Having talked about politics and religion, I will now talk about the subject that people are supposed to talk about to avoid talking about politics and religion. For the benefit and entertainment of those of my thousands of readers who live in such tropical climes as Australia, South America, Africa, and India, I will now indulge in a whiney diatribe about the weather in Colorado during the last three weeks. As such, it will be rather short on snide and insulting social criticism. Sorry, guys.
It all started—and, by rights, should have ended—with the event which even those in tropical climes may have heard about on the news: the blizzard which was usually referred to as the “holiday blizzard” because it occurred right at the beginning of the “holiday season,” thus affecting transportation and commerce even in far-flung lands. The area of specific concern to me is the north-Denver-Boulder area of Colorado, but it affected most of the state. It started early on Wed 20 Dec and continued until about noon Thurs 21. Well, you might say, a day and a half of snow doesn’t sound all that bad, particularly for Colorado; and ordinarily it might not be. But, by definition of a blizzard, this included, in addition to over 2 feet of snow, high winds which drifted it all over the place. And it closed down Denver International Airport (DIA), due to zero visibility and impassable runways, at precisely the time when thousands of travelers were trying to fly home for Christmas, which meant that they were stuck at DIA for several days. Hundreds were sleeping on the floors of the terminal. Emergency services had to supply food for all these people. As someone obsessed with shit, I can’t imagine what the impact on the sanitation system must have been. DIA eventually began re-opening air traffic some time Friday, but very slowly, and stranded fliers were still sleeping there Friday night. All roads were closed, not only during the blizzard but for some time afterwards. Colorado Dept. of Transportation (CDOT), which is used to dealing with snow, had plows, of course, but not nearly enough for something like this, and plowing didn’t do much good anyway because the high winds would just drift the snow back onto the roads minutes after the plows went through. Hundreds of vehicles were stuck and stranded on the Interstates, and the passengers, most of whom spent Wednesday night in their vehicles, had to be rescued by copter because emergency vehicles couldn’t get through. As a result of the roads not being plowed, the vehicles which did manage to get through simply packed two feet of snow down into several inches of ice, making the job more difficult for the plows when they finally got there. Plowing of residential side streets was a lost cause, and most of them simply had ruts made in the snow by 4-wheelers with high carriage. Digging cars out from their curbside parking spaces, and digging out driveways, were nightmares that people simply accepted with more or less stoicism. Actually, the event, like many less-than-catastrophic setbacks such as electrical blackouts, brought out a heartwarming camaraderie in people, and on the state highway in front of my home, roaming groups of citizens went up and down the street with shovels, helping to dig or push people out. People who had never before been outside their cars for any longer than it took to get back and forth between them and destination buildings, were suddenly seen walking through this shit for several blocks, sometimes as much as a mile, to the store—and talking to each other en route. In spite of all the inconvenience, this was one of the bright sides.
So okay, Colorado has seen blizzards before, so what’s the big deal, aside from the impact on DIA? The big deal is that it didn’t stop there. Usually after a blizzard, there’s a period of warming that gets rid of most of the snow, and eventually the ice. But this was followed about a week later, while most of the snow and ice was still there, by another snow on top of it; and then about a week after that, a third snow on top of the other two. The second one (I think), even after it had left Denver, continued to blast the eastern and southeastern plains, and the TV news (in one of its rare moments of showing something newsworthy) showed hay being dropped from copters to cattle stranded in the midst of all this; many cattle have been lost, in an area with a strongly cattle-based economy. Even when the snow wasn’t falling, it was being drifted by high winds, creating ground blizzards which reduced road visibility to zero, causing more road closures and some catastrophic multi-vehicle pile-ups and again stranding cars on remote stretches of the Interstates. I’ve almost lost track of the number of storms—I think it’s three now (they often occur on or around weekends)—and a fourth is forecasted on its way. Enough already! Many parking lots as well as streets will not see all the ice gone for weeks, and I’m forced to walk around with a walking-stick in mincing little old-man steps—for weeks. I am not happy. (Well, to be honest, this is just one more reason for my more or less constitutional grumpiness.) One of my friends, who grew up in Minnesota, says she loves all this because it reminds her of her childhood. Different strokes for different folks.
As a sign of my resourcefulness at finding things to complain about, I actually complained to someone that this weather sort of took the wind out of my standard moan about global warming, and he said no, not necessarily, because global warming can disrupt climate patterns in any number of ways, even including this. What a comfort (literally a cold comfort) to know that I’m right in being pessimistic. (You all know the definition of an optimist as one who thinks this is the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist as one who’s afraid the optimist is right.) One of my favorite lines in cinema is from Jurassic Park. The mathematician (played by Jeff Goldblum) predicts, on the basis of catastrophe theory, that something will go seriously wrong on the island, and of course nobody believes him, so when the shit is finally hitting the fan and everybody’s life is in danger, Goldblum observes wryly, “I hate it when I’m right.” Al Gore may be quoting that line in a few decades. Prophets really don’t like being in the position of having to say, “I told you so.”
Monday, January 8, 2007
Monday, January 1, 2007
Bread and circuses
Turns out it was the Roman satirist Juvenal who coined the expression panem et circenses to describe the imperial Roman policy of keeping the rabble mollified and placated by keeping them well fed and well entertained. As evidence that the American rabble are well fed, one need look no further than (even if one cannot see around) the multitude of disgustingly lard-assed hippos waddling around the supermarket aisles. More and more public seating which used to be built for human beings now has to be redesigned for these hideous monstrosities, and we all know that morbid obesity has now become a major health problem. Mind you, I’m not a swim-suit model myself, carrying about 190 lbs (85.5 kg) on a 5'7" (167 cm) frame, but God help me if I ever get as revoltingly blubbery as these specimens. And there’s certainly enough evidence that the American rabble are well entertained, too, now that even the “newsertainment” on television is delivered by nitwits who have learned to laugh and joke while telling us about the collapse of civilization; and an increasing proportion of the “news” itself is devoted to the shabbily vulgar, stupid shenanigans of imbecilic mannequins who get lavish, breathless coverage for something like showing their snatch while getting out a car.
But every once in a while, usually on major holidays, the level of “celebration” has to be elevated to that of mass hysteria, to make sure that no illusions can be harbored about how civilized the rabble can be expected to behave under mob dynamics. Due to an unusual set of circumstances, I suffered the (for me) rare ordeal of watching New Year’s Eve at Times Rectangle NYC, and I still haven’t gotten over the depression it caused. As circuses go, an estimated million primates crammed into this and adjacent spaces was a pretty scary spectacle, which we were given many views of from circling copters. But more frequent, and more scary, were the close-ups of the revelers, among whom the dominant emotional tone was hysterical ecstasy—hundreds of faces aglow with the unbearable thrill of being part of this just absolutely glorious event, so exciting, just look at these people, so much energy here, blah blah blah. I found it scary and depressing because it reminded me of footage of brainwashed cult members, or movies of smiling zombies—no discernible individual consciousness or intelligence, everyone just melded into the mob mind, the anthill collective. And so far as I know, there were no mind-altering substances, legal or illegal, involved (although I’m willing to accept the possibility that some were involved without my knowledge); it was all mob dynamics and adrenaline. Once or twice I tried to imagine a million people chanting “No more war! – Out of Iraq! – Bring our troops home! – Impeach Bush! – Save Social Security! – Reduce global warming! – Affordable health care for all! – ” etc. etc. But the image didn’t compute, mainly because such an event would have required at least a minimum of individual consciousness on the part of the primates. No, nothing here but mindless yelling and screaming—tens of thousands of people hysterically screaming. Eerie sound. Direct throwback to the Roman Coliseum.
Ironically, perhaps the most heartening part of the circus was Dick Clark. Knowing nothing about him, I kept thinking while watching him, “He’s talking funny; I wonder if he’s all right.” Then I Wikied him (“Wiki” doesn’t make as good a verb as “Google,” does it?) and found out he’s 77 years old and has been hosting “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” since 1972; also that he had a stroke in 2004, and after missing only the 2004 show, made a quasi-miraculous comeback in 2005, but with his speech affected. As cynical as I am, I have to admit a certain respect for something like that. (In the same vein, one of my few cultural heroes is Stephen Hawking.)
It seems like every year here recently, people add, after wishing you a happy new year, that they hope this one will be better than the last. And each one is worse than the last. And we know they’re going to keep getting worse until at least 2009. Does anyone have any realistic hopes that they’ll ever get any better even after that? I don’t. I don’t even have any realistic expectations that we’ll last that long. So it is in this light that I refuse to wish you a happy new year. In fact, I’ll do everything I can in this blog to help make it even more miserable.
But every once in a while, usually on major holidays, the level of “celebration” has to be elevated to that of mass hysteria, to make sure that no illusions can be harbored about how civilized the rabble can be expected to behave under mob dynamics. Due to an unusual set of circumstances, I suffered the (for me) rare ordeal of watching New Year’s Eve at Times Rectangle NYC, and I still haven’t gotten over the depression it caused. As circuses go, an estimated million primates crammed into this and adjacent spaces was a pretty scary spectacle, which we were given many views of from circling copters. But more frequent, and more scary, were the close-ups of the revelers, among whom the dominant emotional tone was hysterical ecstasy—hundreds of faces aglow with the unbearable thrill of being part of this just absolutely glorious event, so exciting, just look at these people, so much energy here, blah blah blah. I found it scary and depressing because it reminded me of footage of brainwashed cult members, or movies of smiling zombies—no discernible individual consciousness or intelligence, everyone just melded into the mob mind, the anthill collective. And so far as I know, there were no mind-altering substances, legal or illegal, involved (although I’m willing to accept the possibility that some were involved without my knowledge); it was all mob dynamics and adrenaline. Once or twice I tried to imagine a million people chanting “No more war! – Out of Iraq! – Bring our troops home! – Impeach Bush! – Save Social Security! – Reduce global warming! – Affordable health care for all! – ” etc. etc. But the image didn’t compute, mainly because such an event would have required at least a minimum of individual consciousness on the part of the primates. No, nothing here but mindless yelling and screaming—tens of thousands of people hysterically screaming. Eerie sound. Direct throwback to the Roman Coliseum.
Ironically, perhaps the most heartening part of the circus was Dick Clark. Knowing nothing about him, I kept thinking while watching him, “He’s talking funny; I wonder if he’s all right.” Then I Wikied him (“Wiki” doesn’t make as good a verb as “Google,” does it?) and found out he’s 77 years old and has been hosting “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” since 1972; also that he had a stroke in 2004, and after missing only the 2004 show, made a quasi-miraculous comeback in 2005, but with his speech affected. As cynical as I am, I have to admit a certain respect for something like that. (In the same vein, one of my few cultural heroes is Stephen Hawking.)
It seems like every year here recently, people add, after wishing you a happy new year, that they hope this one will be better than the last. And each one is worse than the last. And we know they’re going to keep getting worse until at least 2009. Does anyone have any realistic hopes that they’ll ever get any better even after that? I don’t. I don’t even have any realistic expectations that we’ll last that long. So it is in this light that I refuse to wish you a happy new year. In fact, I’ll do everything I can in this blog to help make it even more miserable.
Friday, December 29, 2006
Yes, Virginia, there ARE liberal Christians.
I have a confession to make—and I use that term in its original sense as well in the more colloquial one. As some of you (among the hundreds who must read this drivel) may have guessed from some of my not very subtle hints in previous posts, I’m a Christian. A liberal Christian. A progressive Christian. And I’m not alone. There are millions of us—arguably more than of the ultra-conservative fundamentalists who get all the press and attention and money. And if I were to apologize for this confession, I would be practicing apologetics in the original sense. But I’m not much of an apologist—and on bad days, not even much of a Christian.
But I do feel compelled to apologize, even if weakly, because the vast majority, perhaps all, of the progressive/liberal bloggers I read are unapologetically, almost militantly secular—or, to quote the Rude Pundit’s inimitable style, “dirty fuckin’ SP[s] (no, not ‘Sucker[s] of Penises,’ but ‘Secular Progressive[s]’).” They are unapologetic because they don’t see any need to apologize; it’s the dominant mindset. And from their secular standpoint, they engage in some occasionally brutal attacks on Christianity in particular and on all religion in general. And one of the reasons I’m a weak apologist is that I have to grant a certain amount of credence to some of their criticisms, in spite of their brutality. Yes, I know that from a rationalist viewpoint, some of the doctrines are, to put it kindly, somewhere between wishful thinking, quaint mythology, and utter nonsense, or, put less kindly, total bullshit. Yes, I’m aware that the Church is guilty of a horrifying amount of brutality itself, along with lots of stupidity, intolerance, perversion, and what must be frankly called flat-out insanity. Yes, I admit that some of their practices are mind-bogglingly bizarre. (Most recently, my guru has called my attention to the appallingly weird cult of worship associated with the relic of the supposed foreskin liberated by the circumcision of Jesus.) Yes, I admit that my judgment is doubtless influenced by the fact that I’ve spent most of my life (and still spend what little is left of it) serving the church as a musician, and therefore owe the greater part of my financial livelihood to it.
And yet, even acknowledging all this, I believe it must in all fairness be granted that the Church has accomplished some good in its history, and continues to do so today. The apology is similar to that for our beloved land of the free and home of the brave, which, for all its egregious, lamentable, scandalous faults and crimes, still has much virtue to recommend it. To defend the church on the basis of the good it has accomplished is not by any means to defend its weirder beliefs and practices or its blood-spattered history. It is simply to say that credit should be given where credit is due. (To argue, as John Stuart Mill does, that the good works might have been accomplished without all the incidental bullshit, is another matter.)
But note that I am apologizing specifically for liberal and progressive Christians, who actually share many, perhaps most, of the social, political, and economic ideas and principles of the SPs, but for different reasons, as you might say. This may come as a surprise to some, because I sense that many of the attacks from the SPs are based on the assumption that the ultra-conservative wing-nuts who are the putative target of their attacks are representative of legitimate Christianity (which they themselves certainly claim loudly), and may even be the only real Christians (which also they often claim loudly). And we liberal Christians, for obvious reasons, deeply resent this ruthless hijacking of our faith by a pack of raving lunatics who are frankly considered heretical by mainstream Christians. Indeed, some of the mouth-frothing jackals who run under the banner of right-wing media pundits probably could not even claim with any honesty that they are Christians themselves except when their hysterical rhetoric to that effect serves their purposes. Has Rush Lamebrain ever really claimed to be a Christian? Even among those who ostensibly are, certainly no one is more certifiably deserving to be locked up in a padded cell than that psychotic clown Pat Robertson, and yet millions of sheep hang on his every rant in the belief that it represents authentic Christian teaching. And the Mad Emperor has proudly confessed that all the catastrophically stupid and vicious policies under which he has essentially destroyed one country and threatens to destroy his own and most of the world, have been dictated to him by his Lord and Savior; to which we can only reply that whoever his Lord and Savior is, he is unrecognizable as being even remotely Christian. (Which raises the perennial question of whether the voices one hears talking to him are really the voice of God or are rather the voices of his own demons masquerading as God. It’s the oldest trick in the book, and many of the slimiest pages in the history of the Church could be examined under its merciless light.)
If, then, as I believe, the mainstream Christians outnumber the ultra-right-wing nut-jobs, why are the latter getting all the attention and political power? Please be so kind as to avoid asking me what I mean by mainstream, or how I suddenly started considering liberal/progressive to be synonymous with mainstream. Intellectual rigor has never been one of my strengths, and isn’t a requirement of ranting anyway. As Blow-job Bill would say, it all depends on what you mean by “meaning.” There is no statistically quantifiable group defined as “mainstream,” let alone “ultra-right-wing nut-job,” so I just use them as loose terms to state my personal biases, and on the basis of these biases, I can confidently claim, without any need for verification, that we outnumber them. So there. And the reasons why mainstream/liberal (a new clumping) Christians are voiceless and powerless are pretty similar to the reasons why Democrats (with whom there is a certain amount of overlap, even though you won’t find many Democrats admitting it) are also voiceless and powerless. We aren’t as well organized, we aren’t as well funded, we aren’t as united in our agendas (are, in fact, notoriously fragmented), and frankly, we aren’t as savagely ruthless and unscrupulous as our enemies. All too many Democrats are cringing, limp-dicked pansies who avoid making any controversial statement or taking any strong position for fear of drawing the wrath of the Political Correctness Nazis. Liberal Christians, on the other hand, are, at their prophetic best (vide Martin Luther King jr.), not at all hesitant to piss off the powers of this world and let the devil take Political Correctness. But there are no more liberal Christians willing to take the prophetic mantle of Dr King, perhaps at least partly because of that unpleasant little incident in Memphis which continues to haunt anyone who might dare to follow in his footsteps.
And so we languish, waiting for we know not what. Yes, Virginia, there are liberal Christians, but they are under-organized, under-funded, timid, fragmented, leaderless, voiceless—altogether a sorry lot. Don’t expect any more from them than you might from the Democrats who have “won control” of Congress. The christo-fascists, even after all the damage they’ve suffered from Ted Faggard, Mark Foley, and all the other fuckwad perverts and douchebag criminals who have discredited the Elephants, still have the power, and we’re still up Shit Creek without a paddle.
After-birth:
Apropos of absolutely nothing above is the story of redneck Anglos in Montana harassing Native Americans by yelling at them, “Hey, why don’tcha go back where you came from!” File that under “Unclear on the concept.”
But I do feel compelled to apologize, even if weakly, because the vast majority, perhaps all, of the progressive/liberal bloggers I read are unapologetically, almost militantly secular—or, to quote the Rude Pundit’s inimitable style, “dirty fuckin’ SP[s] (no, not ‘Sucker[s] of Penises,’ but ‘Secular Progressive[s]’).” They are unapologetic because they don’t see any need to apologize; it’s the dominant mindset. And from their secular standpoint, they engage in some occasionally brutal attacks on Christianity in particular and on all religion in general. And one of the reasons I’m a weak apologist is that I have to grant a certain amount of credence to some of their criticisms, in spite of their brutality. Yes, I know that from a rationalist viewpoint, some of the doctrines are, to put it kindly, somewhere between wishful thinking, quaint mythology, and utter nonsense, or, put less kindly, total bullshit. Yes, I’m aware that the Church is guilty of a horrifying amount of brutality itself, along with lots of stupidity, intolerance, perversion, and what must be frankly called flat-out insanity. Yes, I admit that some of their practices are mind-bogglingly bizarre. (Most recently, my guru has called my attention to the appallingly weird cult of worship associated with the relic of the supposed foreskin liberated by the circumcision of Jesus.) Yes, I admit that my judgment is doubtless influenced by the fact that I’ve spent most of my life (and still spend what little is left of it) serving the church as a musician, and therefore owe the greater part of my financial livelihood to it.
And yet, even acknowledging all this, I believe it must in all fairness be granted that the Church has accomplished some good in its history, and continues to do so today. The apology is similar to that for our beloved land of the free and home of the brave, which, for all its egregious, lamentable, scandalous faults and crimes, still has much virtue to recommend it. To defend the church on the basis of the good it has accomplished is not by any means to defend its weirder beliefs and practices or its blood-spattered history. It is simply to say that credit should be given where credit is due. (To argue, as John Stuart Mill does, that the good works might have been accomplished without all the incidental bullshit, is another matter.)
But note that I am apologizing specifically for liberal and progressive Christians, who actually share many, perhaps most, of the social, political, and economic ideas and principles of the SPs, but for different reasons, as you might say. This may come as a surprise to some, because I sense that many of the attacks from the SPs are based on the assumption that the ultra-conservative wing-nuts who are the putative target of their attacks are representative of legitimate Christianity (which they themselves certainly claim loudly), and may even be the only real Christians (which also they often claim loudly). And we liberal Christians, for obvious reasons, deeply resent this ruthless hijacking of our faith by a pack of raving lunatics who are frankly considered heretical by mainstream Christians. Indeed, some of the mouth-frothing jackals who run under the banner of right-wing media pundits probably could not even claim with any honesty that they are Christians themselves except when their hysterical rhetoric to that effect serves their purposes. Has Rush Lamebrain ever really claimed to be a Christian? Even among those who ostensibly are, certainly no one is more certifiably deserving to be locked up in a padded cell than that psychotic clown Pat Robertson, and yet millions of sheep hang on his every rant in the belief that it represents authentic Christian teaching. And the Mad Emperor has proudly confessed that all the catastrophically stupid and vicious policies under which he has essentially destroyed one country and threatens to destroy his own and most of the world, have been dictated to him by his Lord and Savior; to which we can only reply that whoever his Lord and Savior is, he is unrecognizable as being even remotely Christian. (Which raises the perennial question of whether the voices one hears talking to him are really the voice of God or are rather the voices of his own demons masquerading as God. It’s the oldest trick in the book, and many of the slimiest pages in the history of the Church could be examined under its merciless light.)
If, then, as I believe, the mainstream Christians outnumber the ultra-right-wing nut-jobs, why are the latter getting all the attention and political power? Please be so kind as to avoid asking me what I mean by mainstream, or how I suddenly started considering liberal/progressive to be synonymous with mainstream. Intellectual rigor has never been one of my strengths, and isn’t a requirement of ranting anyway. As Blow-job Bill would say, it all depends on what you mean by “meaning.” There is no statistically quantifiable group defined as “mainstream,” let alone “ultra-right-wing nut-job,” so I just use them as loose terms to state my personal biases, and on the basis of these biases, I can confidently claim, without any need for verification, that we outnumber them. So there. And the reasons why mainstream/liberal (a new clumping) Christians are voiceless and powerless are pretty similar to the reasons why Democrats (with whom there is a certain amount of overlap, even though you won’t find many Democrats admitting it) are also voiceless and powerless. We aren’t as well organized, we aren’t as well funded, we aren’t as united in our agendas (are, in fact, notoriously fragmented), and frankly, we aren’t as savagely ruthless and unscrupulous as our enemies. All too many Democrats are cringing, limp-dicked pansies who avoid making any controversial statement or taking any strong position for fear of drawing the wrath of the Political Correctness Nazis. Liberal Christians, on the other hand, are, at their prophetic best (vide Martin Luther King jr.), not at all hesitant to piss off the powers of this world and let the devil take Political Correctness. But there are no more liberal Christians willing to take the prophetic mantle of Dr King, perhaps at least partly because of that unpleasant little incident in Memphis which continues to haunt anyone who might dare to follow in his footsteps.
And so we languish, waiting for we know not what. Yes, Virginia, there are liberal Christians, but they are under-organized, under-funded, timid, fragmented, leaderless, voiceless—altogether a sorry lot. Don’t expect any more from them than you might from the Democrats who have “won control” of Congress. The christo-fascists, even after all the damage they’ve suffered from Ted Faggard, Mark Foley, and all the other fuckwad perverts and douchebag criminals who have discredited the Elephants, still have the power, and we’re still up Shit Creek without a paddle.
After-birth:
Apropos of absolutely nothing above is the story of redneck Anglos in Montana harassing Native Americans by yelling at them, “Hey, why don’tcha go back where you came from!” File that under “Unclear on the concept.”
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Books I'm reading
I admit it’s rather quaint for one still to be reading those things printed on paper and sold at bookstores (or through Amazon), but I am after all a rather quaint old antiquarian (which is not redundant, because many antiquarians aren’t old, they just deal in old things). Among several I’m reading concurrently right now are Michael Moore’s _Stupid white men … and other sorry excuses for the state of the nation_ (2001) and Al Franken’s _Lies, and the lying liars who tell them_ (2003). Both have the subject heading “U. S. Politics and government—2001—Humor,” LC call no. E 902 (I’m a closet librarian—fittingly, since my library would fit in a large closet), so there are obviously many similarities between them, but also some interesting differences. Since the similarities _are_ obvious, let’s start with the differences.
First the authors. Moore seems to cultivate an almost precious image as a humble, working-class dude who is rarely seen in anything but blue denim and often has an unkempt, if not slightly slovenly, ambience. Although evidently intelligent, he makes sure that nobody could possibly mistake him for an intellectual—maybe not overtly anti-intellectual, but close to it. His humor, consistent with his working-class image, tends to be a bit earthy, as in his admonition to men not to “place the bar of soap in body cavities to ‘get them extra clean’ [because] someone else has to use that bar of soap on her face.” Franken, by contrast, is impeccably dressed and unabashedly intellectual, having written the above book while a fellow at a Harvard think tank. His tone is much more urbane, and his humor has what I see as a distinctly Jewish flavor of snide sarcasm which appeals to me a bit more than Moore’s, which tends to get a little strident when he’s pissed off.
Then the books. Each of the terms in the title _Stupid white men_ is dealt with in one of the chapters of that book. “Stupid” is the subject of “Idiot nation,” which bewails the appalling, staggering ignorance of the American people regarding anything in the world outside the U.S. and even most of the history and polity of their own country; or, for that matter, regarding anything other than sports, entertainment, celebrity gossip, and the witless drivel fed to them by the simpering clowns who do “newsertainment” on the mainstream TV networks. “White” is discussed in “Kill Whitey,” about racism, bigotry, and racial discrimination. “Men” are dealt with in “The end of men,” in which he admits that women really are superior to men in many respects, and men are such stupid slobs that they’re lucky women put up with them. Other subjects dealt with include environmental pollution (“Nice planet, nobody home”), our scandalously high rate of incarceration of minorities (“One big happy prison”), the many reasons why our arrogant jingoism is totally inappropriate and misplaced (“We’re Number One!”), and of course, in the first chapter (“A very American coup”), the process by which the Mad Emperor either stole the presidency in 2000 or had it handed to him by the Supreme Court, depending on your viewpoint. So the book basically consists of discussions of a number of separate issues (“sorry excuses”), not all of them overtly political. I will save till later his bludgeoning of the Democratic Party, and particularly Bill Clinton, in “Democrats, DOA.”
Franken’s book, subtitled “A fair and balanced look at the Right,” is basically a rebuttal of the right-wing pundits who had called him, among other things not nearly as civil, a liar, and the subtitle is an obvious parody of the motto of Fox News, which most people with any sense realize is anything but fair and balanced. In order to preclude any possibility of said pundits saying this book is full of lies, he has painstakingly and meticulously researched and documented every statement, with the help of his “Team Franken,” a group of fourteen Harvard students. The rebuttals consist of taking the previous statements of himself and others which his critics had said were lies and documenting their truth, and then taking the statements of the critics and documenting _them_ as lies (told by lying liars). Several of the chapters deal with individual liars: Ann Coulter (who gets two chapters because she’s not only a notorious, psychopathic liar but also an entertaining lunatic), Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Bernard Goldberg, and the entire Fox News Channel. Other chapters discuss such things as Shrub’s environmental record (“Vast lagoons of pig feces”); Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson (whom Franken thanks for being, like Coulter, entertaining lunatics who essentially destroy any credibility for the Right); the craven cowardice of the Righties regarding real battle, satirized in a dramatic skit (“Operation Chickenhawk”) parodying a scene from _Apocalypse now_; his attendance at a Weisshaus Correspondents dinner where he manages to alienate so many of the Righties that he almost starts a fight (Wolfowitz tells him to fuck himself); and his notorious visit to Bob Jones University under the pretext of wanting to enroll his son there (his own son refused to take part in the charade, so one of the Team Franken members stood in as surrogate), but with the real purpose of ridiculing them for their weird beliefs and practices.
Perhaps one of the most interesting contrasts between the two is their respective opinions of Bill Clinton. Moore has the most withering scorn and contempt for Clinton and, after a two-page list (in “Democrats, DOA”) of all the terrible things he did while in office, calls him “one of the best Republican Presidents we’ve ever had.” Not surprisingly, he has withering scorn and contempt for the entire Democratic Party, and suggests that, since there’s no important difference between them and the Republicans, the two parties merge into one, perhaps letting the Donkey and Elephant mascots mate to produce some unimaginably hideous hybrid. The _real_ second party would then be, by implication, the Greens, led by his hero Ralph Nader, for whom he once worked and whom he still clearly idolizes. The Green Party did not “hand Bush the presidency” in 2000 by drawing voters away from the Democratic Party; the Democrats themselves handed it to him by _driving_ voters away from the party. I heartily agree that Nader has and had a lot of good ideas and has done a lot of good work, and I even (I blush to admit) voted for him in 2000. But for all his virtues, I think everyone but Moore will admit that Nader would be a dreadful president, for somewhat similar reasons that the virtuous and brilliant Carter was a weak president—not a bad one, just weakly good.
Franken, on the other hand, with typically ironic humor, describes Clinton (p. 213) as “the greatest president of the twenty-first century,” because of his build-up of a good military which the Shrub then wasted and destroyed in Iraq. While he doesn’t actually say much directly about Clinton (who is not, after all, except about his blow job, a lying liar), he evidently has some respect for him, or at least sympathy because of the attacks on him by the liars on the Right.
And of course both of them deal, to a greater or lesser extent, from various standpoints, with the Burning Bush—not the bush that burns itself, as in the Mosaic story, but the Bush who burns everything and everyone around him. Moore, as I said earlier, discusses at length the process by which Shrub was made president, and Franken mentions only the tiniest fraction of the lies Shrub and his gang of thugs have told. For obvious reasons, the Mad Emperor and his psychotic shenanigans are at the center of any discussion about the sorry state of the nation, and humor is and always has been the best way to deal with such things, since the righteous anger which they deserve can too easily lead to violence which goes beyond mere rhetoric. And that’s the last thing we need.
Finally—after having rambled and blithered for far too long (one of the dangers of reading too much is the temptation to expect others to read yourself when you write too much)—I have to put in a word or two about Lenny Bruce’s autobiography, _How to talk dirty and influence people_ (1992, posthumous). Since his chief claim to fame is, not entirely fairly, for talking dirty, it is surprising to find how lyrical, almost poetic, he can be at times, and it is widely thought that the reason everybody concentrates so much on his dirty talk is because it takes their minds (_sic_?) off the impassioned social criticism which is the subject of his obscenity and his humor. He was one of the first pioneers to point out that all the four-letter words he used in his shows are not nearly as obscene as the daily news, and this is still a nation that can get more horrified about a brief glimpse of one of Janet Jackson’s tits on TV than about tens of thousands of civilians and military being injured and murdered in Iraq. One chapter has a humor skit presented as a hypothetical argument with a club owner who won’t put “Tits and Asses” on his marquee because they’re dirty, vulgar words (reminiscent of my own infamous career in the punk-rock band I mentioned in “Whence the name,” who could never get a booking in 1980 because no club owner would publicize “The Dancing Assholes”—there, I revealed the secret name!). “Tucheses and Nay-nays” would be alright because the guy isn’t anti-Semitic idiomatic, just anti-Anglo-Saxon idiomatic. Language is more important than the reality to which it points because language can be distorted to fit your particular view of reality. If you don’t call the bloodbath in Iraq a civil war, it isn’t one. If you call a blastocyst the size of a grain of sand a human being, it is one. _Plus ça change, plus c'est la meme chose_. (French quotes add a little class, don’t you think?)
First the authors. Moore seems to cultivate an almost precious image as a humble, working-class dude who is rarely seen in anything but blue denim and often has an unkempt, if not slightly slovenly, ambience. Although evidently intelligent, he makes sure that nobody could possibly mistake him for an intellectual—maybe not overtly anti-intellectual, but close to it. His humor, consistent with his working-class image, tends to be a bit earthy, as in his admonition to men not to “place the bar of soap in body cavities to ‘get them extra clean’ [because] someone else has to use that bar of soap on her face.” Franken, by contrast, is impeccably dressed and unabashedly intellectual, having written the above book while a fellow at a Harvard think tank. His tone is much more urbane, and his humor has what I see as a distinctly Jewish flavor of snide sarcasm which appeals to me a bit more than Moore’s, which tends to get a little strident when he’s pissed off.
Then the books. Each of the terms in the title _Stupid white men_ is dealt with in one of the chapters of that book. “Stupid” is the subject of “Idiot nation,” which bewails the appalling, staggering ignorance of the American people regarding anything in the world outside the U.S. and even most of the history and polity of their own country; or, for that matter, regarding anything other than sports, entertainment, celebrity gossip, and the witless drivel fed to them by the simpering clowns who do “newsertainment” on the mainstream TV networks. “White” is discussed in “Kill Whitey,” about racism, bigotry, and racial discrimination. “Men” are dealt with in “The end of men,” in which he admits that women really are superior to men in many respects, and men are such stupid slobs that they’re lucky women put up with them. Other subjects dealt with include environmental pollution (“Nice planet, nobody home”), our scandalously high rate of incarceration of minorities (“One big happy prison”), the many reasons why our arrogant jingoism is totally inappropriate and misplaced (“We’re Number One!”), and of course, in the first chapter (“A very American coup”), the process by which the Mad Emperor either stole the presidency in 2000 or had it handed to him by the Supreme Court, depending on your viewpoint. So the book basically consists of discussions of a number of separate issues (“sorry excuses”), not all of them overtly political. I will save till later his bludgeoning of the Democratic Party, and particularly Bill Clinton, in “Democrats, DOA.”
Franken’s book, subtitled “A fair and balanced look at the Right,” is basically a rebuttal of the right-wing pundits who had called him, among other things not nearly as civil, a liar, and the subtitle is an obvious parody of the motto of Fox News, which most people with any sense realize is anything but fair and balanced. In order to preclude any possibility of said pundits saying this book is full of lies, he has painstakingly and meticulously researched and documented every statement, with the help of his “Team Franken,” a group of fourteen Harvard students. The rebuttals consist of taking the previous statements of himself and others which his critics had said were lies and documenting their truth, and then taking the statements of the critics and documenting _them_ as lies (told by lying liars). Several of the chapters deal with individual liars: Ann Coulter (who gets two chapters because she’s not only a notorious, psychopathic liar but also an entertaining lunatic), Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Bernard Goldberg, and the entire Fox News Channel. Other chapters discuss such things as Shrub’s environmental record (“Vast lagoons of pig feces”); Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson (whom Franken thanks for being, like Coulter, entertaining lunatics who essentially destroy any credibility for the Right); the craven cowardice of the Righties regarding real battle, satirized in a dramatic skit (“Operation Chickenhawk”) parodying a scene from _Apocalypse now_; his attendance at a Weisshaus Correspondents dinner where he manages to alienate so many of the Righties that he almost starts a fight (Wolfowitz tells him to fuck himself); and his notorious visit to Bob Jones University under the pretext of wanting to enroll his son there (his own son refused to take part in the charade, so one of the Team Franken members stood in as surrogate), but with the real purpose of ridiculing them for their weird beliefs and practices.
Perhaps one of the most interesting contrasts between the two is their respective opinions of Bill Clinton. Moore has the most withering scorn and contempt for Clinton and, after a two-page list (in “Democrats, DOA”) of all the terrible things he did while in office, calls him “one of the best Republican Presidents we’ve ever had.” Not surprisingly, he has withering scorn and contempt for the entire Democratic Party, and suggests that, since there’s no important difference between them and the Republicans, the two parties merge into one, perhaps letting the Donkey and Elephant mascots mate to produce some unimaginably hideous hybrid. The _real_ second party would then be, by implication, the Greens, led by his hero Ralph Nader, for whom he once worked and whom he still clearly idolizes. The Green Party did not “hand Bush the presidency” in 2000 by drawing voters away from the Democratic Party; the Democrats themselves handed it to him by _driving_ voters away from the party. I heartily agree that Nader has and had a lot of good ideas and has done a lot of good work, and I even (I blush to admit) voted for him in 2000. But for all his virtues, I think everyone but Moore will admit that Nader would be a dreadful president, for somewhat similar reasons that the virtuous and brilliant Carter was a weak president—not a bad one, just weakly good.
Franken, on the other hand, with typically ironic humor, describes Clinton (p. 213) as “the greatest president of the twenty-first century,” because of his build-up of a good military which the Shrub then wasted and destroyed in Iraq. While he doesn’t actually say much directly about Clinton (who is not, after all, except about his blow job, a lying liar), he evidently has some respect for him, or at least sympathy because of the attacks on him by the liars on the Right.
And of course both of them deal, to a greater or lesser extent, from various standpoints, with the Burning Bush—not the bush that burns itself, as in the Mosaic story, but the Bush who burns everything and everyone around him. Moore, as I said earlier, discusses at length the process by which Shrub was made president, and Franken mentions only the tiniest fraction of the lies Shrub and his gang of thugs have told. For obvious reasons, the Mad Emperor and his psychotic shenanigans are at the center of any discussion about the sorry state of the nation, and humor is and always has been the best way to deal with such things, since the righteous anger which they deserve can too easily lead to violence which goes beyond mere rhetoric. And that’s the last thing we need.
Finally—after having rambled and blithered for far too long (one of the dangers of reading too much is the temptation to expect others to read yourself when you write too much)—I have to put in a word or two about Lenny Bruce’s autobiography, _How to talk dirty and influence people_ (1992, posthumous). Since his chief claim to fame is, not entirely fairly, for talking dirty, it is surprising to find how lyrical, almost poetic, he can be at times, and it is widely thought that the reason everybody concentrates so much on his dirty talk is because it takes their minds (_sic_?) off the impassioned social criticism which is the subject of his obscenity and his humor. He was one of the first pioneers to point out that all the four-letter words he used in his shows are not nearly as obscene as the daily news, and this is still a nation that can get more horrified about a brief glimpse of one of Janet Jackson’s tits on TV than about tens of thousands of civilians and military being injured and murdered in Iraq. One chapter has a humor skit presented as a hypothetical argument with a club owner who won’t put “Tits and Asses” on his marquee because they’re dirty, vulgar words (reminiscent of my own infamous career in the punk-rock band I mentioned in “Whence the name,” who could never get a booking in 1980 because no club owner would publicize “The Dancing Assholes”—there, I revealed the secret name!). “Tucheses and Nay-nays” would be alright because the guy isn’t anti-Semitic idiomatic, just anti-Anglo-Saxon idiomatic. Language is more important than the reality to which it points because language can be distorted to fit your particular view of reality. If you don’t call the bloodbath in Iraq a civil war, it isn’t one. If you call a blastocyst the size of a grain of sand a human being, it is one. _Plus ça change, plus c'est la meme chose_. (French quotes add a little class, don’t you think?)
Blogs I'm viewing
This originally started out as a post about books I’m reading as well as about other blogs and web sites I’m viewing. But as brevity is obviously not one of my virtues, particularly when I’m talking to myself, it was getting ridiculous long, so I’ve decided to split it into two posts. The one on books will be sent later.
Let me begin by apologizing for saying, in “Krismus prioritizes the Apocalypse,” that I have “the greatest contempt and loathing for the whore [the U.S.] has become after being dragged through mud and filth by the Bush crime family and the christo-fascist ideologues of the neo-con movement.” I should have said, more accurately, that I have the greatest contempt and loathing for the verminous latrine-scum who have done the dragging, but I’m developing a renewed fondness and respect for the citizens themselves—or ourselves. And this is based not only on their finally waking up and kicking Elephant butt last month, but on the blogs I’ve been reading here lately. Of course I’m only reading liberal/progressive blogs; if I were to go slumming and read some of the conservative ones, I’d probably get depressed and cynical all over again, so I won’t. One of the comments on one of the posts on one of the blogs I read this morning actually thanked the thugs and idiots of the Bush crime family for doing such a catastrophically bad job that they’ve galvanized the liberal opposition and turned them into an articulate and increasingly powerful counter-force; which is, of course, precisely why the thugs want to control and suppress the Internet, which is the forum where most of this empowerment has taken place. Let me just list some of the sites I’m particularly impressed with. The earlier ones, which I’ve been familiar with for several months, are mostly web pages; the ones discovered more recently, several just a few days ago, are blogs. I’m afraid I have not mastered the art of highlighting an address so you can link directly to it from here.
“Muskrat Hunt” muskrathunt.blogspot.com – The blog of my Guru, who is directly responsible for ruining my life—sorry, I mean saving my life by waking me up and urging me to start this blog. So far as I know, he’s the only one who reads it, but as I said in “Yes, I’m dull and boring,” I’m used to talking to myself. The name derives from the fact that Guru originally started the blog as a forum for attacking Marilyn Musgrave (a.k.a. Muskrat; R-CO) in the hope of helping to unseat her. Unfortunately, in spite of the fact that she’s a raving lunatic, she managed to be one of only two Republicans from Colorado to remain in the House, but Guru got in some good punches during the battle.
“The White House” www.whitehouse.org – Actually a satire, as most people know, and a hysterically funny and wickedly scathing one. I sometimes think satire is a better criticism of insanity and absurdism than commentaries that take it seriously.
“PERRspectives: Bringing light to darkness” www.perrspectives.com – One of the more serious sites, but with some light touches, like the “Conservative Threat Advisory System” parodying the infamously silly Terrorist Threat Advisory System, and the “Avenging Angel” that “metes out punishment to the worst perpetrators of the vast conservative assault” on the U.S. (“so many guilty, so little time to punish them all”). Named after creator Jon Perr.
“The Rude Pundit: Proudly lowering the level of political discourse” rudepundit.blogspot.com – One which Guru turned me on to just a few days ago; in fact, he’s called my attention to several more since then. As hysterically funny and wickedly scathing as “The White House,” but on a more personal level. Some truly inventive insults.
“WTF is it now?!?” maruthecrankpot.blogspot.com – Usually short posts, often with quotes and neat pictures and graphics. Maybe not quite as good a bludgeon as some others, but still pretty scathing.
“Democratic Underground” www.democraticunderground.com – Notable primarily for its “Top 10 Conservative Idiots,” a weekly compilation of the latest insanity in the crime family, which I linked to from one of the other blogs. I haven’t looked at anything else on the site.
“Wonkette: The DC Gossip” www.wonkette.com – One of the ones Guru told me about just ten minutes ago (stuff moves FAST on the Internet), which he calls a “good general round-up with very flip tone.” Run by a woman, judging from the feminine ending and the drawing in the masthead, and, as she suggests, mostly gossipy as well as flippant, but with some interesting observations and (befitting gossip) numerous comments, sometimes as many as 23 on a single post, and sometimes as interesting as Wonkette’s original post.
So there you are. Democracy is still alive and well in our great country, even though furtively underground, and arguably powerful even from that position. Congrats and thanks to all you subversive pervert termites helping to gnaw away the foundations of Mordor in Washington. (Does anyone not recognize “Lord of the Rings” references?)
Let me begin by apologizing for saying, in “Krismus prioritizes the Apocalypse,” that I have “the greatest contempt and loathing for the whore [the U.S.] has become after being dragged through mud and filth by the Bush crime family and the christo-fascist ideologues of the neo-con movement.” I should have said, more accurately, that I have the greatest contempt and loathing for the verminous latrine-scum who have done the dragging, but I’m developing a renewed fondness and respect for the citizens themselves—or ourselves. And this is based not only on their finally waking up and kicking Elephant butt last month, but on the blogs I’ve been reading here lately. Of course I’m only reading liberal/progressive blogs; if I were to go slumming and read some of the conservative ones, I’d probably get depressed and cynical all over again, so I won’t. One of the comments on one of the posts on one of the blogs I read this morning actually thanked the thugs and idiots of the Bush crime family for doing such a catastrophically bad job that they’ve galvanized the liberal opposition and turned them into an articulate and increasingly powerful counter-force; which is, of course, precisely why the thugs want to control and suppress the Internet, which is the forum where most of this empowerment has taken place. Let me just list some of the sites I’m particularly impressed with. The earlier ones, which I’ve been familiar with for several months, are mostly web pages; the ones discovered more recently, several just a few days ago, are blogs. I’m afraid I have not mastered the art of highlighting an address so you can link directly to it from here.
“Muskrat Hunt” muskrathunt.blogspot.com – The blog of my Guru, who is directly responsible for ruining my life—sorry, I mean saving my life by waking me up and urging me to start this blog. So far as I know, he’s the only one who reads it, but as I said in “Yes, I’m dull and boring,” I’m used to talking to myself. The name derives from the fact that Guru originally started the blog as a forum for attacking Marilyn Musgrave (a.k.a. Muskrat; R-CO) in the hope of helping to unseat her. Unfortunately, in spite of the fact that she’s a raving lunatic, she managed to be one of only two Republicans from Colorado to remain in the House, but Guru got in some good punches during the battle.
“The White House” www.whitehouse.org – Actually a satire, as most people know, and a hysterically funny and wickedly scathing one. I sometimes think satire is a better criticism of insanity and absurdism than commentaries that take it seriously.
“PERRspectives: Bringing light to darkness” www.perrspectives.com – One of the more serious sites, but with some light touches, like the “Conservative Threat Advisory System” parodying the infamously silly Terrorist Threat Advisory System, and the “Avenging Angel” that “metes out punishment to the worst perpetrators of the vast conservative assault” on the U.S. (“so many guilty, so little time to punish them all”). Named after creator Jon Perr.
“The Rude Pundit: Proudly lowering the level of political discourse” rudepundit.blogspot.com – One which Guru turned me on to just a few days ago; in fact, he’s called my attention to several more since then. As hysterically funny and wickedly scathing as “The White House,” but on a more personal level. Some truly inventive insults.
“WTF is it now?!?” maruthecrankpot.blogspot.com – Usually short posts, often with quotes and neat pictures and graphics. Maybe not quite as good a bludgeon as some others, but still pretty scathing.
“Democratic Underground” www.democraticunderground.com – Notable primarily for its “Top 10 Conservative Idiots,” a weekly compilation of the latest insanity in the crime family, which I linked to from one of the other blogs. I haven’t looked at anything else on the site.
“Wonkette: The DC Gossip” www.wonkette.com – One of the ones Guru told me about just ten minutes ago (stuff moves FAST on the Internet), which he calls a “good general round-up with very flip tone.” Run by a woman, judging from the feminine ending and the drawing in the masthead, and, as she suggests, mostly gossipy as well as flippant, but with some interesting observations and (befitting gossip) numerous comments, sometimes as many as 23 on a single post, and sometimes as interesting as Wonkette’s original post.
So there you are. Democracy is still alive and well in our great country, even though furtively underground, and arguably powerful even from that position. Congrats and thanks to all you subversive pervert termites helping to gnaw away the foundations of Mordor in Washington. (Does anyone not recognize “Lord of the Rings” references?)
Monday, December 11, 2006
Well, what happened?
Yes, I’ve been in Blogosphere limbo for a while. Lots of Christmas concerts occupying my time (already! and more to come!), as well as the recent ecstatic thrill of my second colonoscopy—a subject I won’t go into deeply, since my gastroenterologist already has. But I did promise (or threaten) several weeks ago a more extended commentary on the particularly curious headline in the _Weekly Word News_ (obviously some time before 2000), in 2-inch-high letters: “Captured space alien’s grim prophecy: GOD WILL DESTROY EARTH IN THE YEAR 2000!” So far as I’m aware, Earth was not destroyed six years ago (a lot escapes my notice, but I don’t think that would have), and in spite of all the strenuous efforts of the lunatic christo-fascists to bring about Armageddon as soon as possible so they can all get raptured
_à la_ Tim LaHaye, it doesn’t seemed to have happened yet. (By the way, the word _rapture_ comes from the same root as _rape_; look it up. What do those who want it so much think of that? Raped by God? Well, it happened to that nice teenaged Jewish girl in the first century, didn’t it? Oh, but that was consensual—and immaculately clean—according to St Luke. . . . Sorry, I get carried away on these tangents.)
It would be easy simply to dismiss this as an unfortunate lapse in the usually impeccable journalistic integrity of _WWN_, but I am nagged by the uncomfortable question of why they ever published it in the first place. Of course, publishing the “prophecies” of Nostradamus is part of their stock in trade, but those of a space alien? Why couldn’t God tell us directly himself? Oh, some will say, he usually does use prophets to bring us bad news (never good news). Granted, but human prophets, not space aliens. And although _prophecy_ and _prediction_ are closely related (both coming from roots meaning “to speak before”), and Webster’s gives the second as a synonym for the first, I personally do not consider all predictions to be prophesies and bridle slightly at the confusion of the two. Prophecy is, strictly speaking, something of a sacred calling, and I doubt that space aliens qualify for it.
And why 2000? Because it’s the Millennium, of course! and all sorts of terrible things (like all the computers on earth crashing because they don’t know what year it is) are supposed to take place on these particular dates just because they end in three zeros. But only in one of several different calendars and chronologies. Most other religious traditions have their own calendars, dating from some event they consider as important as Christians consider the birth of Jesus, and the Jews (who are now in the year 5767) aren’t going around saying the world will end in their year 6000; nor are the Moslems (now in the year 1427 dating from the Hegira) saying it will end in their year 2000. Certainly the Jews (I don’t know about the Moslems) have their own rich and fascinating apocalyptic literature (particularly that of Daniel), but so far as I know, they don’t use it to predict a particular date for the end of the world. That seems to be a peculiarly Christian obsession—and only for certain sects of them. And obsession it certainly is, as amply shown by the appalling popularity of those hideous “Left Behind” atrocities.
Actually, it’s a much more complicated subject than I realized, and I’m beginning to regret I ever waded into it. Depending as I usually do on Wikipedia, I find that Millennialism is a specific form of Millennarianism, and neither has anything to do with the end of the world or with years ending in three zeros, and therefore nothing to do with the _WWN_ headline. This is why the millennialist wing-nuts can continue looking for the immanent Millennium even though it is now 2006, and why they expect the Earth to remain here as a place for all us “left behind” sinners to be forced to endure all the horrible torments which LaHaye’s readers get their jollies from. (Isn’t “left behind” a term for the buttock above the left leg?) But I doubt that any of this was known by all the people who in 1999 expected all kinds of shit to hit the fan the next year, and who thought it was predicted by biblical “prophecies” about which they either knew next to nothing or believed utter hogwash.
One thing I do know, however, is that all attempts to predict the end of the world or the Second Coming or Armageddon or any other event, in the year 2000 or some time next week or at any other specific date, are in direct defiance of the clear admonition of Jesus not to try to do so, and not to trust anyone who claims to do so. Matthew 24:36 and Mark 13:32: “About that day and hour, no one knows.” And somewhere else I don’t feel like looking up: “Beware of false prophets.” And yet whole sects, most notably the Seventh Day Adventists, have been founded on some fruit loop predicting when something big is going to happen, and thousands of witless sheep believing him. There are stories of such groups going up on mountaintops to wait for whatever they’re expecting at a quarter after three Friday afternoon or some such thing, and when it fails to happen, they sort of look at each other sheepishly (!!) and shrug, “Well – what do we do now that we’ve sold everything we owned?” It’s enough to make someone who’s perfectly enlightened like me shake his head in disgust.
And one more little soap-box sermon before I sign off: IT IS
*_N-O-T_ CHRISTMAS* YET!!! IT IS *ADVENT*!!! Do what the Grinch tells you and take down all your freakin’ decorations until the 25th, and then put them back up and keep them up until January 6th. F**king pagans!
_à la_ Tim LaHaye, it doesn’t seemed to have happened yet. (By the way, the word _rapture_ comes from the same root as _rape_; look it up. What do those who want it so much think of that? Raped by God? Well, it happened to that nice teenaged Jewish girl in the first century, didn’t it? Oh, but that was consensual—and immaculately clean—according to St Luke. . . . Sorry, I get carried away on these tangents.)
It would be easy simply to dismiss this as an unfortunate lapse in the usually impeccable journalistic integrity of _WWN_, but I am nagged by the uncomfortable question of why they ever published it in the first place. Of course, publishing the “prophecies” of Nostradamus is part of their stock in trade, but those of a space alien? Why couldn’t God tell us directly himself? Oh, some will say, he usually does use prophets to bring us bad news (never good news). Granted, but human prophets, not space aliens. And although _prophecy_ and _prediction_ are closely related (both coming from roots meaning “to speak before”), and Webster’s gives the second as a synonym for the first, I personally do not consider all predictions to be prophesies and bridle slightly at the confusion of the two. Prophecy is, strictly speaking, something of a sacred calling, and I doubt that space aliens qualify for it.
And why 2000? Because it’s the Millennium, of course! and all sorts of terrible things (like all the computers on earth crashing because they don’t know what year it is) are supposed to take place on these particular dates just because they end in three zeros. But only in one of several different calendars and chronologies. Most other religious traditions have their own calendars, dating from some event they consider as important as Christians consider the birth of Jesus, and the Jews (who are now in the year 5767) aren’t going around saying the world will end in their year 6000; nor are the Moslems (now in the year 1427 dating from the Hegira) saying it will end in their year 2000. Certainly the Jews (I don’t know about the Moslems) have their own rich and fascinating apocalyptic literature (particularly that of Daniel), but so far as I know, they don’t use it to predict a particular date for the end of the world. That seems to be a peculiarly Christian obsession—and only for certain sects of them. And obsession it certainly is, as amply shown by the appalling popularity of those hideous “Left Behind” atrocities.
Actually, it’s a much more complicated subject than I realized, and I’m beginning to regret I ever waded into it. Depending as I usually do on Wikipedia, I find that Millennialism is a specific form of Millennarianism, and neither has anything to do with the end of the world or with years ending in three zeros, and therefore nothing to do with the _WWN_ headline. This is why the millennialist wing-nuts can continue looking for the immanent Millennium even though it is now 2006, and why they expect the Earth to remain here as a place for all us “left behind” sinners to be forced to endure all the horrible torments which LaHaye’s readers get their jollies from. (Isn’t “left behind” a term for the buttock above the left leg?) But I doubt that any of this was known by all the people who in 1999 expected all kinds of shit to hit the fan the next year, and who thought it was predicted by biblical “prophecies” about which they either knew next to nothing or believed utter hogwash.
One thing I do know, however, is that all attempts to predict the end of the world or the Second Coming or Armageddon or any other event, in the year 2000 or some time next week or at any other specific date, are in direct defiance of the clear admonition of Jesus not to try to do so, and not to trust anyone who claims to do so. Matthew 24:36 and Mark 13:32: “About that day and hour, no one knows.” And somewhere else I don’t feel like looking up: “Beware of false prophets.” And yet whole sects, most notably the Seventh Day Adventists, have been founded on some fruit loop predicting when something big is going to happen, and thousands of witless sheep believing him. There are stories of such groups going up on mountaintops to wait for whatever they’re expecting at a quarter after three Friday afternoon or some such thing, and when it fails to happen, they sort of look at each other sheepishly (!!) and shrug, “Well – what do we do now that we’ve sold everything we owned?” It’s enough to make someone who’s perfectly enlightened like me shake his head in disgust.
And one more little soap-box sermon before I sign off: IT IS
*_N-O-T_ CHRISTMAS* YET!!! IT IS *ADVENT*!!! Do what the Grinch tells you and take down all your freakin’ decorations until the 25th, and then put them back up and keep them up until January 6th. F**king pagans!
Monday, December 4, 2006
Krismus prioritizes the Apocalypse
Two tangential observations before I get down to the primary subject.
(1) It turns out my host, Blogger.com, has another blog called “The boring made dull,” which a guy in Akron OH has been running since January 05. He has LOTS of posts, and I haven’t yet read enough of them to find out if he’s more boring than I am. I hope he didn’t copyright or trademark his name. Well, as I pointed out in “Whence the name,” I got the idea for my name 25 years before he got the idea for his, so it was obviously totally independent of him.
(2) I forgot to mention in the last post: space aliens were kidnapping U.S. scientists at one time. Actually, _Weekly World News_ posed it as a question: “WHY DID SPACE ALIENS KIDNAP U.S. SCIENTISTS? Experts warn full-scale invasion of Earth is about to begin!” Presumably this was before Earth was supposed to have been destroyed, since the aliens couldn’t very well have kidnapped anybody after it was destroyed. But since Earth wasn’t destroyed (we’ll get to that later), the question still remains. Well, the answer would probably depend on who the aliens were and who the scientists were. I mean, it would be one thing if the Zorpelgophians kidnapped astrophysicists, and quite another if the Gelbafraxians kidnapped molecular geneticists. These are important points to consider.
But I will consider them, along with all the ramifications of the _WWN_ headline I left hanging in the last post (“GOD WILL DESTROY EARTH IN THE YEAR 2000!”), in a later post, while I now deal with the joyous, fun-filled season of profligate, obscene spending generally known as Christmas. For a pessimistic, cynical, curmudgeonly, grouchy grinch, nothing warms the heart so much as the time of year when the incidence of suicides, domestic violence, and all other forms of social and psychological pathology is highest. Soon after “Dr Seuss” published “The Grinch who stole Christmas,” I was christened “Grinch” by my family, and this was later conflated with “uncle” by my nieces and nephews to make me “Grunkle.” It is a title I cherish and try my best to live up to. (Seuss’s book ended happily with the Grinch being reformed. So far, I have not been reformed.)
In addition, I have (or had) a long history, in the church where I spent 33 years as organist (ranging from among the best years of my life to among the worst), of composing doggerel parodies of hymn tunes and other tunes in celebration of birthdays and other events in the lives of various choir members. So it is in this spirit, and with this history as background, that I offer the following “Anti-Bush Krismus carols,” parodying carols which I hope will be familiar to even the most heathen of readers, from their ubiquitous blaring from speakers in stores for one and a half months.
Joy to the world! The end is near! Let Earth cash in her chips!
Let Bush the Psychopath bring on the last Apocalypse.
He rules the world with fear and awe, and makes the nations shit
To think that he could waste them all if he should think it fit.
No more may love or reason have the slightest good effect;
With christo-fascists in control, the whole thing could be wrecked.
Sucks to the world! Let’s all give up! Why should we even try
To make things better in a world that probably will fry?
O evil town of Washington, how all your leaders lie!
And when they get away with it, the people wonder why.
But when we seek impeachment, we’re told it can’t be done.
We’re stuck with you, so you can screw the nation just for fun.
How cleverly, how cleverly they all succeed in crime!
But when we seek for some redress, they get by every time.
We wait in desperation for meaningful reform,
But all we get is “No, not yet; corruption is the norm.”
Lest it be thought that Kismyass is the only holiday about which I am pessimistic, cynical, curmudgeonly, and grouchy, let me share with you a little snarl I wrote on the chalkboard of the choir room in one of the churches of “God and country” civil religion during Fourth of July weekend a few years ago. Let me hasten to preface this by assuring you that, like many true patriots, I have the greatest respect and love for the country that was founded 217 years ago (dating from the Constitutional Convention of 1789). and that survived, in spite of some rather serious mistakes, up until about six years ago; and the greatest contempt and loathing for the whore it has become after being dragged through mud and filth by the Bush crime family and the christo-fascist ideologues of the neo-con movement.
O pitiful, for specious lies, for ruthless greed for gain!
For democratic travesties amidst the widespread pain!
America! America! May God forgive your sins,
And save you from still worse to come, before your end begins.
Merry Kismyass and happy Revolution Day. What we need now is another Savior and another Revolution. One is promised by Christian theology, but in the indefinite future; the other is prevented by neo-fascist repression and popular lethargy and indifference. Where did we go wrong?
(1) It turns out my host, Blogger.com, has another blog called “The boring made dull,” which a guy in Akron OH has been running since January 05. He has LOTS of posts, and I haven’t yet read enough of them to find out if he’s more boring than I am. I hope he didn’t copyright or trademark his name. Well, as I pointed out in “Whence the name,” I got the idea for my name 25 years before he got the idea for his, so it was obviously totally independent of him.
(2) I forgot to mention in the last post: space aliens were kidnapping U.S. scientists at one time. Actually, _Weekly World News_ posed it as a question: “WHY DID SPACE ALIENS KIDNAP U.S. SCIENTISTS? Experts warn full-scale invasion of Earth is about to begin!” Presumably this was before Earth was supposed to have been destroyed, since the aliens couldn’t very well have kidnapped anybody after it was destroyed. But since Earth wasn’t destroyed (we’ll get to that later), the question still remains. Well, the answer would probably depend on who the aliens were and who the scientists were. I mean, it would be one thing if the Zorpelgophians kidnapped astrophysicists, and quite another if the Gelbafraxians kidnapped molecular geneticists. These are important points to consider.
But I will consider them, along with all the ramifications of the _WWN_ headline I left hanging in the last post (“GOD WILL DESTROY EARTH IN THE YEAR 2000!”), in a later post, while I now deal with the joyous, fun-filled season of profligate, obscene spending generally known as Christmas. For a pessimistic, cynical, curmudgeonly, grouchy grinch, nothing warms the heart so much as the time of year when the incidence of suicides, domestic violence, and all other forms of social and psychological pathology is highest. Soon after “Dr Seuss” published “The Grinch who stole Christmas,” I was christened “Grinch” by my family, and this was later conflated with “uncle” by my nieces and nephews to make me “Grunkle.” It is a title I cherish and try my best to live up to. (Seuss’s book ended happily with the Grinch being reformed. So far, I have not been reformed.)
In addition, I have (or had) a long history, in the church where I spent 33 years as organist (ranging from among the best years of my life to among the worst), of composing doggerel parodies of hymn tunes and other tunes in celebration of birthdays and other events in the lives of various choir members. So it is in this spirit, and with this history as background, that I offer the following “Anti-Bush Krismus carols,” parodying carols which I hope will be familiar to even the most heathen of readers, from their ubiquitous blaring from speakers in stores for one and a half months.
Joy to the world! The end is near! Let Earth cash in her chips!
Let Bush the Psychopath bring on the last Apocalypse.
He rules the world with fear and awe, and makes the nations shit
To think that he could waste them all if he should think it fit.
No more may love or reason have the slightest good effect;
With christo-fascists in control, the whole thing could be wrecked.
Sucks to the world! Let’s all give up! Why should we even try
To make things better in a world that probably will fry?
O evil town of Washington, how all your leaders lie!
And when they get away with it, the people wonder why.
But when we seek impeachment, we’re told it can’t be done.
We’re stuck with you, so you can screw the nation just for fun.
How cleverly, how cleverly they all succeed in crime!
But when we seek for some redress, they get by every time.
We wait in desperation for meaningful reform,
But all we get is “No, not yet; corruption is the norm.”
Lest it be thought that Kismyass is the only holiday about which I am pessimistic, cynical, curmudgeonly, and grouchy, let me share with you a little snarl I wrote on the chalkboard of the choir room in one of the churches of “God and country” civil religion during Fourth of July weekend a few years ago. Let me hasten to preface this by assuring you that, like many true patriots, I have the greatest respect and love for the country that was founded 217 years ago (dating from the Constitutional Convention of 1789). and that survived, in spite of some rather serious mistakes, up until about six years ago; and the greatest contempt and loathing for the whore it has become after being dragged through mud and filth by the Bush crime family and the christo-fascist ideologues of the neo-con movement.
O pitiful, for specious lies, for ruthless greed for gain!
For democratic travesties amidst the widespread pain!
America! America! May God forgive your sins,
And save you from still worse to come, before your end begins.
Merry Kismyass and happy Revolution Day. What we need now is another Savior and another Revolution. One is promised by Christian theology, but in the indefinite future; the other is prevented by neo-fascist repression and popular lethargy and indifference. Where did we go wrong?
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