Revolting Development

Wasted some perfectly good noon-hour time with the local rag, and saw fit to compound the waste by posting this comment to their article on the fair city's Teabagger event yesterday:

"Taxpayer revolt," eh? Balderdash! The teabaggers aren't protesting "federal spending." Their beloved George Bush took a budget surplus, burned through it, and then launched a trillion-dollar war based on phony "evidence" and nobody threw anything into the lake. When the economy started over the edge of the cliff and Bush began the so-called bailout plan, nobody threw anything into the lake. Now Obama proposes a plan that will REDUCE taxes for most of the middle class…and they protest?! Now the economy is showing some signs of recovery…and they protest?!

Either they have no sense at all, or the issue is really about something else--namely, their party having lost, overwhelmingly, in November. They’re out of power and out of ideas, so they resort to gainsaying, grandstanding, and hoping that the economic recovery will fail so they can say, "Told you so!"

It's not about taxes, or bailouts, or anything except the fact that they're out and they can't stand it.

It really is quite astounding to me how people who are, I presume, of reasonably average intelligence can so easily--and enthusiastically!--convince themselves that when a Republican president gives big tax breaks to multimillionaires, that's a wonderful thing for themselves...but when a Democratic president proposes tax cuts for middle-class Americans--like them!--they take up arms, and teabags, in protest! How dare that dirty dog cut my taxes! What is he, some kinda Socialist?! He should be cutting rich people's taxes instead!

One strives for optimism. But it seems a losing battle...

Protesting...What, Exactly?

Naturally, there was a "teabagging" event in the old hometown today. The report on a local station was kind of strange. Consider the lead:

Organizers estimate more than 3,000 people showed up for the Tax Day Tea Party in Sioux Falls. And those who surrounded Covell Lake hope politicians got an earful.

Seems to me that Rule Number One or Two should be, Don't Rely on Organizers' Estimates of Anything. But whatever.

I am still at a loss to quite get what it is these goofballs are protesting. What is it that they want "politicians" to get an "earful" of?

"We wanted to be here today to make our voices heard, to let people know we're not anti-government and we're certainly not anti-American. But we think our tax dollars need to be spent wisely," Heather Benson said.

Okay. What does "wisely" mean? Perhaps on a pointless war launched on manufactured "evidence" of Weapons of Mass Destruction pointed right at us? Is that spending "wisely?"

So then why weren't they throwing tea into the lake back then? Why were they silent?

Where were they when their beloved George W. Bush was--in a matter of weeks--burning through the budget surplus that he inherited from his Democratic predecessor, the hated Bill Clinton?

They seemed unconcerned about spending "wisely" back then.

In fact, they seemed unconcerned about spending "wisely" when the Republican-controlled White House and Republican-controlled Congress were spending the country into the red--when their revered Dick Cheney insisted that "deficits don't matter."

They weren't dressing up as patriots and throwing tea into the lake (talk about wasteful spending!) when their do-nothing president allowed the economy to fall into ruin on the theory that less regulation would free "the market" to magically correct any little problems that might pop up. And they seem to have forgotten, with their customarily convenient memories, that it was in fact that same Republican administration which, belatedly, seeing that the economy was headed over a cliff, began the so-called bailout program which the current administration is now continuing in the hope of undoing the hideous mess that it was handed in January.

They haven't seemed very concerned about spending "wisely" all these years. So what's the deal now.

Hmm, let's see, let's see...

Oh, wait--I know: They lost the 2008 election.

Big time.

As in landslide.

And that is what they're protesting. Losing. Banishment. Impotence.

Having no new ideas, no positive suggestions for undoing the mess their "leadership" made, they resort instead to impotent, frothing stunts. Protests of nothing in particular, except they can't stand the fact that they lost the election, and through their own staggering ineptness.

You think not?

"We're tired of it. We're not taking it anymore and in 2010, when the next election comes around, it's going to change. And it's going to change even bigger in 2012," said [Linda] Melin.

Um, tired of what? They keep saying stuff like that, and they're thrilled to death that so many people showed up for their vague grandstanding, but they never tell us what they're "tired" of, what the "message" is they want to send to whoever they think they're sending it to...so one can only conclude that they're just pissed off because they're out of power and--90 days into the Obama administration--they can't stand it anymore!

So they will continue their pointless (literally, no discernible point to them) protests of not much in particular.

And the people on Pennsylvania Avenue who, unlike the previous tenants, are actually interested in governing instead of just wielding power will continue to do their darnedest to save the country.

And the people who have demonstrated themselves to be fresh out of positive ideas will continue to throw rocks. And teabags.

And the majority of Americans will continue to approve of the efforts Obama and company are making to rescue the United States.

And the teabaggers (unfortunate choice of name, that, but also fitting) will continue to fuss and fume.

For it may well be that they are not anti-Government and "certainly" not anti-American. But they don't seem to be pro anything.

Except power.

Unlike the statements of the "tea party's" organizers, this one by Paul Krugman is crystal clear:

One way to get a good sense of the current state of the G.O.P., and also to see how little has really changed, is to look at the "tea parties" that have been held in a number of places already, and will be held across the country on Wednesday. These parties — antitaxation demonstrations that are supposed to evoke the memory of the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution — have been the subject of considerable mockery, and rightly so.

But everything that critics mock about these parties has long been standard practice within the Republican Party.

Thus, President Obama is being called a "socialist" who seeks to destroy capitalism. Why? Because he wants to raise the tax rate on the highest-income Americans back to, um, about 10 percentage points less than it was for most of the Reagan administration. Bizarre.

Indeed. Bizarre.

Lenten Observance

I like very much this op-ed piece from yesterday's New York Times:

Finding Our Way Back to Lent
By JAMES CARROLL

Published: April 10, 2009

MOST American Catholics were well acquainted with poverty even before the stock market crash of 1929. My mother quit school after eighth grade to add a wage to the family income. Later, she supported my father as he went to night school. Like millions of Catholics, their faith was a source of meaning and dignity at a time when both were in short supply.

The Depression stamped them for life. Born into the aftermath, I was shaped by those years as well. During these past weeks, I’ve worried that we might be facing an unexpected replay of our parents’ and grandparents’ economic distress. But I’ve also been remembering more vividly the Lenten seasons of my midcentury childhood, when I most sharply felt the pull of Catholicism.

I came along well after the Depression, but I understand what Carroll means by "the pull of Catholicism." I feel that strongly during Lent--more so than Easter itself, more so than Christmas (which, it must be said, feels sort of "generically Christian" to me anymore--not secular, just not specifically described by any given component of Christianity). And we all know that I'm not the most observant of Catholics, do we not?

The Catholic theology of damnation was mitigated, if not eliminated, by the reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. The dread of Hell evaporated as Catholics embraced a far more positive, all-merciful God. Those wallet cards disappeared overnight, and we started eating meat on Fridays. The sadomasochist in the sky, divine zapper, was gone, along with the gatekeeping role of the clergy.

Lent remains an important part of the Catholic calendar, but self-denial now, more suggested than required, aims less at penitence than at compassionate identification with, as Pope Benedict wrote at the beginning of this year’s Lent, the impoverished “situation in which so many of our brothers and sisters live.” Like Lent, today’s economic crisis can help stir that overdue empathy.

I grew up in that golden glow of Vatican II--all but faded now, I regret to report. We were always encouraged to "give up" something for Lent, and to fast and abstain (in those meatless Friday times, the latter seemed a little pointless). I was pretty peeved a few years ago when a local priest, from the pulpit, in talking up the idea of "giving up" something for Lent saw fit to ridicule the notion of "taking on" for Lent instead. I first stumbled upon that notion--that I will purposely do something for Lent, I will take on a task, whether it be committing to a prayer or worship regimen, or working at the soup kitchen, or being more helpful to Mom and Dad--at college. A Catholic university, I might add, and it was that university's priests who promoted the idea! (It was especially annoying, this more recent priest's ridiculing of what I consider still to be a worthy idea, in that he chose to lace it with a comment along the lines of, "If you're like me, you could afford to lose a little weight anyway." Very true--for both him and me--but I'm quite certain that that is not the point of Lenten fasting, abstinence, or sacrifice. If it is...well, then you can keep the whole thing.)

These days, I try to give up a little something, usually the coffee-break snack, and to avoid meat on Fridays. Honesty compels me to note that I have not been 100% successful with either of those. Which, in a way, is the point, is it not? Certainly God doesn't care if I eat a cookie, or eat between meals, or eat a bologna sandwich on a given day of the week. The point of the endeavor, to me, is to make myself stop and think, to reflect on the greater sacrifice that we Christians believe that God made on our behalf. It's not the cookie, it's the stopping to think about the cookie, and what that stopping to think in turn causes me to contemplate.

I tried to explain that some years ago to a pastor (non-Catholic) of my acquaintance who saw fit to ridicule me for passing on the cookies, or coffee cake, or whatever office snack was circulating that morning. With a sneer he informed me that my small sacrifice wasn't "necessary." I informed him that it certainly was...to me.

Lent offers one answer to today’s new reality. The season begins with the word “Remember,” uttered as a blot of ashes is smudged on the forehead. Remembering the transience of life — ashes to ashes, dust to dust — remains the essence of the observance. This year, I received my ashes at the Catholic church across the street from Harvard University, where the basilica was surprisingly overflowing with hundreds of undergraduates — a privileged elite attending to what every person has in common, and wants ordinarily to deny.

The fact that it is so easy for me to suddenly remember, post-cookie, that it's Lent and I had promised myself to give up such things during these 40 days--that is, the fact that I fail to keep my own promise to myself, and fail so quickly and easily--says something to me. Mostly it says that it's important to keep reminding myself. Just as it's easy to forget and eat the cookie, or the bologna sandwich, it's also easy to forget the original sacrifice that begat the Lenten observance in the first place.

The End of the Local Rag?

South Dakota Watch has this item today:

Argus Leader: RIP, December 2009?

Apparently the rumor going around the Sioux Falls Argus Leader is that unless they get things turned around, the Argus will be a passed paper by the end of the year.

Who will we bloggers be able to mock and ridicule if this sad day comes? Busting KDLT's small balls just isn't the same fun.

And as my wife said this weekend as she picked up the new, slimmer, less content-ladened Argus, "What is this, a high school newspaper?!"

As I commented there, the arrival of every invoice from the local rag (for I have no interest in letting them into my bank account, thanks all the same) prompts either me or my wife to wonder aloud if this is the time we just let it go.

One of these times we're apt to just pull the plug. Unless they beat us to it.

Oh Well, They're Only Facts

So my eye is caught by the headline

Victor Spinetti tells how he saved Ringo Starr from drowning

and off I go to WalesOnline to read a fluffy bit of an article in which the actor Victor Spinetti is quoted reminiscing about his encounters with the Beatles. All very nice and whatnot, until I encounter this:

...the only actor to star in all four of the band’s legendary films.

Really?

For one thing, if you stretch a bit, you come up with five films. The stretch is Magical Mystery Tour, which was made for television, but we'll be generous. That gives you:

A Hard Day's Night
Help!
Magical Mystery Tour
Yellow Submarine
Let it Be

(You might argue that Yellow Submarine shouldn't be on the list, since the band's involvement was minimal. But there it is anyway. If I let in Magical Mystery Tour, you have to let in Yellow Submarine.)

I immediately recalled Spinetti from the first two, and assumed he must have had a part in the third--an almost completely forgettable bit of nonsense with none of the charm or wit of the two feature films that preceded it (and I say that as a big fan of the Beatles)...an assumption that I verified with the Internet Movie Database. But what of the fourth film in the "all four" assertion? Well, certainly he wasn't in Let it Be. Did he supply a voice for Yellow Submarine? Doesn't show up in his IMDB listing.

I think we must conclude that Spinetti appeared not in "all four of the band’s legendary films" but in fact in three of the band's five movies...and one of them not exactly deserving of "legendary" status, either.

But it's so hard to keep things straight! The article's author seems unable to keep the films in order, and unwilling to take a moment to consult, say, IMDB to avoid making stupid mistakes such as appears in this section:

“I recall in Help! having to say the line, ‘With this ring, I could rule the world,’ and the four of them lying on the floor beside me screaming with laughter and stoned out of their minds.

“So they had to quickly put the camera close up on me to keep the film going. But that’s ok. That’s what I was there for.”

His skill for keeping a straight face was something that also came in handy on later Fab Four films like Hard Day’s Night, where he played a nervous TV producer.

Um, what? A Hard Day's Night is the Beatles' first film, from 1964. Help! is their second, from 1965. Whence comes this "later films like Hard Day's Night"? (The writer also can't be bothered with indefinite articles, even when they're part of the film's title.)

Although we're fortunate that Spinetti saved Ringo from drowning on the set of Help!, but it's too bad he couldn't save the Wales On Sunday writer from making careless, amateur mistakes. Oh well, they're only facts.

Something New from the Spamming World!

Just when you think you've seen it all...

I have oft complained here of the appalling lack of imagination being shown by modern spammers, spoofers, and phishers. A child could see through their clumsy attempts to perpetrate whatever it is they hope to perpetrate--money-extraction, usually, but not always--and increasingly one concludes that they're simply not trying.

And then one comes upon something like this in his inbox, as I did but moments ago:

!! Puppies Available For Adoption !!!

Ah! Puppies! Everyone loves puppies! This is going to be good!

And, indeed, early signs are positive. The e-mail purports to come from one "Alex Moore," and, upon opening the message, the innards jibe with that. (How often do we see e-mail whose sender is ostensibly "Joe Doakes" but whose message begins, "My name is Jane Doe..." As indicated above, some of these people aren't trying anymore.) The return address alleges to be from "googlemail.com," which, to my knowledge, doesn't exist (a search for same merely takes one to GMail), so I have to dock a couple of points for that, but so far so good. The actual message:

Hello,

My name is Alex Moore, I came across your email address through am email surfing Affiliated with the US chamber of Commerce, and My late Grandma was a puppy breeder, She died about 4 months ago and she left 2 Female English Bulldog, before she die, one of the Female puppy recently had a litter 4 puppies, They are so adorable, Due to my job as a Marketer, My job do not allow me to take good care of these babies, I would have love to take care of them myself but due to the nature of my job i does hardly have time for myself, So i want to find them caring & loving parent who will take good care of them and willing to adopt,if you interested in having them, please contact me immediately ,for more details and information.

Hope to read from you soon.

Thanks.
Alex

Okay, some considerable slippage here. Alex's apparently arm's-length relationship with the English language tends to undermine his or her credibility. To claim to be a capital-m "Marketer" is over-reaching--unless Alex means he or she owns a market, I would hope that a real-live marketer would know, say, the difference between a comma and a period. ("They are so adorable, Due to my job as a Marketer, My job do not allow me to take good care of these babies," etc.) I know that the students in Marketing classes I've taught over the years would be failed students of Marketing were they to turn in anything resembling the message above.

Here's my advice, Alex: Take over Grandma's puppy mill. "Marketering" isn't gonna work out so well for you.

So, in the end, not as much fun as I'd hoped. Points for originality, however: In more than 15 years online, I have never--never, not once--received a solicitation to buy puppies via the interwebs.

Of course, I have no way of knowing what "Alex's" real game is. It seems pretty unlikely to be puppies, but in this economy, who knows--maybe even the puppy mills are having a tough time of it. I suspect that, were I to follow up (and isn't it refreshing that there are no clickable links in the message itself? To follow up would be to hit "reply"...how charming!), it would develop that the puppies are all gone but that "Alex" has some other fantabulous opportunity for me.

Or it may just be some spammer's or phisher's way to find valid e-mail addresses: You send out the "adorable puppies" message, someone replies, and bingo! you have a valid address for whatever your nefarious real purpose is.

Or it could be puppies. We'll never know.

As Seen on the Weather Channel

This must be a new definition of the word is, with which I am unfamiliar.

The Weather Channel this morning, in the "Local on the 8s" forecast, informs me in the narration that "a weather advisory is in effect for our area." Emphasis mine. But the screen tells me that there's a "winter weather advisory in effect from 4 a.m. to 7 p.m. CDT Tuesday." Which is tomorrow. So to say that an advisory is in effect some 22 hours before it actually goes into effect is to utilize the verb is in a new an unexpected way, no?

A Good Idea. Probably.

It's hardly the first notice I've seen--try watching the Weather Channel for three minutes without seeing it announced--but today's e-mail update from My Fair City got me to thinking about Earth Hour this coming Saturday. The announcement, in part:

On Saturday, March 28, 2009, at 8:30 p.m., the City of Sioux Falls and some Sioux Falls businesses will be taking part in Earth Hour, sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund. We’ll be joining tens of millions of concerned citizens and corporations worldwide in calling for action to save our planet for future generations.

To participate, simply turn off the lights in your home or business from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 28. This is an opportunity to slow down, use candlelight, and make a statement about the fight against climate change.

Well, yeah. In principle, I agree. I try to be green, or at least greenish. I'm replacing incandescent bulbs with CF bulbs as they burn out. (Doesn't seem "green" to me to send working bulbs to the landfill prematurely.) I turn off the lights when I leave the room. We turn down the thermostat at night and when we leave the house. We recycle, and compost, and try with limited success to gang up our errands in an effort to burn less gasoline. But to turn off the lights on a Saturday night from 8:30 to 9:30. I dunno. Too bad it's not the following Saturday. We won't be home. Indeed, the lights will be turned off from 8:30 till much later than 9:30, I'm afraid. And I'm not wild about the city's offhanded tone. "Simply turn off the lights in your home or business." Really? Is that all? And how many city offices will be open at 8:30 on Saturday night? A few, sure--the police and fire departments, the water-treatment plant, stuff like that--but it's a pretty safe guess to say that most of them will already be closed and dark, so it's a little declasse to suggest we "simply" turn off the lights for an hour. Ditto businesses. I daresay that the ones that are closed on a Saturday night will happily (and simply!) turn off the lights. And I likewise daresay that the ones that are open will not care to turn off the lights for an hour, no matter how much that helps Planet Earth or shoplifters. After a couple of paragraphs' worth of background about Earth Hour, and the promise that this year's hour will be bigger than ever, the city flings this bit of oddness at me:

We all have a vote, and every single vote counts. Together, we can take control of the future of our planet for future generations.

I have nothing to quibble about there...except what the hell are they talking about? We all have a vote? What are we voting on? Am I supposed to gather the family together for an Australian ballot to see if we can get a majority to support shutting off the lights? We're a family of four, so the possibility of a deadlock is quite real. I went back and reread the silly thing, there's nothing in there about voting. It's as if some other message elbowed its way into this one. Well, probably come 8:30 Saturday we'll turn off some of the lights, maybe even most of them. perhaps the one or two we leave on will be CF bulbs. It's not necessarily a bad idea. It's just that I think it would work better if we all agreed to turn off the lights between 1:00 and 2:00 a.m.

The Most Despised Minority in America?

I happened upon an interesting blog post by Jonathan Lockwood Huie a little while back, "The Most Despised Minority in America." It's an intriguing thought, no? As Huie leads off,

This is America, and we aren't supposed to hate anyone because they are a minority, are we? Actually, we have been getting better lately with regard to many minorities - but not all. Electing Barack Obama President of our United States is evidence that being black has become a respectable distinction for a significant majority of Americans. 8% of the Members of Congress are Black compared with 13% of the population - getting closer. Having one woman as a vice-presidential candidate and another as a serious presidential contender affirms that being a woman is also considered acceptable, even though only 16% of Congress is female.

He continues in that vein. Hispanics? Five percent of Congress representing 15% of the population, he says. "Being Jewish has actually become distinguished," Huie writes, "as 7% of Congress represents the 1% of the population who are Jewish. A Gallup Poll reports that only 4% of Americans have a negative view of Jews compared with 23% who have a negative view of Evangelical Christians."

What about gay people? Despite their position being "grim," Huie indicates that things may be looking up somewhat.

So then who is the most despised group in America?

Huie theorizes that it might well be

Atheists, Agnostics, Humanists, and the others who comprise the group unfortunately termed "non-believers." While "non-believer," in this case, refers to a "non-belief" in a super-human deity, it, like other negative terms, automatically carries a stigma, as would "non-white," "non-male," or "non-Christian."

As indicated above, interesting. If Huie is right--and so far I can think of no evidence to refute him--it seems only to reinforce that which I perceive so often, viz., we cannot stand the thought of someone who doesn't believe as we believe, who doesn't carry the same convictions we carry, who doesn't profess or witness or worship in the same way.

There is irony, in a country that so many citizens insist is a "Christian nation" in the notion that those who disagree, or who question, or doubt--those who will admit to such a thing--must be silenced if they can't be persuaded. Why irony? Because Christianity itself was once such a contrarian, unacceptable notion.

How soon we forget!

Make that "Certain" Catholics!

There are today any number of news items and blog posts that all follow this line, from Alison Go's "The Paper Trail" at USNews.com:

Obama's Planned Notre Dame Commencement Speech Riles Catholics

Go writes:

Barack Obama will give commencement speeches at the U.S. Naval Academy, Arizona State, and the University of Notre Dame this year. The Naval Academy has received the news with, and Arizona State actually moved its ceremony to accommodate the president.

But when the president isn't sticking it to a certain Naval Academy graduate and Arizona senator, he's riling the Catholic community at Notre Dame. Critics say that Obama's honorary degree is an affront to the school's Catholic teachings, citing the president's stances on abortion, gay rights, and embryonic stem cell research. Groups like the Cardinal Newman Society and the Pro-Life Action League have encouraged all Catholics to flood the university with phone calls and to sign online petitions (which have tens of thousands of signatures already).

And so on. Read it all here.

In posting Go's item to Digg.com, I had to add this comment:

I would prefer it had she said "extremist Catholics" or "wacky-doodle wild-eye right-wing Catholics," for clearly not ALL Catholics are dismayed by this possibility, but so it goes. Meanwhile, as a Catholic and an alum of another Catholic university, I plan to drop a note of support to the president of Notre Dame.

Whence comes this absurd notion that we must listen only and forever to those with whom we agree on every subject?

And where do we find such people?

And how do we grow in our own opinions, beliefs, faith, etc., if we fear to test their weight against those of others?

And what does it say about our opinions, beliefs, faith, etc., if we fear to test them?

What does it say about ourselves?

What does it say about our attitude toward higher education when thousands of noisy people insist that the University of Notre Dame invite to its commencement only people who will parrot the party line--as understood and espoused by the noisy thousands, for they are always certain of their rightness in any matter (just ask them)--and who offer nothing that might challenge their preconceptions or shake what must be their very wobbly "convictions"?

What does it say about our attitude toward America and American democracy that such people would insult the leader of the free world because he holds some opinions that are contrary to our own?

What does it say about the bottomless hypocrisy of right-wing fanatics that they will spew and froth about an invitation extended by Notre Dame to the President of the United States, ostensibly because he is pro-choice, when they were notably silent on the subject when another Catholic institution, Boston College, heard from then-Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice...who also is pro-choice? (See Andrew Sullivan's post, "The Double Standards Of Theocons," in today's Daily Dish.)

Well, it says there's a lot of two-facedness, a lot of silliness, a lot of headline grabbing (I know: I'm not helping), and not a whole lot of Christianity obvious in the anti-choice movement.

To his credit, the president of Notre Dame, Father John Jenkins, has yet to capitulate to the noisy, frothing ones. According to an item in The Observer Online:

University President Fr. John Jenkins responded to criticism regarding the announcement of President Barack Obama as the 2009 Commencement speaker by clearly making a distinction between honoring the president and supporting his political views.

Jenkins made it clear in an interview with The Observer Sunday the University does not "foresee circumstances" that would cause Notre Dame to rescind the president's invitation.

"We have invited the president and he's honored us by accepting," he said.

The article further says:

"We are not ignoring the critical issue of the protection of life. On the contrary, we invited him because we care so much about those issues, and we hope for this to be the basis of an engagement with him," Jenkins said.

"You cannot change the world if you shun the people you want to persuade, and if you cannot persuade them show respect for them and listen to them," he said.

Quite a far cry from the wild-eyed crowd, whose red-faced response to contrary opinions seems always to damn, to decry, and to shun.

Especially if those opinions are held by a member of the Democratic Party. President of the United States or not.

I like Sullivan's conclusion to the nonsense:

Seriously who do these people think they're persuading any more?

Tone-Deafness, and Whiplash

In posting to Digg an essay from the Guardian on the pope's bizarre statement regarding AIDS-HIV and condoms (the title of this report--"Pope claims condoms could make African Aids crisis worse," also in the Guardian--pretty much sums up the bizarre part), I made the following comment:

I am a Catholic who is developing whiplash by continuously shaking his head over all of the amazingly tone-deaf statements coming from this pope. I agree that condoms are not "the" answer to AIDS in Africa, if indeed there is any single answer. But to claim, as Benedict has, that distributing condoms somehow makes the problem worse is completely irresponsible!

You do have to wonder what the man is about. Keeping on the whiplash theme for a moment, I find myself constantly jerking between my initial impression of him (he's astoundingly tone-deaf, and always genuinely surprised when his comments turn out to create a hubbub) and my suspicious, cynical, and conspiracy-minded natural state (he's craftily steering the church on a rightward course, content to alienate its moderate and liberal wings in favor of a more fervent, more pliable church full of "true believers").

I suppose both could be true.

I agree with the assessment made this morning in a New York Times editorial:

Pope Benedict XVI has every right to express his opposition to the use of condoms on moral grounds, in accordance with the official stance of the Roman Catholic Church. But he deserves no credence when he distorts scientific findings about the value of condoms in slowing the spread of the AIDS virus.

And this:

But the second half of his statement is grievously wrong. There is no evidence that condom use is aggravating the epidemic and considerable evidence that condoms, though no panacea, can be helpful in many circumstances.

To be running around bereft of any evidence to back one's claim that condoms contribute to the AIDS epidemic in Africa is right up there with such assertions as you can unlock your car using your cell-phone or you should never return your hotel key-card to the desk because it's encoded with all of your credit-card information. That is, it's irresponsible balderdash.

It doesn't matter if it's the Bishop of Rome or your Aunt Matilda: Both are at best ignorant and careless, at worst malicious.

You can forgive it more easily in Aunt Matilda, of course, for I suspect the world does not listen to every bit of blather that escapes her lips. The pope, however, should know better, and he should be more careful. You know--all that think-before-you-speak stuff.

Unless he is thinking, and carefully dropping these little bombs as he goes on his way toward some calculated end.

And speaking of thinking: Where's the "news" media in all of this? Sure, following the pope's comment, everyone in the blogosphere hopped right on it. And today's news seems to have its minimum requirement of essays and editorials. But where were the media yesterday to challenge the pop to back up his outrageous claim with something approximating evidence? They appear to have been dozing, as is their custom.

The pope is making it more and more difficult for me to continue to identify with his church. (The main deal there is that I think of it as my church, and he's the one lousing it up.) Which may be his plan. And those in the "news" media are making it more and more difficult for me to continue to trust and respect them. Which I'm pretty sure isn't their plan.

A Lesson for St. Patrick's Day

This is a picture of a shamrock:

Legend has it that St. Patrick employed the shamrock as a visual aid to teach the non-Christian Irish people about the concept of the Holy Trinity, the Three-in-One. Apocryphal, probably, but not unlikely and a good story anyway.

This is a picture of a four-leaf clover:
You can distinguish the latter from the former by the fact that the latter has, well, four leaves. The former has but three. I say you can distinguish between them, since it appears that advertisers cannot. Every year at this time I observe a distressing number of ads promising St. Patrick's Day savings or specials, which, to make that all-important link to the feast day, stick in clip art of...a four-leaf clover.

I don't think the saint employed a four-leave clover to instruct the Irish pagans about anything. Yet there it is, over and over, in print, television, and internet ads.

To be fair, the ads oftentimes tout the "luck o' the Irish" in their blather, which tends to mitigate my critique somewhat, since the four-leaf clover is considered "lucky." I'm not sure why the Irish are considered to be "lucky": It seems that much of the island's history consists of being invaded by others and oppressed in their own homeland, but whatever.

I can claim claim with certainty to no more than 25% Irishness--Grandpa Reynolds was proud of his Irish heritage, but in tracing antecedents back to about 1500, when the trail dead-ends, I end up in England, but Grandma Reynolds was the result of the joining of the McGrail and the Moore families, both of which hailed from the Old Sod. So my dad could be justifiable proud of being Irish, at least 50%. He would have been front and center at yesterday's St. Patrick's Day Parade in Sioux Falls, but alas. Like me, though, he would have been unhappy that someone--the organizers, the city, whoever--decided to relocate the parade to the nearest Saturday, after 20+ years of always being on March 17 unless the seventeenth was a Sunday. In the past, that tradition worked to the parade's favor: One year my wife and I and my folks ended up having lunch with a representative of the Irish government, based in Chicago, who could attend our parade only because it wasn't on a Saturday!

But so it goes.

It's annoying that the day has become an excuse for drunkenness, and annoying that various retailers and merchandizers play up on that. As someone of Irish heritage, I find placards such as "Irish Today, Hung Over Tomorrow" to be more than offensive. Or the T-shirt that reads, "I Still Can't Remember Last St. Patrick's Day." Charming. I have it on good authority that, in Ireland of all places, people who observe the day tend to do so by going to Mass, perhaps followed by a special dinner including a toast to the saint. What a concept! I'm told too that American-style parades are starting to pop up in some Irish cities, but that this is a recent development.

Me, I plan to secure a six-pack of Guinness between now and Tuesday, and come Tuesday evening will uncap one with a nod to my Irish ancestors. And maybe even St. Patrick himself...even though he wasn't Irish!

How to Jump to a Conclusion

A great deal of buzz today about results from a new American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS). The results of the poll are interesting, but not too much of a surprise to those of us in the trade. In a nutshell:

Americans are still predominantly Christian, but they are becoming both less Christian and less religious. Three out of four Americans call themselves Christian, down from about nine out of ten in 1990

"Born-again" or "evangelical" Christianity is on the upswing; members of "mainline" denominations such as Episcopal or Lutheran has fallen. One in three Americans consider themselves evangelical

The percentage of Catholics in the US has remained steady (about one in four) since 1990, while the percentage of other Christians has dropped from 60 to 50 percent

Some 15 percent of Americans say they have no religion, almost double the number from 18 years ago. Americans with no religious preference is now a larger group than all major religious groups except Catholics and Baptists

That last tidbit impresses me because it has generated a certain amount of conclusion-jumping, based on a scan of Google News headlines. Here's this from the Colorado Independent:

Losing their religion: Ranks of nonbelievers on the increase

Um, yes and no. Yes, one may infer from the survey that American are "losing" their religion, if "losing" is the word we want. No, the ranks of "nonbelievers" is not on the rise, at least not according to the data presented in the Colorado Independent's article.

The ranks of people who express no alignment with a religious group is indeed on the uptick.

But to not align oneself with an "organized" religious body is not to be a "nonbeliever." Maybe you are and maybe you're not. Maybe you believe in God in some form or fashion, but aren't too wowed about institutional churches. That hardly makes you a "nonbeliever."

You can read the Colorado Independent article yourself and see that they're sloppily describing "nones" (people who express "none" as their religious affiliation) as "nonbelievers."

A look at the ARIS website itself, however, does reveal this interesting nugget:

Only 1.6 percent of Americans call themselves atheist or agnostic. But based on stated beliefs, 12 percent are atheist (no God) or agnostic (unsure), while 12 percent more are deistic (believe in a higher power but not a personal God). The number of outright atheists has nearly doubled since 2001, from 900 thousand to 1.6 million. Twenty-seven percent of Americans do not expect a religious funeral at their death.

(So, indeed, the number of "nonbelievers" is on the rise...it's just too bad that the Colorado Independent jumped at its conclusion from the wrong springboard.)

A side excursion: Based on the way certain folks rail against "attacks" on Christianity, is it not curious to note that the number of out-and-out atheists in the country is way, way smaller than the number of Christians? Weird, huh? Almost like there are no "attackers" at all, like the whole thing is a ratings-grabbing figment of some wingnut's imagination.

Personally, I find the survey's results to be less than alarming. As indicated above, they tend only to evince trends that one instinctively sensed already, viz., people are becoming increasingly disenchanted with "organized" religion, if that's not an oxymoron. This is bad news for organized religion, of course, and as someone whose income relies in part on the continued health of one such institution, perhaps I should be alarmed. But big-picture-wise -- God and humankind, the universe and eternity, the meaning of things -- well, none of the ARIS findings seem to send up flares. People aren't abandoning God; God isn't abandoning people. Church folk will insist that you can't have God without "church," but I don't think they're making the sale anymore. (Anyhow, really: Would a clergyman or -woman seriously tell you that you don't need church?)

If anything, the survey tends to incline me toward thinking that people are, on a spiritual level, still engaged. Just not institutionally.

Another side excursion: Some years ago, in my earshot, a member of the clergy expressed impatience with people who say they are "spiritual" but not "religious." His comment: "I say to them, 'So it's all about you, is it?'"

At the time I thought that a strange rejoinder. How does one get from "I'm not wild about the institution" to "So it's all about you"?

I'm still not sure about that, but upon reflection I have decided that that which was meant as a put-down actually carries some pretty significant weight.

Religion is, after all, all about me!

I mean, who else? God, whatever form he may take, certainly has no need of religion. So it's not for him. It seems unlikely that angels, cherubim, seraphim, and the rest of the heavenly host would have need of any "organized" religion, given their mailing address. So it's not for them. My cats seem completely uninterested in the whole topic, so I conclude religion isn't for them, either.

That would seem to leave...me. Us--you and me. That's who religion is for.

And at every step, it seems more and more obviously that's it's all about me:

My decision to subscribe to a religion, any religion, in the first place

My decision to align myself with a particular church entity--Catholic or Protestant, Episcopal or Presbyterian, mega-church or storefront nondenominational gathering

My decision to attend services at a particular parish or congregation

My decision to accept or reject that which the religion preaches

And so on. It is all about me, and it's all about you, and that guy over there...for who else would it be about?

Seems to me that's kinda how it's supposed to be.

Where Are My Friends Going?

I'm growing increasingly worried about my Facebook friends.

They seem to be disappearing.

This happens all the time now: The little indicator in the corner of my screen says I have, say, eight "online friends." Sounds good. I click on it and the little window pops up ostensibly to display my eight "online friends" and their chat status. But wait! The little window pops up to a couple of inches in height, then immediately shrinks down to an inch or so, and both it and the indicator now aver that I have, say, five "online friends."

What has happened to those three missing "online friends"??

Is anybody looking for them? Can I be the only one who's noticed their disappearance?

Or is someone systematically "disappearing" anyone who notices the disappearances of all these "online friends"?

In which case it's entirely possible that I am in grave dange--

The Face of the GOP

Nuff said?

"Mock" Anger?

This appeared yesterday on Andrew Sullivan's The Daily Dish:


It's a little hard to tell from the photo, but it's a representation of President Barack Obama as a clasically rendered saint, on a ten-inch tall votive candle. This one was spotted in the San Francisco store Just For Fun.

Naturally, the candle has some people upset. According to Sullivan, it has "angered members of the St. Philip the Apostle Church who see the candle as mocking Jesus."

I'm sure that once word spreads, many more people will be angered, too.

I'm thinking of being angered myself, just because I realize I haven't been angered by anything inconsequential in a great many days.

However, reason must prevail. As I said to my pal Jerry, who brought the item to my attention in the first place, how does this mock Jesus? As a cradle Catholic, I see immediately that it draws from the traditional, even classic portrayal of saints as depicted on countless prayer cards, in countless books, on countless walls and windows in countless older churches...but saints, mind, not Jesus. I have never seen Jesus depicted in such garb; it's usually white, or, if depicting the resurrected Jesus, white with some other "pure" color--gold, a pale blue, a kind of salmon color, even purple. Never brown or black, whichever it is on the candle jar.

Nor is Jesus, in my experience, depicted holding a crucifix. The closest to that that I can think of are representations of Jesus holding the orb, representing the world, atop which is often a small cross. Although of course in the Stations of the Cross he is shown carrying the cross.

You might, if you felt the need to feel outrage, say that the candle mocks...what? Saints? Not all of them, surely, nor any particular one. If anything, it seems to mock a style of art.

Hardly much to get worked up about, yes?

So what is it about the good parishioners of St. Philip the Apostle Church? Does their church just happen to be nearby? Has it been awhile since the last dust-up and this is the best they can come up with on short notice?

Or Perhaps they have just never taken to heart the ancient wisdom: Choose your battles.

Quotation Marks

Again, most if not all (all, I think) of these quotations were culled from the always-informative A Word a Day newsletter:

I protect my right to be a Catholic by preserving your right to believe as a Jew, a Protestant, or non-believer, or as anything else you choose. We know that the price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that they might some day force theirs on us. -Mario Cuomo, 52nd Governor of New York (b. 1932)

The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. -John Stuart Mill, philosopher and economist (1806-1873)

There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to other animals as well as humans, it is all a sham. -Anna Sewell, writer (1820-1878)

Politeness is the art of choosing among your thoughts. -Madame de Stael, writer (1766-1817)

When the flag is unfurled, all reason is in the trumpet. -Ukrainian proverb

The man who is always waving the flag usually waives what it stands for. -Laurence J. Peter, educator and author (1919-1990)

Conscience is the still, small voice which tells a candidate that what he is doing is likely to lose him votes. -Anonymous

When you battle with your conscience and lose, you win. -Henny Youngman, comedian and violinist (1906-1998)

The lame man who keeps the right road outstrips the runner who takes a wrong one. The more active and swift the latter is, the further he will go astray. -Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)

Wealth has never yet sacrificed itself on the altar of patriotism. -Bob LaFollette, congressman, senator, governor (1855-1925)

Being rich is having money; being wealthy is having time. -Stephen Swid, executive (b. 1941)

This country will not be a permanently good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a reasonably good place for all of us to live in. -Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US President (1858-1919)

Democracy, to me, is liberty plus economic security. -Maury Maverick, attorney and congressman (1895-1954)

The only gift is giving to the poor; / All else is exchange. -Thiruvalluvar, poet (c. 30 BCE)

I wasn't disturbing the peace, I was disturbing the war. -Ammon Hennacy, activist (1893-1970)

If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies. -Moshe Dayan, military leader and politician (1915-1981)

A coward is a hero with a wife, kids, and a mortgage. -Marvin Kitman, author and media critic (b. 1929)

Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is. -William James, psychologist and philosopher (1842-1910)

The doctrine of the material efficacy of prayer reduces the Creator to a cosmic bellhop of a not very bright or reliable kind. -Herbert J. Muller, educator, historian, and author (1905-1980)

I don't know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation if he didn't. -Jules Renard, writer (1864-1910)

Mixed Message?

I have had many occasions to wonder about this:

If we are in fact as concerned about childhood obesity and inactivity as we claim to be, why then is exercise still handed out as punishment?

They did that sort of thing when I was in school, back when we still did our homework on the back of the coal shovel next to the fireplace, but nobody had heard of childhood obesity back then so nobody cared. However, when my kid comes home now--in the supposedly enlightened twenty-first century--and recounts the insane number of push-ups or laps that were assigned for some transgression (usually pretty dubious, at that), I have to shake my head.

What sort of message does it send to use exercise as punishment, and then wring our hands because our kids don't like to exercise?

I think the message is that we're screwed up.

Or, Put Another Way, Completely Useless

And, Honestly, That's Not How You Spell "Honestly"

Today's GeekMail from my pals at Geeks.com. They sell great stuff, but aren't such great proofreaders...