uniform, calling those who oppose the war "phony soldiers" as Rush did during his Sept. 26 broadcast.

Of course, Rush continued his tirade Monday by denying he had said anything wrong and attacking John Murtha, who served 37 years in the Marines.

This week, 41 Democrats signed a letter to Clear Channel CEO Mark Mays, demanding that Rush apologize.

You can send your own letter to Mays by clicking here.

In December 2006, a poll run by the Military Times found that only 35 percent of service members approved of President Bush's handling of the war in Iraq. Would Rush consider every other Soldier, Sailor, Airman and Marine to be phony? What about General John Batiste who retired from active duty in order to speak out against this war?

Rush has the courage to sit behind a microphone and lash out at those who oppose George Bush's misadventure in Iraq - yet when it was his time to serve, he received a deferment and has never worn a uniform.

Limbaugh's show is broadcast on Armed Forces Radio, and therefore service members around the world heard his insults. It's time for Clear Channel to make Rush apologize.

Demand that Clear Channel CEO Mark Mays take action by clicking here. Rush certainly has the right to say whatever he wants - but we have an obligation to speak out when he goes too far.

Thank you,

Harry Reid

Wow. Pretty hard-hitting stuff, huh? I mean, all these Democratic Senators ganging up on the poor defenseless CEO of Clear Channel and--gulp!--demanding an apology! Jeepers. And then, their bloodlust running high, they further demand he make Limbaugh apologize too! It's almost hard to watch, isn't it? Have these Senators no mercy? Can't they find it in their hearts to let these poor schmucks up off the mat?

Well, look, I like an insincere apology as much as the next guy, but I'd really much rather see the Democrats in Congress try, you know, doing something for a change, and so I sent the following reply to Senator Reid, or whoever actually reads these things, if in fact anyone does:

Dear Senator Reid,

I would rather see the Democrats in the Senate put their weight behind taking Limbaugh off of Armed Forces Radio. For years now I have listened to conservatives complain about being "forced" to contribute, via taxes, to the National Endowment for the Arts, which sometimes has funded projects and artists they consider "offensive." Well, I consider the poisonous, hatemongering lies spewed by Rush Limbaugh to be "offensive," and, borrowing from our conservative friends' playbook, I'm annoyed that my tax dollars are being used to support his insults against American soldiers.

I encourage you and the other Democratic members of Congress to, instead of trying to wring empty apologies out of corporate toadies, cut to the heart of things and do something about Limbaugh, namely, kick him off of Armed Forces Radio.

Sincerely,
William J Reynolds

Of course, any such saber-rattling on the part of the Democrats in Congress would produce exactly the same effect as all their saber-rattling over the war in Iraq, the president's various abuses of power, the torture of political prisoners, the vetoing of SCHIP, etc.--viz., nothing at all--but at least it's a higher level of saber-rattling, no? Demanding apologies...good grief. Apologize or what--a duel? Get real.

Anyhow, no word yet from the DSCC or Senator Reid. Any minute now, though, I'm sure.