My friend's "serious response to a fun post..." (Thanks, mate, for calling the post "fun." I'm truly complimented. I'm not sure about my ability to satirize.)
"In general I've always believed that a person should have the freedom to drink, smoke or use other substances so long as you're not hurting someone else. For example, go out and get drunk, just don't get in a car or get rowdy and punch someone out.
"Unfortunately, many of these practices cannot be kept to the body that indulges.
"I think of my wife who, when she gets in the vicinity of cigarette smoke, gets awful migraines. At that point you might as well have punched my poor girl in the face and she'd have been in equal pain.
"So where does a smoker's freedom end and my wife's begin? How do you balance a smoker's right to smoke versus the health of those around?
"I think of this today because I made the mistake of telling the clerk at the Sunoco how much nicer it was to be in a smoke-free gas station and she growled 'have a nice day' at me. I should have guessed. My joy at her lack of freedom?"
My response:
Mate, you are just awash in schadenfreude! -- gloating over the suffering of nonsmokers in Madison right there in Fast Max's? How could you be so cruel?
Seriously: I get my gas at Wal-Mart (not because they pay fair wages but because it's nearest to home) and I've noticed that, since the enactment of the ordinance, the small space inside the building continues to reek with tobacco smoke.
I smell civil disobedience. (And insubordination toward the employer, if anyone cares about that. I'd like to see a strike myself.)
Perhaps I should say (with a straight face) to the Wal-Mart clerk the same thing that you said at the Sunoco. I suspect that she would accept the remark without knowing it is tongue-in-cheek, because, as a smoker, she doesn't know how loudly stinky cigarette smoke is. It amazes me how unaware smokers are of the stink it creates.
This lucky (in her value system, not mine) soul, however, has not suffered the fate of the other smoking employees: they must go outside now. Yet the employer -- who is party to a corporation that is notorious for its low wages and strategems for employing people "part-time" (35 hours a week and never two consecutive days off) in order to bilk them out of health insurance -- has provided them with two picnic tables and a shelter overhead.
I noticed a friend huddled in that small space with the other miserables, and I happen to know that this lovely woman has recently been stricken with breast cancer. She is a die-hard smoker -- who is neither stupid nor militantly and stridently against a common-sense law (as our letter-writing friends seem to be).
This noble lady happens to be a life-long practitioner of a merciful health-giving profession and knows the dangers of smoking. She is a die-hard because she is addicted. And in this absurd world, we severely punish anyone who is addicted to pot, cocaine, heroin, crystal meth, etc. Not only do we punish the "undesirables" of our society because of addictions to these substances, but we even take the licenses away of medical doctors if they recklessly prescribe suspect substances such as Xanax and Vicodin.
Yet we do this while we are hard-put to keep poison out of the air we breathe -- our infants breathe -- because it is expelled into that air by a minority (well, maybe not here) of curiously excepted and emboldened addicts.
I'm sure my family members, who are probably sick and tired of seeing still another blog-post on the evils of smoking, will glance at this without comment. Thank God, none of them now smoke tobacco, so far as I know. They'd better not, since they have so many smokers in their ancestry who suffered and died of emphysema or lung cancer or both.
But I am so passionate about this because, for one thing, I, who have succeeded at so few things in this world, managed to succeed at escaping from the addiction of smoking. And believe me, I was addicted. I couldn't go twenty waking minutes between cigarettes. I of all people wouldn't have been able to live with smoking
restrictions. I started and stopped and started again, hell though it was even to start as well as to stop.
I am passionate about this because, as a once-upon-a-time counselor of addicts and a recovering addict myself, I invested a lot of energy in trying to help others quit smoking. Most of the quit-smoking work I did was pro bono publico, when I was getting paid very well for my other work. I am as greedy as the next person but I was truly committed to helping people quit smoking.
Yet here in backwater Forlorn River (cf. Lake Wobegon) -- I speak of Madi-Tucky -- Madison, Indiana -- the city and state that I came back to against my will and the city and region that I at last love and will die and be buried in-- these privileged addicts continue to have the temerity to scream their abused lungs out that their rights are being violated. Enough!
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Chit-Chat
I have two new diversions: cooking and sudoku. I read in Wikipedia that sudoku as it is done in the USA today was introduced in Indianapolis in 1976. Ha! Well, we are now manufacturing Japanese cars in Indiana. I've learned to do the "easy" puzzles. The first one took me a couple of days, off and on, but then my learning curve kicked in and now I do them in about a half-hour. The easy ones. Like the bunny runs in skiing, I'll probably be satisfied to stay with the easy ones for quite some time.
My cooking is pretty rudimentary: I concoct a mean vegetable soup without a recipe, and I assiduously follow the recipes in the American Heart Association cookbooks, which are great for anybody. I'm learning this and that by watching the Food Channel. "Good Eats" with Alton Brown is enlightening and the guy is funny.
One other thing: ta-daaa! I graduated from the first phase of rehab on Friday. I'd say overall I kicked ass. I lost 21 pounds, 2.1% body fat (they say that's good because it takes a long time), and my strength and stamina as measured by a treadmill test has improved by 106%. Not bad for a couch tater.
Enough for now. His Rudeness requires attention. Cheerio, lads and lasses.
Oh. And I guess you aforenamed lads and lasses weren't too impressed with my idee fixe on smoking. I thought the doc might put on her copy editor's green eyeshade and blue-pencil the Courier cub's letter to me, but God knows she has enough to read. As for the rest of you, been there done that, I guess. But I digress. His Rudeness awaits. Later.
My cooking is pretty rudimentary: I concoct a mean vegetable soup without a recipe, and I assiduously follow the recipes in the American Heart Association cookbooks, which are great for anybody. I'm learning this and that by watching the Food Channel. "Good Eats" with Alton Brown is enlightening and the guy is funny.
One other thing: ta-daaa! I graduated from the first phase of rehab on Friday. I'd say overall I kicked ass. I lost 21 pounds, 2.1% body fat (they say that's good because it takes a long time), and my strength and stamina as measured by a treadmill test has improved by 106%. Not bad for a couch tater.
Enough for now. His Rudeness requires attention. Cheerio, lads and lasses.
Oh. And I guess you aforenamed lads and lasses weren't too impressed with my idee fixe on smoking. I thought the doc might put on her copy editor's green eyeshade and blue-pencil the Courier cub's letter to me, but God knows she has enough to read. As for the rest of you, been there done that, I guess. But I digress. His Rudeness awaits. Later.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Saint Herbert
Yes, dear friends and gentle readers, Herb Parker is a hero and a patriot. Not only that, he is a saint. We ought to submit him for canonization to Pope Benedict right away. And we should elect him Mayor of Madison. And boss of the City Council. We should also bestow upon him the honorifics of Sagamore of the Wabash and Kentucky Colonel.
Not only is Herb Parker a saint, he is a martyr. He has been sacrificed on the altar of greed – the greed of nonsmokers for every bit of unpolluted air they can possibly suck down in their lungs. Why do they want clean air so bad?
There is just no limit to what these inconsiderate nonsmokers will do! Why don’t they appreciate the truth? Which is, that the air – God’s plentiful air - belongs to everyone, and that those who choose to poison their fair share with carcinogens have the perfect right to do so. (And that God will not change his laws of physics: gases will still expand to fill the spaces in which they are enclosed and thus nonsmokers too will just have to breathe the smoke of smokers. Tough, you sissies. Get over it.)
Where will the nonsmokers’ greed for clean air end? Next, people will not be able to smoke in their cars. (Little children in them or not.) There will be roadblocks set up everywhere. Police will search for and seize tobacco. They will get smokers out of their cars and rough them up, and molest the women, and then throw the people in jail, where they will be held without bail until they suffer a terrible jones from nicotine withdrawal. Without patches! The corrupt Mayor and City Council will authorize it and enforce it, you just wait and see.
Next, smoking will not be allowed in our very homes. Mark my word, jackbooted city government thugs will crash our doors down and throw firebombs inside and we and our beloved cigarettes and our poor old emphysematous lungs will go up in smoke. (We will not get the joy of living out our lives gasping for breath and having everyone feel sorry for us.)
You think the people at Waco had it bad, wait till you see what Huntington and those traitors who voted for this unconstitutional, Communistic, terrorist no-smoking ordinance have up their sleeves next.
The next thing they will do, they will interfere with freedom of the press. That’s right, the guarantee of the First Amendment. They will force the Courier to print all this goody-two-shoes stuff put out by the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association and the United States Surgeon General and even the turncoat Philip Morris that secondhand smoke is harmful and the only way to protect nonsmokers in enclosed spaces is to make those spaces smoke-free. Period.
In other words, they will force the Courier to become a tool of the pinko city government. (Instead of the tobacco farmers.)
So, smokers of Madison, unite. You have nothing to lose but your butts.
Not only is Herb Parker a saint, he is a martyr. He has been sacrificed on the altar of greed – the greed of nonsmokers for every bit of unpolluted air they can possibly suck down in their lungs. Why do they want clean air so bad?
There is just no limit to what these inconsiderate nonsmokers will do! Why don’t they appreciate the truth? Which is, that the air – God’s plentiful air - belongs to everyone, and that those who choose to poison their fair share with carcinogens have the perfect right to do so. (And that God will not change his laws of physics: gases will still expand to fill the spaces in which they are enclosed and thus nonsmokers too will just have to breathe the smoke of smokers. Tough, you sissies. Get over it.)
Where will the nonsmokers’ greed for clean air end? Next, people will not be able to smoke in their cars. (Little children in them or not.) There will be roadblocks set up everywhere. Police will search for and seize tobacco. They will get smokers out of their cars and rough them up, and molest the women, and then throw the people in jail, where they will be held without bail until they suffer a terrible jones from nicotine withdrawal. Without patches! The corrupt Mayor and City Council will authorize it and enforce it, you just wait and see.
Next, smoking will not be allowed in our very homes. Mark my word, jackbooted city government thugs will crash our doors down and throw firebombs inside and we and our beloved cigarettes and our poor old emphysematous lungs will go up in smoke. (We will not get the joy of living out our lives gasping for breath and having everyone feel sorry for us.)
You think the people at Waco had it bad, wait till you see what Huntington and those traitors who voted for this unconstitutional, Communistic, terrorist no-smoking ordinance have up their sleeves next.
The next thing they will do, they will interfere with freedom of the press. That’s right, the guarantee of the First Amendment. They will force the Courier to print all this goody-two-shoes stuff put out by the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association and the United States Surgeon General and even the turncoat Philip Morris that secondhand smoke is harmful and the only way to protect nonsmokers in enclosed spaces is to make those spaces smoke-free. Period.
In other words, they will force the Courier to become a tool of the pinko city government. (Instead of the tobacco farmers.)
So, smokers of Madison, unite. You have nothing to lose but your butts.
Friday, August 04, 2006
More Blowing Smoke, and More Objection to It
Here's a letter to the Courier:
Upset with smoking ban
Thursday, August 03, 2006
To the editor:
I commend Herb Parker on standing up for his customers. As a smoker, I will not patronize any non-smoking restaurants. I will not vote for any of the current council members that voted to make smokers law breakers in their own hometown.
This town was founded on their tobacco crops, and the taxes that have been levied on the smokers of Jefferson County are sure supporting a lot of roadwork for this county.Tobacco money from Milton, Carrollton, etc, surely augments the local groceries and stores.
How sad is it that Madison has chosen to abide by a tobacco study that even the World Health Organization says was severely flawed? Their basis for second-hand smoke is not correct and they can't show any evidence that smoking bans make any difference in the communities that have enacted them.
Yet smokers are persecuted and made to feel like second-class citizens or criminals. They are subjected to the stress of trying to work all day without being allowed a release through smoking in a job where smoking has been allowed since the beginning. The workers didn't vote for this ban, but they are the ones suffering.
Have you ever tried to keep a patch on in 100 degree weather? Simple answer is...you can't as the guys in our factories are learning.
I urge all smokers (or non-smokers who agree with this view for freedom of choice) to write their local government and complain. Withhold your patronage of businesses that ban smokers like criminals. I'll go to Carrollton, Milton and other close towns that will welcome my smoker's business.
Withhold your vote for the people that voted this smoking ban in, that limits the freedom of everyone, businesses and individuals alike. Today it's smoking, what will it be next time?
Sandi Pennington
Madison
(In speculating about the last question: masturbation? Doh! It is against the law --when done in public. Just like smoking, now. At last. (You can still pleasure yourself and poison yourself in private And the WHO -- part of the UN? -- dissing a study? Oh never mind. The assertion that there is no evidence that second-hand smoke is harmful is arrant poppycock.)
And another letter to the editor:
He's No Hometown Hero
Friday, August 04, 2006
To the editor:
I would like to respond to the article "Supporting Smokers" from the Wednesday, August 2 edition of The Madison Courier and my own personal experience at Frisch's Restaurant.
First I would like to state that I was disappointed in the bias of the article itself. While Mr. Parker was doing nothing but breaking the law, he was made out to be some sort of "hometown hero" who caters to smokers.
Also, I don't see how Mr. Parker expected his "employees to focus on their job and not breaking the law." He stated "I did this for them (employees)." It's more like you did this to them. I was a patron of Frisch's on Tuesday and was very disappointed to find smoking still in place. If it were not for the tight schedule of others in my party, I would have gone elsewhere for lunch. I approached the manager upon my departure. I was told that Mr. Parker was not there or I would have spoken to him directly.
I voiced my disappointment and concluded by stating I would not be back until it was a smoke-free environment.
Whether you agree with it or not, as of Tuesday Aug. 1, it is illegal to smoke indoors in a public building in Madison. The City Council voted on this months ago. I honestly think that this will help our community, not hinder.
Melissa K. Enstrom
Hanover
Thanks, Melissa. I needed that.
Upset with smoking ban
Thursday, August 03, 2006
To the editor:
I commend Herb Parker on standing up for his customers. As a smoker, I will not patronize any non-smoking restaurants. I will not vote for any of the current council members that voted to make smokers law breakers in their own hometown.
This town was founded on their tobacco crops, and the taxes that have been levied on the smokers of Jefferson County are sure supporting a lot of roadwork for this county.Tobacco money from Milton, Carrollton, etc, surely augments the local groceries and stores.
How sad is it that Madison has chosen to abide by a tobacco study that even the World Health Organization says was severely flawed? Their basis for second-hand smoke is not correct and they can't show any evidence that smoking bans make any difference in the communities that have enacted them.
Yet smokers are persecuted and made to feel like second-class citizens or criminals. They are subjected to the stress of trying to work all day without being allowed a release through smoking in a job where smoking has been allowed since the beginning. The workers didn't vote for this ban, but they are the ones suffering.
Have you ever tried to keep a patch on in 100 degree weather? Simple answer is...you can't as the guys in our factories are learning.
I urge all smokers (or non-smokers who agree with this view for freedom of choice) to write their local government and complain. Withhold your patronage of businesses that ban smokers like criminals. I'll go to Carrollton, Milton and other close towns that will welcome my smoker's business.
Withhold your vote for the people that voted this smoking ban in, that limits the freedom of everyone, businesses and individuals alike. Today it's smoking, what will it be next time?
Sandi Pennington
Madison
(In speculating about the last question: masturbation? Doh! It is against the law --when done in public. Just like smoking, now. At last. (You can still pleasure yourself and poison yourself in private And the WHO -- part of the UN? -- dissing a study? Oh never mind. The assertion that there is no evidence that second-hand smoke is harmful is arrant poppycock.)
And another letter to the editor:
He's No Hometown Hero
Friday, August 04, 2006
To the editor:
I would like to respond to the article "Supporting Smokers" from the Wednesday, August 2 edition of The Madison Courier and my own personal experience at Frisch's Restaurant.
First I would like to state that I was disappointed in the bias of the article itself. While Mr. Parker was doing nothing but breaking the law, he was made out to be some sort of "hometown hero" who caters to smokers.
Also, I don't see how Mr. Parker expected his "employees to focus on their job and not breaking the law." He stated "I did this for them (employees)." It's more like you did this to them. I was a patron of Frisch's on Tuesday and was very disappointed to find smoking still in place. If it were not for the tight schedule of others in my party, I would have gone elsewhere for lunch. I approached the manager upon my departure. I was told that Mr. Parker was not there or I would have spoken to him directly.
I voiced my disappointment and concluded by stating I would not be back until it was a smoke-free environment.
Whether you agree with it or not, as of Tuesday Aug. 1, it is illegal to smoke indoors in a public building in Madison. The City Council voted on this months ago. I honestly think that this will help our community, not hinder.
Melissa K. Enstrom
Hanover
Thanks, Melissa. I needed that.
More on T'backer
I sent a copy of my recent post ("Die Hard in Burley T'backer Country") to the Madison Courier reporter who wrote the story about Frisch's civil disobedience. He replied to me and gave me permission to post his reply.
Our email exchange:
On Aug 3, 2006, at 1:20 PM, JT Evans wrote:
Mr. Estridge:
I put the following on my blog site. As you may deduce from this, my opinion of your coverage of the smoking ordinance is that you have been overly sympathetic with smokers' rights and neglectful of the rights of non-smokers. In your own poll, 46% of readers who responded disagree with the militant tactics Of Herb Parker as opposed to 27% who agree, whereas 25% endorse "More businesses should take a stand." That could be taken to mean that more should take a stand against smoking in public gatherings.
If you disagree, you are welcome to add your comment to the blog and rebut what I have to say. I don't try to get letters into the Courier anymore; the last one was ignored and the one before that was, worse, edited (partially censored). I have been friends with most of the Courier reporters, having been one myself in antiquity, and I wish you well.
Sincerely,
John T. Evans
Here's my blog link: (etc.)
***
Mr. Estridge's reply:
Thanks for your comments. On the issue of my coverage, I understand everyone has an opinion and is entitled to his or her own opinion but it bothers me when people accuse me of being overly sympathetic to one cause. Nothing can be farther from the truth. If you were to read my articles more closely you will see that I made organizers of the smokers march look dysfunctional and disorganized. There have been numerous publications where I have talked to the mayor and city council leaders who have refuted the claim that this is detromental to the economy. People who are blasting me now tend to forget those stories.
I don't make up comments from people. I just write them. People are so polarized on this issue and everyone has an opinion.
But to say that I am sympathetic towards the smokers is false, wrong and ignorant. The items that I wrote about have been strictly news items. You have the Broadway that is no longer the oldest family restaurant in the state. I am not making Ryan Shaw out to be a hero, I am merely talking about his business. Then on Herb Parker, I wasn't going to do a story, but when there is a restaurant that is in defiance, then it should be reported.
There are things that happen in news that we don't always agree with or want to write about but we have too. I have no problem with people saying that I am one way or another, at least they are reading what I write. On this issue, I have my opinions, but those don't matter in the public eye. I can never come forward because of items like this. I assure you that I go to great strides to be fair and balanced. Feel free to post this on your blog. Thanks again for the email.
***
My reply to Mr. Estridge's reply. (I get to have the last word. It's my blog.)
Donovan:
Thank you for your reply. I think you have defended yourself quite well, and I commend you for that. I will post your letter on my blog. That blog, by the way, is read by perhaps all of ten people: I say this to assure you that our exchange is a tempest in a teapot and you will not get your reputation sullied (or I should say neither of us will get our reputations sullied). I assure you that Elliott and Jane will never know that this sole reader has criticized your coverage! Nor, for that matter, Herb Parker. I do not want to hurt anybody who is trying to earn his living and get along with the people around and above him.
I am assured that you don't "make up comments by people" -- that you "just write them." I accept your beliefs that for someone to say you are "sympathetic towards the smokers is false, wrong, and ignorant" and that you "go to great strides to be fair and balanced." You have a lot more firsthand experience with the smokers of this area than I do -- I avoid them, partly because I am afraid I will commit the unpardonable gaffe, in this culture, of saying, "Yes, I do mind your smoking in the air I must breathe" -- but I concede that you are far more in touch with the people of this issue than I am. And I further confess that I have not read all of your coverage of the issue. And did not have all of them at hand to vet when I responded. Journalists have noted that we bloggers as a lot are loose cannons and that such is the dreadful state of affairs in these days of the internet. May I become more careful and thorough. May all of us become so.
Having made that mea culpa, I will say in my defense, and perhaps yours, that what I have seen missing in the Courier's coverage of tobacco are the inconvenient truths about smoking, and what those truths might portend for this town and the Kentucky counties nearby. The gist of the current blog post is by and large a lament that those truths seem to be missing in coverage anywhere in the Courier. I might be paranoid, but I suspect that offstage characters are the tobacco farmers of these parts who might be offended if they thought the Courier was not defending them with great vigor. Here's another blog post I made about the issue.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Keep FDA* Off the Farm
(*Freaking Dumb Asses)
Forlorn River (aka Madison, Indiana, USA) had a public hearing the other night on a proposed non-smoking ordinance. I didn't attend because I no longer have a dog in the fight: I quit smoking and drinking almost 25 years ago. I don't frequent bars or locally owned greasy spoons, and there is now a public transport service on which no smoking is allowed.
Well, there is one lunch counter where I occasionally eat, and often some inconsiderate person there lights up, poisoning others' air with second-hand smoke. I hate it but say nothing. No one says anything because we non-smokers don't want to have the effrontery to tell the smoker that his -- or her -- behavior is obnoxious. Our silence gives smokers the notion that we tolerate their smoking.
We put up with it but we don't welcome it. In this town, nobody who has the gall to smoke in an enclosed area such as a restaurant or a retail store or a taxicab says, "Mind if I light up?" But if they did, there'd be few who would say, "Matter of fact, I do." It wouldn't be nice. It would make a scene. It wouldn't be Christian. It wouldn't be patriotic. (The smoker might be a vet. Or a Republican.) So (sigh -- cough! cough!) -- live and let live. It's about "freedom," right?
There were people at this protest who objected to a smoking ban on libertarian grounds, i.e. governmental intervention is generally bad and we should have as little of it as possible. A lawyer said that the proposed ordinance would be "government interference in property rights," and added, "I will decide for myself whether I will ban smoking in my business." (I detected a militant tone there: will we see civil disobedience from the counselor? Perhaps a class action suit? Will she be joined by the owners of bars and pool halls, who appeared to be, along with their patrons, the chief protesters the other night?)
I remember a Madison teacher once saying, "My freedom to swing my fist ends where the other person's nose begins." Fair enough. And my freedom to poison my lungs ends where someone else's lungs begin. The analogy of restricting people's right to eat junk food, from Hinkle's or elsewhere, does not hold -- unless in doing so they throw it up on others.
Tobacco smoke is dangerous: "Public health officials have concluded that secondhand smoke from cigarettes causes disease, including lung cancer and heart disease, in non-smoking adults, as well as causes conditions in children such as asthma, respiratory infections, cough, wheeze, otitis media (middle ear infection) and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome." Source: www.philipmorrisusa.com/en/health_issues
And -- just in case you decide that discretion is the better part of valor and therefore to fight your own tobacco addiction instead of the rights of non-smokers to breathe clean air in public places, I quote from the same source:
"Philip Morris USA agrees with the overwhelming medical and scientific consensus that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and other serious diseases in smokers. Smokers are far more likely to develop serious diseases, like lung cancer, than non-smokers."
Since (1) smoking is the leading preventable cause of ill health in the United States, claiming 400,000 premature deaths every year, and (2) ours is the only wealthy country in the world without affordable health care for all, then (3) it would make sense in terms of both health and wealth to quit smoking.
***
OK, Donovan. I'll leave you alone now. Good luck and have a good life.
JT
Our email exchange:
On Aug 3, 2006, at 1:20 PM, JT Evans wrote:
Mr. Estridge:
I put the following on my blog site. As you may deduce from this, my opinion of your coverage of the smoking ordinance is that you have been overly sympathetic with smokers' rights and neglectful of the rights of non-smokers. In your own poll, 46% of readers who responded disagree with the militant tactics Of Herb Parker as opposed to 27% who agree, whereas 25% endorse "More businesses should take a stand." That could be taken to mean that more should take a stand against smoking in public gatherings.
If you disagree, you are welcome to add your comment to the blog and rebut what I have to say. I don't try to get letters into the Courier anymore; the last one was ignored and the one before that was, worse, edited (partially censored). I have been friends with most of the Courier reporters, having been one myself in antiquity, and I wish you well.
Sincerely,
John T. Evans
Here's my blog link: (etc.)
***
Mr. Estridge's reply:
Thanks for your comments. On the issue of my coverage, I understand everyone has an opinion and is entitled to his or her own opinion but it bothers me when people accuse me of being overly sympathetic to one cause. Nothing can be farther from the truth. If you were to read my articles more closely you will see that I made organizers of the smokers march look dysfunctional and disorganized. There have been numerous publications where I have talked to the mayor and city council leaders who have refuted the claim that this is detromental to the economy. People who are blasting me now tend to forget those stories.
I don't make up comments from people. I just write them. People are so polarized on this issue and everyone has an opinion.
But to say that I am sympathetic towards the smokers is false, wrong and ignorant. The items that I wrote about have been strictly news items. You have the Broadway that is no longer the oldest family restaurant in the state. I am not making Ryan Shaw out to be a hero, I am merely talking about his business. Then on Herb Parker, I wasn't going to do a story, but when there is a restaurant that is in defiance, then it should be reported.
There are things that happen in news that we don't always agree with or want to write about but we have too. I have no problem with people saying that I am one way or another, at least they are reading what I write. On this issue, I have my opinions, but those don't matter in the public eye. I can never come forward because of items like this. I assure you that I go to great strides to be fair and balanced. Feel free to post this on your blog. Thanks again for the email.
***
My reply to Mr. Estridge's reply. (I get to have the last word. It's my blog.)
Donovan:
Thank you for your reply. I think you have defended yourself quite well, and I commend you for that. I will post your letter on my blog. That blog, by the way, is read by perhaps all of ten people: I say this to assure you that our exchange is a tempest in a teapot and you will not get your reputation sullied (or I should say neither of us will get our reputations sullied). I assure you that Elliott and Jane will never know that this sole reader has criticized your coverage! Nor, for that matter, Herb Parker. I do not want to hurt anybody who is trying to earn his living and get along with the people around and above him.
I am assured that you don't "make up comments by people" -- that you "just write them." I accept your beliefs that for someone to say you are "sympathetic towards the smokers is false, wrong, and ignorant" and that you "go to great strides to be fair and balanced." You have a lot more firsthand experience with the smokers of this area than I do -- I avoid them, partly because I am afraid I will commit the unpardonable gaffe, in this culture, of saying, "Yes, I do mind your smoking in the air I must breathe" -- but I concede that you are far more in touch with the people of this issue than I am. And I further confess that I have not read all of your coverage of the issue. And did not have all of them at hand to vet when I responded. Journalists have noted that we bloggers as a lot are loose cannons and that such is the dreadful state of affairs in these days of the internet. May I become more careful and thorough. May all of us become so.
Having made that mea culpa, I will say in my defense, and perhaps yours, that what I have seen missing in the Courier's coverage of tobacco are the inconvenient truths about smoking, and what those truths might portend for this town and the Kentucky counties nearby. The gist of the current blog post is by and large a lament that those truths seem to be missing in coverage anywhere in the Courier. I might be paranoid, but I suspect that offstage characters are the tobacco farmers of these parts who might be offended if they thought the Courier was not defending them with great vigor. Here's another blog post I made about the issue.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Keep FDA* Off the Farm
(*Freaking Dumb Asses)
Forlorn River (aka Madison, Indiana, USA) had a public hearing the other night on a proposed non-smoking ordinance. I didn't attend because I no longer have a dog in the fight: I quit smoking and drinking almost 25 years ago. I don't frequent bars or locally owned greasy spoons, and there is now a public transport service on which no smoking is allowed.
Well, there is one lunch counter where I occasionally eat, and often some inconsiderate person there lights up, poisoning others' air with second-hand smoke. I hate it but say nothing. No one says anything because we non-smokers don't want to have the effrontery to tell the smoker that his -- or her -- behavior is obnoxious. Our silence gives smokers the notion that we tolerate their smoking.
We put up with it but we don't welcome it. In this town, nobody who has the gall to smoke in an enclosed area such as a restaurant or a retail store or a taxicab says, "Mind if I light up?" But if they did, there'd be few who would say, "Matter of fact, I do." It wouldn't be nice. It would make a scene. It wouldn't be Christian. It wouldn't be patriotic. (The smoker might be a vet. Or a Republican.) So (sigh -- cough! cough!) -- live and let live. It's about "freedom," right?
There were people at this protest who objected to a smoking ban on libertarian grounds, i.e. governmental intervention is generally bad and we should have as little of it as possible. A lawyer said that the proposed ordinance would be "government interference in property rights," and added, "I will decide for myself whether I will ban smoking in my business." (I detected a militant tone there: will we see civil disobedience from the counselor? Perhaps a class action suit? Will she be joined by the owners of bars and pool halls, who appeared to be, along with their patrons, the chief protesters the other night?)
I remember a Madison teacher once saying, "My freedom to swing my fist ends where the other person's nose begins." Fair enough. And my freedom to poison my lungs ends where someone else's lungs begin. The analogy of restricting people's right to eat junk food, from Hinkle's or elsewhere, does not hold -- unless in doing so they throw it up on others.
Tobacco smoke is dangerous: "Public health officials have concluded that secondhand smoke from cigarettes causes disease, including lung cancer and heart disease, in non-smoking adults, as well as causes conditions in children such as asthma, respiratory infections, cough, wheeze, otitis media (middle ear infection) and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome." Source: www.philipmorrisusa.com/en/health_issues
And -- just in case you decide that discretion is the better part of valor and therefore to fight your own tobacco addiction instead of the rights of non-smokers to breathe clean air in public places, I quote from the same source:
"Philip Morris USA agrees with the overwhelming medical and scientific consensus that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and other serious diseases in smokers. Smokers are far more likely to develop serious diseases, like lung cancer, than non-smokers."
Since (1) smoking is the leading preventable cause of ill health in the United States, claiming 400,000 premature deaths every year, and (2) ours is the only wealthy country in the world without affordable health care for all, then (3) it would make sense in terms of both health and wealth to quit smoking.
***
OK, Donovan. I'll leave you alone now. Good luck and have a good life.
JT
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Die Hard in Burley T'backer Country
TEXT See "Supporting Smokers"
What is it with this Donovan Estridge and the no-smoking ordinance? The Madison City Council passed the ordinance some time back and it went into effect two days ago. Mr. Estridge has come up with at least three stories that I can recall since then featuring people who are outraged about it. Not only has he featured such people but he has in fact made them into heroes. He has, to the best of my knowledge, ignored or brushed off those who approve of the ordinance: their comments are buried in or excluded from each story.
All right, forgive my rudeness, but Donovan's Heroes (Was there a movie with that title?) who champion the cause of smokers look more like fools to me. Tobacco smoke kills, and it kills innocent people who do not willingly ingest it into their lungs as well as those who foolishly do. Having non-smoking sections in restaurants is like having non-chlorinated sections of swimming pools.
"Chutzpah," a Yiddish word, has been defined as that quality in a person who kills his parents and then at his murder trial, begs for mercy because he is an orphan.
I am nauseated by this absurd tirade of tobacco addicts -- who know damned well that smoking is bad for everybody, including them, and who have tried to quit time after time and rue the fact they ever started -- and who ought to be ashamed of having their photographs on the front page of the paper -- that their "constitutional rights" have been taken away, that the people who have promoted these laws are "Communists," and such moronic swill. When they give two seconds' thought to their plight, they know they are hooked on tobacco and must obey their habit. And therefore they have about as much "freedom" as prisoners at Guantanamo -- yet they brazen out their diatribe that their "freedom" has been taken away -- and a reporter prints their inanities and -- it sure as hell appears to me -- glorifies them.
Of course smokers have constitutional rights. They just don't include spewing poison into the air that others breathe. Endangering others' health is against the common law, just as physical assault and reckless driving are. There is nothing in the constitution guaranteeing any group of citizens the right to hurt other citizens. It is an absurdity that we Americans fill our prisons with addicts to practically every other drug in existence but tobacco; but smokers -- at least in this ignorant backwater -- rail about not only their "rights" to enslave and injure themselves but also to injure others in public places.
Has anyone considered the child abuse -- endangerment -- involved in smoking in an enclosed car in which their children must be passengers? The child must inhale the addictive substance. We would be outraged if parents put cocaine or heroin in children's baby bottles, but say nothing when we see parents smoking in their cars with small children. That "right" has not been taken away by the ordinance. Why not? Why do we let tobacco rule? Why do we put up with inanity and insanity over an issue that is so clear-cut?
What is it with this Donovan Estridge and the no-smoking ordinance? The Madison City Council passed the ordinance some time back and it went into effect two days ago. Mr. Estridge has come up with at least three stories that I can recall since then featuring people who are outraged about it. Not only has he featured such people but he has in fact made them into heroes. He has, to the best of my knowledge, ignored or brushed off those who approve of the ordinance: their comments are buried in or excluded from each story.
All right, forgive my rudeness, but Donovan's Heroes (Was there a movie with that title?) who champion the cause of smokers look more like fools to me. Tobacco smoke kills, and it kills innocent people who do not willingly ingest it into their lungs as well as those who foolishly do. Having non-smoking sections in restaurants is like having non-chlorinated sections of swimming pools.
"Chutzpah," a Yiddish word, has been defined as that quality in a person who kills his parents and then at his murder trial, begs for mercy because he is an orphan.
I am nauseated by this absurd tirade of tobacco addicts -- who know damned well that smoking is bad for everybody, including them, and who have tried to quit time after time and rue the fact they ever started -- and who ought to be ashamed of having their photographs on the front page of the paper -- that their "constitutional rights" have been taken away, that the people who have promoted these laws are "Communists," and such moronic swill. When they give two seconds' thought to their plight, they know they are hooked on tobacco and must obey their habit. And therefore they have about as much "freedom" as prisoners at Guantanamo -- yet they brazen out their diatribe that their "freedom" has been taken away -- and a reporter prints their inanities and -- it sure as hell appears to me -- glorifies them.
Of course smokers have constitutional rights. They just don't include spewing poison into the air that others breathe. Endangering others' health is against the common law, just as physical assault and reckless driving are. There is nothing in the constitution guaranteeing any group of citizens the right to hurt other citizens. It is an absurdity that we Americans fill our prisons with addicts to practically every other drug in existence but tobacco; but smokers -- at least in this ignorant backwater -- rail about not only their "rights" to enslave and injure themselves but also to injure others in public places.
Has anyone considered the child abuse -- endangerment -- involved in smoking in an enclosed car in which their children must be passengers? The child must inhale the addictive substance. We would be outraged if parents put cocaine or heroin in children's baby bottles, but say nothing when we see parents smoking in their cars with small children. That "right" has not been taken away by the ordinance. Why not? Why do we let tobacco rule? Why do we put up with inanity and insanity over an issue that is so clear-cut?
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
New Endeavor -- Yum, I Hope
Rosie has suggested that I take over cooking for us. During the day she runs a lot, virtually managing a senior assisted-living program for two 90-year-olds who happen to be her parents. She helps a dysfunctional family or two, also related. Considering that she taught herself to cook with her nurse's uniform still on from the day's work and a baby on her hip, I guess it's not too much to ask for me to help out with the meal preparation as often as possible in our senior years.
Also I have a lot more invested in proper eating now that the old ticker has given me a message. No more dashing over to Wendy's for Junior Bacon cheeseburgers or snacking on peanuts and Cheez-its. No more Krispy-Kreme doughnuts. No more quarts of Breyer's butter pecan with hot fudge topping. Paigey (my rehab counselor) said an indulgence once in a while -- a great while -- is OK. My buddy Warnie and I made an excursion to the Brick Tavern in Jonesville two months ago where we had one of their legendary cheeseburgers apiece. Two months since my last cheeseburger: that's about right. No doughnuts yet, although I am weakening.
So I went to the store last evening and shopped for our supper. Before that, I'd stopped in our most excellent library and checked out a good cookbook from the American Heart Association and sat down and studied it. I brought the groceries home and prepared supper, with just a little prepping assistance from Rosie. The two dishes were butternut squash soup and tuna bean salad. I worked with things like canellini (sp?) beans and garlic and basil and dill weed. I had to rinse foods to remove salt and measure with spoons and cups. (I'm a holdover from my college chemistry days, carefully measuring, reading liquid levels from the bottom of the meniscus, etc.) I was busier than a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest doing everything that needed to be done to get both dishes to come out at the same time.
The dishes were satifying and tasty enough. The soup was best, even though I used yellow squash in pinwheels instead of butternut squash pureed like pumpkin. The flavor was good and even the texture wasn't bad, with a little flour to thicken it. We agreed that the tuna-bean concoction could have stood a little mayo: instead it had balsam vinegar.
Tonight we had beef-barley-vegetable soup. Didn't need a recipe; easy and delicious. We ate it with whole-grain bread and heart-smart spread.
We are in the dog days and today was the most dogged yet. I think the heat index was about 105. I didn't walk outdoors. Thank God for a-c. And electric fans.
Also I have a lot more invested in proper eating now that the old ticker has given me a message. No more dashing over to Wendy's for Junior Bacon cheeseburgers or snacking on peanuts and Cheez-its. No more Krispy-Kreme doughnuts. No more quarts of Breyer's butter pecan with hot fudge topping. Paigey (my rehab counselor) said an indulgence once in a while -- a great while -- is OK. My buddy Warnie and I made an excursion to the Brick Tavern in Jonesville two months ago where we had one of their legendary cheeseburgers apiece. Two months since my last cheeseburger: that's about right. No doughnuts yet, although I am weakening.
So I went to the store last evening and shopped for our supper. Before that, I'd stopped in our most excellent library and checked out a good cookbook from the American Heart Association and sat down and studied it. I brought the groceries home and prepared supper, with just a little prepping assistance from Rosie. The two dishes were butternut squash soup and tuna bean salad. I worked with things like canellini (sp?) beans and garlic and basil and dill weed. I had to rinse foods to remove salt and measure with spoons and cups. (I'm a holdover from my college chemistry days, carefully measuring, reading liquid levels from the bottom of the meniscus, etc.) I was busier than a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest doing everything that needed to be done to get both dishes to come out at the same time.
The dishes were satifying and tasty enough. The soup was best, even though I used yellow squash in pinwheels instead of butternut squash pureed like pumpkin. The flavor was good and even the texture wasn't bad, with a little flour to thicken it. We agreed that the tuna-bean concoction could have stood a little mayo: instead it had balsam vinegar.
Tonight we had beef-barley-vegetable soup. Didn't need a recipe; easy and delicious. We ate it with whole-grain bread and heart-smart spread.
We are in the dog days and today was the most dogged yet. I think the heat index was about 105. I didn't walk outdoors. Thank God for a-c. And electric fans.
Sunday, July 30, 2006
The Passion of the Drunk
That is a smart-aleck title. I do not now nor have I ever liked Mel Gibson.
Mr. Gibson was recently arrested for drunk driving and behaved rather badly. Having in my lifetime been arrested for drunk driving and behaved badly, and recalling that Mr. Gibson made a movie, however flawed, about the Lord, who -- before His passion -- said to some men getting ready to stone a woman caught in adultery, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone" (Jn 7:53-8:11), I have nothing to add to the following:
"http://www.tmz.com">
I give Mr. Gibson credit for renouncing his loathsome behavior, for owning that it was "despicable." If he is indeed anti-Semitic, as some discerning people seem to think, may he ask his Redeemer to remove that defect of his character from him. If he is, as he confesses, alcoholic, may he seek help. There is lots of it available. If he follows the Twelve-Step program, I hope the Jews are on his list of people he intends to make amends to.
Mr. Gibson was recently arrested for drunk driving and behaved rather badly. Having in my lifetime been arrested for drunk driving and behaved badly, and recalling that Mr. Gibson made a movie, however flawed, about the Lord, who -- before His passion -- said to some men getting ready to stone a woman caught in adultery, "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone" (Jn 7:53-8:11), I have nothing to add to the following:
"http://www.tmz.com">
I give Mr. Gibson credit for renouncing his loathsome behavior, for owning that it was "despicable." If he is indeed anti-Semitic, as some discerning people seem to think, may he ask his Redeemer to remove that defect of his character from him. If he is, as he confesses, alcoholic, may he seek help. There is lots of it available. If he follows the Twelve-Step program, I hope the Jews are on his list of people he intends to make amends to.
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Visit from Keith and Other Observations
I went walking a while ago in the beastly humidity. We have Basic Instinct on TV now, on a commercial channel -- an obnoxious movie with many obnoxious interruptions. Earlier, watched part of a taped Conan O'Brien, a show I haven't seen for perhaps a year. I suppose it was a rerun. At the beginning he did a satirical "State of the Show" address, and at the end a comic had a cartoon of a superhero called "Paleman," and both of those were pretty funny. I'd also taped Friday's Countdown, which showed a Letterman blurb (a tape of a tape, I guess) in which David commented on Ann Coulter's recent assertion that Bill Clinton is gay. Letterman showed Clinton's "rebuttal": Clinton had merely told Coulter he was gay so he wouldn't have to hit on her "bony ass." A caption below Ann's picture reads: "Clinton is gay only around evil crazy bitches." Keith Olbermann always shows the picture of Ann with her black eye-patch. Aarrgh!
Another Keith I like is my friend from northern Indiana, Keith McW. Keith graced us with a visit this afternoon, on his way home from Tennessee, where he'd been visiting with his parents and his "redneck brother." (He likes his brother very much and I think I would too.) Keith is so much the consummate gentleman that it is well nigh impossible to believe he has a redneck brother. (Keith was not too refined to send me the email about the poll of "total fucking morons.") We had lunch, caught up a little bit, and watched Uncommon Valor (1983). Keith said that Randall "Tex" Cobb, a Nam vet who kicks the crap out of Patrick Swayzee in this movie (some might like that) and then buys it in the raid on a Laos prison camp (Cobb was memorable as "Ben Dover" in a jail scene with Chevy Chase in Fletch), reminded him a great deal of his redneck brother.
Keith's older daughter Emily has come down with a chronic illness and I am sad for her and Keith's family. She is coping well and has in fact changed recently to a new, better job. Of course she cannot be discriminated against because of her illness and I know she is capable and a tough kid. Keith's wife, Mary Ann, has gotten a good job as an accountant at a liberal arts college. I look forward to our going to church with Keith and Mary Ann in the country again to hear Phil Gulley, the iconoclastic Christian clergyman who believes that God's grace doesn't exclude anybody. At all. And after church I hope we go back to that excellent cafeteria in Mooresville for Sunday dinner, and maybe their younger daughter, Molly, who works nearby, can join us. I'll save up for that meal. (Butterscotch pie!)
I will take a moment to rail against Las Vegas, which has passed an ordinance forbidding the feeding of the homeless in public parks there. I'll just say that our Christian nation might base its jurisprudence on the Ten Commandments, or brag that it does, but sure as hell not on the Sermon on the Mount. I wonder if the casinos might be taxed 1/20 of 1 percent to pay for feeding the homeless. Meanwhile, drug companies provide sumptuous lunches for doctors to entice them to prescribe their drugs. The House passed a law to raise the minimum wage by $2.10 (by 2009 -- don't want to wreck the economy by drastic upheavals!) with the proviso, of course, that the estate tax be reduced for the ultra-rich. Of course. And right away, right?
Saturday night, at almost the end of July. Beastly humidity, but the sun came out toward dusk. And thank God for a-c. We're having tomatoes and corn and green beans and peaches and other wonderful things for this time of year in good old Indiana. Ain't God good to Indianny? Ain't he though? (We have more than one kind of corn, sorry.)
Another Keith I like is my friend from northern Indiana, Keith McW. Keith graced us with a visit this afternoon, on his way home from Tennessee, where he'd been visiting with his parents and his "redneck brother." (He likes his brother very much and I think I would too.) Keith is so much the consummate gentleman that it is well nigh impossible to believe he has a redneck brother. (Keith was not too refined to send me the email about the poll of "total fucking morons.") We had lunch, caught up a little bit, and watched Uncommon Valor (1983). Keith said that Randall "Tex" Cobb, a Nam vet who kicks the crap out of Patrick Swayzee in this movie (some might like that) and then buys it in the raid on a Laos prison camp (Cobb was memorable as "Ben Dover" in a jail scene with Chevy Chase in Fletch), reminded him a great deal of his redneck brother.
Keith's older daughter Emily has come down with a chronic illness and I am sad for her and Keith's family. She is coping well and has in fact changed recently to a new, better job. Of course she cannot be discriminated against because of her illness and I know she is capable and a tough kid. Keith's wife, Mary Ann, has gotten a good job as an accountant at a liberal arts college. I look forward to our going to church with Keith and Mary Ann in the country again to hear Phil Gulley, the iconoclastic Christian clergyman who believes that God's grace doesn't exclude anybody. At all. And after church I hope we go back to that excellent cafeteria in Mooresville for Sunday dinner, and maybe their younger daughter, Molly, who works nearby, can join us. I'll save up for that meal. (Butterscotch pie!)
I will take a moment to rail against Las Vegas, which has passed an ordinance forbidding the feeding of the homeless in public parks there. I'll just say that our Christian nation might base its jurisprudence on the Ten Commandments, or brag that it does, but sure as hell not on the Sermon on the Mount. I wonder if the casinos might be taxed 1/20 of 1 percent to pay for feeding the homeless. Meanwhile, drug companies provide sumptuous lunches for doctors to entice them to prescribe their drugs. The House passed a law to raise the minimum wage by $2.10 (by 2009 -- don't want to wreck the economy by drastic upheavals!) with the proviso, of course, that the estate tax be reduced for the ultra-rich. Of course. And right away, right?
Saturday night, at almost the end of July. Beastly humidity, but the sun came out toward dusk. And thank God for a-c. We're having tomatoes and corn and green beans and peaches and other wonderful things for this time of year in good old Indiana. Ain't God good to Indianny? Ain't he though? (We have more than one kind of corn, sorry.)
Monday, July 24, 2006
We Will Win!
This morning on the way home from rehab I heard one of the authors of One Party Country: The Republican Plan for Dominance in the 21st Century by Peter Wallsten and Tom Hamburger being interviewed on NPR. From the publisher: "... the Bush administration's primary governing focus is cementing GOP dominance for decades to come and eviscerating the Democrats' New Deal coalition. ... Guiding this quest is Karl Rove, a man who exercises unprecedented power as he marshals all branches of government in service of the ultimate goal. This book shows Rove manipulating the most obscure federal activities and reveals how his actions shape local races and help the GOP lure the Democrats' most loyal supporters: Jews, African Americans, and Latinos. The authors detail how Republicans have turned corporate America into a wing of the party, and how their audacious, carefully crafted plan may yet unravel in a swirl of scandal in the nation's capital."
I guess I was feeling vulnerable at the moment for one reason or another and I just really felt depressed for a while. Indefinite dominance by the Republican Party means we will never have universal health care, decent wages for workers, equitable distribution of the tax burden, honest people running the government instead of the likes of Rove, Mehlman, Cheney, Gonzales, DeLay, James Dobson, and Abramoff.
Well, hell, as I read in this review just a few minutes ago, their "plan may yet unravel in a swirl of scandal." Sometimes I half-heartedly believe that a loving, merciful God will at last liberate us from these cynical, merciless thugs who have hijacked what was once an honorable government and hoodwinked so many good people and taken all the spoils.
Many of us want to believe in an apocalypse in which a just God will vanquish our oppressors. I think that what will eventually happen is the Rovers and Mehlmanians et al will "fall of their own weight," that they carry the seeds of their own destruction within them, that their greed and graft and conceit will bring them down with a great crash.
I don't know what God has to do with that, actually, but I pray that He will bring them down. I know that we suffered through the Third Reich and that hideous cabal eventually destroyed itself. (I add the footnote that our mongrel draftee dogfaces whipped the Kraut's asses fair and square, bitching all the while, no matter how committed and smart and tough and purebred the Krauts thought they were.) I still want to believe that God had a plan for the good forces in the world to prevail, and that God still does.
Amen.
I guess I was feeling vulnerable at the moment for one reason or another and I just really felt depressed for a while. Indefinite dominance by the Republican Party means we will never have universal health care, decent wages for workers, equitable distribution of the tax burden, honest people running the government instead of the likes of Rove, Mehlman, Cheney, Gonzales, DeLay, James Dobson, and Abramoff.
Well, hell, as I read in this review just a few minutes ago, their "plan may yet unravel in a swirl of scandal." Sometimes I half-heartedly believe that a loving, merciful God will at last liberate us from these cynical, merciless thugs who have hijacked what was once an honorable government and hoodwinked so many good people and taken all the spoils.
Many of us want to believe in an apocalypse in which a just God will vanquish our oppressors. I think that what will eventually happen is the Rovers and Mehlmanians et al will "fall of their own weight," that they carry the seeds of their own destruction within them, that their greed and graft and conceit will bring them down with a great crash.
I don't know what God has to do with that, actually, but I pray that He will bring them down. I know that we suffered through the Third Reich and that hideous cabal eventually destroyed itself. (I add the footnote that our mongrel draftee dogfaces whipped the Kraut's asses fair and square, bitching all the while, no matter how committed and smart and tough and purebred the Krauts thought they were.) I still want to believe that God had a plan for the good forces in the world to prevail, and that God still does.
Amen.
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Great Weekend; Magic Moments
Early Sunday evening, back home in quiet little Madison. Spent part of yesterday and today in Chicago with my three kids, Amanda, Natalie, and John, and John's girlfriend, Cheryl. Our time together was of great quality. We had only a few moments together but moments are what my life is made up of and what I remember. We talked about the Tank, the fantastic car we got for $600, put 150,000 miles on, and then traded in for $1,500 for a new Toyota. I reminisced about the moment when we were driving down Burlington Avenue in Logansport with Natalie, a newly licensed driver, at the wheel of the Tank and her parents, sister, and twin brother riding with her. It was deep dusk and all cars should have had their headlights on by then. Sure enough, one car we met was without lights. Natalie said, "Oh, here comes some asshole without his headlights on." After an interval of exactly one third of a second, the other four of us, in perfect unison, cried out, "TURN ON YOUR LIGHTS, ASSHOLE!" That is a moment I will always remember. I hope I will remember some moments from this weekend: Amanda deftly (and swiftly!) driving us in and out of the city; meeting Cheryl for the first time and hugging her as we left; John and I watching Pride and Prejudice together after the women fell asleep or otherwise lost interest, and then John really kicking ass and taking names in helping me work my New York Times Sunday crossword puzzles; Natalie cooking us fantastic Belgian waffles; Monty from the other end of the apartment bringing me a bag of Ricola cough drops in his mouth and sitting there bonding with me as I praised him; Natalie talking with Jerry on her cell phone on the darkened neighborhood street as we walked and as the CTA el passed by and above it a jet flew into O'Hare; a lady in the common across the street preaching a sermon with a megaphone while the kids were downtown; brunching at Cafe Lula and eating Mexican at nine o'clock that night. It was a good weekend, a great weekend. Thanks to family and HP.
Friday, July 21, 2006
All That Jazz
Which is the title of a song in Chicago. I would have loved to have seen the Broadway version, which had Bebe Neuwerth ("Lilith," ex- of "Dr. Frazier Crane."), who, for some strange reason, really dings my bell. Anyhow, looking forward to going to Chicago tomorrow to be with all three of my kids and Cheryl. Amanda and I are driving. It's been two years since I've seen Johnnie!
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Do You Know the Lord?
With regard to my state of grace, or anybody else's, I would like to refer readers of this blog to words attributed to Jesus in Matthew 7:1. Look it up. And if the shoe fits, wear it. And while you're at it, read all of the Sermon on the Mount. It's a pretty good synopsis of Christianity. If we'd all put it into practice, what a wonderful world this would be. Seems I recall there's a lot in there about not judging others, not making a public show of your religion, and forgiving others. And having compassion for the poor, by the way. (What minimum wage would Jesus pay?)
We went to a visitation of a family member back in about February, in North Vernon. We had to park on the side of the street opposite the funeral parlor, and an amiable gentleman with a hand-held stop sign of the kind held by school-crossing guards saw us across. I hope the kind man didn't mug the old lady crossing-guard down the street for the sign, because he said the crossing was dangerous but he wasn't worried for himself because, he said, "I know the Lord."
What is it about such comments that piss me off? I wanted to say to him, "Yes, but does the Lord know you?" (I didn't, and I didn't confront the preacher who gave the two sermons promising damnation the other day.) It's that certainty that leads to judgment of others' grace, I believe, and if you're the Present Occupant in the Oval Office with all that power, judgment of others'right to live (fetuses excepted, of course). Never was there somebody so certain who is so wrong.
As for anonymous comments on my blog: all comments are welcome -- well, acceptable. I defend your right to speak your mind. I refer you to the First Amendment to the Constitution, which we are all experts on, of course. I do prefer that you identify yourself, especially if you are going to take an accusatory tone. That notion comes from the Constitution too, to wit, the Sixth Amendment, in which the right of the accused to face the accuser is guaranteed. Seems that people who hide -- whether they are wearing a black ski mask and carrying an Uzi, or concealing themselves behind white sheets as they burn crosses -- are all too often terrorists.
We went to a visitation of a family member back in about February, in North Vernon. We had to park on the side of the street opposite the funeral parlor, and an amiable gentleman with a hand-held stop sign of the kind held by school-crossing guards saw us across. I hope the kind man didn't mug the old lady crossing-guard down the street for the sign, because he said the crossing was dangerous but he wasn't worried for himself because, he said, "I know the Lord."
What is it about such comments that piss me off? I wanted to say to him, "Yes, but does the Lord know you?" (I didn't, and I didn't confront the preacher who gave the two sermons promising damnation the other day.) It's that certainty that leads to judgment of others' grace, I believe, and if you're the Present Occupant in the Oval Office with all that power, judgment of others'right to live (fetuses excepted, of course). Never was there somebody so certain who is so wrong.
As for anonymous comments on my blog: all comments are welcome -- well, acceptable. I defend your right to speak your mind. I refer you to the First Amendment to the Constitution, which we are all experts on, of course. I do prefer that you identify yourself, especially if you are going to take an accusatory tone. That notion comes from the Constitution too, to wit, the Sixth Amendment, in which the right of the accused to face the accuser is guaranteed. Seems that people who hide -- whether they are wearing a black ski mask and carrying an Uzi, or concealing themselves behind white sheets as they burn crosses -- are all too often terrorists.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Hell: Hot or Cold?
We're havin' a heatwave right now. Heat index is >100 right now. Always makes me think of The Seven-Year Itch starring Marilyn Monroe and Tom Ewell. I love that movie, with Marilyn standing over the subway grating (no need to describe all -- every redblooded male in America knows it well) and Tom's fantasies of her (he in a housecoat and ascot) while Rachmaninoff's piano concerto thunders on the soundtrack. I remember an old friend, Al St. Paul, ex-master sergeant from WWII days. He is one of those whose association I wished had extended back to the days when we were both practicing drunks so we could have drunk together. (Right now, watching The World's Fastest Indian --thanks, son, for a great recommend -- I recall that Anthony Hopkins is a recovering alcoholic and I would have loved to drink with him but I digress.) Anyhow, Al speculated that, if Eskimos had written the Bible rather than the people of the hot Holy Land, then we would have the depiction of hell as cold rather than hot.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Call from Johnnie
John called on his cell phone from Georgia, en route to Augusta to see Adam. J's on vacation. Looking forward to seeing him (and Nat Sue and Mandy) next weekend. John woke me from a nap. We went to a funeral in Seymour on this hot, humid day (and I froze in the church's a-c). It was Rozz's cousin Bekki, who was 41, killed in a car accident in Colorado last week. Uncle Eddie and his family are good people and their girl's death broke their hearts. I recall Bekki coming to visit Rosie's dad at the Columbus hospital twice and I thought she didn't have to do that. But she was a sweet, thoughtful girl. We went in a funeral procession from Seymour to Vernon and there wasn't room enough under that tent they put up for graveside ceremonies and I stood in the blazing sun while the preacher delivered his second sermon telling us that if we didn't have Jesus in our lives we wouldn't spend eternity with Bekki in heaven. When he finally shut up Rosie and I got away and drove on a county road out of Vernon, trying to bypass North Vernon. We were going to go back to a dinner at the church. I made a wrong turn or two but we had fun. Then I was really so lost that we ended up back in Seymour too late for the dinner. We were both very hungry so we ate at Cracker Barrel -- chicken and rice, and Rosie had raspberry iced tea, which she loves. I said it was a good thing I didn't make it back to the church because I might have told the preacher that I think his theology is a bunch of cruel horse shit and if anybody is right about grace, it would be Phil Gulley and Jim Mulholland, co-authors of If Grace Is True: Why God Will Save Every Person. Rosie said, Well, today wouldn't be a good day to tangle with him and I agreed.
Friday, July 14, 2006
Chicken Hawks, Fight This
From 07.12.2006 www.sojo.net
America’s Hammer Habit
by Jim Wallis
The best line I heard in the period leading up to the war in Iraq was, "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." It was quoted by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, when we were on a panel together in England about the best response to terrorism.
The premise of the panel was that the threat of terrorism is real, that there are real dangers prowling about in our world, and that the problem of evil is a very serious one. The question we were addressing was what the best response to real threats should be.
I now call this the American hammer habit. If we don't know how to solve a problem, we just fight. Diplomacy has become a weak word to those who run our foreign policy and, in the House debate on Iraq in June, Republicans made numerous references to those who are "afraid to fight." Right on cue, Fox News Sunday's Brit Hume accused Democrats of being a party that just doesn't like to fight. And according to the neo-conservatives masquerading as journalists, such as Hume and William Kristol, continuous fighting is the only foreign policy that makes any sense.
Even more frightening is how much their friends such as Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have the same strong preference for fighting over talking. If they had their way, we would have fought or would still be fighting several wars by now - all at the same time - in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Iran at least, and probably against North Korea, too, if they thought we could win the war. They act as if talking and negotiating with potential adversaries is just a waste of time. It is truly astonishing and even shocking how people who simply question the efficacy and morality of the continuing American occupation in Iraq - including long-time military supporters such as Rep. John Murtha - are so quickly and viciously accused of "cutting and running" or not having the "courage" to fight.
This spring, the hostile rhetoric toward our adversaries that we heard before the war against Iraq turned toward Iran. I was in Australia during the war of words in March between Washington and Tehran, and I was interviewed on one of Australia's top political shows. I was asked whether a stand-off between the "two fundamentalists" (meaning Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and U.S. President George Bush), with nuclear weapons in the balance, should concern the world. I said yes.
Again, there was a real threat: The possibility of the Iranian regime obtaining usable nuclear weapons is a very reasonable concern for the region and for the whole world. Yet again, the question becomes what the most appropriate and effective response should be.
Cheney and others quickly raised the prospect of military action - even nuclear attack - against Iran, threatening "meaningful consequences" and saying that "the United States is keeping all options on the table." (In April, The Washington Post reported that "Pentagon planners are studying how to penetrate eight-foot-deep targets and are contemplating tactical nuclear devices.") A bipartisan list of retired generals and other military experts pointed out that mere air strikes would be relatively ineffective in removing Iran's nuclear threat, and that only a full scale war, invasion, and occupation could guarantee an end to Iran's nuclear program - a solution almost nobody thinks is realistic or prudent. At the same time, the potential disastrous consequences for the region and the world of a U.S. or Israeli military strike against Iran were reiterated by both military and foreign policy elites outside the Bush administration.
Since the early spring saber-rattling, a more reasonable course has emerged, backed by the Europeans, the Russians, and others who are concerned about Iran's nuclear threat but who are also opposed to a military response. And to its credit, the Bush administration is, at least for the moment, supporting this approach which combines incentives with the threat of sanctions. That is good news indeed.
I hope this is a sincere effort, and not one intended to simply expose the "unreasonableness" of the Iranians and then use that to justify a military response, or even to manipulate a national security issue in hopes of discrediting Democrats and helping Republicans avoid a devastating mid-term election defeat. It would not be the first time such things were done in U.S. politics.
Three groups of Americans are now making strong statements against military action in Iran and lifting up instead the better alternatives of incentives, pressures, and sanctions. They are religious leaders, former military leaders, and former foreign policy and national security officials.
If America can resist its hammer habit with Iran, the world may be spared a nuclearized Iran and the disastrous consequences of another misguided military confrontation. The clear witness of America's religious community and our wisest military and foreign policy leaders may be essential to prevent those twin disasters.
America’s Hammer Habit
by Jim Wallis
The best line I heard in the period leading up to the war in Iraq was, "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." It was quoted by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, when we were on a panel together in England about the best response to terrorism.
The premise of the panel was that the threat of terrorism is real, that there are real dangers prowling about in our world, and that the problem of evil is a very serious one. The question we were addressing was what the best response to real threats should be.
I now call this the American hammer habit. If we don't know how to solve a problem, we just fight. Diplomacy has become a weak word to those who run our foreign policy and, in the House debate on Iraq in June, Republicans made numerous references to those who are "afraid to fight." Right on cue, Fox News Sunday's Brit Hume accused Democrats of being a party that just doesn't like to fight. And according to the neo-conservatives masquerading as journalists, such as Hume and William Kristol, continuous fighting is the only foreign policy that makes any sense.
Even more frightening is how much their friends such as Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have the same strong preference for fighting over talking. If they had their way, we would have fought or would still be fighting several wars by now - all at the same time - in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Iran at least, and probably against North Korea, too, if they thought we could win the war. They act as if talking and negotiating with potential adversaries is just a waste of time. It is truly astonishing and even shocking how people who simply question the efficacy and morality of the continuing American occupation in Iraq - including long-time military supporters such as Rep. John Murtha - are so quickly and viciously accused of "cutting and running" or not having the "courage" to fight.
This spring, the hostile rhetoric toward our adversaries that we heard before the war against Iraq turned toward Iran. I was in Australia during the war of words in March between Washington and Tehran, and I was interviewed on one of Australia's top political shows. I was asked whether a stand-off between the "two fundamentalists" (meaning Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and U.S. President George Bush), with nuclear weapons in the balance, should concern the world. I said yes.
Again, there was a real threat: The possibility of the Iranian regime obtaining usable nuclear weapons is a very reasonable concern for the region and for the whole world. Yet again, the question becomes what the most appropriate and effective response should be.
Cheney and others quickly raised the prospect of military action - even nuclear attack - against Iran, threatening "meaningful consequences" and saying that "the United States is keeping all options on the table." (In April, The Washington Post reported that "Pentagon planners are studying how to penetrate eight-foot-deep targets and are contemplating tactical nuclear devices.") A bipartisan list of retired generals and other military experts pointed out that mere air strikes would be relatively ineffective in removing Iran's nuclear threat, and that only a full scale war, invasion, and occupation could guarantee an end to Iran's nuclear program - a solution almost nobody thinks is realistic or prudent. At the same time, the potential disastrous consequences for the region and the world of a U.S. or Israeli military strike against Iran were reiterated by both military and foreign policy elites outside the Bush administration.
Since the early spring saber-rattling, a more reasonable course has emerged, backed by the Europeans, the Russians, and others who are concerned about Iran's nuclear threat but who are also opposed to a military response. And to its credit, the Bush administration is, at least for the moment, supporting this approach which combines incentives with the threat of sanctions. That is good news indeed.
I hope this is a sincere effort, and not one intended to simply expose the "unreasonableness" of the Iranians and then use that to justify a military response, or even to manipulate a national security issue in hopes of discrediting Democrats and helping Republicans avoid a devastating mid-term election defeat. It would not be the first time such things were done in U.S. politics.
Three groups of Americans are now making strong statements against military action in Iran and lifting up instead the better alternatives of incentives, pressures, and sanctions. They are religious leaders, former military leaders, and former foreign policy and national security officials.
If America can resist its hammer habit with Iran, the world may be spared a nuclearized Iran and the disastrous consequences of another misguided military confrontation. The clear witness of America's religious community and our wisest military and foreign policy leaders may be essential to prevent those twin disasters.
Vive le France!
Today is Bastille Day, July 14, the French National Holiday. It commemorates Parisians storming the Bastille, which had been turned into a political prison. I think I'll go over to McDonald's and order some FRENCH fries -- not "freedom fries." Today at noon on WUOL Carol honored the French in her noon-hour program and started with the Marsellaise, the French national anthem. I happened to be at the courthouse corner downtown and I turned the radio up nice and loud. (Nobody noticed -- they had their air-conditioners turned up full blast in their SUVs -- but I felt better.) I get teary when they sing the Marsellaise in Rick's Cafe in Casablanca, drowning out the Nazis. Vive le France! I am a Francophile. If the Bushies had heeded their opposition to going to Iraq we wouldn't be in the mess we are in today. Ben Franklin had sense enough to charm the French, our first allies, but we don't have Ben Franklin anymore, do we?
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Rehab: World of Its Own
Rehab at King's Daughters' Hospital has become an important part of my life. Three times a week I drive down the hill to have my weight and blood pressure recorded, have electrodes pasted on my chest, and do exercises, which include riding a stationary bike, walking a treadmill, and working out on a "recumbent stepper" (recumbent means lying down, especially in a position of comfort or rest; reclining) -- which means I sit on a bicycle seat and pull and push handlebars while pedaling at the same time, I guess, which is what I do. (The position reminds me a little bit of Hot Wheels or perhaps a Harley chopper.)
In fact the recumbent stepper is the most taxing of the three: Rita told me to slow down this morning because my heart rate was too high. Come to think of it, I dove into it like a black lab into a pond on a hot day. I slowed down and the rate was soon cool.
The room is windowless, which I usually don't like, although today it was fine because it's one of those dreary, drippy days we sometimes have in the summer; it rains a lot but you can hardly tell because it's so humid. The a-c was deeply appreciated today. We have fans too to help us stay cool. I work up a pretty good sweat. The room is cheery enough, with lots of fluorescent lights. The social atmosphere is great most of the time, with lots of joking and laughing. Rita likes to tease and she's fun.
Paige, who is on vacation right now, is a little more businesslike -- less mischievous, I suppose -- but she's not above a laugh and Rita catalyzes her. Paige also happens to be a looker. She was telling somebody that she didn't mind turning thirty and I had to say to her, "It's not so bad to turn thirty when you're a ten." She liked that and I don't think she thought I was an old lech for saying it.
The TV is a bit of a bane -- it's either Fox News or The Price Is Right. I'd rather watch the Hallmark Channel --the a.m. fare is either the Waltons or Little House on the Prairie. Fortunately, Brit Hume and John Gibson (Hannity, O'Reilly, Coulter) are not on in the a.m. and often as not there's some "alert" in which they show footage of the same site of some adverse event over and over and keep trying and seldom succeeding to make genuine news of it. Bob Barker and the old dolls who compete for prizes are much more to my liking. If Bob has a political axe to grind you'd never know it. I think the old boy has charisma.
I'm about as entertained by the commercials as anything -- the Geico Gecko is about my favorite, with his Cockney accent talking of "pie and chips" (I suppose that's steak and kidney pie -- maybe a little mutton). I liked the one where the Taco Bell chihuahua, trotting by, sees the gecko and says, "Oh no! A talking gecko!" but that one was whisked away because Gidget had already been condemned for being p.i. (That was before "The Mind of Mencia.")
Anyhow, we work out and sweat and watch the boob tube and joke and shoot the breeze and laugh. Opal is 85, cute as a wink, and Rita teases her and Opal gives as good as she gets, coming back with some semi-ribald ripostes. Caroline is the wife of Don, who was on the Madison High 1949 runner-ups for state basketball champs, and I was surprised to learn she was the daughter of a man my dad worked with as a fireman at Jefferson Proving Ground in WWII. She is therefore a half-sister of my first sweetheart (we were about six, and I couldn't cross the street to visit her). A pleasant chap from Vevay, a retired banker, is good company. Paige told me I was an "overachiever" one day and that made me feel good.
I feel really exhilarated when I complete the exercises. I cool down a bit and have a cup of cold cranberry juice. It's not a bad routine three times a week.
In fact the recumbent stepper is the most taxing of the three: Rita told me to slow down this morning because my heart rate was too high. Come to think of it, I dove into it like a black lab into a pond on a hot day. I slowed down and the rate was soon cool.
The room is windowless, which I usually don't like, although today it was fine because it's one of those dreary, drippy days we sometimes have in the summer; it rains a lot but you can hardly tell because it's so humid. The a-c was deeply appreciated today. We have fans too to help us stay cool. I work up a pretty good sweat. The room is cheery enough, with lots of fluorescent lights. The social atmosphere is great most of the time, with lots of joking and laughing. Rita likes to tease and she's fun.
Paige, who is on vacation right now, is a little more businesslike -- less mischievous, I suppose -- but she's not above a laugh and Rita catalyzes her. Paige also happens to be a looker. She was telling somebody that she didn't mind turning thirty and I had to say to her, "It's not so bad to turn thirty when you're a ten." She liked that and I don't think she thought I was an old lech for saying it.
The TV is a bit of a bane -- it's either Fox News or The Price Is Right. I'd rather watch the Hallmark Channel --the a.m. fare is either the Waltons or Little House on the Prairie. Fortunately, Brit Hume and John Gibson (Hannity, O'Reilly, Coulter) are not on in the a.m. and often as not there's some "alert" in which they show footage of the same site of some adverse event over and over and keep trying and seldom succeeding to make genuine news of it. Bob Barker and the old dolls who compete for prizes are much more to my liking. If Bob has a political axe to grind you'd never know it. I think the old boy has charisma.
I'm about as entertained by the commercials as anything -- the Geico Gecko is about my favorite, with his Cockney accent talking of "pie and chips" (I suppose that's steak and kidney pie -- maybe a little mutton). I liked the one where the Taco Bell chihuahua, trotting by, sees the gecko and says, "Oh no! A talking gecko!" but that one was whisked away because Gidget had already been condemned for being p.i. (That was before "The Mind of Mencia.")
Anyhow, we work out and sweat and watch the boob tube and joke and shoot the breeze and laugh. Opal is 85, cute as a wink, and Rita teases her and Opal gives as good as she gets, coming back with some semi-ribald ripostes. Caroline is the wife of Don, who was on the Madison High 1949 runner-ups for state basketball champs, and I was surprised to learn she was the daughter of a man my dad worked with as a fireman at Jefferson Proving Ground in WWII. She is therefore a half-sister of my first sweetheart (we were about six, and I couldn't cross the street to visit her). A pleasant chap from Vevay, a retired banker, is good company. Paige told me I was an "overachiever" one day and that made me feel good.
I feel really exhilarated when I complete the exercises. I cool down a bit and have a cup of cold cranberry juice. It's not a bad routine three times a week.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Le Petit Riens
That was the title of music by Mozart. It means "the little nothings," I think. The lovely wife is still abed at half-past nine. It's raining gently and I have the front door ajar and can hear the mercy dropping down. Rudy is in the other chair, white socks extended, muzzle on them, eyes closed, breathing heavily in sleep, the soul of serenity. It's 9:39 and all's well.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Senior Dream Team 2008
My slate for 2008, on a Democratic or Independent ticket: President, George McGovern; Vice President, Birch Bayh SENIOR. (Not Evan, his turncoat plastic son who has the conceit that he will run for president. Hmpfh.) McGovern should appoint Jimmy Carter as Secretary of State and Lee Hamilton as Ambassador to the UN. Secretary of Defense, Wesley Clark. Attorney General, Ramsey Clark. Secretary of the Treasury, Paul Krugman (he's pretty young, I guess). These people would be better than anybody serving in government right now. Excellence and integrity.
A Wedding and a Funeral
Sad news for Rosalie's Uncle Eddie and Aunt Rose: they lost their daughter, Bekki, in a car accident in eastern Colorado on July 6. Bekki's daughter Amanda was in the car but survived. Eddie and Rose, and Bekki's two daughters, Amanda and Elise, live in Indiana (Columbus and Seymour). The family had gathered in Denver where the oldest daughter (of four) was just married. Amanda graduated from high school and will be going away to college, but Elise, who is eight, will need a home, and they are praying it won't be with her father, who is said to be mentally unstable. Ed is the most likely prospect of the fathering person but he is now 70. They are all anxious and of course sad. Then there are the details, like transporting Bekki back to Indiana, planning and paying for her burial, etc. It's a mess, and a big loss for them.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
They Always Manage Somehow
Ken Lay -- Bush’s buddy, Ken-Boy -- crooked CEO of Enron -- died last night of a heart attack. He was 64. He had been convicted of fraud or whatever and had yet to be sentenced. I am reminded of Hermann Goering's cheating the hangman with a cyanide capsule after conviction at the Nuremburg war crimes trials.
I doubt if Lay ever saw the inside of a jail. I guess I wouldn’t care if the man never went to jail if he would only have made restitution to all the people he deprived of a livelihood. I’m sure his family will have a rich inheritance. Nobody will touch that fortune, be assured. And Ken-Boy can go to his grave with the world knowing he screwed everybody but himself.
I doubt if Lay ever saw the inside of a jail. I guess I wouldn’t care if the man never went to jail if he would only have made restitution to all the people he deprived of a livelihood. I’m sure his family will have a rich inheritance. Nobody will touch that fortune, be assured. And Ken-Boy can go to his grave with the world knowing he screwed everybody but himself.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Happy Fourth
Outside last night people were shooting off firecrackers. This is the eve of the Fourth, the holiday celebrating this nation’s declaration of independence from Britain in 1776. The founding of what became the United States of America is truly a wonderful and remarkable achievement, and a blessing on its citizens. We are far from perfect. What a lot of our detractors say is true, and I have been one of our most vituperative critics.
I guess what has put me off about patriotism is that it has been hijacked by a bunch of simplistic, my-country-right-or-wrong, America-love it-or-leave-it, gunboat diplomacy, greedy, grabby men. Patriotism means love of country, and loving your country means wanting what’s best for it, and fighting for that -- fighting for your country to do the right thing, the noble, the charitable, the honorable thing.
We are not supposed to be bullies, ruling by might and force and violence. We are supposed to be internationalists, humbly recognizing our place as just one of the sovereign countries on this planet. We certainly should not be saying, "the UN is irrelevant." That's O'Reilly talk.
We are supposed to share our wealth with those less fortunate than we are. We are supposed to address the problems of the world, like poverty, and famine, and disease. We are supposed to make our own country a utopia as much as we can for all of our people so that no one is hungry or sick or poor or uneducated. We are supposed to believe in and fight fiercely for our freedom of speech and the press and religion.
When I think lovingly of the wonderful United States of America, I think of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin -- not George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. I think of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights -- not the Patriot Act and executive branch secrecy and government eavesdropping, and officially condemning the press (whatever in hell that means). I think of the Peace Corps -- not the Marine Corps. I think of diplomacy that includes diplomats who even speak the language of the country -- not freedom fries and laws making English the official language.
In writing this and posting it on the worldwide web, I am fighting for my country. I am a patriot. God bless the USA and all the people of the world. God have mercy on the USA and all the people of the world.
I guess what has put me off about patriotism is that it has been hijacked by a bunch of simplistic, my-country-right-or-wrong, America-love it-or-leave-it, gunboat diplomacy, greedy, grabby men. Patriotism means love of country, and loving your country means wanting what’s best for it, and fighting for that -- fighting for your country to do the right thing, the noble, the charitable, the honorable thing.
We are not supposed to be bullies, ruling by might and force and violence. We are supposed to be internationalists, humbly recognizing our place as just one of the sovereign countries on this planet. We certainly should not be saying, "the UN is irrelevant." That's O'Reilly talk.
We are supposed to share our wealth with those less fortunate than we are. We are supposed to address the problems of the world, like poverty, and famine, and disease. We are supposed to make our own country a utopia as much as we can for all of our people so that no one is hungry or sick or poor or uneducated. We are supposed to believe in and fight fiercely for our freedom of speech and the press and religion.
When I think lovingly of the wonderful United States of America, I think of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin -- not George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. I think of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights -- not the Patriot Act and executive branch secrecy and government eavesdropping, and officially condemning the press (whatever in hell that means). I think of the Peace Corps -- not the Marine Corps. I think of diplomacy that includes diplomats who even speak the language of the country -- not freedom fries and laws making English the official language.
In writing this and posting it on the worldwide web, I am fighting for my country. I am a patriot. God bless the USA and all the people of the world. God have mercy on the USA and all the people of the world.
Monday, July 03, 2006
Regatta Tragedy, 2 July 2006
Most people know by now that a youngster drove a car down to the river at a high speed, crashed through the barricade set up for the Madison Regatta, and injured a dozen people. Mirabile dictu, only a dozen or so people were injured and no one was killed, although several people were hurt badly. At least that is the word so far. The car became airborne and landed in the river. The police are quite interested in obtaining the results of blood tests from the driver of the car. When I first heard of the event, I speculated that this might be the nihilistic behavior of the likes of the boys who shot up Columbine. I'll be interested to hear about further developments.
The Land of Heart's Desire
I'm wandering into the smarmy world of nostalgic musings typically reserved for George Miller and Phil Cole (Madison Courier columnists) when I bring this up, but it came up when Rosie heard me saying, "This is the land of heart's desire. One may do as one wishes." She asked me where the saying originated.
"Doc" Rothert, the Madison schools music teacher, used to give "tea parties" after school, to detain us when we misbehaved in his classes. He was being sarcastic when he would say that, over and over, as part of a performance he would do for us. Kid that I was, I was kind of amused by it, but the more mature girls in our class hated it, quickly concluding that it was tiresome and not making the mistake of repeating an infraction of class deportment that would result in an "invitation" to a tea party. I would actually forgive him and hang around after a tea party to get him to play classical music (Ravel's Bolero comes to mind) on a nifty phonograph he had. The records were 78's in those days.
Doc was kind of a dandy for Madison, having a couple of music degrees, and, it is said, having studied some in a Paris conservatory. He was single all the years I had dealings with him (I was in the high school choir), but late in life he married the French teacher at Hanover College. This dispelled certain suspicions about his practice of taking us young bucks skinny-dipping at night in the crik up at Manville.
For choral pronunciation he taught us what he called "general American diction" and, having somewhat of a flair and a keen interest in language and elocution and having a horror of being regarded as a hillbilly or hick, I paid close attention to his instruction, forever after changed my speech, and as a result I have people still ask me, "Are you from around here?"
This is an installment of my memoirs, I guess. I have a lot more to say about Doc and will some day.
"Doc" Rothert, the Madison schools music teacher, used to give "tea parties" after school, to detain us when we misbehaved in his classes. He was being sarcastic when he would say that, over and over, as part of a performance he would do for us. Kid that I was, I was kind of amused by it, but the more mature girls in our class hated it, quickly concluding that it was tiresome and not making the mistake of repeating an infraction of class deportment that would result in an "invitation" to a tea party. I would actually forgive him and hang around after a tea party to get him to play classical music (Ravel's Bolero comes to mind) on a nifty phonograph he had. The records were 78's in those days.
Doc was kind of a dandy for Madison, having a couple of music degrees, and, it is said, having studied some in a Paris conservatory. He was single all the years I had dealings with him (I was in the high school choir), but late in life he married the French teacher at Hanover College. This dispelled certain suspicions about his practice of taking us young bucks skinny-dipping at night in the crik up at Manville.
For choral pronunciation he taught us what he called "general American diction" and, having somewhat of a flair and a keen interest in language and elocution and having a horror of being regarded as a hillbilly or hick, I paid close attention to his instruction, forever after changed my speech, and as a result I have people still ask me, "Are you from around here?"
This is an installment of my memoirs, I guess. I have a lot more to say about Doc and will some day.
Friday, June 30, 2006
Sic Semper Rags and Demagogues
I've always had my bete noire columnist in whatever the local rag might have been at that point in my life. When we were in Loganport, Indiana under the sufferance of the Pharos-Tribune it was one Charlie Reese. Don't hear of him anymore: don't think he was distinguished, just annoying as hell.
Michael Reagan is it now. He is a Third Base Republican (born on third, thought he hit a triple) who happens to have the Great Distinction of being the Son of Ronald Reagan. He writes inflammatory columns, which the Madison Birdcage Liner sees fit to publish.
Michael's latest tirade accuses the New York Times of treason -- treason, mind you -- for its story disclosing that the Bush administration has been operating another secret dragnet program, this one to sift bank data in hopes of finding transactions related to terrorism.
Well, whenever the supposed free press -- (and by the way, why is a free press important in a democracy? That, in my experience, has proven to be too hard a question for the majority of citizens of this nation, which fact is scary in this supposed democracy) -- whenever the press decides to print information, the responsible members of it take certain criteria into consideration: Is it the truth, unvarnished and unbiased? Is it in the public interest? Is it dedicated to the principle that a democracy --a government of the people, by the people, and for the people -- is at its best when the press is free of coercion from its government, or from big corporations, or organized crime. Is it not merely propaganda?
The New York Times has taken the position that its publication of the story on the government's surveillance of bank data (as well as illegal NSA eavesdropping recently, for which it won a Pulitzer prize) was in the public interest. We need to know what our government is doing to us. We cannot take their word for it. Certainly not this Potemkin village, this government-paid stooges-posing-as-reporters, this post-1984, this fascist government.
As for this disclosure's endangering us because it gives something away to the terrorists, that is so much arrant horse shit. The Wall Street Journal, so much in the pocket of the Bushies, has published the same thing. The Fox (FNN, Fascist News Network) boys have been ranting about the story ever since it happened. Why not accuse them of treason too for making such a big fuss? They're reminding the terrorists that we're on to them. (The terrorists are of course as stupid as the motorsickle gang in "Any Which Way but Loose," right?) No WTC/Pentagon tragedies will occur because the Times did their bounden duty to inform the American public of what clandestine things their government is doing to them.
Whenever the Bush-Cheney-Rove axis gets het up about an issue, think of playing to their base and thinking of their next election. Cherchez les Novembre 2006. Why is it always fundraisers with the country-club fat cats and undemocratically goon-screened "town meetings" for Our Beloved President at which entities such as the Communistic New York Times and other Enemies of America are denounced? Go figure.
As for Michael Reagan, if he can accuse the NYT of "treason," then I accuse him of "libel." He is an Enemy of America. And full of it too, come to think of it.
Michael Reagan is it now. He is a Third Base Republican (born on third, thought he hit a triple) who happens to have the Great Distinction of being the Son of Ronald Reagan. He writes inflammatory columns, which the Madison Birdcage Liner sees fit to publish.
Michael's latest tirade accuses the New York Times of treason -- treason, mind you -- for its story disclosing that the Bush administration has been operating another secret dragnet program, this one to sift bank data in hopes of finding transactions related to terrorism.
Well, whenever the supposed free press -- (and by the way, why is a free press important in a democracy? That, in my experience, has proven to be too hard a question for the majority of citizens of this nation, which fact is scary in this supposed democracy) -- whenever the press decides to print information, the responsible members of it take certain criteria into consideration: Is it the truth, unvarnished and unbiased? Is it in the public interest? Is it dedicated to the principle that a democracy --a government of the people, by the people, and for the people -- is at its best when the press is free of coercion from its government, or from big corporations, or organized crime. Is it not merely propaganda?
The New York Times has taken the position that its publication of the story on the government's surveillance of bank data (as well as illegal NSA eavesdropping recently, for which it won a Pulitzer prize) was in the public interest. We need to know what our government is doing to us. We cannot take their word for it. Certainly not this Potemkin village, this government-paid stooges-posing-as-reporters, this post-1984, this fascist government.
As for this disclosure's endangering us because it gives something away to the terrorists, that is so much arrant horse shit. The Wall Street Journal, so much in the pocket of the Bushies, has published the same thing. The Fox (FNN, Fascist News Network) boys have been ranting about the story ever since it happened. Why not accuse them of treason too for making such a big fuss? They're reminding the terrorists that we're on to them. (The terrorists are of course as stupid as the motorsickle gang in "Any Which Way but Loose," right?) No WTC/Pentagon tragedies will occur because the Times did their bounden duty to inform the American public of what clandestine things their government is doing to them.
Whenever the Bush-Cheney-Rove axis gets het up about an issue, think of playing to their base and thinking of their next election. Cherchez les Novembre 2006. Why is it always fundraisers with the country-club fat cats and undemocratically goon-screened "town meetings" for Our Beloved President at which entities such as the Communistic New York Times and other Enemies of America are denounced? Go figure.
As for Michael Reagan, if he can accuse the NYT of "treason," then I accuse him of "libel." He is an Enemy of America. And full of it too, come to think of it.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Vegetable Soup!
Big pot of it cooking on the stove right now, compliments of Chef Rozz. Extremely simple to prepare, heart-smart, delicious, and it gets better every time you reheat it. Stuff defies the laws of chemistry and physics. Rosie puts a little stew beef in ours. Her mother wouldn't let her in the kitchen when she was a kid and therefore she taught herself to cook while raising three little kids and working as an ER- and general hospital-nurse while still a kid (at least chronologically) herself. And did a deuced good job! She is awesome, I find out more and more every day. We had a boffo time last night. From Netflix, we watched "Bad Boys" starring Will Smith as a Miami vice cop and Martin Lawrence as his sidekick. (Actually, it must have been the other way around since Lawrence had first billing, as he should have because he was quite good.) The movie struck our funny bones and we were laughing out loud. We were in a screwball mood and the two of us rode to the library and post office at midnight to get movies where they were to go. I dared Rosie to go with me in her nightie and she not only did so but got out of the car to drop the Netflix movies in at the post office!
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Awesome Offspring
Amanda, Amber, Natalie, and Jerry showed up last evening for a birthday gathering. We had carry-in Chinese, birthday cake, and ice cream. They spent the night sleeping in tents in Clifty Falls State Park. I brooded (I do Mother Hen well) while J & N were en route and incommunicado -- all day yesterday. Mandy relayed the message late in the day that they were in Brown County and they said they had 120 miles to go. Knowing that the most direct route was many fewer miles than that, I figured they were so tired that they were disoriented. Turns out they went from 46 down Indiana 135 to Salem and came from there. The estimated mileage, then, was about right. Reason for the "detour"? They still hadn't had enough sightseeing. I went to visit them at the park this morning and they had a shower, packed their gear, and took off on those bikes, heading straight for Chicago. Natalie called before six to let me know they'd gotten home so I wouldn't worry. As I noted a long time ago, i have remained a prayin' man because of my kids. Which always reminded me of when Amanda worked overnight at the gas-and-convenience mart. Blessings on my awesome offspring, wherever they are.
Friday, June 23, 2006
JT Redux
Sixty-seven today. Life is good.
Last night we watched Secondhand Lions, about two old eccentrics (Michael Caine and Robert Duvall) who live on a secluded farm in Texas. This bimbo, their niece, drops her son, about twelve or thirteen, on them. They like to sit on their front porch and shoot their shotguns at traveling salesmen. They have five dogs, a pig, and, after time, a lioness, who the kid talks them into buying, and who he names "Jasmine." (A giraffe makes a cameo appearance.) Michael Caine as a droll, wise old Texan (he's a Brit, you know) is delightful. So is the menagerie. This movie is a keeper. It may soon rank up there with The Milagro Beanfield War among my favorites.
Just finished The Stone Monkey, by Jeffery Deaver. I loved it and there are more. The Stone Monkey has this Chinese hit man who makes Hannibal Lecter look like Mister Rogers. "Lincoln Rhyme," a quadruplegic "criminalist," directs operations from his wheelchair, and "Amelia Sachs," plainclothes cop, and of course a knockout (in this case red-haired), does his legwork. In this novel there is a Chinese cop named "Sonny Li," who has Jackie Chan written all over him. I hope this one makes it to the screen.
Doc Natalie and Jerry are scheduled to trek here from Shy on their BMW motorsickles tomorrow. They're going to camp in Clifty with Amanda and Amber. Can't wait to see them. Natalie finished her internship, yesterday being her last day.
My friend Jerry Y. offered to help with a podcast of film music so that is not dead. Shuck and jive shall not win out!
I continue to exercise, eat right, and lose weight. I have rehab in an hour. It's fun and I'm making great progress.
Sixty-seven today. Life is good.
Last night we watched Secondhand Lions, about two old eccentrics (Michael Caine and Robert Duvall) who live on a secluded farm in Texas. This bimbo, their niece, drops her son, about twelve or thirteen, on them. They like to sit on their front porch and shoot their shotguns at traveling salesmen. They have five dogs, a pig, and, after time, a lioness, who the kid talks them into buying, and who he names "Jasmine." (A giraffe makes a cameo appearance.) Michael Caine as a droll, wise old Texan (he's a Brit, you know) is delightful. So is the menagerie. This movie is a keeper. It may soon rank up there with The Milagro Beanfield War among my favorites.
Just finished The Stone Monkey, by Jeffery Deaver. I loved it and there are more. The Stone Monkey has this Chinese hit man who makes Hannibal Lecter look like Mister Rogers. "Lincoln Rhyme," a quadruplegic "criminalist," directs operations from his wheelchair, and "Amelia Sachs," plainclothes cop, and of course a knockout (in this case red-haired), does his legwork. In this novel there is a Chinese cop named "Sonny Li," who has Jackie Chan written all over him. I hope this one makes it to the screen.
Doc Natalie and Jerry are scheduled to trek here from Shy on their BMW motorsickles tomorrow. They're going to camp in Clifty with Amanda and Amber. Can't wait to see them. Natalie finished her internship, yesterday being her last day.
My friend Jerry Y. offered to help with a podcast of film music so that is not dead. Shuck and jive shall not win out!
I continue to exercise, eat right, and lose weight. I have rehab in an hour. It's fun and I'm making great progress.
Sixty-seven today. Life is good.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
My Year in Radio: Relax, Garrison K., The Threat Is Over
Just about one year ago, I was listening to the classical music station which I have set on both car radios and the living room radio. The DJ of then played the music of "Star Trek," the Alexander Courage theme from the TV show. (Shatner was always a butterball but he could still barely get away with wearing a close-fitting shirt and not looking utterly ridiculous. But I digress. Kirk out.)
I sent her an email saying I liked film music and that I would like to hear more. She replied, saying that the program director had expressed interest in programming more film music and that I ought to get in touch with him -- strike while the iron is hot.
I did and he invited me to the studio and we started talking about my being the DJ for a weekly one-hour show of music of the movies. He asked me to put some programs together and encouraged me in every way. He told people there that I was going to be doing a show and they were greeting me when I would visit the studio.
I did make up six or so shows, selecting themes and songs from many movies, burning them to CDs, and writing scripts for my commentary between numbers. I love movies and classical music and film music, so it looked like this was the career niche for me (at last). The plan was for him and me to record the programs in the studio and, by golly, I thought, air those suckers.
Well, it never happened. After much noodging on my part, we finally got part of one program in the computer. He told me he'd decided (this was all of a sudden) that he'd better run the show by a higher-up to make sure it was approved and that we would stop recording for now until he had done that.
Well, I tried to remind him occasionally that he'd said he'd meet with the VP, and a round of shuck and jive, of excuses and apologies ensued. In March of this year, after one last email, I gave up.
Day before yesterday I had an email from His Shiftiness. More shuck and jive and excuses and apologies about how he'd tried to convince the higher powers of the value of a film music show -- he didn't actually say he was trying to salvage my show: I guess he considers he might go to hell for outright lying.
But the bottom line came at last, after much milk of magnesia and several enemas and digging out of the impaction: "I'm sorry we can't use your show..." Then the real agenda became apparent in an attachment: it was a sample of what he himself plans to do on the new digital station which will be airing sometime in the near future. He then had the chutzpah to ask me to help, "if you want to," by suggesting film music selections.
(Did he suspect I might not want to after realizing what a number he has done on me? "Chutzpah," by the way, we know from lovers of Yiddish, is that quality of the man who murders his parents and then begs for mercy from the court because he is an orphan.)
I replied to the gentleman, Thanks but no thanks. Actually, I did not dignify with a reply the offer of a sop, a consolation prize, of being a "consultant." I just asked the gentleman to finish the program we'd started recording last year and send me a CD of it as a keepsake of my "days in radio." I asked him not to reply in words, just send the disc, because "People may doubt what you say, but they will always believe what you do."
So Gary K. (and Alan B.), my threat of being a radio personality is past. Relax your sphincters. Amen.
I sent her an email saying I liked film music and that I would like to hear more. She replied, saying that the program director had expressed interest in programming more film music and that I ought to get in touch with him -- strike while the iron is hot.
I did and he invited me to the studio and we started talking about my being the DJ for a weekly one-hour show of music of the movies. He asked me to put some programs together and encouraged me in every way. He told people there that I was going to be doing a show and they were greeting me when I would visit the studio.
I did make up six or so shows, selecting themes and songs from many movies, burning them to CDs, and writing scripts for my commentary between numbers. I love movies and classical music and film music, so it looked like this was the career niche for me (at last). The plan was for him and me to record the programs in the studio and, by golly, I thought, air those suckers.
Well, it never happened. After much noodging on my part, we finally got part of one program in the computer. He told me he'd decided (this was all of a sudden) that he'd better run the show by a higher-up to make sure it was approved and that we would stop recording for now until he had done that.
Well, I tried to remind him occasionally that he'd said he'd meet with the VP, and a round of shuck and jive, of excuses and apologies ensued. In March of this year, after one last email, I gave up.
Day before yesterday I had an email from His Shiftiness. More shuck and jive and excuses and apologies about how he'd tried to convince the higher powers of the value of a film music show -- he didn't actually say he was trying to salvage my show: I guess he considers he might go to hell for outright lying.
But the bottom line came at last, after much milk of magnesia and several enemas and digging out of the impaction: "I'm sorry we can't use your show..." Then the real agenda became apparent in an attachment: it was a sample of what he himself plans to do on the new digital station which will be airing sometime in the near future. He then had the chutzpah to ask me to help, "if you want to," by suggesting film music selections.
(Did he suspect I might not want to after realizing what a number he has done on me? "Chutzpah," by the way, we know from lovers of Yiddish, is that quality of the man who murders his parents and then begs for mercy from the court because he is an orphan.)
I replied to the gentleman, Thanks but no thanks. Actually, I did not dignify with a reply the offer of a sop, a consolation prize, of being a "consultant." I just asked the gentleman to finish the program we'd started recording last year and send me a CD of it as a keepsake of my "days in radio." I asked him not to reply in words, just send the disc, because "People may doubt what you say, but they will always believe what you do."
So Gary K. (and Alan B.), my threat of being a radio personality is past. Relax your sphincters. Amen.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
guzzling through the apocalypse
I came up the hill a while ago and was almost run over by an SUV -- a big-assed American make -- driving like li'l ole 421 was the Autobahn. I wonder what kind of mileage that sucker (gas-sucker) gets. I wonder if the driver has any notion that "the end" is near -- the end of plentiful fossil fuels and the prerogative to squander them? Could it be that the next president and congress will crack down? Impose a national speed limit of 55 once again, by executive order, as Tricky Dick did in the seventies? Work for a windfall profit tax on Big Oil? Kick the ass of GM for manufacturing its gas guzzlers and not let them wiggle out of their responsibility to produce efficient (and, incidentally, clean) automobiles? Mandate moving ahead as quickly as possible with a concerted plan to develop wind and solar energy and other ways to stop the insane waste? God deliver us. Amen.
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Try Again, Dear Hearts and Gentle People
There was a song when I was about a little kid that went: "I love those dear hearts and gentle people / Who live in my home town." Well, I know I have many dear hearts and gentle people who have tried to make comments on my blog and couldn't because of my stupidity with regard to managing my blog. SO -- I THINK YOU CAN ADD COMMENTS NOW. SO PLEASE TRY. AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT. Love to all, JT.
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Plus ca change, ...
The day we got the news that Zarqawi was killed I became depressed. I knew we'd be in for another declaration of "Mission Accomplished." (Keith Olbermann tells us every evening at the end of Countdown how many days it has been since that first declaration. The relatively subdued tone with which His Cockiness announced Zarqawi's demise (in the Rose Garden, in his dark blue suit and dark red power tie, trying to look presidential -- and intelligent, I suppose) fooled those who wanted to be fooled, of course. Then there it was: the secret whisking away to the Green Zone of Iraq for photo-ops and sound bites. Public relations and savagely partisan politics. I'd say, "The more things change, the more they remain the same." But every time they get into a little trouble they bounce back up like the Bobo clown doll. And while they manage to look good enough to their "base," they trudge on down the road to hell taking all of us with them. Think about it: redistribution of wealth, degradation of the environment, amassing of the national debt, erosion of civil rights, moving ever closer to a police state. On and on. Oh God, would you please deliver us from this regime?
Friday, June 02, 2006
This I Believe
Last night we watched Good Night, and Good Luck, the George Clooney film which stars the awesome David Strathairn as Edward R. Murrow, the CBS newsman who helped bring down Senator Joe McCarthy in the 1950's. McCarthy, who is not played by an actor but instead shown exclusively in recordings throughout the movie, conducted a witch hunt of "Communists" and in the process gave immense aid and comfort to our enemies. That hideous man was debunked and we got past that period somehow and breathed easy for a while.
We have a government now that in its "war on terrorism" is giving aid and comfort to our enemies. The thing I find most oppressive right now is the demand of the government to know everything about us -- everything -- but to reveal nothing about itself -- nothing. The air is pretty stifling these days and I'm finding it very hard to breathe.
We have a government now that in its "war on terrorism" is giving aid and comfort to our enemies. The thing I find most oppressive right now is the demand of the government to know everything about us -- everything -- but to reveal nothing about itself -- nothing. The air is pretty stifling these days and I'm finding it very hard to breathe.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
buck, bela, john-john and me
I guess I have pretty catholic, some might say schizophrenic, tastes in music: at the library the other day I borrowed two CDs: one was Volume One of Buck Owens' All Time Greatest Hits and the other was orchestral works by Bela Bartok, the mighty twentieth century Hungarian composer. My beloved son John introduced me to Buck, one night in Florida when Amanda and I were riding in his truck. I never thought I would waste my time with country music, but, true to the adage that there are two kinds of music, good and bad, I swear off my intolerance of good music that happens to be country. John-John likes it, Garrison Keillor likes it, Mick Jagger likes it. We may yet find out that Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma are closet admirers of George Jones. (Maybe not, but...)
The Bartok disc contained Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, which appears in two familiar American movies, "Being John Malkovich" and "The Shining." In spite of the stumbledick I'd counted on to get me to the big-time who instead let me down, I'm determined to do some kind of show on movie music, i-Pod or something, and I'm continuing to do research. It will happen. And there'll be plenty of room for hillbilly music. Yee-ha!
The Bartok disc contained Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, which appears in two familiar American movies, "Being John Malkovich" and "The Shining." In spite of the stumbledick I'd counted on to get me to the big-time who instead let me down, I'm determined to do some kind of show on movie music, i-Pod or something, and I'm continuing to do research. It will happen. And there'll be plenty of room for hillbilly music. Yee-ha!
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Whaddaya think, Aldous Huxley?
This evening we watched "Charly," starring Cliff Robertson and Claire Bloom. (Excuse the digression: God, how I long for the days when women acted and dressed like Claire does in this movie.)
"Charly," who because of an operation goes from being retarded to a genius (and who then has the good sense to seduce his gorgeous, sexy teacher, played by Claire -- OK -- no more digressions, I promise. Well, just one: the music is by Ravi Shankar and I wonder if it's on CD) is asked by a panel of scientists what the future of civilization is going to be. He replies, “Brave new hate, brave new bombs, brave new war.”
In 1968, I might have thought that was a melodramatic answer. But here we are in this brave new year, our nation at war -- an unjust war (are there really any just ones?) -- killing and being killed, and an administration that is corrupt, greedy, ruthless to its enemies, which include me because I dissent. Brave new hate. And most of the haters claim to be obedient to the One who said that the two great commandments are to love. (Let's see: isn't love the opposite of hate?)
"Charly," who because of an operation goes from being retarded to a genius (and who then has the good sense to seduce his gorgeous, sexy teacher, played by Claire -- OK -- no more digressions, I promise. Well, just one: the music is by Ravi Shankar and I wonder if it's on CD) is asked by a panel of scientists what the future of civilization is going to be. He replies, “Brave new hate, brave new bombs, brave new war.”
In 1968, I might have thought that was a melodramatic answer. But here we are in this brave new year, our nation at war -- an unjust war (are there really any just ones?) -- killing and being killed, and an administration that is corrupt, greedy, ruthless to its enemies, which include me because I dissent. Brave new hate. And most of the haters claim to be obedient to the One who said that the two great commandments are to love. (Let's see: isn't love the opposite of hate?)
Friday, May 05, 2006
Culture of Death
The American culture of death lost a round when Zacarias Moussaoui received a sentence of life in prison instead of death for his part in the tragedy of 9/11. Jurors considered "mitigating circumstances" in his case and most of them decided such circumstances were great enough to withhold the death penalty. The prosecution and victims of family members were disappointed.
When I say the "culture of death," I refer to those who are almost always "pro-life" in the case of the unborn but otherwise are pro-capital punishment, pro-war, pro-guns, and pro-damnation for their opponents. Their undisputed leader is George W. Bush, who so callously and adamantly blessed the executions of people when he was governor of Texas and who has damned thousands of American soldiers to their death and disabilities for his stinking war.
When I say the "culture of death," I refer to those who are almost always "pro-life" in the case of the unborn but otherwise are pro-capital punishment, pro-war, pro-guns, and pro-damnation for their opponents. Their undisputed leader is George W. Bush, who so callously and adamantly blessed the executions of people when he was governor of Texas and who has damned thousands of American soldiers to their death and disabilities for his stinking war.
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Feeling Well
I get a little stronger and feel a little better each day. I'm grateful for that. Very grateful. We're going to a birthday luncheon for Rosie's dad's 93rd after a while. It's a beautiful spring day. Long live Howard! Long live JT!
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Post-surgery thoughts about hospitals
I still don’t have a lot to say about the surgery and its sequelae. I sure do hate modern hospitals, Jewish too in spite of its being one of the best. The care-givers were lovely, almost without exception, and I have no complaint about them and how they did their job. The place is entirely too NOISY—god damn it—and it would be nice if they could do something about that. And they measured your temperature and made you account for your urine in a plastic bottle and every few hours stuck a needle in you and frequently pulled tape off your skin. I had roommates, which made the place too crowded for all. I was glad to get the hell out of there. The anesthesia made me visually hallucinate, especially in a dark room, and cognitively impaired me for a while. And I cannot believe how slowly the hours passed. Especially the hours from darkness to dawn. I refused to watch TV and some of the time felt well enough to work on a crossword, but even with activities the time took forever to pass. But pass it did at last, and we left at 8:30 or quarter to nine Thursday, well after dark, which Rosie didn’t want. Rosie was there every day and how dear her presence was to me. And Amanda will surely earn a high place in heaven for her care of the sick. She walked with me and joked with me and we had a wonderful time. Oh yes, and the food was wretched most of the time, although I think the anesthesia probably had a lot to do with that. One thing about walking was I got to do a lot of farting, which seemed like a good idea at the time. I was very happy also to see Natalie on the weekend—actually, she showed up on Friday and she and Amanda spent a good deal of time with me. Ella, Mary, Randall, and Kelsey popped in for a while on the weekend. I do recall Randy offered “a word of prayer" for me—and I was grateful for that, although I have no idea what he said.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Make it 40 cubits...
Rain, rain, rain. Our backyard is a lake and I think we're going to get a lot of precip this year in the liquid form, because of a phenomenon called "regression to the mean." We had lots of sun last summer and because of all the glorious sunshine I didn't mind that I no longer lived close to the (Great Salt Lake) desert as I walked all those miles . It was in the back of my mind that we'd pay for it later on, but as Joy Lewis says in Shadowlands, "That's the deal." Roy Orbison used to sing, "Baby, the rain must fall..."
Friday, March 10, 2006
Roots
My wife is a genealogy enthusiast and she has been inviting me to join in the fun. I was bitten by the bug recently when I got more evidence that my great-grandfather, James T. Evans, was in the "Orphan Brigade," the only CSA unit from Kentucky in the Civil War. My Uncle Roy told me this before he died and I found an "Evans, J.T." who was a "1st Cpl" in "Co. C, 3rd Kentucky Mounted Infantry Regiment."
I also found James T. Evans in the 1850 through 1900 census records as a farmer in Trimble County, Kentucky. His parents were Charles and Lena Evans, who were both born in Kentucky in 1794. James T. married a woman whose name, I think, deciphering the spelling and penmanship of the people who gave and recorded the information to the best of my ability, was named Jo Agnes. He was a widower by 1900 and lived on the farm with a 29-year-old daughter named Cassandra. (She was the notorious "Aunt Cassie," who my dad made a face over every time he said her name. She later lived in Madison, and once served my dad and mother wine at her house when they were newlyweds.)
I need to find out the surnames of great-grandmother Jo Agnes and great-great grandmother Lena, and I am itching to get at the records. I also found a record of the marriage of "Thomas Evans" to "Annie Dunn" in 1895, in Jefferson County, Indiana. That's "Tom" (John Thomas I, son of James T. and Jo Agnes), and Anna Elizabeth Dunn, (daughter of Albert and Martha), Tom and Annie being my father's parents.
I also found some really neat pictures of my mother and dad, one when I speculate they were dating or possibly newlyweds, and they were a good-looking couple. I also found pictures of my dad and his older brother and sister when they were small kids. Well, I'm rambling. I'm impressed. I have a beautiful family, both ancestors and offspring, and I'm very proud of all.
Another new development in my life: a friend (another unpublished writer) and I are taking a course in writing one's life story at Indiana University Southeast. It's going to be fun.
Love to my loved ones who might read this.
I also found James T. Evans in the 1850 through 1900 census records as a farmer in Trimble County, Kentucky. His parents were Charles and Lena Evans, who were both born in Kentucky in 1794. James T. married a woman whose name, I think, deciphering the spelling and penmanship of the people who gave and recorded the information to the best of my ability, was named Jo Agnes. He was a widower by 1900 and lived on the farm with a 29-year-old daughter named Cassandra. (She was the notorious "Aunt Cassie," who my dad made a face over every time he said her name. She later lived in Madison, and once served my dad and mother wine at her house when they were newlyweds.)
I need to find out the surnames of great-grandmother Jo Agnes and great-great grandmother Lena, and I am itching to get at the records. I also found a record of the marriage of "Thomas Evans" to "Annie Dunn" in 1895, in Jefferson County, Indiana. That's "Tom" (John Thomas I, son of James T. and Jo Agnes), and Anna Elizabeth Dunn, (daughter of Albert and Martha), Tom and Annie being my father's parents.
I also found some really neat pictures of my mother and dad, one when I speculate they were dating or possibly newlyweds, and they were a good-looking couple. I also found pictures of my dad and his older brother and sister when they were small kids. Well, I'm rambling. I'm impressed. I have a beautiful family, both ancestors and offspring, and I'm very proud of all.
Another new development in my life: a friend (another unpublished writer) and I are taking a course in writing one's life story at Indiana University Southeast. It's going to be fun.
Love to my loved ones who might read this.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Must Be My Deodorant -- Or My Rapier Wit and Merciless Logic
I wish people who read my blog -- people tell me they read my blog -- would feel free to COMMENT. "Boring" or "Bullshit" would be just as acceptable as "Agreed" or "Brilliant." Note that all my examples are one word, but feel free to say more as the spirit moves you.
I download and read all the columns of Molly Ivins (Fort Worth Star-Telegram) periodically, and it starts out being fun because she nails the bastards to the wall -- Texas Governor Rick "Goodhair" Perry, Tom DeLay, George W. "Shrub" Bush -- she wants to ask him in an interview, "Are you the worst president since James Buchanan? Or have you never heard of him?" -- John Boehner, the crooked joker who succeeded the crooked DeLay ("he may be succeeded but he'll never be replaced"), Alberto Gonzales the pathetic pipsqueak who of course didn't insist on being sworn into a hearing when Sen. Specter excused him -- but reading a whole bunch of them at a time is like eating a huge steak. It makes you sick. Mind you, in no way am I attacking the messenger for telling the truth. Molly is the one who warned us about Bush, having covered his term as governor of Texas. She told us that history would repeat itself, as it had repeated itself during the governorship. Frat boy uses his connections to get involved in some enterprise or another then has his rich friends bail him out and cover it all up for him. She's the one who introduced us to Karl Rove, the man known affectionately to "Shrub" as "Turd Blossom." (I wonder what Shrub would have nicknamed Hermann Goering? "Cuddles"?)
Molly Ivins. Worth a read:
www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/columnists/molly_ivins/
I download and read all the columns of Molly Ivins (Fort Worth Star-Telegram) periodically, and it starts out being fun because she nails the bastards to the wall -- Texas Governor Rick "Goodhair" Perry, Tom DeLay, George W. "Shrub" Bush -- she wants to ask him in an interview, "Are you the worst president since James Buchanan? Or have you never heard of him?" -- John Boehner, the crooked joker who succeeded the crooked DeLay ("he may be succeeded but he'll never be replaced"), Alberto Gonzales the pathetic pipsqueak who of course didn't insist on being sworn into a hearing when Sen. Specter excused him -- but reading a whole bunch of them at a time is like eating a huge steak. It makes you sick. Mind you, in no way am I attacking the messenger for telling the truth. Molly is the one who warned us about Bush, having covered his term as governor of Texas. She told us that history would repeat itself, as it had repeated itself during the governorship. Frat boy uses his connections to get involved in some enterprise or another then has his rich friends bail him out and cover it all up for him. She's the one who introduced us to Karl Rove, the man known affectionately to "Shrub" as "Turd Blossom." (I wonder what Shrub would have nicknamed Hermann Goering? "Cuddles"?)
Molly Ivins. Worth a read:
www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/columnists/molly_ivins/
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Right You Are
I recently finished reading Our Endangered Values by Jimmy Carter. He states, straightforwardly and incisively, the ills to which this country have fallen since the inception of the current administration. I do not express things with the nobility that he does. Nor do I offer solutions as he does. As I’ve observed, re-grettably, I am much more adroit at afflicting the comfortable than comforting the afflicted.
Bush and his gang have climbed to power with the aid of the fundamentalist religious right wing. This is my reading of how President Carter sums up that faction — “a more intense form of fundamentalism” — in his book, as follows:
(1) Their leaders are dictatorial males who deem themselves superior to others and dominate their sect — especially females.
(2) Although they quote ancient authorities as infallible, requiring unquestioning submission, they exploit modernity when it is expedient for them to do so in order to achieve their ends.
(3) They sharply exclude all who disagree with them, declaring themselves the only true believers and flatly branding their disputants as ignorant and evil.
(4) They militantly fight anything that challenges their beliefs, resorting to verbal and physical abuse of their opponents.
(5) They become ever more narrow in defining and isolating themselves from the “secular” society.
I would add to that last item that, although they exclude and isolate, they have sought ever more boldly to rule all of their perceived enemies through the agency of the Republican party and through seizing as much of the three branches of our constitutional government as they can — moving us ever closer to a church-state. Thus, their goal is becoming less and less a matter of isolating themselves from others and more and more seeking to engulf and devour them.
This is only from the first chapter of the book and I hardly do it justice stopping there. It’s one of those books I’m proud to say I’ve read and I heartily recommend it.
I’m not pious but when I focus on ideals such as justice, meaning, and ultimate purpose, I’ve been motivated by the teachings of Jesus. In such a spirit, I recently sought to volunteer for Prison Fellowship, the ministry founded by Charles Colson. I might be accused of seeking the broad, easy path — the one that leads to destruction, I suppose — by applying to be merely a pen pal rather than visit folks in prisons. Ink is easier to come by than gasoline these days, and I write better than I speak, I reasoned.
Looking through the website, I looked at the picture and bio of Chuck Colson. The picture and text are imposing: captain in the Marines, aide to a US president, … Many years ago I read Born Again, his account of his conversion to Christ while he was in prison. He was there for his part in Watergate, his role having been Nixon’s dirty-tricks man. In the book, written soon after his prison term, he was convincingly contrite about how badly he had behaved.
To his credit, he founded his estimable ministry to prisoners and has headed it for three decades. Chuck earned the respect of Jimmy Carter, among others, because it appeared that he had repented, forsaken politics, and humbly begun to serve God through his prison ministry. When friends lumped him in with those who “took a nose dive with the Hallelujah boys” in order to improve their public images, I defended him as “authentic” and dedicated to the social gospel.
In the past year, I was dismayed when I read an open letter to Chuck from Jim Wallis, Christian evangelical author of God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It and tireless worker for social justice. Wallis took Colson to task for distorting Jim's stance on abortion.
I was further perturbed at the appearance of Chuck on “Justice Sunday” last year at a Louisville megachurch, a televised demonstration for the appointment of conservative federal judges. Colson was there with the likes of Albert Mohler, under whose presidency of Southern Baptist Seminary all women were kicked off the faculty, the men were mandatorily sworn to a fundamentalist creedal state-ment, and the abolishing of a pastoral counseling studies program, for which the seminary had long been praised and revered, and replacement of it by “Biblical” counseling. Also present were James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family, and Bill Frist, Senate Majority (Republican) Leader.
It appears to me that Colson has abandoned his renunciation of politics. The saying about fools and dogs returning to their baser ways seems regrettably apropos (Proverbs 26:11). As a former behind-the-scenes master “ratfucker,” Chuck might be hoped to denounce his vile counterpart of today, Karl Rove. He is instead, either by commission or omission, a supporter in the most corrupt federal administration yet.
But the words of Jesus are there in Matthew 25: “I was in prison and you visited me.” And when was that? “Just as you did it to one of the least of these…, you did it to me.” So with those words in mind, I sought to become a pen pal with somebody by means of Prison Fellowship. I completed the online application, almost. Then the creed came. The one that I had to endorse in its entirety with the click of a mouse. I could not subscribe in particular to these two statements:
(1) We believe that the Bible is God's authoritative and inspired Word. It is without error in all its teachings, including creation, history, its own origins, and salvation. Christians must submit to its divine authority, both individually and corporately, in all matters of belief and conduct, which is demonstrated by true righteous living.
(2) We believe that all people are lost sinners and cannot see the Kingdom of God except through the new birth. Justification is by grace through faith in Christ alone.
When I left the box unclicked, the program kicked me back to it, saying I’d left it blank and it must be completed to be accepted. Not wanting to dissemble, and apparently having the option to write an email, I did so, saying the following:
(1) I'm a recovering alcoholic. (2) I am not a member of the Christian right-wing. Although I admire Chuck Colson for his social gospel ministry, I deplore his association with the ultraconservative Republican party.* (3) I am not a fundamentalist and therefore cannot endorse with a click of the mouse every clause (e.g. 100% Biblical inerrancy) of the "Statement of Faith." Do you have any use for me? If you do not, will you tell me why?
(*I was appalled when Chuck appeared with James Dobson, Bill Frist, and Albert Mohler on the notorious "Justice Sunday" Louisville megachurch broadcast.)
Well, I’m a naïf. I thought I would actually get a reply. Perhaps the email was dumped automatically by an artifice of the computer program and nobody ever saw it. But I tend to think the silence is related to the points of President Carter about the religious right — their debating with me, an out-of-the-closet non-fundamentalist, is not an option. It’s beneath contempt. “God said it, I believe it, and that’s that,” say the fundies. Chuck, the former gyrene officer, says that you salute, holler “SIR! YES SIR!” and move out. You don’t question orders. (Come to think of it, he would have had to feel that way, had he any scruples then, in doing the bidding of Nixon. But I grant he confessed he did not.)
So I think I’ve been cut dead by the Religious Right. (So what is new?) If you dare to question their brand of religion, you just don’t have it. You aren’t “saved” and you are cast into the outer darkness, whereas they are in the light. (Whoops! Tic! That verse from Psalm 139 just occurred to me — I suppose I’m just grasping at straws, of course — “Even if I make my bed in hell, Thou art there.”)
But being rejected is really a dilemma for me, because I really would like to minister to prisoners in the spirit of Matthew 25, flawed as I am, and I can’t get Prison Fellowship to discuss it with me like an adult (Damn it, I hate to keep bringing it up, but I’m 66! And I’ve been a Presbyterian elder). There are other internet agencies for making pen pals, but those are all prisoners looking for chicks (other guys, whatever).
Going on to the matter of being “saved,” we recently looked at the DVD of the movie, Saved! Yep, I’m depraved — I loved every minute of it. I watched it twice, once with the commentary by its two writers, and I believed that it had a “Sweet, Sweet Spirit” (which I put in quotes and upper case because those apt words happen to be a contemporary Christian song title, by the way) that transcended the mordant look at religious hypocrisy.
I wondered what the reviewers at "Christian Spotlight on the Movies" had to say about it and, yep, they declared the movie evil and wrong and included links to debrief all who might see it with the Christian facts (their version of "Christian" and "facts," of course).
I rant about my frustration with these folks. I tried to engage them last year and, with the prospect of one more spring in Indiana, I'll try to dream the impossible dream again and engage them. But I'm not feeling terribly hopeful at the moment.
Bush and his gang have climbed to power with the aid of the fundamentalist religious right wing. This is my reading of how President Carter sums up that faction — “a more intense form of fundamentalism” — in his book, as follows:
(1) Their leaders are dictatorial males who deem themselves superior to others and dominate their sect — especially females.
(2) Although they quote ancient authorities as infallible, requiring unquestioning submission, they exploit modernity when it is expedient for them to do so in order to achieve their ends.
(3) They sharply exclude all who disagree with them, declaring themselves the only true believers and flatly branding their disputants as ignorant and evil.
(4) They militantly fight anything that challenges their beliefs, resorting to verbal and physical abuse of their opponents.
(5) They become ever more narrow in defining and isolating themselves from the “secular” society.
I would add to that last item that, although they exclude and isolate, they have sought ever more boldly to rule all of their perceived enemies through the agency of the Republican party and through seizing as much of the three branches of our constitutional government as they can — moving us ever closer to a church-state. Thus, their goal is becoming less and less a matter of isolating themselves from others and more and more seeking to engulf and devour them.
This is only from the first chapter of the book and I hardly do it justice stopping there. It’s one of those books I’m proud to say I’ve read and I heartily recommend it.
I’m not pious but when I focus on ideals such as justice, meaning, and ultimate purpose, I’ve been motivated by the teachings of Jesus. In such a spirit, I recently sought to volunteer for Prison Fellowship, the ministry founded by Charles Colson. I might be accused of seeking the broad, easy path — the one that leads to destruction, I suppose — by applying to be merely a pen pal rather than visit folks in prisons. Ink is easier to come by than gasoline these days, and I write better than I speak, I reasoned.
Looking through the website, I looked at the picture and bio of Chuck Colson. The picture and text are imposing: captain in the Marines, aide to a US president, … Many years ago I read Born Again, his account of his conversion to Christ while he was in prison. He was there for his part in Watergate, his role having been Nixon’s dirty-tricks man. In the book, written soon after his prison term, he was convincingly contrite about how badly he had behaved.
To his credit, he founded his estimable ministry to prisoners and has headed it for three decades. Chuck earned the respect of Jimmy Carter, among others, because it appeared that he had repented, forsaken politics, and humbly begun to serve God through his prison ministry. When friends lumped him in with those who “took a nose dive with the Hallelujah boys” in order to improve their public images, I defended him as “authentic” and dedicated to the social gospel.
In the past year, I was dismayed when I read an open letter to Chuck from Jim Wallis, Christian evangelical author of God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It and tireless worker for social justice. Wallis took Colson to task for distorting Jim's stance on abortion.
I was further perturbed at the appearance of Chuck on “Justice Sunday” last year at a Louisville megachurch, a televised demonstration for the appointment of conservative federal judges. Colson was there with the likes of Albert Mohler, under whose presidency of Southern Baptist Seminary all women were kicked off the faculty, the men were mandatorily sworn to a fundamentalist creedal state-ment, and the abolishing of a pastoral counseling studies program, for which the seminary had long been praised and revered, and replacement of it by “Biblical” counseling. Also present were James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family, and Bill Frist, Senate Majority (Republican) Leader.
It appears to me that Colson has abandoned his renunciation of politics. The saying about fools and dogs returning to their baser ways seems regrettably apropos (Proverbs 26:11). As a former behind-the-scenes master “ratfucker,” Chuck might be hoped to denounce his vile counterpart of today, Karl Rove. He is instead, either by commission or omission, a supporter in the most corrupt federal administration yet.
But the words of Jesus are there in Matthew 25: “I was in prison and you visited me.” And when was that? “Just as you did it to one of the least of these…, you did it to me.” So with those words in mind, I sought to become a pen pal with somebody by means of Prison Fellowship. I completed the online application, almost. Then the creed came. The one that I had to endorse in its entirety with the click of a mouse. I could not subscribe in particular to these two statements:
(1) We believe that the Bible is God's authoritative and inspired Word. It is without error in all its teachings, including creation, history, its own origins, and salvation. Christians must submit to its divine authority, both individually and corporately, in all matters of belief and conduct, which is demonstrated by true righteous living.
(2) We believe that all people are lost sinners and cannot see the Kingdom of God except through the new birth. Justification is by grace through faith in Christ alone.
When I left the box unclicked, the program kicked me back to it, saying I’d left it blank and it must be completed to be accepted. Not wanting to dissemble, and apparently having the option to write an email, I did so, saying the following:
(1) I'm a recovering alcoholic. (2) I am not a member of the Christian right-wing. Although I admire Chuck Colson for his social gospel ministry, I deplore his association with the ultraconservative Republican party.* (3) I am not a fundamentalist and therefore cannot endorse with a click of the mouse every clause (e.g. 100% Biblical inerrancy) of the "Statement of Faith." Do you have any use for me? If you do not, will you tell me why?
(*I was appalled when Chuck appeared with James Dobson, Bill Frist, and Albert Mohler on the notorious "Justice Sunday" Louisville megachurch broadcast.)
Well, I’m a naïf. I thought I would actually get a reply. Perhaps the email was dumped automatically by an artifice of the computer program and nobody ever saw it. But I tend to think the silence is related to the points of President Carter about the religious right — their debating with me, an out-of-the-closet non-fundamentalist, is not an option. It’s beneath contempt. “God said it, I believe it, and that’s that,” say the fundies. Chuck, the former gyrene officer, says that you salute, holler “SIR! YES SIR!” and move out. You don’t question orders. (Come to think of it, he would have had to feel that way, had he any scruples then, in doing the bidding of Nixon. But I grant he confessed he did not.)
So I think I’ve been cut dead by the Religious Right. (So what is new?) If you dare to question their brand of religion, you just don’t have it. You aren’t “saved” and you are cast into the outer darkness, whereas they are in the light. (Whoops! Tic! That verse from Psalm 139 just occurred to me — I suppose I’m just grasping at straws, of course — “Even if I make my bed in hell, Thou art there.”)
But being rejected is really a dilemma for me, because I really would like to minister to prisoners in the spirit of Matthew 25, flawed as I am, and I can’t get Prison Fellowship to discuss it with me like an adult (Damn it, I hate to keep bringing it up, but I’m 66! And I’ve been a Presbyterian elder). There are other internet agencies for making pen pals, but those are all prisoners looking for chicks (other guys, whatever).
Going on to the matter of being “saved,” we recently looked at the DVD of the movie, Saved! Yep, I’m depraved — I loved every minute of it. I watched it twice, once with the commentary by its two writers, and I believed that it had a “Sweet, Sweet Spirit” (which I put in quotes and upper case because those apt words happen to be a contemporary Christian song title, by the way) that transcended the mordant look at religious hypocrisy.
I wondered what the reviewers at "Christian Spotlight on the Movies" had to say about it and, yep, they declared the movie evil and wrong and included links to debrief all who might see it with the Christian facts (their version of "Christian" and "facts," of course).
I rant about my frustration with these folks. I tried to engage them last year and, with the prospect of one more spring in Indiana, I'll try to dream the impossible dream again and engage them. But I'm not feeling terribly hopeful at the moment.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
The Book of Lamentations
Sure enough. The Christians for Crystal Night, USA version, got The Book of Daniel off the air. I hope you're happy, you sons (and daughters) of sanctimony. You had a chance to bring a portrayal of Jesus to the "secular" part of the community once a week, but you wanted -- demanded -- that Jesus be created in your image.
Your aims are in conflict,do you know that? You claim to be evangelical, which, I would think, would have something to do with evangelism, i.e. the presenting of the gospel, which, last time I heard, was the "good news" of the kingdom of God through Jesus Christ, by which people might be saved. But you don't want people saved, you want them damned, publicly denounced, shamed, punished, sent to hell. You want them to be silenced, excluded from all public discourse.
Jimmy Carter, a publicly proclaimed born-again Christian (whose words may be doubted but whose actions will not) states in Our Endangered Values that you of the extreme wing of Christianity believe you are absolutely right and anyone who disagrees with you absolutely wrong, therefore evil, and therefore subhuman. I think his assessment is quite correct. Such a judgment of your fellow human beings lets you off the hook: if you judge your fellows as enemies and not only evil but subhuman, you are dismissed from the task of saving them.
Your Jesus, were he to be a character in The Book of Daniel, first would berate the wayward souls in a long-winded harangue. Then he would use his supernatural powers to destroy every one of them, especially addicts and the homosexuals; he wouldn't heal them with love and mercy. All the Episcopalian losers then being roasted in hell, he would go to the pulpit of a Southern Baptist megachurch and wear an expensive suit and Rolex watch and have his name emblazoned on a big sign out front, right at the top,* of course Pastor -- Dr. Jesus Christ.
(* You don't really believe that hooey about the last being first and the greatest being servant of all, do you?)
Your aims are in conflict,do you know that? You claim to be evangelical, which, I would think, would have something to do with evangelism, i.e. the presenting of the gospel, which, last time I heard, was the "good news" of the kingdom of God through Jesus Christ, by which people might be saved. But you don't want people saved, you want them damned, publicly denounced, shamed, punished, sent to hell. You want them to be silenced, excluded from all public discourse.
Jimmy Carter, a publicly proclaimed born-again Christian (whose words may be doubted but whose actions will not) states in Our Endangered Values that you of the extreme wing of Christianity believe you are absolutely right and anyone who disagrees with you absolutely wrong, therefore evil, and therefore subhuman. I think his assessment is quite correct. Such a judgment of your fellow human beings lets you off the hook: if you judge your fellows as enemies and not only evil but subhuman, you are dismissed from the task of saving them.
Your Jesus, were he to be a character in The Book of Daniel, first would berate the wayward souls in a long-winded harangue. Then he would use his supernatural powers to destroy every one of them, especially addicts and the homosexuals; he wouldn't heal them with love and mercy. All the Episcopalian losers then being roasted in hell, he would go to the pulpit of a Southern Baptist megachurch and wear an expensive suit and Rolex watch and have his name emblazoned on a big sign out front, right at the top,* of course Pastor -- Dr. Jesus Christ.
(* You don't really believe that hooey about the last being first and the greatest being servant of all, do you?)
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Ignorance Is Bliss
I've been watching Animal House all day. It takes all day with the blessed bonus features. Last night we watched Internal Affairs and after that, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. I will get the news of the state of the union address by the president (it's all lower case from now on until these creeps depart from government -- if, God help us, that day ever comes again) from Jon and Stephen tonight.
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