Again I Ask: What WOULD Jesus Do?

Here's a headline from this morning's New York Times online edition:

Anglican Prelates Snub Head of U.S. Church Over Gay Issues

Yes, it's another one of those charming examples of religion in action in the world today: These self-proclaimed leaders of their church have philosophical disagreements with positions held by their American colleague, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori of the Episcopal Church USA, so, as men of God, what do they do? Why, naturally, they "refused to take Communion here on Friday with the new head of the American Episcopal Church, to protest her support of gay clergy members and blessings for same-sex unions." Read the entire article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/17/world/africa/17anglicans.html

Well, naturally, this is in keeping with the example set by whom they purport to be a follower of, viz., Jesus of Nazareth. The Bible makes it clear that Jesus turned his back on everyone who did not think the same way he did. He certainly would not endorse comporting with those whom we perceive to be sinners--that's why he studiously avoided contact with the downtrodden and outcasts of society, and made sure to traffic only with yes-men and sycophants. (That's sarcasm, by the way.)

As the years go by, it becomes harder and harder to view religion as anything other than a great big speedbump on the road to Heaven, a colossal man-made obstacle designed to stand between Creator and creation. How can any institution that engenders so much rancor and violence and even death be seen as doing "God's work"? Quite the opposite, much of the time.

One hates to be so negative toward "organized religion" (an oxymoron if there ever was one)--and in brighter moments one does have to point to the good that religious institutions can do and occasionally have done in areas of education, health-care, poverty and disaster relief, and so on. When they are good they are very, very good...but the rest of the time--yikes!

Make no mistake: The culprit here is not God, of whom I maintain a very high opinion--Father, Son, and Spirit alike; no, the bad guy in this scenario is good ol' Homo sapiens, who seems incapable of developing any institution without a gilt-edged list of rules, regulations, doctrine, dogma, theology...and the insistence that everybody must subscribe. You have a question? A doubt? A different idea? Heretic! Blasphemer! Apostate! Out with you--if you're lucky we'll merely excommunicate you; if not, we'll stone you to death. (The Bible makes it clear we're allowed, nay, expected to do that.)

P.S.: Homo sapiens wrote the Bible, too. Make of that what you will.

Of course, ecclesiastic sleight-of-hand does a pretty good job of tricking the audience into thinking that religion is God--and more specifically, our religion is God--and therefore any criticism of the former is an attack on the latter. Which is nonsense.

There is a joke that tells of a rough-hewn sort who one Sunday attends services at a very upscale and well-heeled church. The man appears to be a laborer of some sort and, while he and his clothes are clean and neat, they definitely do no compare with the finery of the others in the congregations, who make no bones about their distaste for his style of dress. Indeed, afterward the pastor approaches him and suggests that he go home and pray to God, asking what God thinks would be the proper way to dress for a church such as this one.

The following Sunday the man is in his pew again, and dressed as before. Afterward the pastor comes up to the man. "I thought I encouraged you to go home and ask God how he thinks you should dress for this church," he says pointedly.

"I did," the man assures him. "And God said, 'Boy, I don't know--I've never been to that church!'"

"Church" is not God. "Religion" is not God. "Bible" is not God. To the extent that these human inventions bring us closer to God, they are good; to the extent that they stand between us and God--on the basis of doctrine, or theology, or tradition--they are evil.

Meanwhile, back in the ECUSA: Blessed are those who persist in trying to see the positive in things: "Liberal Episcopalians, on the other hand, were encouraged that the number of primates — the term for the leaders of Anglican provinces — who refused to take Communion at this meeting was only seven, about half the number who refused two years ago."

Noise

Am I the only one to note a recent uptick in internet noise? By this I mean sites and ads within sites whose creators seem to think that I want to hear whatever junk they feel inclined to spew? This has long been a bane of home-made web pages (and, believe me, there is absolutely NO ONE who wants to hear your dirgelike midi of "Amazing Grace"), but of late I've noticed it in "professional" applications as well. To wit:

I was playing Text Twist at Yahoo! Games when I became aware of a kind of clicking sound that was not part of the game. Turns out there was a commercial for Cascade playing off to the right of the game panel, and the nice folks at Cascade thought I would like to hear the click and clack of a woman putting away dishes as she removed them from her dishwasher. Wrong!

I'm a member of MyPoints, which is usually a lot of fun--they send you e-mail offers, you click on the link and get a certain number of points for reading the message, a greater number for responding to the offer, etc.; and then you can redeem the points for, you know, stuff. Works like a charm. Except some big thinkers behind some of the offers have decided that it's not enough to show me their come-on--they think they should tell me all about it. Usually loudly.

Likewise, I occasionally take online surveys for fun and...well, okay, so far just for fun. Every so often I land on one that, unannounced, plays me an ad for my input. Or at least it starts to. If they haven't the courtesy to forewarn me, I immediately close them down.

Considering that I usually have music playing, this extraneous noise is really annoying. Do these advertisers really think that the nuisance click and clatter of someone putting away dinnerware while I'm trying to listen to music inclines me favorable toward their dishwasher detergent? If so, here's my advice to them: Think again!

The Sad State of "News" Today

I subscribe to several "news alert" features from various national and local sources. From them I received the sad word that Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro was euthanized this morning, which I grant you is newsworthy. But from none of them did I hear that Robert F. Drinan, S.J., died yesterday. Father Drinan was a lawyer, law professor, college administrator, and the first Catholic priest elected to the United States House of Representatives. (He also was an unabashed liberal and anti-war activist, which I have always felt was the real reason the Vatican ordered him, after 10 years of service to his Massachusetts district, to either leave politics or leave the priesthood. Father Drinan decided to stick with his vows to the church and to the Society of Jesus, which probably was good for him but not so swell for the rest of us. I suspect that, had he been a right-winger, his marching orders would not have come. As it was, being the first member of the House to call for the impeachment of Richard Nixon probably did little to endear him to the pope.)

On balance, it seems to me that Father Drinan's passing deserves at least as much attention as a racehorse's.

The Importance of Accuracy in Advertising

I subscribe to an interesting newsletter from the New York Times, Stuart Elliott/In Advertising. (I was involved in advertising in a past life.) One of the most entertaining parts of the weekly mailing is the question-and-answer section, which this week included the following:

Q: [Reader]

I read your story in The Times about penguins in advertising. I love penguins, and applaud the use of penguins in advertising.

However, advertisers get a few basic penguin facts wrong, such as that penguins and polar bears do not live together. Penguins live in the Southern Hemisphere, and polar bears live in the Northern Hemisphere.

While I understand that it's advertising, not science class, such incorrect ads perpetuate myths. The Coca-Cola ads with penguins and polar bears are obviously targeting kids, and I think we would like children to know where penguins and polar bears live. I guess we hope they will learn from other sources.

A: [Stuart Elliott]

Thanks, dear reader, for sharing your thoughts. I am of two minds on the issue of accuracy in advertising (as opposed to truth in advertising, which I endorse 100 percent).

On one hand, one would hope that what you see in ads is accurate, at least to some degree. You don't want your child watching that Coke commercial and then, years later, answering "true" to a true/false question on a science test asking whether penguins and polar bears can be found in the same hemisphere.

On the other hand, ads are attempts at creativity intended to put over a particular point of view to sell something, meaning that in the pursuit of persuasiveness they will likely do whatever it takes to peddle the product.

If the creators of fictional TV shows and movies take creative license for dramatic or comedic purposes - for instance, showing cavemen and dinosaurs alive at the same time - I don't see why advertisers cannot do the same, within limits, of course. (One can imagine how much work teachers have had the last four decades undoing the false perceptions generated by "The Flintstones.")

So while I do not get too upset if I watch two animals that do not actually co-exist in nature becoming friends over a bottle of Coke, I would be upset if the ad claimed Coca-Cola was a cold remedy, for instance, or nutritious.

If viewers worry their children are getting inaccurate information from commercials, there is a solution. In this instance, after watching the Coke spot, a parent could share with a child a book about penguins or visit a Web site together to learn more about them.

Maybe the fact that ads ought to be taken with a grain of salt in how they depict the world is good in that it may help parents teach children that not everything they see or hear in ads is the gospel truth.

Okay, so here’s the skinny: This guy is watching a TV commercial in which a family of (computer animated) polar bears happens upon a flock or gaggle or herd or whatever of (computer animated) penguins having a big party. The party stops upon the intrusion of the bears. A little penguin offers the polar bear cub a Coca-Cola. The cub accepts it. The party starts up again with penguins and polar bears dancing and enjoying Coke. And this guy is upset because polar bears and penguins don’t live on the same continent??!

In the interests of scientific accuracy, then, it should be pointed out that polar bears enjoy Coca-Cola at the North Pole while penguins enjoy Coca-Cola at the South Pole.

A Few Words

A few more quotations that have been gathering dust on the hard drive. Again, many if not most are culled from A Word a Day:

Writing the last page of the first draft is the most enjoyable moment in writing. It's one of the most enjoyable moments in life, period. -Nicholas Sparks, author (1965- )

Dissent is what rescues democracy from a quiet death behind closed doors. -Lewis H. Lapham, editor (1935- )

Whenever people say 'We mustn't be sentimental,' you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add 'We must be realistic,' they mean they are going to make money out of it. -Brigid Brophy, writer (1929-1995)

The belly is the reason why man does not mistake himself for a god. -Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) [Beyond Good and Evil, 1886]

Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it. -Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)

God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the birds and invented cages. -Jacques Deval, writer and director (1895-1972)

No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true. -Nathaniel Hawthorne, writer (1804-1864)

For every ten people who are clipping at the branches of evil, you're lucky to find one who's hacking at the roots. -Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle. -Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. -Bertrand Russell

No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be. -Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer (1920-1992)

Ecclesiastic Sleight-of-Hand

My wife received an end-of-year letter yesterday over the signature of the senior pastor of her church. The gist of it was how everybody needs to contribute money to the church because every year the budget is barely being met.

Aside from the obvious (to me) conclusion--viz., perhaps the budget is overblown--the letter stands as a fine example of what I've come to regard as ecclesiastic sleight-of-hand. Specifically, it slides rather subtly from "giving to the church" to "giving to God" or "giving to Jesus." (This is hardly unique to my wife's church or denomination, by the way: I've had fifty years of hearing the same sort of slippery phraseology coming from Catholic pulpits, too, and I have absolutely no reason to believe it doesn't take place across the board.)

One is left with the question of what God needs money for.

And the answer, of course, is that he has no need of it whatsoever.

To which I would expect the rejoinder to be that, no, God has no need of filthy lucre himself, but money is what it takes to do God's work on earth, so contributing money to the church is in effect to contribute it to God's work.

Okay. But there is more sleight-of-hand at work there, too. Because every church that I've ever trafficked with, as member, visitor, or member-in-law, has insisted that its share of the take must come right off the top--what some churchy enterprises insist on referring to as "first fruits"--and that everyone and everything else must vie for whatever is left. Indeed, in some churches that I've been around, the powers that be even go so far as to describe certain undertakings as "second mile" giving, meaning that they sure as heck don't want you to deduct your contribution from what you put in the collection plate. The sleight-of-hand at work here is the presumption that God's work is done only through "the church"--which is to say "this church"--or most importantly through "the church," and so everything else is subordinate. And yet, is not a donation to charity "doing God's work"? What about a donation to "a good cause" (as defined by yourself)--I can think of several that are about the Lord's work just as much as any parish, congregation, or denomination is. But I suspect that most churchy folk will say that such contributions, though admirable and good, must come only after one's tribute to the local institutional church.

To which I say: Baloney.

God's work in the world boils down to helping other people. Thus the money donated to the local food bank, or homeless shelter, or Salvation Army is dedicated to God's work no less than the money placed in the collection plate. Maybe even more so, depending on circumstances. Ditto for dollars sent to a particular mission or relief endeavor.

This is not to say that giving to one's church is not important. It is of course. It's just to say that the church's insistence that it needs to be at the head of the line doesn't mean it really deserves to be at the head of the line.

"The first shall be last"...now, where did I read that...?

I am left equally cold by various church's insistence on tithing. My conscience and I are perfectly capable of determining what we feel should be our contribution to the church, thank you very much. I heard tell of one pastor who insisted that no one who didn't tithe could be a member of the church council. This strikes me as a pretty hot idea, inasmuch as I'm not too fond of meetings and am usually looking for a way to avoid serving on board and committees. It also strikes me as just shy of charging a membership fee to belong to a church, which is not such a hot idea.

Once again the sleight-of-hand is fully evident: You must tithe, traditionally ten percent of the gross, to "God's work." But what is really meant is, again, "the church"--"this church"--and not any other manifestations of "doing God's work." So to say, "Ten percent of my gross income is X dollars, and I'll divvy those dollars up among the food bank, the women's shelter, the orphanage, the Maryknoll Missioners, the community chest, and my church" is not acceptable to the church. The church, indeed, insists that the full ten percent belongs to the church, and that anything else you may care to donate to any other worthy cause must come from the remaining 90 percent of your income.

And, again: Baloney. God's work is God's work, no matter who is doing it.

The sad fact is, the pie is only so big and can be cut into only so many pieces, and "the church" wants to make sure it gets its piece, and the biggest piece, first.

Shame on them.

Thoughts on Gerald Ford's Passing

Watching coverage of the various memorial services for Gerald Ford brings to mind a number of things:

• How grand of the current president to decline to cut his vacation short a day or two in order to be in D.C. when Ford's remains (and, more important, family) arrived. Yes, indeedy, a class act all the way. Goes to show how poorly the current occupant of the White House compares to his predecessors, especially the one who will be buried this week.
• Gerald Ford is the only Republican presidential candidate for whom I have ever voted (and unless the GOP changes mightily in the future, the only one). It was the first year I was eligible to vote. I felt (still do) that Ford had been handed the most unimaginable mess--war, inflation, Watergate, just about everything short of frogs and locusts--and had done an admirable job of dealing with it. I felt (still do) that he deserved "his own" term. I further felt (still do) that Jimmy Carter was simply not the right man for the job, and am among those who feel Carter is a better ex-president than president. My feeling 30 years ago was that Ford was an honorable man trying to pull the country back together, and nothing in the interim has caused me to change my mind.
• I read a comment on CNN.com from someone who felt that Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon is what defined Ford's presidency, and not for the better. I disagree. At the time, I was one of those who believed the fix was in and that the pardon only showed the bottomless corruption of the Nixon bunch and the GOP. With the passage of time, however, I came to believe that pardoning Nixon was perhaps the only way to get the country past Watergate. The fact that it was unpopular, that Ford must have known it would be unpopular, and that he probably realized it jeopardized any chance he may have had to be elected in his own right only serves to illustrate the character of Gerald Ford.
• What the hell has happened to the Republican Party that in a mere three decades it has gone from the likes of Gerald R. Ford (decent, honest, committed to the nation's best interests) to the likes of George W. Bush (duplicitous, deceitful, and committed only to his cronies' best interests)?
  

Monsters and Straw Men

This letter appeared in my local newspaper last week. I started to draft a pithy reply to it, but quickly realized that to meet the paper's parsimonious word count would require me to edit it down to a nubbin, which I was loath to do. Anyhow, here's the diatribe:

Did vote match philosophy?
By Cindy M. Flakoll
legislative liaison Concerned Women for America of South Dakota
PUBLISHED: December 19, 2006

South Dakota's abortion ban failed on Election Day.

Which group's philosophy aligns with your personal philosophy?
Organization No. 1 believes:

# Abortion hurts women and kills unborn children. Babies conceived in rape/incest deserve prenatal care and birth just as much as babies conceived under other circumstances.

# A woman confronting an unplanned pregnancy should be supported medically, emotionally, spiritually and financially so she can give birth to a healthy child, then choose to raise the child or choose adoption.
Organization No. 2 believes:

# The woman's need to kill her own child is all-important. Her child's needs should not be considered.

# No matter how the child is conceived, the woman should utilize any means to kill her child rather than allow "it" to become burdensome - medically, emotionally, spiritually or financially - for herself and her chosen partner or rapist.

Where are you? If you believe like Organization No. 1, you should have voted "yes" to ban abortions. If you voted "no" on the ban, then you voted against your own beliefs.

If you believed the ban was too extreme, your philosophy matches Organization No. 2. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, on Election Day you became a supporter of the culture of death in America.


Well. You can imagine how gratifying I find it when someone who doesn't know me presumes to know what my innermost thoughts and feelings are. For the record, I voted against this state's near-total ban on abortions because I felt that it was bad law--unnecessarily harsh and drafted for no other reason than to force the issue into the court system, ultimately to the Supreme Court. I fail to see why every taxpayer in the state should be shanghaied into such a blatantly illegal undertaking. (Legislators take a vow to uphold the Constitution. To pass legislation that contravenes the Constitution violates that vow. As far as I'm concerned, every legislator who voted for the ban should be impeached and possibly prosecuted for treason. Same goes for the governor who signed the measure.)

Ms. Flakoll's hardly unbiased letter does serve as a shining example of the Straw Man argument, one that my old high-school debate coach would have been proud of. See, she gets to present both sides of the argument, and in so doing gets to portray The Other Side as morally monstrous, evil, and all kinds of other bad things, while Her Side is virtuous, noble, and full of sugar and spice and everything nice.

And so, in the spirit of Ms. Flakoll's dishonest and spurious presentation, I proffer my own:

Which group's philosophy aligns with your personal philosophy?
Organization No. 1 believes:

# The government should be in the business of making health-care decisions for women, no matter what the woman and her doctor think best.

# Women are simply too emotional to know what's best for them, so the totalitarian state must make decisions for them

# There is no room for sympathy or mercy if a woman is the victim of rape or incest, and the government forcing her to continue her pregnancy is for her own good

# It's probably her own fault that she's pregnant, anyway.

Organization No. 2 believes:

# Abortion is a hard choice, and we should feel great empathy toward women who are faced with making that decision.

# Women are intelligent enough to be able to make their own medical decisions, in consultation with their physicians and with the support of their family.

# A woman or girl who has been the victim of rape or incest should not be further victimized by the legislature, the governor, social activists, or others who always know what's best for everybody else.

# It's very easy for someone to dictate what other people "should" be doing, when the consequences do not weigh on him or her at all.

See? With no one to refute or rebut, you may simultaneously slander and demonize people who don't agree with you to your little heart's content. Loads of fun, and you can do it in your own home!

What, Me Work?

"Keeping us up here eats away at families," is what GOP Congressman Jack Kingston of Georgia told The Washington Post. Democrats, he said, "could care less about families -- that's what this says."

And what was Mr. Kingston complaining about? Why, the incoming Democratic leadership of the House has this bizarre notion that members of Congress should actually, you know, work. Like, in their offices. Which these days are located in Washington, DC.

Yes, our representatives will actually be forced to return to work on January 4--whole weeks before the State of the Union address, which is when they’ve been accustomed to wandering back in under GOP “leadership.”

As The Post points out in an editorial this morning, “Do-Something Congress”, the current 109th Congress will have been in session for a grand total of 103 days this year, seven days fewer than the "Do-Nothing Congress" of 1948.

The Post also points out that “an ordinary full-time worker with a generous four weeks of vacation would have clocked 240 days of work during that same period.”

In addition, says The Post, quoting to the American Enterprise Institute's Norman Ornstein, “the average number of days in session for a two-year Congress has dropped from 323 in the 1960s and '70s to just 250 during the first six years of the Bush presidency.”

“This,” writes The Post, “saps lawmakers' ability to get much done. It's one explanation, though not the only one, for why they were able to finish work on only two spending bills this year. It takes a toll, too, in less measurable ways, on congressional civility and bipartisanship. How can lawmakers forge friendships -- or even learn to get along -- when they're barely in town long enough to learn each other's names?”

As to Rep. Kingston: I too have noticed how having a job really cuts into one’s free time. Perhaps the voters of his district can help him out with that in a couple of years.

Strangely Familiar?

Here is a picture of the familiar old Civil Defense emblem, which was retired yesterday after almost 70 years of service. We Cold War kids remember it well, if not fondly:


Here is its replacement, the Emergency Management logo:

And here is the current symbol for DC Comics, publisher of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc.

Is it just me, or do logos #2 and #3 look an awful lot alike?

I leave it to your imagination to determine what this strange resemblance might mean, if anything...

Although I like to think I'm as cynical as the next guy, this news summary from this morning's New York Times struck even me as a little crusty:

Pope Backs Turkey’s Bid to Join European Union
The gesture of good will, a reversal of his position, was aimed at blunting Muslim anger toward him.

Short of Benedict himself saying, "I'm doing this to blunt Muslim anger toward me," it seems unlikely that we really know what Il Papa has in his heart. Mind, I'm sure that anger-blunting was part of the package (see above re my cynicism), but is it not also possible that the pope has re-thought his previous opposition to Turkey's joining the EU, that he has had a legitimate change of mind and/or heart—and that perhaps that instead of or in addition to anger-blunting is behind his new position?

But our society does not allow for that. To change one's mind is to flip-flop, to waffle, to bow to political correctness or some other pet bugaboo. Stubbornness has become a virtue. Real men "stay the course"; real men are consistent, and consistency requires one to be as ignorant today as he was yesterday.

Growth? That's a funny word…

It's the Holiday Season!

The "Quotation of the Day" in this morning's online edition of The New York Times:

"It's like a mosh pit. You get pushed everywhere." --LEXIE DEWEGEL, 19, a shopper at Fashion Place Mall in Murray, Utah, where fighting erupted among 12,000 bargain hunters.

One hates to always be the spoilsport, but this Black Friday free-for-all strikes me as pandering to the worst impulses of the American public. Everybody likes a bargain, and retailers must make money, but does that translate into "anything goes"?

Is there no major retailer in the country with enough intestinal fortitude to say, "No, we think we can be better than that"?

Well, of course not. What am I thinking? Obviously been hitting the cranberry sauce a little hard,

But as I watch the images of holiday shoppers stampeding into Wal-Mart like a herd of wild pigs, as pushing and pulling degenerate into fistfights, I cannot but think that sooner or later somebody's going to get killed. Someone will stumble in the mad rush, and be trampled by the wild pigs. A fight will turn deadly. Someone will produce a gun or knife in order to secure the season's version of Tickle-Me Elmo.

Black Friday, indeed.

And, since we live in a litigious society, the victim, or the victim's survivors, will sue. The retailer will argue that the victim was there voluntarily, and that it is blameless. The survivors will argue that the victim was, well, the victim of the retailer's endless hyperbolic advertising, that nonstop insisting that those who snooze will be those who lose created an imperative in the victim's mind that he or she was helpless to resist. And anyway the store should have had better security.

As annoyed as I get at people's refusal to accept responsibility for their own actions and the consequences thereof, I hope that when--not if--the lawsuits start flying, some of these retailers are hit with whopping great fines. Money being the only thing that seems to matter to them only the threat of having money taken away from them will make them see (maybe) that just because base impulses exist in the American public, they needn't feel obliged to pander to them.

In the meantime, I was sound asleep at five a.m. when the local stores started their "doorbuster" sales. It was noon before I was looking at the newspaper ads telling me about all the great bargains I had missed. (One wonders: If Best Buy boasts a "minimum of 10" copies of an attractively priced LCD TV, what are the odds of my getting one even if I'm in line at the store in the middle of the night?) I am hard-pressed to think of anything I want or need so badly, any bargain that is so irresistibly attractive, that would compel me to eat Thanksgiving dinner in a tent in front of the mall.

And the holiday season begins!

Morning in America

By Tony Auth, Philadelphia Inquirer

Voter Turnout

The official voter-turnout count in South Dakota for Tuesday is 67.2%--a good number, by modern standards, but neither a record nor the 72% that Secretary of State Chris Nelson was guessing at.

Nelson's guess, and that of others who predicted lines around the block, was based on an odd bit of reasoning, to wit: The number of absentee ballots taken out before the election (well, of course: they don't let you vote after the election) was higher than usual, therefore overall voter turnout would be higher than usual.

Except that various sources were encouraging people to vote absentee even if they were going to be around on election day, once again on the grounds that turnout would be high, lines would be long, and you could save a lot of hassle by voting before November 7. Well, if enough people did that, then you would see fewer people at the polling places, since so many would already have voted...not that more people were voting, mind, just that more were voting in advance.

I haven't heard if any records were set for absentee ballots.

Granted, more people voted than in recent years. But only one person I've spoken to had to wait in line more than a couple of minutes. Me, I got to my polling place at about 7:25 a.m., chatted in the parking lot with the school custodian a few minutes, went in for my ballot (number 53), took the only open voting booth, marked the aforementioned ballot and turned it in at the lockbox, went back outside and chatted with one of the candidates for a few minutes, and was still at my office by 7:50.

Reflections After the Fact

Yesterday, the day after Election Day, was an odd one.

For one thing, I am long since used to being in the wilderness, politically speaking. It is a rare occurrence for "my" candidate to win, a rare occurrence for me to be on the same side of a given issue as my voting peers. And yet. My gubernatorial, attorney general, and one state representative choices failed, but everyone else I voted for was elected, Bizarre.

Likewise on the ballot issues. As you know, South Dakota had a mess of 'em this year: eleven constitutional amendments, initiated measures, and referred laws. Phew. Again, though, I found myself in league with the majority on an unsettling number of them, most notably our infamous abortion ban, which was defeated, but also such oddities as who gets to decide when school starts (I thought that's what we elected school boards for, and it seems the majority of my fellow residents felt the same) and whether the governor can use a state-owned plane to go to his kid's football game (no).

Add to that the wonderfully bizarre turn of events in Our Nation's Capital--Democrats taking back the House of Representatives and nearly (at that point) the Senate (now an apparent reality), precipitating the ouster of Donald Rumsfeld (one-third of the Axis of Evil that got us into the mess(es) we're in today)--and you can about imagine how disoriented I felt all day!

(I do not for a minute believe that Rummy's departure means that the president or anyone else on Pennsylvania Avenue "got" the message. Mr. Bush did a fine job of ducking the question of whether this signifies a change in approach to the war, leading me to conclude that it's just a new actor in the old role. See "Bush Replaces Rumsfeld with... Another Rumsfeld" by Joshua Holland.)

I'm much more used to waking up the morning after and cursing the imbecilic electorate for being so easily duped.

What accounts for this strange turn of events? I hardly think, after all these years, that I am somehow an exemplar of Mainstream America. So I'm left to conclude that the political pendulum, having swung so far to the right these past several years, has now swung back to the center, perhaps even a bit left of same, where I believe I have stayed all along. Presumably it will now settle back in the moderate mid-range, where the majority of the country (by definition) is.

Of course, it's not all fish and chips in America now. The we-know-what's-best-for-you right-wing extremist morally superior shove-it-down-everyone's-throat lobby has already vowed to "continue the fight" to ban all abortions in South Dakota. Predictable. And the constitutional amendment to "define" marriage (one man and one woman, in case you were wondering) passed rather handily, which is disappointing. I can't decide if it was a win for fear and prejudice (anti-gay) or a case of the electorate not fully understanding that, despite its billing, this amendment doesn't just close the door on gay marriage but also on certain rights afforded to straight couples who are living together without benefit of clergy. What my friend Jerry would refer to as the Law of Unintended Consequences.

I was amused by some people's reaction to the defeat of the mean-spirited and hard-hearted abortion ban...not the diehard wild-eyed right-wing extremists, but otherwise normal and rational-seeming folks. Some of them seemed ignorant of the fact that legal abortion has been available in the United States of America for some decades now, and honestly seemed to believe that Tuesday's election meant that abortion will now be coming to a medical clinic near you. Others (well, actually some of the same people) seem intellectually incapable of separating the concepts of "against banning all abortions" and "in favor of abortion." The truth is, nobody is "in favor" of abortion. I think there is widespread agreement across the board that abortion leaves no winners. The question is not whether one is "for" anything, but rather who gets to make a woman's health-care choices: the woman, or the government?

I think this is why I so often hear, and in very definitive tones, that it is "impossible" for me to be pro-choice and pro-life. Nonsense: It is by definition not impossible, since I am both of those things; rather it just takes a little bit of intellectual discrimination to realize that the two are not mutually exclusive. I think abortion is bad news. My prayer would be that no woman would ever find herself in such a position that she felt abortion was her only or best option. But, meanwhile, we must live in what I hilariously refer to as the real world, in which women do find themselves in that predicament. Given that, I fail to see how adding to her distress by turning her into a criminal, by sending her back into the good old alleyways and into the unsanitary, unsafe hand of butchers (or worse) helps her in any way. I fail to see how this "protects" women, as the anti-abortion lobby insisted the total ban would do.

But for a brief interlude, now, it's possible to bask in the glow of some political success. Not across the board--but as I said, it's so odd for me to have several of my votes among the majority, let alone most of them, that I can do nothing else but enjoy what will most likely be a once-in-a-lifetime event!
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Worth a look:
GOP Myths Fall Short Of Reality, by CBS News political consultant Samuel J. Best.
A Victory for Progressive Values, by Nathan Newman, TPMCafe.
Bush Urges Bipartisan Cooperation After Cabinet Meeting, by William Branigin, The Washington Post. (For comic relief, the headline alone is a knee-slapper.)

Subtle, and Not So, Continued

One hates to start sounding paranoid (although you know what they say about it not being paranoia if they're really out to get you), but I was once again stunned by yet another fairly blatant anti-Catholic jab, this one in yesterday's edition of the local rag. The item in question was about pastors who feel "pressured" if they express an opinion on the various social issues that we will confront at the polls next week. Here's the pertinent bit, in re the upcoming vote on this state's now-infamous total ban on abortion:

"My denomination says abortion is OK in certain limited circumstances," Tarver [a retired United Methodist pastor] said. "Now, if (the ban) passes, it means the Catholic Church and the evangelical right has trumped our position, and that of Jews, Muslims and others. That's not a very happy thing to contemplate."

Yow. Even though I will break ranks and vote against the ban next week, this character's bigoted remark about those Catholics who might "trump" his vote is truly appalling. Yes, yes, I see that he also swipes the "evangelical right": you will note, however, that he doesn't single out any other church or religious organization. Just Catholics.

How likely is it that he would express outrage at the possibility that, say, the Presbyterian Church might "trump" his vote? Or the Congregationalists? How about the Rotary Club?

Then, the very next paragraph after he trashes members of the Catholic Church who might vote differently than him, comes this:

What bothers Tarver most is the strain he thinks has developed in ecumenical relations between denominations. The spirit of ecumenism he once saw as a young pastor has largely dissipated, he thinks.

Geez. Almost hard to believe, huh? Wonder what could possibly have happened to that "spirit of ecumenism"?

If this is the sort of fat-headed commentary that these so-called pastors are spewing, then they should feel pressured to shut up, at least until such time as their brains have had a chance to catch up to their tongues.

As my latest foray into time-wasting, I last night penned this letter to the editor of the aforementioned rag:

In an election year in which some forces would take us back to the nineteenth century, and in which various players feel free to use large quantities of mud in their undertaking, it was just a matter of time before good old-fashioned Catholic-bashing would emerge.

Thursday's Argus Leader quotes a retired United Methodist pastor thus: "Now, if (the ban) passes, it means the Catholic Church and the evangelical right has trumped our position, and that of Jews, Muslims and others. That's not a very happy thing to contemplate."

What a hateful and bigoted thing to say! I can hardly imagine anyone complaining that a particular outcome would mean that the United Methodist Church has "trumped" the election. Yet this man considers it acceptable to condemn members of another church--and specifically the Catholic Church--because they might vote differently than him, and thus "trump" his vote.

In an election, we generally see opposing sides on every issue. The side that generates the most votes prevails. We call that democracy.

Ironically, the man in question next laments the dissipation of "the spirit of ecumenism he once saw as a young pastor."

No kidding.


The sad thing is, the man who made these insensitive, bigoted remarks probably would not consider himself the least bit bigoted or insensitive. Sad, and dangerous. For that kind of bigot usually insists (and porbably believes) that he was misunderstood, and the aggrieved party is over-sensitive. And so we let that kind of attitude slide unchallenged--I am often guilty of that myself--which implies that it is acceptable.

It isn't.

Subtle, and Not So, Bigotry

One of the interesting things about being the token Catholic on a non-Catholic religious organization's staff is the opportunity to observe how pervasive anti-Catholic sentiment really is. And often among people who would consider themselves progressive, ecumenically minded sorts with nary a bigoted bone in their bodies. And yet...

Item: Several days ago a comment in passing led a co-worker (a newish one, who I'm not certain knows I'm Catholic, so I don't think she was trying to be provocative) to complain about schools serving meatless lunches on Fridays in lent. "It's about choice," she averred. Balderdash. 'Round these parts, there is no choice in elementary school lunches--if chicken is today's entree, everyone gets chicken--and middle school and high school cafeterias are a la carte, so there's always choice. Thus the complaint is not that the kids all have to eat mac and cheese on Friday, but rather that an accommodation (and a small one, at that) is being made to Catholic kids. And why should that bother anyone, unless they have at least a subconscious bias against Catholics?

Item: A couple of years ago, an article appeared in the local press about someone who had been taken in by one of these e-mail offers of untold zillions in an African bank, which can only be liberated by the solicitor of the deceased owner of the zillions if he has a "partner" in the U.S. A discussion of that in the office prompted someone to mention that some years previous, a local church of my employers' denomination had lost money in a similar scam; I conversationally mentioned that a local Catholic church had had the same experience. "They can afford it," said one of my playmates dismissively. Actually, they couldn't: they were and are a struggling parish. But even if they could, what a shameful thing to say. The implication was clear: They're not us, so their loss doesn't matter; they're Catholics, so who cares.

Item: A co-worker (who does know I'm Catholic, and who was I think making an effort to be hurtful) mentions a conversation with someone else who has read on "a web site" that Catholics "still" believe you can "earn" your way into Heaven. (Not precisely true, but precision is not something that is prized by bigots.) Causing someone else in that conversation to comment that he "hoped they would have done away with that by now." Golly. Where to begin? First of all, "a web site" is not what we would call a reliable source. Anyone can put anything on a web site. Second, not knowing the name of the web site makes it impossible to verify its contents, or to know whether the contents were being properly relayed by the commenter. Third, why would the commenter "hope" the Catholic Church would do or not do anything? If you're not a Catholic, what do you care what the Catholic Church professes? Finally, the smug implication--we're enlightened, they're benighted--is patently offensive. (Just as I would imagine the holder of such an attitude would be offended by the revelation that in some quarters his insistence on the concept of "grace alone" is not considered enlightened but rather incomplete.)

Item: In reference to the ordination and installation of a new bishop to the local Catholic diocese, one of my co-workers says that, watching the local news and seeing the rows and rows of priests in attendance, she is so proud to be a member of a church that ordains women. Well, okay. She should be proud of her church; everyone should be. Most of the time I am, too. But there again I sense an undercurrent of we're so enlightened and they're not. I certainly get no sense of respect for another church's right to set its own policy and make its own way to what it sees as the will of God. And, again, the subtle anti-Catholic thread is clearly evident: the Roman Catholic Church is far from the only church body that does not ordain women. And yet I hear little bemoaning of the fact that, say, Southern Baptists don't allow women in the pulpit. Why is the Catholic Church singled out? Well, because it's the Catholic Church, silly!

Let's be plain here: If it were left to me, the Catholic Church would have both women priests and married priests. But that's not the point. The point is, do I respect the right of Baptists, Presbyterians, Mormons, Jews, Hindus, etc., etc., to make their own policies? Not do I agree with these policies, but rather whether I have respect for them. If the answer is yes, then I have to acknowledge that "respect," if genuine, means being mature enough to avoid looking down my nose at policies that are different from those of my church or those that I would establish were it up to me. Somebody once said that anti-Catholicism is the last acceptable bias in America. I used to think that was largely a dodge to keep the Catholic League in business, but my opinion has been altered these past several years. Sadly, most of the anti-Catholic comments and attitudes I observe are so ingrained that the person in question almost certainly does not recognize them as such. In a way, that's the worst kind of bigotry.
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Postscript: This talk of who and who does not know my religious preference might imply that I keep it secret. I don't. I don't bruit it about all the time, but I don't keep it confidential either. Anyhow, it's more fun (if that's the word I want) to sit back quietly and see what people have to say when they don't realize there's an outsider in their midst.

What He Said

Time for another batch of collected quotations! As usual, these caught my eye as adjuncts to the wonderful A Word a Day:

Very few established institutions, governments and constitutions ... are ever destroyed by their enemies until they have been corrupted and weakened by their friends. -Walter Lippman, journalist (1889-1974)

History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure. -Thurgood Marshall, US Supreme Court Justice (1908-1993)

Whenever morality is based on theology, whenever right is made dependent on divine authority, the most immoral, unjust, infamous things can be justified and established. -Ludwig Feuerbach, philosopher (1804-1872)

Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous. -William Proxmire, US senator, reformer (1915-2005)

No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency. -Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President (1882-1945)

In the small matters trust the mind, in the large ones the heart. -Sigmund Freud, neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis (1856-1939)

The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions. -James Russell Lowell, poet, editor, and diplomat (1819-1891)

Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love truth. -Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. -Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

War is so unjust and ugly that all who wage it must try to stifle the voice of conscience within themselves. -Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher (1828-1910)

Fortune does not change men, it unmasks them. -Suzanne Necker, author (1739-1794)

Be civil to all, sociable to many, familiar with few, friend to one, enemy to none. -Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)

Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom. -Theodore Rubin, psychiatrist and writer (1923- )

To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest. -Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)

I'm proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill. -Thomas Edison, inventor (1847-1931)

Those who know how to win are much more numerous than those who know how to make proper use of their victories. -Polybius, historian (c. 205-123 BCE)

You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered. -Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th US president (1908-1973)

The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing -- to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts. -John Keats, poet (1795-1821)

In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something less, because passing civilization along from one generation to the next ought to be the highest honor and the highest responsibility anyone could have. -Lee Iacocca, automobile executive (1924- )

The radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief ... that the forces which move the stars and atoms are contingent upon the preferences of the human heart. -Walter Lippman, journalist (1889-1974)

The human mind treats a new idea the same way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it. -Peter. B. Medawar, scientist, Nobel laureate (1915-1987)

When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion. -C.P. Snow, scientist and writer (1905-1980)

The study of error is not only in the highest degree prophylactic, but it serves as a stimulating introduction to the study of truth. -Walter Lippmann, journalist (1889-1974)

Here's Your Sign, redux

I've been rethinking slightly my earlier ponderings on yard sign, following a quip I made to my wife the other night that I should look at the signs in a particular neighbor's yard so I will know whom and what to vote against. There certainly is that angle, but it also occurs to me that there might be a residual effect for lesser-known candidates whose signs are displayed alongside the better-knowns. For instance, there are a couple judicial elections on next month's ballot. Frankly, I haven't heard of any of the people running, including the incumbents. So if I see Judge X's sign in a yard full of signs for candidates and positions that I support, it seems reasonably safe to vote for Judge X. The opposite would also seem reasonable.

But only to a point: There is a fellow in our neighborhood whose social-political stands are the virtual opposite of my own, and yet, based on yard signs, I see that there is one candidate on whom we agree. (I suspect that my neighbor's sign might be there on the basis of the candidate also living in our neighborhood, and I wonder whether the sign will in fact translate into a vote...but we'll never know, will we?) Obviously, I will not be voting in synch with all the other signs in this fellow's yard. So you have to have your wits about you.

In re incumbents: My late friend Jim Carney, who was my unofficial mentor when I was a just-out-of-college magazine editor, had an interesting take. On one occasion in those days, I commented on how, if I got into the voting booth and was looking at odd slots like water commissioner or something and found that none of the candidates' names meant anything to me, I usually voted for the incumbent on the theory that he or she already knew the job and that my ignorance of his or her name meant he or she must not have been involved in any scandals or malfeasance. Jim said he did just the opposite: in that case he would vote against the incumbent, who probably would be re-elected, just so that he or she would now that there was someone out there who didn't like the job he or she was doing, just to keep 'em on their toes.

That struck me as reasonable, and I've employed that tactic ever since.

Overheard on the Campaign Trail

So I’m sitting in a folding chair on Dakota Avenue in downtown Sioux Falls, across the street from my alma mater, Washington High School (the original, now the Washington Pavilion of Arts and Science), enjoying the annual Festival of Bands USA parade. Naturally, it being an election year, folks are roaming the crowd handing out political stuff. A remarkably polite couple working for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jack Billion are working the sidewalk, asking people if they’d like a “Back Jack” sticker. I took one, of course--in fact I took three, knowing my kids would each want one. The couple moves on. And then I hear behind me (in a very loud and obnoxious voice, of course): “WE DON’T BACK JACK, WE BACK JESUS.”

Although it took a Herculean effort, I did not turn to see who the loudmouth was: what would I do if I knew her?

But I did find myself wondering about the lousy campaign Jesus is running. Why, I didn't even know he was in the race! Less than a month until the election, and I haven’t seen a single billboard, yard sign, or bumper sticker, let alone a TV ad. Plenty of those "ICHTHU" fish things on the backs of people’s cars, of course, but I have always taken those to be a warning of a bad driver behind the wheel (high positive correlation between the fish emblem on the back and a questionable driver up front. Don’t take my word for it: Start paying attention and see if I’m not right) and not a campaign tool.

I must assume, then, that Jesus is running a word-of-mouth write-in campaign, and I envision his supporters dutifully penciling “Jesus…H…Christ” onto their ballots next month.

For all the good it will do. Although I consider myself a friend of Jesus, I won’t vote for him. He would probably make a good governor, but I suspect he doesn’t meet South Dakota residency requirements.