The Path to Conservative Hypocrisy

This is from Anthony Wade's excellent article, "The Height of Hubris for the Corporate Media and the GOP, Abusing the Collective Sadness and Pain of America," at OpEd News:

The ABC Corporation has decided to air a two-night docudrama, entitled "The Path to 911." For the uninformed, ABC is owned by Disney, who also refused to run Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911 because it was critical of Bush, costing their stockholders over 200 million dollars. They claimed at the time that they did not want to appear partisan, even though at the same time, ABC was carrying Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity on nearly all of their national radio stations. That hypocrisy aside, it is time to officially bury the right-wingnut fantasy talking point that the media has a liberal bias. This docudrama, officially confirms what we have all known for some time. The increased deregulation under George W. Bush has created a corporate media machine, wielded by the GOP when they wish to deceive the American people. This 911 docu-farce is the quintessential example of that.

Read the whole article at OpEd News.

Frankly, I had forgotten about the Fahrenheit 911 business. Guess "not wanting to appear partisan" refers only to one party...

Meanwhile, this little snippet from Slate, in Dana Milbank's Zeigeist Checklist: What Washington Is Talking About, caught my attention:

ABC Overlooks P's and Q's

Homeland Security. Katie Couric is panned in her debut as CBS News anchor, but this is quickly overshadowed by ABC flub. Part of the 9/11-plus-five hubbub, the network's miniseries The Path to 9/11makes changes after Clinton officials protest fabrications. The biggest howler: Blaming the Washington Post for exposing monitoring of Osama Bin Laden's phone; it was the Washington Times.

Dig the last sentence: The Path to 9/11, written by the unabashed conservative Cyrus Nowrasteh, originally faulted the Washington Post (biased liberal newspaper: bad) for exposing the monitoring of bin Laden's telephone, when it fact it was the Washington Times (morally upright conservative newspaper: good). Oooooops. Now, cross-reference this against the statement released on Thursday by ABC Television, in which it claims that it is "irresponsible" to criticize their little bit of fiction-posing-as-fact until after the poison has been released into America's living rooms--and yet, if not for that pre-deployment criticism, the lie about the Washington Post--and, from what Clinton-era folks are saying, who knows how many others--would have been broadcast.

Once again, any "irresponsibility" in this matter lies squarely on the shoulders of ABC Television, the Walt Disney Corporation, and every ABC affiliate that airs the program.

I hate to play "everybody knows," but I think it safe to say that if an avowed liberal writer created a "fictionalized" screenplay in which the Clinton administration (white hats for everybody!) worked tirelessly to pre-empt bin Laden only to see its inept, corrupt successor (black hats: boo, hiss!) bungle everything, there is not a television network in the United States that would touch it. Why, then, is "The Path to 9/11" considered acceptable?

Can you spell "hypocrisy"?
____________________

KSFY-TV update: Still no reply to my e-mail to them of 9/7/06. I am shocked--shocked, I say--at their inattentiveness! And yet I remain optimistic...tee hee.

Pot, Meet Kettle.

The following excerpt from an ABC Television statement issued yesterday in re "The Path to 9/11" and its concomitant controversy is interesting:

"'No one has seen the final version of the film, because the editing process is not yet complete, so criticisms of film specifics are premature and irresponsible,' the network said in a statement Thursday." (As reported today in The Washington Post)

Hmm. "Irresponsible." That's a funny word to use under the circumstances: You take a historical event, involving real people. But you "dramatize" it--that is, you make up parts of it, by all accounts to make one group of people look bad and another look good...something we lay people might call "distortion." And then when people object to these smear-job tactics, you tell them 'theyre being irresponsible?! Amazing.

Meanwhile, an update on my report from yesterday on my e-mail to my local ABC station: So far, no reply. Stay tuned, as they say.

Yet Another Waste of Time

A few minutes ago I sent the following time-waster off to my local ABC Television affiliate, KSFY:

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing in regard to the upcoming ABC Television miniseries "The Path to 9/11." Having heard and read a great deal about the production, including the fact that it was written by an avowed right-wing screenwriter and previewed only to right-wing columnists and commentators; as well as the fact that several Clinton Administration officials who served as advisors to the producers, and President Clinton himself, have complained about inaccuracies and outright falsehoods in the production, I can conclude only that, in its current form. it is a blatant right-wing smear campaign, one which attempts to place the blame for 9/11 at the Democratic Party's doorstep while glossing over the Bush White House's missteps and fabrications.

It is my hope that KSFY is interested enough in fairness and honesty to pre-empt the local broadcast of this slanderous fiction-disguised-as-fact, in the event that ABC/Disney lack the integrity to either re-edit the movie to remove its partisan biases or cancel it outright.

Thank you.

William J Reynolds
Sioux Falls

Here is my official prediction: I will receive back a canned statement to the effect that this is an ABC production and not a locally created smear, KSFY believes that a variety of viewpoints should be heard, and blah blah blah. There might also be a line in there about waiting for the slander to be perpetrated before objecting to it, and blah blah blah again. There will under no circumstances be any display of genuine integrity or intestinal fortitude. You read it here first.

Of course I signed a couple of form-letter style petitions to Robert Iger, the president and CEO of the Walt Disney Company--one at Act for Change, one at the Democratic Party website--but I imagine those to be time-wasters as well. For one thing, I have no reason to expect that the kahunas at Disney/ABC give a rip what anyone thinks, and especially anyone who isn't a fatcat GOPer. For another, I have to think all these "gang petition" ventures fairly scream Ignore Me!! when they get to wherever they're going. But I sign 'em anyhow. Sometimes the lost causes are the only ones worth getting involved in.

There are a couple of ironies (as usual, for me) associated with the "Path to 9/11" brouhaha. File them under "Conservative Hypocrisy":

• Conservatives like to pretend there's a "liberal bias" to the mainstream media. It's been demonstrated repeatedly that this is a fiction, but conservatives like to think they're always being picked on. How, then, to explain this obvious smear against the Clinton Administration and the Democratic Party? How, then, to explain CBS's pulling of their proposed miniseries "The Reagans" a couple of years ago when the right wing objected to "distortions" of their icon's image? If the media were controlled by the left, I wouldn't be wasting time writing letters to uninterested TV shills.
• As an outgrowth of the above, conservatives like to pretend that they are all about achieving "balance" in the media. Why, Fox News even has the guts to call itself "Fair and Balanced," by which of course they mean unfair and slanted. Obviously, "balance" is the last thing they want; what they want is to lay the blame for 9/11, civil war in Iraq, the high price of gasoline, and the gum they stepped in on the way to work this morning on Democrats in general and Clinton (on whom they have this bizarre fixation) in particular. At the same time, they want to rewrite history and current events to make the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue appear blameless, infallible, and completely without fault.
• Conservatives like to pretend they're such fabulous Christians, but I'm pretty sure there's something against "bearing false witness" in the Ten Commandments (you know, the ones they want displayed in courtrooms). Obviously that doesn't apply to smearing people of different political parties and social opinions. One does find oneself wondering about all those rubber bracelets: What indeed would Jesus do?
  
• "Don't condemn before you see it" is another swell bit of hypocrisy. See above re "The Reagans." See also right-wingers' apoplectic reaction to "Death of a President": none of them seem willing to wait till its US release before passing condemnation.

See here for a well-written review of the miniseries from Editor & Publisher: http://www.alternet.org/movies/41427/.

He Said, She Said

More quotations!

As usual, the majority of these come from the wonderful A Word a Day...with one or two from here and there, just for fun.
::::::::

Do not judge men by mere appearances; for the light laughter that bubbles on the lip often mantles over the depths of sadness, and the serious look may be the sober veil that covers a divine peace and joy. -E.H. Chapin

It is a sad fact that 50 percent of marriages in this country end in divorce. But hey, the other half end in death. You could be one of the lucky ones! - Richard Jeni

Anyone who isn't confused here doesn't really understand what is going on. -Man in Belfast

I am desperately trying to figure out why Kamikaze pilots wore helmets.
Dave Edison

USA Today has come out with a new survey: Apparently three out of four people make up 75 percent of the population. David Letterman

What would I do if I had only six months left to live? I'd type faster.Isaac Asimov

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure. Samuel Johnson

The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid and stable business. John Steinbeck

The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind. -Thomas Paine, philosopher and writer (1737-1809)

I think the next best thing to solving a problem is finding some humor in it. -Frank A. Clark, writer (1911- )

I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back. -Maya Angelou, poet (1928- )

The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from. -Andrew Tannenbaum, computer science professor (1944- )

The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself. -Archibald MacLeish, poet and librarian (1892-1982)

How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be when there's no help in the truth. -Sophocles, (495-405 BCE)

Criticism, like rain, should be gentle enough to nourish a man's growth without destroying his roots. -Frank A. Clark, writer (1911- )

Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have. -James Baldwin, writer (1924-1987)

From my close observation of writers... they fall into two groups: those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review. -Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer (1920-1992)

If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. It it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day. -E.B. White, writer (1899-1985)

News is what people want to keep hidden; everything else is publicity. -Bill Moyers, journalist (1934- )

We find comfort among those who agree with us, growth among those who don't. -Frank A. Clark, writer (1911- )

The average pencil is seven inches long, with just a half-inch eraser - in case you thought optimism was dead. -Robert Brault, software developer, writer (1972- )

Uttering a word is like striking a note on the keyboard of the imagination. -Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosopher (1889-1951)

The courage of the poet is to keep ajar the door that leads into madness. -Christopher Morley, writer (1890-1957)

I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork. -Peter De Vries, editor, novelist (1910-1993)

Testing can show the presence of errors, but not their absence. -Edsger Dijkstra, computer scientist (1930-2002)

There is no coming to consciousness without pain. -Carl Jung, psychiatrist (1875-1961)

The unconscious mind is decidedly simple, unaffected, straight-forward and honest. It hasn't got all of this facade, this veneer of what we call adult culture. It's rather simple, rather childish. It is direct and free. -Milton H. Erikson, psychiatrist (1901-1980)

What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books. -Sigmund Freud, neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis (1856-1939)

The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him... a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create -- so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating. -Pearl S. Buck, novelist, Nobel laureate (1892-1973)

There is a tragic clash between Truth and the world. Pure undistorted truth burns up the world. -Nikolai Berdyaev, philosopher (1874-1948)

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives. -Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)

As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests. -Gore Vidal, writer (1925- )

I love you, and because I love you, I would sooner have you hate me for telling you the truth than adore me for telling you lies. -Pietro Aretino, satirist and dramatist (1492-1556)

In the republic of mediocrity genius is dangerous. -Robert G. Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899)

Whoever imagines himself a favorite with God holds others in contempt. -Robert Green Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899)

We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -Dwight David Eisenhower, U.S. general and 34th president (1890-1969)

Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone? -Thomas Wolfe, novelist (1900-1938)

A king can stand people fighting but he can't last long if people start thinking. -Will Rogers, humorist (1879-1935)

The problem with being sure that God is on your side is that you can't change your mind, because God sure isn't going to change His. -Roger Ebert, film-critic (1942- )

An open mind is a prerequisite to an open heart. -Robert M. Sapolsky, neuroscientist and author (1957- )

Literature is the language of society, as speech is the language of man. -Louis de Bonald, philosopher and politician (1754-1840)

It is one of the maladies of our age to profess a frenzied allegiance to truth in unimportant matters, to refuse consistently to face her where graver issues are at stake. -Janos Arany, poet (1817-1882)

Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear. -Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)

I don't hate my enemies. After all, I made 'em. -Red Skelton, comedian (1913-1997)

Words are things; and a small drop of ink / Falling like dew upon a thought, produces / That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. -Lord Byron, poet (1788-1824)

Creative activity could be described as a type of learning process where teacher and pupil are located in the same individual. -Arthur Koestler, novelist and journalist (1905-1983)

When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people. -Abraham Joshua Heschel, theology professor (1907-1972)

I place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. -Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little. -Edmund Burke, statesman and writer (1729-1797)

We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. -Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)

Whoever, in the pursuit of science, seeks after immediate practical utility, may generally rest assured that he will seek in vain. -H.L.F. von Helmholtz, physiologist and physicist (1821-1894)

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. -Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President (1882-1945)

These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves. -Gilbert Highet, writer (1906-1978)

In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful. -Leo Tolstoy, author (1828-1910)

We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person. -William Somerset Maugham, writer (1874-1965)

If writers were good businessmen, they'd have too much sense to be writers. -Irwin S. Cobb, author and journalist (1876-1944)

If you want to work on your art, work on your life. -Anton Chekhov, short-story writer and dramatist (1860-1904)

A society that presumes a norm of violence and celebrates aggression, whether in the subway, on the football field, or in the conduct of its business, cannot help making celebrities of the people who would destroy it. -Lewis H. Lapham, editor and writer (1935- )

When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear. -Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough. -Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President (1882-1945)

The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another, and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it. -J.M. Barrie, novelist and playwright (1860-1937)

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. -Ernest Hemingway, author and journalist, Nobel laureate (1899-1961)

When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kind of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt. -Robert T. Pirsig, author and philosopher (1928- )

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested. -Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)

The power to command frequently causes failure to think. -Barbara Tuchman, author and historian (1912-1989)

For me, words are a form of action, capable of influencing change. -Ingrid Bengis, writer and teacher (1944- )

Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed. -Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)

It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind. -Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)

Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be grasped at once. -Cyril Connolly, critic and editor (1903-1974)

The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude. -Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)

In the case of good books, the point is not how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you. -Mortimer J. Adler, philosopher, educator and author (1902-2001)

Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone. -Harriet Beecher Stowe, abolitionist and novelist (1811-1896)

An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it. -Don Marquis, humorist and poet (1878-1937)

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common. -John Locke, philosopher (1632-1704)

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.--John Steinbeck, novelist, Nobel laureate (1902-1968)

A quiet conscience sleeps in thunder. -English proverb

Questions show the mind's range, and answers its subtlety. -Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it; but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it. -Madame De Stael, writer (1766-1817)

Political freedom cannot exist in any land where religion controls the state, and religious freedom cannot exist in any land where the state controls religion. -Samuel James Ervin Jr., lawyer, judge, and senator (1896-1985)

You can't do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth. -H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)

Learning is weightless, a treasure you can always carry easily. -Chinese Proverb

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting. -Edmund Burke, statesman and writer (1729-1797)

A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury. -John Stuart Mill, philosopher and economist (1806-1873)

Truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it. -Flannery O'Connor, writer (1925-1964)

In this age, the mere example of nonconformity, the mere refusal to bend the knee to custom, is itself a service. -John Stuart Mill, philosopher and economist (1806-1873)

The high minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think. -Aristotle, philosopher (384-322 BCE)

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions. -Naguib Mahfouz, writer (1911- )

It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry. -Thomas Paine, philosopher and writer (1737-1809)

The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause. A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business. - Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)

A sneer is the weapon of the weak. -James Russell Lowell, poet, editor, and diplomat (1819-1891)

People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them. -Dave Barry, author and columnist (1947- )

They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance. -Edmund Burke, statesman and writer (1729-1797)

Stickers

I'm not fond of sticking things on my car, but if I were I might go with one or more of these.

Culture of Death, part 2

Having some time to kill--no pun intended--before rousing a child for the first day of school, I drafted the following epistle to the governor of South Dakota in re some comments he had made in yesterday's edition of the Sioux Falls (SD) Argus Leader:

Dear Governor Rounds,

A portion of your interview with the Argus Leader, as published in yesterday's edition, surprised me greatly:

"Q: And the church has taken a position against the death penalty?

"A: I don't think that's quite correct. ... The death penalty is there for a reason in order that under selective and unique circumstances and based on individual review, it may be something in limited circumstances that is appropriate, when an individual does great damage to society. The church recognizes the responsibility of government leaders to carry out the law of the land."

Surely you must know that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has waged a 25-year campaign to eliminate the death penalty. I would encourage you to visit the Conference's web site, http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/national/deathpenalty/index.shtml, which includes much helpful information about not only the Church's teachings on the subject but also why the death penalty is an ineffective and evil punishment.

I would refer you also to the comments made in a 1999 homily by Pope John Paul II in St. Louis, Missouri:

"The new evangelization calls for followers of Christ who are unconditionally pro-life: who will proclaim, celebrate and serve the Gospel of Life in every situation. A sign of hope is the increasing recognition that the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil. Modern society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform. I renew the appeal I made most recently at Christmas for a consensus to end the death penalty, which is both cruel and unnecessary."

Undoubtedly, the Church does recognize "the responsibility of government leaders to carry out the law of the land," as you say. However, the law of the land empowers you to commute a death sentence. To sentence Elijah Page, or any other death-row inmate, to life in prison without parole provides the good (removing him as a threat to society) without compounding the evil (meeting violence with more violence).

As you may know from my previous communications with you, in which I encouraged you to veto HB 1215, I am a pro-choice Catholic. But I am also pro-life (the two are not mutually exclusive). As such, I strongly and respectfully encourage you to reject what has been termed the culture of death, and show that, contrary to our recent image, the state of South Dakota is home to compassionate and merciful people.

Sincerely,

William J Reynolds

Of course, the odds of my well-reasoned (and, you must admit, oh-so-polite) missive actually changing the man's mind are about the same as were the odds of my previous message to him, urging him to not sign our now-infamous abortion bill into law, viz., nil. Which are precisely the same chances of my voting for him in the future. To be fair, I haven't voted for him in the past, so he's not really losing anything. Except some of my respect.

Elsewhere in the same interview excerpted above, Rounds makes the tired old argument, in "defense" of his being pro-life when it comes to fetuses but not when it comes to actual breathing human beings, that somehow the life of the living is worth less than the life of the unborn:

"Q: You have consistently said that you oppose abortion, and you signed House Bill 1215 that would ban most abortions. Is it consistent to be pro-life on abortion and also to favor the death penalty?

"A: There's a real difference between an innocent human being and someone who has been convicted in a court of law of murdering another human being and may do it again."

Yikes. Where to begin? Well, first off, were the governor to commute Elijah Page's sentence (Page being the death-row inmate on whom the current furor is centered) to life in prison without parole, that would pretty much take care of the "he may do it again" argument. I suppose there is a chance that he might murder one of his fellow inmates, but it seems the prison system could take steps to protect against that, if it is indeed a real threat.

That leaves us, then, with the "innocent human being" angle. This is not something that the governor invented; indeed, I have heard Catholic priests make the same unsettling argument in opposition to abortion. The problem for me is this: Which of us gets to decide whose life is worth more? And by what criteria? Okay, let's say for the sake of argument that a convicted murderer's life is worth less than an "innocent human being." What about a convicted car thief? A convicted check forger? What if we are weighing the life of the car thief against that of the check forger? Whose life is "worth" more. And how much more?

Setting aside for the moment the idea of original sin, which I think the Catholic Church still holds and which calls the whole notion of an "innocent human being" into some question in the first place, the very idea that we would, as a society, head into the rocky terrain of "whose life is worth more" is quite reprehensible and morally indefensible. Is the life of an incurably ill person on life support "worth less"? If so, why are we as a society (and, quite vocally, the Catholic Church) opposed to euthanasia? Simply because of the long-held belief that life, all life, has worth.

I have been informed more than once that I "can't be pro-life and pro-choice." Of course, that's just silly--the mere fact that I am both proves that I can be both--but I maintain that one cannot logically profess to being pro-life as well as pro-death penalty. If life is life, then simple honesty requires such an individual to identify himself not as pro-life but anti-abortion.

There is, obviously, a difference.

Culture of Death

When he signed South Dakota's heartlessly draconian take-no-prisoners abortion bill into law earlier this year, Governor Mike Rounds seemed to be positioning himself as "pro-life." Some folks, with more than a little schmeer of bigotry, hinted that his actions were to be expected since, after all, he is a Catholic. But now, with South Dakota's first execution in more than half a century in the offing, the governor appears to be distancing himself from any hint of pro-life-ness--and incidentally from the teachings of his church.

The governor's reasons for not blocking the execution of death-row inmate Elijah Page are at best peculiar. "Gov. Mike Rounds could stop it by ordering a delay or by changing the sentence to something less severe," writes the Sioux Falls (SD) Argus Leader. "But he believes in capital punishment and calls Page's deed a crime of extreme cruelty. 'At this point, I don't have any plans to intervene,' Rounds said."

No one argues that Page is innocent (not even Page), or that he shouldn't be punished. Hell, I'd say most of us agree that life in prison without parole is probably too good for the murder scum. But for the governor--and plenty of other folks, too--to be so firmly committed to "protecting" life on the one hand and so willing (perhaps eager?) to extinguish it on the other is, well, peculiar.

And so much for the governor acting at the behest of his (and my) church: The Roman Catholic Church has repeatedly come out in opposition to capital punishment as well as abortion...but it has not escaped my attention that the more rightist elements of the church, while extraordinarily pious and obedient in following church teachings when it comes to the unborn, manage to become deaf when it comes to folks who are already with us.

Curiously, the fact that Page has put a stop to his appeals process and evidently wishes the execution to go forward seems to count a lot for the governor and other supporters of the death penalty. Why his wishes enter into it at all is beyond me. If he indicated a desire to not be put to death, would the state honor that wish? If he tried to commit suicide in his cell, would not the state move to stop him or, failing that, preserve his life? Why, if his desire to die is all-important?

In the end, I find myself again facing the strange inconsistencies of the right-wing mentality. If one is really and truly "pro-life," then one must be as adamantly opposed to the death penalty as he is to abortion. There is no way around it: life is life, life is sacred, and only God gets to decide when to end life. Otherwise one is merely anti-abortion.

That's fine, but then have the honesty to say so.

"Truth Is Stranger," or "A Stranger to Truth"?

Funny. When I ask acquaintances why they associate themselves with the Republican Party, a frequent "reason" is that they consider Republicans more "moral" than Democrats. Evidently they've never heard of Newt Gingrich, or Karl Rove, or Tom Delay, or Lee Breard.

What, you've never heard of Lee Breard either? Not to worry: probably only a few had until this past week. Breard is the campaign manager for Bruce Whalen, the GOP nominee for South Dakota's sole seat in the US House of Representatives. Whalen is running (uphill) against incumbent Representative Stephanie Herseth, of whom I'm written before.

All well and good. Except that last week Breard seems to have put his foot in it big time. Now it looks to me like he's got both feet in it. And is sunk in about up to his waist.

Here's how I understand the sequence of events.

For some reason, Breard was on Wikipedia looking up Herseth. Don't know why. You'd think that, as campaign manager for Herseth's opponent, he'd already have done his homework. But there you have it. Anyway, some fun-loving scamp had gone into Wikipedia and, ahem, edited the Herseth biography to claim that she had recently converted to pro-lifism having turned up pregnant, and is now engaged to be married to her chief of staff.

I know what you're thinking: Anyone with a clue would know that's a hoax. But the world is full of the clueless. And rapscallions. Lee Breard, upon seeing this bogus bio, does what any member of the "moral" party would do: he starts sending it around to reporters. Later he will claim that he did so to verify the item. Obviously contacting Herseth's office never occurred to him. Even better, his quest for the truth included a comment in his e-mail to the effect that if the claim were true it would be quite a change for a "home-wrecker" such as he claimed Herseth to be. (This based on nasty rumors circulating for some time that Herseth was involved with a married former congressman from Texas. Never mind that she and the gentleman met some time after his divorce was finalized. Details like the truth matter little to the "moral" folk in the GOP.)

The Rapid City (SD) Journal, however, seems to have a more solid acquaintance with the truth, and broke the whole tawdry story last Friday.

Now things get weird. I know, I know: Weirder, then.

First Breard tries out the I-was-only-trying-to-help balderdash, insisting that his spreading scurrilous gossip was in fact his way of getting to the truth. Riiiight.

Then when it's suggested that Whalen owes Herseth an apology, the "explanation" comes that Whalen himself--the candidate, remember?--knew nothing about Breard's actions, so there's no reason to apologize. Now think about that: the candidate doesn't know what his campaign manager is doing. So the candidate hides behind his impenetrable Cloak of Ignorance. Which tends to speak volumes about how he'd serve in the United States Congress. The campaign manager, meanwhile, doesn't have the decency to say, "Well, yes, obviously I was wrong and I'm sorry." Since the words "I was wrong" and "I'm sorry" are also alien to those "moral" GOPers.

Keep in mind that we don't know who was behind the alteration of the Wikipedia bio in the first place. One hates to be suspicious (not really, but it seems polite to say so), but in light of the general seaminess of the whole Breard affair...

I'm sure that the fact that a poll conducted last week shows Herseth with a 60-26 lead over Whalen (14 percent undecided) had nothing at all to do with these shenanigans.

But getting back to my acquaintances who insist they align with the GOP because of its greater "moral" credence: I don't know what to make of them. These are not bad people, not evildoers or ne'er-do-wells. They consider themselves good, decent folks, and most people would agree with them. But what does it say about people who can continue to turn a blind eye and deaf ear toward years and years of lies, lawbreaking, dirty tricks, and other assorted malfeasances and continue to believe that "their" party somehow possesses the moral high ground? And how long can a "good" person continue to ignore the evil going on around him before he loses the right to consider himself "good?"

At the very least, must there not come some point at which you acknowledge that "your" party or "your" candidate stumbled? Doesn't simple decency require that we hold ourselves and our fellows to the same standards, if not higher ones, than we hold "the other guys?" Is not that the basic measure of "morality," the foundation on which it rests? I voted for Bill Clinton twice, and would again if given the chance...but there's no way on the planet I could or can see Monicagate as anything but a horrible moral lapse. No question about it. He was wrong. There--was that so difficult to say?

Why, then, do so many GOPers find it so impossible to admit that "their guy" might be wrong about something? Are their egos really so fragile that the idea that someone they voted for might not be infallible sends them into a thumb-sucking fetal fugue?

We can take some comfort in the fact that it appears virtually impossible for Whalen to win the upcoming congressional election, and that whatever it was that his campaign manager thought he was doing (without the candidate's knowledge, I guess), the effect seems to have been to make the entire campaign a joke and its "manager" a clown at best and a sleaze at worst. But it's not really much comfort.

At Least Grant Saw Combat

My friend Jerry proposes this book title: At Least Grant Saw Combat: Corruption and Mismanagement in the Administration of George W. Bush. It would be an easy book to write...

He also sends along these cartoons:

Good Prose Is Like a Windowpane

Again, some quotations that caught my eye. Most, though not all, are from A Word a Day.

Good prose is like a windowpane. -George Orwell, writer (1903-1950)

One of my greatest pleasures in writing has come from the thought that perhaps my work might annoy someone of comfortably pretentious position. Then comes the saddening realization that such people rarely read. -John Kenneth Galbraith, economist (1908-2006)

Ink is handicapped, in a way, because you can blow up a man with gunpowder in half a second, while it may take twenty years to blow him up with a book. But the gunpowder destroys itself along with its victim, while a book can keep on exploding for centuries. -Christopher Morley, writer (1890-1957)

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be. -Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)

Today I bent the truth to be kind, and I have no regret, for I am far surer of what is kind than I am of what is true. -Robert Brault, software developer, writer (1938- )

The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life. -Muhammad Ali

Disappointed (Temporarily?)

I have been lately disappointed with my lone delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives, Stephanie Herseth (D-SD). First she goes and co-sponsors a House Resolution to amend the United States Constitution to ban flag burning (HJ RES10); now she’s gone and voted in favor of an amendment to ban gay marriage (HJ RES 88).

Now let’s get a couple of things clear: I don’t much care how Rep. Herseth feels about these issues. I'm well past the point where I think that "my" representatives at any level of government must agree with everything I think. Personally, I think both of these "issues" are non-issues -- from what I’ve read on the subject, a mere handful of flag burnings occurs in any given year (a number I would expect to actually increase if a constitutional amendment is passed -- sort of like putting a wet paint sign on a freshly painted wall: it’s an invitation to touch it); and I hardly see where the so-called institution of marriage is in any danger from same-gender couples who want to be married…indeed, it seems to me that their desire to be married in fact strengthens the institution, and will do more to promote the benefits of marriage, commitment, monogamy, etc., than to somehow undermine it* -- both are merely political-hay makers, and Ms. Herseth is probably wise to play to her audience, which is mostly conservative and mostly Republicans.

Anyway, I don’t care where Stephanie stands on these issues. But I do care about the Constitution of the United States…apparently more than a great many members of Congress, who seem eager to bowdlerize and undermine it at every turn, if they think it will curry favor with the voters back home. The Constitution should not be treated so cavalierly. It is, if you will, the nation’s secular Bible, and just as one does not willy-nilly rewrite the Bible so that it agrees with one’s opinion (or what one believes his or her constituents’ opinion might be), one needs also exercise prudent restraint in tampering with the Constitution.

So my disappointment with Stephanie -- for whom I have voted twice, and probably will again -- is not in that she holds a different opinion than mine on the issues in question, but rather that she seems to hold the Constitution is rather low regard, and seems willing, even eager, to clamber aboard that bandwagon that is already overloaded with unseemly politicians who appear to view the documents as just another political stepping-stone. I thought she was made of better stuff than that.

And, in fact, I think she is made of better stuff than that. I'm hoping that when the election is behind us, that fact will start to show again.
_______

*I also believe, as expressed elsewhere, that if you really want to “save” marriage, you should be looking at a constitutional ban on divorce…but I digress.

Sez Who?

Yes, it's another batch of quotations...

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. -Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author
(1743-1826)

Religion--freedom--vengeance--what you will, A word's enough to raise mankind to kill. -Lord Byron, poet (1788-1824)

Adulthood is the ever-shrinking period between childhood and old age. It is the apparent aim of modern industrial societies to reduce this period to a minimum. -Thomas Szasz, author, professor of psychiatry (1920- )

By the age of six the average child will have completed the basic American education. ... From television, the child will have learned how to pick a lock, commit a fairly elaborate bank holdup, prevent wetness all day long, get the laundry twice as white, and kill people with a variety of sophisticated armaments. -Russell Baker, columnist and author (1925- )

It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning. -Bill Watterson, comic strip artist (1958- ), in his comic strip Calvin & Hobbes

For God's sake don't say yes until I've finished talking. -Darryl F. Zanuck, movie producer, director, and actor (1902-1979)

A myth is a fixed way of looking at the world which cannot be destroyed because, looked at through the myth, all evidence supports the myth. -Edward De Bono, consultant, writer, and speaker (1933- )

The object of most prayers is to wangle an advance on good intentions. -Robert Brault, software developer, writer (1973- )

The man who prefers his country before any other duty shows the same spirit as the man who surrenders every right to the state. They both deny that right is superior to authority. -Lord Acton, historian (1834-1902)

What the Cartoonists Are Saying

Conservative Hypocrisy

I have to give them credit, I guess--conservatives in the 21st century are very good at double-speak, very good at convincing people to vote against their own best interests. You can't do that without also being very good at deceit and hypocrisy.

Case in point: Conservatives whine and moan about "government interference." To hear them tell it, they believe in a near-complete right to be left to fend for themselves. In trying to dismantle Social Security, a favorite rallying cry for conservatives is, "They think you're too stupid to manage your own money."

However (and setting aside for the moment the fact that plenty of people ARE too stupid to manage their own money...and that even the smartest person in the world is helpless before, say, a market collapse or the calumny of an Enron, which is why Social Security was devised in the first place), it so happens that I live in the state which has made itself (in)famous for passing the most restrictive abortion law in the country. Basically, you can't get an abortion here--no exceptions, not for the life or health of the mother, not for instances of rape or incest...nothing.

In other words, in their vast, bottomless hypocrisy, conservatives see nothing wrong with the government making health decisions for women (and girls)--they see nothing wrong with hated government interference as long as they get to dictate the terms.

And I choose the word "dictate" with care. As time passes, I view the ringleaders of the modern conservative conspiracy to have nothing less in mind than the complete undermining of the real America--that is, a truly representative democracy of, by, and for the people--and its replacement by a dictatorial one-party regime that will stop at nothing to assume total power over the American people...too many of whom seem, sheeplike, to think it must be all right if "good" conservative "authorities" say so.

One can only hope they come to their senses while there's still something left of the United States.

Independence Day

I sent the following little greeting to some of my far-flung correspondents this past Saturday, July 2, the comemmoration of the Lee Resolution. One of the aforemention FFCs thought I should post it here, which I do--although as near as I can make out, only the FFCs ever read this.



Friends,

On July 3, 1776, John Adams wrote this to his wife, Abigail:

"The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward for evermore."

Well, he had the "pomp and parade" bit right, even if he was off by two days. As you may remember from History class, July 2, 1776, is the date that the Second Continental Congress passed Lee's Resolution, declaring the colonies to be independent of Britain. So you might say that today, not this Tuesday, is the 230th anniversary of US independence. Or you might, as I do, say that this is something worth celebrating twice.

Let us hope, on this commemoration of freedom, that the United States might continue to be truly the land of liberty, dedicated to the ideals of its own Constitution, ever resistant to the tyranny of those who would impose their opinions and beliefs on others, a genuine defender of all freedoms, an exemplar for the rest of the world. And let us hope that everyone enjoys a safe and happy Independence Day...or two!

WJR

9,000-Plus

If a picture is worth 1,000 words, then these cartoons that have caught my eye of late are worth 9,000...at least: most of them contain words as well, so each would be worth 1,000 words plus however many words are in it, no? Anyway...

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An Exchange of Questions

A friend sent me the following longish item about abortion, and asked, "How come Lutherans aren't considered at all?"--knowing as he does that I work for a Lutheran organization. I suggested that it could be because Lutheran statements on social issues are generally so long-winded that you have to really want badly to read them. Or it could be that Lutherans, although multitudinous where we live, aren't in the "top three", population-wise, that the article quotes. I don't know the article's origins, but here it is as he sent it to me:


The Bible
Abortion, infanticide and child abandonment were permitted under Roman law at the time of Jesus1. Surprisingly, abortion is never mentioned in the Bible, despite the fact that it has been practiced throughout recorded human history. However, a number of Bible passages may be relevant. These verses and others are often cited as evidence that a fetus is truly a living human being, and deserving the same protection:

At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. (NIV, Luke 1:39-44)

Now the word of the LORD came to me saying, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations." (NAS, Jeremiah 1:4-5)

I will say to God: ... "Your hands shaped me and made me. Will you now turn and destroy me? Remember that you molded me like clay. Will you now turn me to dust again? (NIV, Job 10:2, 8-9)

Several other verses are cited as evidence that a fetus is not a living being. Life is equated with breath throughout the Bible, and this passage seems to suggest that a person is not living until he or she takes a first breath after birth:

The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. (NIV, Genesis 2:7)

This passage from Exodus seems to say that causing death to a fetus is not as serious a crime as causing death to a person:

"And if men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, yet there is no further injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman's husband may demand of him; and he shall pay as the judges decide. "But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, (NAS, Exodus 21:22-24)

A literal translation of the Hebrew of this passage would be "cause her offspring to be brought forth." It is commonly thought that a miscarriage was meant, but it could mean an early birth where the child survived. Thus, this passage is cited both for and against abortion.

The Bible gives direct guidance on many, many topics, but not on abortion. None of the passages above (nor the many others often cited) were originally intended as statements about abortion, so any conclusions drawn from them represent opinions rather than Biblical evidence.

Opinions
In 1973, the United States Supreme Court, in its Roe v. Wade decision, ruled that a woman has a right to an abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy. However, the 50 states are still allowed to regulate abortion during the second trimester and prohibit it during the third trimester2. Since that time, abortion has become one of the most controversial and divisive issues within society.

Anti-abortion activists represent one extreme of opinion. They believe life begins at the instant of conception. Therefore, abortion is murder and is prohibited by the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:13). They strongly support laws banning all or almost all abortions.

However, the belief that life begins at conception does not have clear support from medical science, the Bible, religious tradition or legal tradition. Early Christians apparently did not view abortion as murder until well beyond conception. In the thirteenth century, Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas wrote that a soul enters the body at 40 days after conception for males and 80 days for females. That became church doctrine for many centuries, and abortion before the time of ensoulment was not considered a mortal sin. The belief that life begins at conception apparently has its origins in an 1869 decree by Pope Pius IX that abortion at any point in pregnancy was cause for excommunication.3,4

English common law apparently tolerated abortion until "quickening," the first detectable fetal movements, around the fifth month. Similarly, abortion was largely unregulated in the U.S. until the mid 1800s. Anti-abortion laws were passed around 1900, but the primary reasons had to do with the injuries and deaths resulting from unskilled abortions and a struggle for control of medical practice.5

3Tricia Andryszewski, Abortion, Rights, Options and Choices, Millbrook Press, 1996, p.63.
4Donald P. Judges, Hard Choices, Lost Voices, Ivan R. Dee, 1993, pp. 87-90.
5ibid., pp. 84, 90-106.

Church Doctrine
Many churches, including United Church of Christ,18 Episcopal,19 Presbyterian (USA)20 and United Methodist, do not approve of abortion as a means of birth control. However, they support the right of a woman to obtain an abortion, if she deems that is the best choice in her circumstances, and they favor keeping abortion legal. Other churches, including Roman Catholic and Southern Baptist, oppose all abortions and favor making abortion illegal. Here is a sampling of official church positions from the three largest denominations in the U.S.:

Roman Catholic:

2270. Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.

2271. Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law. From Catechism of the Catholic Church, (c) 1994, United States Catholic Conference, Inc., http://www.nccbuscc.org/catechism/text/index.htm

Southern Baptist:

Procreation is a gift from God, a precious trust reserved for marriage. At the moment of conception, a new being enters the universe, a human being, a being created in God's image. This human being deserves our protection, whatever the circumstances of conception. From Position Statements, Copyright (c) 1999 - 2001, Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, http://sbc.net/default.asp/url=position-statements.html


United Methodist:

The beginning of life and the ending of life are the God-given boundaries of human existence. While individuals have always had some degree of control over when they would die, they now have the awesome power to determine when and even whether new individuals will be born. Our belief in the sanctity of unborn human life makes us reluctant to approve abortion. But we are equally bound to respect the sacredness of the life and well-being of the mother, for whom devastating damage may result from an unacceptable pregnancy. In continuity with past Christian teaching, we recognize tragic conflicts of life with life that may justify abortion, and in such cases we support the legal option of abortion under proper medical procedures. We cannot affirm abortion as an acceptable means of birth control, and we unconditionally reject it as a means of gender selection. We oppose the use of late-term abortion known as dilation and extraction (partial-birth abortion) and call for the end of this practice except when the physical life of the mother is in danger and no other medical procedure is available, or in the case of severe fetal anomalies incompatible with life. We call all Christians to a searching and prayerful inquiry into the sorts of conditions that may warrant abortion. We commit our Church to continue to provide nurturing ministries to those who terminate a pregnancy, to those in the midst of a crisis pregnancy, and to those who give birth. Governmental laws and regulations do not provide all the guidance required by the informed Christian conscience. Therefore, a decision concerning abortion should be made only after thoughtful and prayerful consideration by the parties involved, with medical, pastoral, and other appropriate counsel. From The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church--2000, ¶161J. Copyright 2000 by The United Methodist Publishing House, http://www.umc.org/abouttheumc/policy/

18"Reproductive Rights," United Church of Christ, http://www.ucc.org/justice/choice/
19"Acts of Convention: Resolution # 1994-A054," The Episcopal Church, http://www.episcopalarchives.org/cgi-bin/acts_new/acts_resolution-complete.pl/resolution=1994-A054
20"Abortion," Presbyterian Church (USA), http://www.pcusa.org/101/101-abortion.htm

After I sent him my semi-glib reply, my friend wrote back with this:

How can something that was not a sin for roughly 600 years become a sin? If it were the Latter Day Saints I could accept the state of affairs in that the Prophet routinely receives new instructions. Moreover, if I was going for tradition, I would take 600 years over a 137 years twice a day and three times on Sunday.

What you have to understand about my friend is that he doesn't throw things like this at me (and others, sometimes) as a challenge: he genuinely likes to know what people think. And as a retired college prof, he likes to get people to think.

Anyway, I wrote back with this:

It is most passing strange. As I see it, you can coast along for eons thinking something is hunky-dory; then all of a sudden someone in some kind of position of authority decides it is neither hunky nor dory, and is in fact a sin, indeed a mortal sin, and that's that. It's now immutable, and you can't "go back." That's one thing where a church institution is concerned, but I am more than a little concerned about those who would impose such attitudes on so-called secular society--since of course they're always the "authority." Think Leslee Unruh. No, on second thought, don't: it's too close to bedtime and I wouldn't want you to get heartburn.

Here's something you can 'splain to me: If life begins at conception, then why do we (who practice infant baptism) wait till after birth to baptize' Would it not make more sense to take no chances and baptize in utero as soon as the pregnancy is known?

In re excommunication: One wonders if it carries anywhere near the weight it once did. I suppose in some parts of the world, and in some cultures, it does. But I'm not sure that many of us in danger of excommunication subscribe to the belief that the RCC is the One True Faith and that anyone booted out of it is damned. In my case, my attendance at Mass is so slipshod that I'm not sure if I or anyone else would notice if they gave me the bum's rush.

Saints preserve us from everyone who knows what's best for everyone...

Say What?

Here's another bunch of quotations that have been piling up. I think this time all of them--certainly most of them--are from A Word a Day.

We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. --Edward R. Murrow, journalist (1908-1965)

One of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the great struggle for independence. --Charles A. Beard, historian (1874-1948)

Most truths are so naked that people feel sorry for them and cover them up, at least a little bit. --Edward R. Murrow, journalist (1908-1965)

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side. --Aristotle, philosopher (384-322 BCE)

Permanent good can never be the outcome of untruth and violence. --Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

Civilizations in decline are consistently characterised by a tendency towards standardization and uniformity. --Arnold Toynbee, historian (1889-1975)

Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance, is the death of knowledge. --Alfred North Whitehead, mathematician and philosopher (1861-1947)

It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong. --G.K. Chesterton, essayist and novelist (1874-1936)

Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity. --Horace Mann, educational reformer (1796-1859)

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. --Joseph Addison, essayist and poet (1672-1719)

The politician is an acrobat. He keeps his balance by saying the opposite of what he does. --Maurice Barres, novelist and politician (1862-1923)

The simplest questions are the most profound. Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you going? What are you doing? Think about these once in a while and watch your answers change. --Richard Bach, writer (1936- )

The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book. --Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)

Flattery is like chewing gum. Enjoy it but don't swallow it. --Hank Ketcham, comic artist (1920-2001)

Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it. --Colette, writer (1873-1954)

Look into any man's heart you please, and you will always find, in every one, at least one black spot which he has to keep concealed. --Henrik Ibsen, playwright (1828-1906)

We shall succeed only so far as we continue that most distasteful of all activity, the intolerable labor of thought. --Learned Hand, jurist (1872-1961)

The question why there is evil in existence is the same as why there is imperfection... But this is the real question we ought to ask: Is this imperfection the final truth, is evil absolute and ultimate? -Rabindranath Tagore, poet, philosopher, author, songwriter, painter, educator, composer, Nobel laureate (1861-1941)

There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provisions should be made to prevent its ascendancy. --Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)

The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution. --Hannah Arendt, historian and philosopher (1906-1975)

Once you label me you negate me. --Soren Kierkegaard, philosopher (1813-1855)

The trouble with this country is that there are too many politicians who believe, with a conviction based on experience, that you can fool all of the people all of the time. --Franklin P. Adams, columnist (1881-1960)

We either make ourselves happy or miserable. The amount of work is the same. --Carlos Castenada, mystic and author (1925-1998)

I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied: 'The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies; that's fair.' In these words he epitomized the history of the human race. --Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, and author (1872-1970)

One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are when you don't come home at night. --Margaret Mead, anthropologist (1901-1978)

When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know have gone to a better world, I am moved to lead a different life. --Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. --Edward R. Murrow, journalist (1908-1965)

When work is a pleasure, life is a joy! When work is a duty, life is slavery. --Maxim Gorky, author (1868-1936)

Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise. --Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)

There is only one way to achieve happiness on this terrestrial ball, and that is to have either a clear conscience or none at all. --Ogden Nash, author (1902-1971)

There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in. --Leonard Cohen, musician (1934- )

One of the most time-consuming things is to have an enemy. --E.B. White, writer (1899-1985

And Yet the Myth Persists...

...that Catholic traditions are unchanging.

I refer, of course, to the proposed "new" English translation of the Mass that was foolishly approved by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops last week. "Foolishly" because, I can only assume, the bishops did not hear their clunky translation actually spoken aloud -- otherwise they would never have approved anything as unmelodic as "the Lord be with you" / "And also with your spirit"--"new" because half of what I've read actually sounds like a return to phrases from the Mass of my childhood ("Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof" is virtually identical to the phrase in use when I took my first communion all those years ago--except it was "come" rather than "enter," and the whole "roof" thing generated a great debate among we second-grade theologians (not second-rate, mind: we were in the second grade) about whether that referred to the roof of one's mouth). Some of it, of course, isn't new at all--there's a reference in this Religion News Service article (via BeliefNet) to the "Dying you destroyed our death" version of the Mystery of Faith: It's not used as often as "Christ has died," but it's used, and it's been in the book forever. Chalk one up for lazy reporters.

However, "the book" brings up another issue that I doubt the bishops have considered, viz., nobody uses the book. I observed quite a few years ago that I was the only one around me who was actually using the throwaway missal that churches go to great expense (I assume) to subscribe to. When that happened, I couldn't say; but it's obvious that everyone has memorized the liturgy, or at least the applicable parts, and have no use of the book. So a change in the wording of the Mass is going to cause a great deal of confusion. The bishops seem to think that an additional expense--laminated cards--will take care of the problem. I think I'd be more in favor of encouraging priests to encourage the faithful to pick up the %$#@! book that's sitting right in front of them, since of course the book will have to be changed if/when Rome approves the alteration, it the publishers want to keep their nihil obstats and imprimaturs and all that other stuff.

Meanwhile, I have to decide if I will "forget" to say "And with your spirit," just as I "forget" to open my arms for the Lord's Prayer. (When did we start doing that? And why, oh, why? Am I the only one who keeps his eyes open and realizes that we look like a bunch of people who are going to start handling snakes at any moment?) The stubborn Irish in me thinks I might just be forgetful; on the other hand, do I want to come off like the old ladies who sit behind us at my wife's Lutheran (ELCA) church and always say, "...one holy, Christian, and apostolic church" in the Apostle's Creed, even though the book has the lowercase catholic and has had for the 25 years I've been hanging around Lutheran churches? Are these women forgetful, stubborn, ignorant, or anti-Catholic? Will I, if "forgetful," be rightly perceived as a poet who detests the bad pacing of "And also with your spirit" (and what the hell does that mean, exactly? The priest does not say, "The Lord be with your spirit" to me; why should I say "And also with your spirit" to him? It not only sounds bad, it's illogical) or one of the old coots who can't/won't keep up with change?

Decisions, decisions. Thanks for nothing, bishops.