Peaks and Pacific

That Was Fun

2007-01-29T00:35:00.000-07:00

I’ve been doing Peaks and Pacific steadily for two years now.

I got into blogging as a guy pushing 50. So I knew from the start it would be a steep learning curve and a cross-cultural experience. It’s been both. In the best way :^) And a whole lot of fun too.

Trying to say something interesting or funny 6 times a week is hard to do in your spare time, though. I realized over the past couple of months that posting had begun to feel more like a chore than a joy. And though I’ve appreciated the big and growing bunch of you who read the blog regularly, I’m an extrovert who loves discussion. And that’s something that current blogging just doesn’t offer. I’ve never been a big fan of sermons or haiku length quips. Even my own :^)

And my changing responsibilities at work will require a whole lot more writing and creating of books, articles and various media tools, so I want to invest my creative energy there for the time being.

All that by way of saying, this will be my last Peaks and Pacific post.

I may pick up with P&P again in the future. More likely, I'll create a new site at some point. I’m thinking of trying an all humor/satire site sometime next year. Maybe with podcasting/videocasting elements added to mix. We’ll see. I’m going to leave P&P online, so you can check back from time to time for any updates or for new pics on my Flickr site.

Thanks so much to those of you who read regularly. And especially to those of you who mixed it up in the comments. I learned a lot and enjoyed getting to know some of you ‘from afar.’ Wish there were some way to have gotten the unusually thoughtful and interesting P&P readers together in the same room. Folks from six continents were reading P&P--that would have been a fun party!

In any case, I'll probably 'see' some of you in the comments sections on other blogs, so you'll still have to put up with my takes from time to time :^) Take care and God bless!

The Mix

2007-01-27T00:01:00.000-07:00

**The invisible hand decides. Even the prospect of posts on the dismal science blew my hit count from the highest it's ever been (Tuesday) to some of the lowest overnight and for the last couple of days. OK, I surrender :^) No series on economics....

**Funny vid take on the immigration debate Got this one from a North African bud.

**Revealing vid of Senator Leahy grilling Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez about the use of torture in the Bush administration Nice to see Congress act like Congress again.

Check out Gonzalez's facial expressions at the end of the clip.

Yeah, Leahy's a windbag and trying to score political points, but there isn't the slightest hint of regret or remorse on Gonzalez's part. You'd at least expect some sense of public contrition--no matter how phony--on behalf of a guy who was held captive and tortured for a year for no reason. All you see is the familiar arrogance and smirk.

I couldn’t find a clean clip of the questioning, so I had to rely on Jesus’ General’s vid spin. No need for JG to enhance it—-the clip speaks for itself.

Ray Guns

2007-01-26T11:30:00.000-07:00

The A-410 Neutralization Device Prototype

Washington (AP)

A day after revealing the development of a new military "ray gun" that harmlessly neutralizes enemy combatants by making them "feel as if they are about to catch fire," the Pentagon announced this morning another in a line of new experimental weapons that “disarm the enemy without the need to take human life.”

Pentagon spokesman Bull Meachum hailed the new weapons as ‘the dawning of a new day for the U.S. military.”

“Why needlessly risk the lives of our own servicemen, innocent civilians, and even enemy combatants if we can get the bad guys to drop their weapons and surrender without using lethal force? If this works we won’t see anymore ‘Join the Army, See the World, Meet New People, Kill Them’ t-shirts. We believe we can win the battle for hearts and minds with this new generation of military technology.”

Meachum unveiled the new A-410 Neutralization Device Prototype, nicknamed “The Cheney Ray” by Department of Defense staffers.

“The A-410 utilizes finely tuned microwaves projected in a 20 foot wide beam that can effectively reach targets up to the 400 yards away,” said Meachum.

“The non-lethal beam affects the frontal cortex of enemy combatants, disorienting them by convincing them they are the President or Vice President of the United States or a member of Congress. Combatants targeted by the beam immediately seek deferment from military service for themselves and their children.”

Meachum said the Defense Department is pleased with progress on the weapon system but that engineers are still ‘working out some glitches.”

“We field tested the device against Islamist militants in Iraq and Somalia recently. Unfortunately, along with disarming enemy combatants the A-410 also induced endless speeches and cloying insincerity from the combatants after capture. After a few days of listening to that kind of annoying verbal and social assault, our troops were tempted to shoot them. Obviously, killing captured combatants would undermine the non-lethal value added of the device. We’re working on eliminating that side effect and we’re confident the A-410 will be ready for production and field use by 2010.”

Yin and Yang

2007-01-25T00:22:00.001-07:00

Old school: Conservative vs. Liberal

New school: Ideology vs. Competence

Competence

Ideology

Makes Me Feel Better

2007-01-24T00:08:00.000-07:00

Our butt kicking winter here in Denver continues....

Pictures of Siberia make me feel better. Comparing your situation to other people's greater misery sometimes does the trick :^)

The fam and I once stopped overnight in Green River, Utah in 40 below zero temps.

On the way to our hotel room I stepped on a pile of dog poop and it shattered. True.

The memory makes me feel balmy and tropical by comparison right about now.

Getting Greed to Work for the World’s Poor

2007-01-23T12:51:00.000-07:00

Hoping to do 5 or 6 posts over the next couple of weeks that will try to paint at least a semi-coherent picture :^) of both the potential and the limitations of capitalism and globalization as poverty fighting tools. I'll take a look at the unique role Christian folks can play too.

My previous posts on economics have always whacked my hit count. Oh well, here we go again :^)

Setting the Table

A couple of observations to set up the series:

• Seems to me that many “progressive” types, especially lots of folks in the progressive Christian community, have got an irrationally negative jones against market capitalism and globalization. And its not just the neo-granola crowd at the WTO rallies—those folks are pretty easy to dismiss as impractical romantics. Lots of otherwise reasonable people who genuinely want practical solutions to world poverty seem to get instinctively hostile when folks promote pro-big business and free trade approaches to ending poverty.

Not hard to figure out why. Capitalism has done a whole lot of damage in a variety of ways. We’ll get to that later. And trashing business and capitalism in pop culture has a long history from Dickens to Wall Street. Post-modernism—the intellectual spirit of the age—was originally created in part to deconstruct capitalism by exposing it as just the latest sophisticated tool to enable the strong to dominate the weak. And quite a few people simply don’t understand economics very well.

Whatever the reasons, though, I’m pretty convinced that the seemingly instinctive ‘progressive’ hostility to market solutions is counterproductive and contributes to keeping lots of people trapped in poverty.

• At the other end of the scale, the American pro-market lobby seems caught up at times in an almost pseudo-religious reverence for capitalism and globalization. I contrast those folks with their more reasonable European counterparts represented by publications like The Economist.

Strangely--to me--Christian conservatives who are serious about reducing poverty seem especially prone to this kind of idealizing of “market forces.” Some of these folks claim to be balanced and to understand the destructive underside of capitalism, but you’d hardly know it from their rhetoric or actions. Their critiques of capitalism are trivial if they make them at all.

The fact that pro-market conservative Christians don’t subject actual, real world capitalism to a prophetic, biblical critique or point out the obvious ways current capitalism contributes to injustice is literally a shame. At times it feels to me these folks are no longer capable of constructive, prophetic critique. At other times they seem aware of the problems and contradictions of real world capitalism but seem to feel the need to balance the knee jerk anti-globalization crowd by being even more extreme in their support of market solutions.

Either way, this kind of largely uncritical support of market approaches does plenty of damage to the poor as well because it allows some of the worst elements of global capitalism to go unchallenged.

• Seems to me the trick to making markets work for the poor is to steer clear of both extremes, to stay as practical as possible, and to focus on how markets actually work in the real world. Understanding economic ideas is important, but understanding actual markets and how they concretely affect the poor is far more significant. The proof of any actual market system is in the improvement of living standards combined with social justice. Or the lack thereof.

• I think Christians can play a unique role by staying out of the ideological wars and offering up a rigorous prophetic critique of real world capitalism and globalization. Right now we’re not doing either very well.

Children of Men

2007-01-22T00:23:00.000-07:00

"Joseph and Mary"

Andrew and I saw Children of Men this past weekend.

Don’t do many movie reviews but this one struck me as unique.

I won’t ruin it for you, but the movie wonders what would happen if women stopped having children.

Or in other words, what would happen if there was no longer a reason to create art, or come up with new inventions, or pass on the most important moral and spiritual insights to the next generation because there would be no next generation and because nobody would be alive a hundred years down the line?

And what would happen if a child was suddenly and miraculously born into that world?

Children has more to do with the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation and the Nativity narratives than it does with traditional sci fi, but it reflects a lot of the usual dystopian visuals.

The movie is set in mid-21st century London which looks like a decaying Tokyo with huge plasma screens dominating the cityscape projecting endless ads and security warnings in the midst of typically lousy English weather. A lot like Blade Runner, which was set in a futuristic LA that looked like a decaying Tokyo with huge plasma screens dominating the cityscape projecting endless ads and security warnings in the midst of unusually lousy weather for Southern California. The visual references to Blade Runner are obvious.

And nobody looks like they've had a bath in about a month. How come people stop cleaning up and combing their hair in futuristic sci fi dystopias? I mean, you know, the showers still work even if the world is about to be hit by a meteor or destroyed by some alien pathogen. Why not end the world looking your best? :^)

Children is a religious take without being naively religious or sentimental (at all) or dangerously idealistic.

Or in other words, not much like popular American Christian faith. More like the Bible.

It’s also a powerful anti-war film. Lots of killing but all of it painfully realistic. “The authorities” and “the rebels” are both twisted by their confidence in shedding blood. Violence in Children is a tool of despair and not of hope just as it is in the real world. Pretty immediately relevant and well worth seeing.

A tip for you single guys, though. Don’t think I’d take a date to see Children of Men.

I remember going out with a woman I liked to see Apocalypse Now when I was an undergrad in the late-70's. I had no idea what the movie was about except that it was set in Vietnam. But I liked Francis Ford Coppola, the director of Apocalypse Now who did The Godfather series. Thought she would 'respect my mind' as a result.

Yikes. Take it from me. Dire apocaplyptic visions won't do your wooing a damn bit of good :^)

More Prophecy

2007-01-22T00:15:00.001-07:00

And you thought high cholesteral and high blood pressure caused strokes :^) For him who has ears to hear.

The Mix

2007-01-20T00:14:00.001-07:00

Less than zero?

Charity as investment

Brilliant take on what fundamentalism looks like to a lot of people.

Saw Curse of the Golden Flower . Wow. Ninja Shakespearean Opera with subtitles. A crash course in color.

Wish It Were True

2007-01-19T01:48:00.000-07:00

"To understand all is to forgive all." French Proverb

Reading Snow

2007-01-18T00:49:00.000-07:00

Wind on Snow Bergen Peak

Slapped on my snow shoes and climbed Bergen Peak this afternoon.

No chance to get into the high country before now due to polar weather and bad roads. I’ve been going stir crazy and cabin feverish.

Temps in the 40’s today and blue skies. Wonderful. Time to get up high.

After four years here I’m finally learning to read the varieties of snow. No wonder the Inuits have got a hundred names for the stuff.

More pics.

Crossing Cultures

2007-01-17T00:01:00.001-07:00

The Radical Religious Middle

2007-01-16T11:53:00.000-07:00

I admit it.

I enjoy bashing the Religious Right as much as the next guy.

These jokers have left people like me in various states of depression for decades, though they’re good for a lot of laughs too. As someone who likes satire, I’ll miss them if they ever move off the national stage the way cartoonists are gonna miss Bush when he finally limps back to Texas.

But after the past election, when white evangelicals again voted largely in a knee jerk partisan fashion even in the face of a sleazy, ineffective congress and a baldly incompetent administration, it’s hard to believe the monologue of the Religious Right won’t go on indefinitely within the evangelical church.

Yet there are some big reasons for hope:

• The National Association for Evangelicals issued a document entitled “For the Health of the Nation” a couple of years back. Yes, it’s just a position paper and yes, it can take years for the consensus of pastoral leaders to trickle down to your average Joe Faith and his behavior in the voting booth.

But the document clearly calls for an emphasis not only on the sanctity of human life and family and marriage, but also on social justice and compassion for the poor, peacemaking, human rights, and "creation care" (the Christian euphemism for "crazy ass green").

In other words, Christians can feel good about chucking partisanship and moving toward a more authentic and Christian anarchical social teaching that doesn’t see abortion and homosexuality as the only game in town. The document makes room for Christians to take up a position in the ‘radical religious middle’ that no current political party or social movement represents.

• Glen Stanton—a big fish at Focus on the Family—recently wrote in Christianity Today that evangelicals have got to break out of a mean spirited, single issue agenda and embrace a ‘pro-human movement.’ The gospel according to Glen? Not only a focus on the sanctity of human life and the family, but working against “human death, pain and alienation caused by genocide, war, global poverty, substance abuse, fatherlessness, AIDS and cancer, as well as human trafficking, child abandonment, commercialization, and radical individualism.”

Geez, the guy sounds like Bono. Or Jim Wallis. And all of it emanating from Colorado Springs. Hell has now officially frozen over :^)

• The New York Times recently called evangelicals ‘the new internationalists’ because of the vigorous work on the part of some evangelicals on issues like human rights, religious freedom, Sudan and now Darfur.

• A new organization called Evangelicals for Human Rights has emerged, and some big wig evangelicals have come out clearly against the Bush administration’s egregious use of “vigorous interrogation methods" (read torture).

• If I read the direction of the winds correctly, the most influential evangelical leaders among younger evangelicals right now are folks like Rick Warren and Brian McClaren who both clearly reject the methods and the agenda of the Religious Right and favor a much more centrist and anarchical social approach.

• The social teachings of the Catholic Church have always been in the radical religious middle, and some of us Protestant yahoos moved that direction decades ago.

What if the thoughtful Catholics and the growing number of Protestant yahoos got together? Given the numbers of both groups, it could change both political parties dramatically and might even spawn whole new approaches beyond the two party system. Radical religious middle indeed. Evangelicals might feel more free to join both parties in large numbers to help reform them and draw them toward more honest social and foreign policy goals.

Could be exciting. Might even make my 25 years in the wilderness waiting for the monologue to end feel worthwhile :^)

Divine Mission Accomplished

2007-01-15T00:17:00.000-07:00

Colorado Springs (CNN)

In a move that may increase pressure on the Bush administration to reconsider the newly announced 'surge strategy' in Iraq, certain key leaders of the Religious Right are calling on President Bush to ‘acknowledge the tremendous success of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, declare victory, and begin bringing our troops home.’

James Dobson, founder and president of Focus on the Family, outlined the basic arguments of the “Divine Mission Accomplished Study Group” in a speech yesterday at Reagan and Jesus Memorial University in Colorado Springs. Conservative Christian leaders formed the study group in order to make a ‘Christian response’ to the James Baker led Iraq Study Group.

“No matter what the left wing and secular nay sayers may claim, the war in Iraq has been a great success. Let’s consider the facts,” said Dobson.

“What was once an officially secular government is now dominated by religious groups. You can bet your bible nobody's trying to keep religious symbols out of the public square in Bahgdad."

"And is there a country in the world where citizens more freely and frequently exercise their God given right to bear arms than Iraq? They don't even have the NRA! It's a miracle."

“The central government is weak and local initiative and control prevails throughout the country. Homosexuality isn’t tolerated and you don’t see any swishy attempts to legalize gay civil unions. Men are men and women are women in Fallujah, that's for sure!” asserted Dobson.

“There is no welfare state. No labor unions and no George Cloonified film industry. No stem cell research and no 'Daily Show.' No secular humanists corrupting the minds of naïve, helpless children. No family planning clinics and no eggheads babbling about global warming. They don’t even know who Al Gore is!”

“From the point of view of ‘values voters,’ Iraq is a model. Those of us who served on the ‘Divine Mission Accomplished Study Group’ can see no reason why more American money or lives should be spent to improve a country that so successfully addresses the most important moral and spiritual issues of the day. Let’s bring the troops home as soon as we can, Mr. President. We respectfully call on you to give our views the serious attention they so richly deserve,” said Dobson.

“With prayer and determination, America may one day live up to the example of Iraq. May the good Lord make it so,” concluded Dobson.

The Mix

2007-01-13T11:28:00.000-07:00

• Laziness is the mother of invention. How many great breakthroughs resulted from lazy ass people coming up with an invention to save themselves the hassle of doing something unpleasant? To wit: A guy in Denver rigged up his two foot long remote control hobby car with a functional tractor shovel. When it snows less than 3 inches or so, he just stands at his window in his nice warm living room and pushes the snow off his sidewalks and driveway by remote control. Very niiiiiice....

• “The Great Winter of 07” continues here in Denver and parts of the Midwest. People here in town are actually starting to talk that way. Whenever people use a phrase like ‘The Great fill in the blank of fill in the year” it’s usually not a good sign.

Some cold pics of beautiful glaze ice in Nebraska from the recent mega storms.

• Funny vid. Is Bush the new Lincoln?

Queer Eye for the Sectarian Guy

2007-01-12T00:08:00.000-07:00

Washington (AP)

A high placed administration source revealed today that President Bush has ordered a new special ops counter-insurgency strategy as a part of what many believe is a last ditch effort to stave off defeat in Iraq.

The official, who requested anonymity, confirmed that the increasingly desperate and embattled administration is now willing to try even unorthodox methods to extricate itself from “a potential disaster for the Republican Party.”

The new approach, code named “Queer Eye for the Sectarian Guy,” will send a team of five San Francisco based gay men led by heavily disguised fashion designer Serge Renata to infiltrate Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr’s inner circle and eventually befriend Al-Sadr himself.

“The goal is a complete ‘makeover’ that will transform Al-Sadr from a murderous sectarian thug into a civilized metrosexual,” said the high ranking official. "The Fab Five will clue Muqtada to the new in fashion, cuisine, beauty, interior design, and all things hip and cool. If we succeed we can bring peace and head to toe style to all of the Middle East."

Over the past few years Renata, a committed ‘log cabin’ neo-conservative and a regular guest columnist for The Weekly Standard, has harshly criticized Al-Sadr.

In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle last fall, Renata spoke about the ruthless militia leader.

“OK, I love the turban and the robes. But the all black look, no! It’s intimidating. It’s yesterday.”

“And all that talk about Allah. It’s jihad this and jihad that. Blah, blah, blah. Nobody wants to hear about that. The man needs a lifestyle upgrade.”

Making Work Work For the Poor

2007-01-11T10:28:00.000-07:00

Ran across this sweet series of articles in Sojourners explaining 5 practical ways to help the working poor in America. I was excited to see that one of my old Pasadena buddies, Jill Shook, wrote the article on affordable housing. Along with Jill's take, the authors tackle creating an alliance between the middle class and the poor, increasing the minimum wage, reforming the health care system and creating an effective system of job training. Solid stuff.

Tigers, Monkeys and Free Will

2007-01-10T12:06:00.000-07:00

Sorry about what follows. I couldn’t help myself :^)

The NY Times published this article last week about the ways current brain science is undercutting the idea of free will.

The experimental evidence of the past decade or so suggests we experience free will but don’t actually act and choose that way. Brain scientists call those kind of phenomenon qualia, where people feel they are experiencing something real and objective in the real world but aren’t.

Color perception is a good example of qualia. The world isn’t really colored—-it just looks that way to us. Our retinas are wired to pick up certain wavelengths of light and then our brain mixes those signals together to create the phenomemon we experience as color. Other animals—like birds—see the sky as ‘purple’ because their retinas and brains work differently. The sky is neither blue nor purple—-it just appears that way to humans and birds, respectively. People debate why we see color—most think it has survival value by organizing and differentiating the world—-but brain scientists think of color as a product of the way our minds work and not as an objective quality of the world outside of our brains.

Anyway, many scientists are beginning to think our cherished concept of free will is like color perception. We experience free will but it may be little more than a useful illusion cooked up by our grey matter. It may be important for us (for various evolutionary reasons) to feel we are choosing freely, but most of the experimental evidence suggests things don't really work that way inside our heads. The article above goes into some of that impressive evidence.

You’ve gotta love some of the metaphors these brain doctors have come up with to explain how human consciousness relates to our actions and decisions. Here are a couple of ‘em:

***The conscious mind is a like a monkey riding on the back of a tiger of subconscious decisions and actions in progress, frantically making up stories of being in control. Funny and clever.

***The conscious mind is like a man who both watches a film and is a character in the film at the same time. This one’s got sort of a fun Zen/Yoda twist to it, young Skywalker….:^) But if you think of the metaphors used to explain relativity this one doesn’t seem so outlandish.

Of course, if brain science does demonstrate that free will is primarily qualia, those scientists who labored all those years climbing that mountain will find theologians sitting at the peak waiting to greet them. Most of the heavy hitter western Christian theologians through the ages have accepted one form or another of predestination, and I think that’s the consensus among Muslim thinkers as well.

The implications of scientifically chucking free will are huge. It’s the nightmare vision of the future of science that CS Lewis laid out in his sci fi novel That Hideous Strength. (that's your cue, Ruth :^)If we’re just sophisticated meat machines, what happens to moral responsibility or to the idea of a 'spirit' or 'soul?' Some of the scientists doing this research are scrambling to explain how a dialed down version of free will that still preserves moral agency could "fit the data."

I’m guessing this whole issue is going to blow up in the next decade or so. Might eclipse cloning and genetic modification as the next big science and religion controversy. Who would have thought we might return to a time when a whole lot of people would end up fighting publicly about predestination vs. free will?

Modern Western Tribes

2007-01-09T15:11:00.000-07:00

A few more thoughts on ethnicity and individualism.

• Though folks in progressive Christian communities tend to harsh on individualism and dismiss it by comparing it to ideal (and rarely realized) visions of community, I think we’ll eventually have to find ways to talk about it in a more positive and balanced way. Developing a theology of Christian individualism that comes out of our current real life experiences and deep biblical thinking seems pretty important to me given the world we’re living in right now.

Most all of us in the west no matter our ethnic group(s) are individualists to one degree or another including pretty much every progressive Christian I know. Even the folks most proactively committed to ethnic identity are living an ‘ethnic lite’ existence because of the power of individualism and various other modern cultural forces. Folks who have seen the reality of more traditional ethnic identification-—a al Iraq or Zaire—understand that intuitively. And most of us, whether we admit it or not in progressive circles, feel just fine about that.

Lots of Christian folks talk about ‘returning to the New Testament church.’ I understand that nostalgia, but I wonder if we'd really want it if it actually came true. Our individualism is far too entrenched—and we’re far too aware of the benefits it brings—for most of us to ever want to ‘go back’ to a world of full blooded ethnicity.

So hesitating to actively engage individualism—in order to discern its weaknesses and strengths—and hesitating to proactively hold out the potential for a redeemed individualism can be understood as an act of deliberate cultural amnesia or even—-in more extreme versions--a form of ‘self hatred.’ At the very least, it leaves progressive Christian folks stuck with only a negative and schizophrenic way of thinking about a critical aspect of their lives. Not very healthy or realistic in the long run.

My experience right now is that most of the prophetic and pastoral energy in progressive Christian communities goes toward various approaches to revive and redeem ethnicity and to encourage ethnic and racial reconciliation. And that effort is very important for reasons I’ve mentioned many times here at P&P and that some of you mentioned in the thread on Abner’s site.

But though it’s important, I’ve gotta say I think it’s also unbalanced at this point. There are other central issues—like individualism and class, for example--that need a whole lot more attention if we’re gonna have a more realistic and less schizophrenic theology and practice.

• When I say Christian individualism, I mean a consistent Christian theology and practice applied to individualism. We’ve got to point out the dangers of individualism (which we’re all pretty good at) but we’ve got to find a way to show how it gives life too. Life is complicated.

How come those of us in the Christian justice and peacemaking communities are often unwilling to talk about the tremendous contributions of individualism in the area of basic human rights, for example? The concept of human rights and the institutions set up to promote it are the bedrock of justice and peace efforts around the world right now. The fact is they didn’t arise primarily out of the real world, historical church or out of the blood and land ties of ethnicity. The concept of human rights arose out of an individualistic rebellion against religious and political authority and old school ethnic and tribal ties. How do we interpret that reality and that history, find a way to show how God worked to bring about such an important moral advance, and incorporate it into the way we talk about and apply Christian individualism?

Redeeming Individualism

2007-01-08T12:12:00.000-07:00

Been following a great discussion about ethnicity and individualism over at Abner Ramos’ place.

Abner and friends make a case for the importance of ethnicity and tribe and question the spiritual validity of current popular western notions of individualism.

Certain secular post-moderns and progressive Christians have been kicking individualism around since the 60’s and I've been one of them since before that kind of thing became the critique de jour.

Lots of reasons to kick individualism in its abstract butt and to go easy on deconstructing the pretensions of 'tribes':

No question that the level of individualism in the west--and especially in the US--has weakened families and institutions and produced a kind of spiritual and emotional malaise as people struggle to make sense of life without deeper ties to communities and to older ethnic ‘blood and land’ identities. Christian communities and other religious communities tend to be watered downed versions of their old school selves because people with a deep commitment to individualism resist comitting themselves to 'the group' and to accountability.

Individualism has sometimes served as a cover for European and Euro-Am ethnic oppression disguised as an even handed and rational appeal to ‘freedom.’ In order to control other ethnic groups more easily, breaking down their sense of communal and historical identity helps.

Avoiding responsibility for past communal injustices that still affect the present is a neat trick too. Individualism normally means never having to say you're sorry.

I don’t think most current white Americans feel much responsibility for the Native American genocide, for example, or any real reason to work for restitution. Since we’re individuals who can only be held responsible for what we do individually—a basic tenet of individualism--asking forgiveness or working hard at restitution for past communal wrongs makes no sense.

Other than the rise of free markets, I can’t think of a force that has done more to weaken ethnic identity than individualism.

Having said all that, I’d still say we need a lot more individualism around the world rather than less. Here’s why:

• Much of the violence and injustice around the world right now is rooted in ethnic and racial hostility and arrogance. Sometimes that ethnic and racial dynamic is masked by political or religious committments, but a fixation on blood and land remains the heart of the problem. Though western ideas of individualism carry their own dangers as I’ve already mentioned, they’ve got the juice to dilute that toxic ethnicity.

• A whole lot of Christian history has been about the abuse of tribal and ethnic identity. I grew up in the Eastern Orthodox Church and have first hand experience of a truly ‘ethnic’ Christianity. A fixation on ethnicity has eliminated most of the prophetic and spiritual power of that beautiful religion. And the mission of the Church has been severely damaged by an inability on the part of Christians to tell the difference between their customs and their faith.

• The western concept of individualism has produced life-giving breakthroughs in human political freedom, economic growth, and even moral development in some parts of the world. Those breakthroughs couldn’t have happened without diluting and at times even discarding our earlier roots in blood and land.

Some Christians argue that the Bible speaks primarily about ethnic and group identity and much less about ‘the individual.’ While I think biblical teaching at its deepest core rests on the importance of the individual, I’ll concede the point.

I wonder how else biblical writers living in a tribal and ethnic universe could have spoken, though?

The bible was written at a time when it was difficult if not impossible to think about the importance of the individual in the way we do now. The whole current concept of individualism is only a few centuries old. As a result, I view much of the biblical emphasis on ethnic groups as ‘descriptive’ and not necessarily ‘prescriptive.’ Or in other words, Christians are free to move more deeply into ethnicity if they choose to do so, or they can choose to move away from their given ethnic identity if that's more useful and relevant.

All this by way of saying, I’d love to see greater overt support for individualism rather than dismissing it or identifying it with 'white oppression.' Just as a modified and healthier emphasis on ethnicity can contribute to peacemaking, I’m convinced that a modified and healthier emphasis on individualism—a sort of Christian individualism—could make just as big a contribution.

OK, Now Where Is That Off Switch Again?

2007-01-06T10:56:00.000-07:00

Snow Cornice

Just finished clearing another foot of snow off the driveway and the sidewalks.

We’re in the middle of an unusual fall/winter here in my part of Metro Denver with over 80 inches of snow since mid-October and over 60 inches since Thanksgiving. We’re averaging ten inches of snow a week for the past month and a half. We had back to back blizzards just a few days apart over the holidays.

Driving is Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and black ice rules the roads. Supermarket parking lots are filled with 15 ft. piles of snow pushed up by overworked bulldozers. Looks like another storm is coming in next Friday.

The weather here is normally beautiful and winter has become one of my favorite times of the year—lots of sunny days in the 40’s that are perfect for getting up in the high country. And because I’ve never been around snow before the whole thing makes me feel more like a kid than an adult. But not this year. The shine has gone off the icicle.

I think we’ve officially moved beyond El Nino into El Diablo.

Long time Denver natives have been playing it stoic until about a week ago. We native California weather weenies were told to shut our complaining pie holes and were then fortified with stories about epic past winters and kids losing fingers and toes on the way to school but still not missing a day in the classroom.

One storm after another after another, however, has reduced even the most leathery Coloradan to questions about the fairness of the universe.

The upside?

I don’t have to hear any more stories about how back in ’57 great grandma froze solid in her car on the way to the post office but bounced right back after a nice warm bath :^)

2006 in Review

2007-01-05T12:15:00.000-07:00

Part 1 and Part 2. April 8 and August 30 are my personal favorites.

**explanatory note: for those too young to remember Edgar Bergen, he was a famous ventriloquist who controlled a puppet named Charley McCarthy way back in the day....

Prophetic Inspiration

2007-01-04T09:10:00.000-07:00

Virginia Beach (AP)

In what has become an annual tradition of prognostications, religious broadcaster Pat Robertson said Tuesday God has told him that a terrorist attack on the United States would result in "mass killing" late in 2007.

"I'm not necessarily saying it's going to be nuclear," he said during his news-and-talk television show "The 700 Club" on the Christian Broadcasting Network." The Lord didn't say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that."

Robertson said God told him during a recent prayer retreat that major cities and possibly millions of people will be affected by the attack, which should take place sometime after September.

"I know it sounds grim, but my prophecy has a silver lining. God never brings judgment without double the measure of mercy and grace. The Lord told me only members of labor unions and the ACLU will be killed," said Robertson.

Robertson added that God also told him that the US only feigns friendship with Israel and that US policies are pushing Israel toward "national suicide."

"Our favoritism toward the Palestinians threatens the existence of the state of Israel and the tens of millions of dollars I've invested in a Christian theme park there. I think it's time to get tough with the Arabs. You can't believe how much money I'm spending on security to stop suicide bomber attacks on the construction of my "Ascend to Heaven With Jesus in Jerusalem" attraction. It'll be the most explosive verticle ride in the world. You don't get big time G forces and spiritual inspiration at the same time everyday," said Robertson.

The tele-evangelist is convinced God will bring judgment on the professional sports world as well. He told his viewers that "the Lord will finally clean up the NBA."

"God will incline the heart of NBA Commissioner David Stearn to crack down on the hip hop element by banning all negroes from the league," Robertson stated.

He believes Stearn will also re-introduce the set shot, eliminate the 24 second clock and bring back 'really short shorts' in order to re-establish 'your grandfather's NBA.'

Too Much of a Good Thing

2007-01-03T00:10:00.000-07:00

Now that we’re in Denver we're only five hours away from Santa Fe, the land of organic architecture and leftist enchantment. So as soon as the roads cleared after our pre-Christmas blizzard we jumped in the Jeep and got on our blue corn enchilada jones. You can get a look at some pics here.

I’ve been traveling to Santa Fe since I was a kid and I’ve had a chance to see the town grow into an art mecca and a favorite spot for artsy, left leaning snow birds and young, well off “creative class” types. Young or old, these are the kind of people who want a kind of San Francisco in the Southwest and who wouldn’t be caught dead living in Phoenix. I’m sure some brave soul runs a conservative talk radio station in Santa Fe, but he probably has to sleep in a different place every night to stay ahead of the hip mobs looking to eradicate him with progressive arguments and extreme prejudice.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Santa Fe. And you’ve especially gotta love the oldness of a place that dates from the early 1600’s as much as the oddness. The map of the downtown area-along with a lot of really old cities like London--looks more like a human heart than it does a rectangular grid pattern. No right angles but plenty of ring roads sprouting a jumble of snaking arteries that seem to have no rhyme or reason but do somehow get the job done.

Yet sometimes you can get too much of a good thing. Liberal yuppies and creative class types have turned the once gritty city of San Francisco into a kind of “San Francisco-Land” with far less social, economic and political diversity than it once had. I grew up in the Bay Area and I still think of San Francisco as The City, but let’s face it, the place has become sort of a bore. When pretty much everybody is from the same socio-economic class and everybody thinks the same things and everything looks pretty much alike—albeit, beautiful—a lot of the life goes out of any city.

Santa Fe’s not as far along that path as San Francisco, but you can see where things are going.

The city government forces every building to conform to pueblo architectural style or Spanish mission stuff and a basic pallet of pastel colors. So along Cerrillos Drive, the main commercial drag in town, you’re treated to cheesy pueblo IHOPs and Burger Kings that are supposed to look like they belong at Mesa Verde and lots of gas stations that look more like Taco Bells than they do the Spanish colonial gems around the Plaza.

I understand the basic impulse behind this kind of zoning. Well meaning folks want to protect the architectural heritage of Santa Fe and keep bad commercial buildings to a minimum. But the result is just the opposite. Most of the commercial town is repetitive and dull.

The drive toward playing it safe and toward conformity is pretty powerful. Hard to explain in any other way how a place like Santa Fe could end up looking increasingly like a theme park version of its original charming self.

But you've gotta have more than a little hope for the City Different.

Just gotta throw open those zoning laws to variety. And to the cool and beautiful new stuff and the well meaning ugliness that inevitably go along with it.

Oh, and maybe throw in some tax incentives to lure a whole bunch of right wing fundamentalists to relocate to Santa Fe.

Where is Rush Limbaugh when a city really needs him? :^)

Woulda Coulda Shoulda

2007-01-02T00:43:00.001-07:00

After watching SC smack Michigan you wonder what SC coulda done this year with a little more fire and maturity.

I’ve changed my mind about their loss to UCLA. After watching the Bruins get blown out by a lousy Florida St. team in the Emerald Bowl last week and SC clean Michigan’s clock the only fair conclusion is that the Trojans’ loss to UCLA was a fluke. SC just wasn’t ready to play that game emotionally. Sort of like half of SC’s games this year.

Does anybody who watched yesterday's Rose Bowl and the Michigan vs. Ohio St. game have any doubt SC could beat Ohio St.? Or at least, does anybody doubt the ‘good’ and truly motivated "Dr. Jekyll" SC team that showed up from time to time this year—including today--could beat the Buckeyes?

Oh well. Woulda coulda shoulda :^) Look out for SC next year, though.

Thought yesterday's Fiesta Bowl between Boise State and Oklahoma was as good as it gets. God bless underdogs and trickeration. The whole idea of the superiority of BCS conferences over non-BCS conferences gets harder to maintain every year.

Time to go to some kind of playoff.

Back January 2

2006-12-22T10:37:00.000-07:00

Holidays and a road trip coming up, so I'm taking a short break from posting.

Check back January 2 for more notes.

In the meantime I'll be adding pics to my Flickr site so you can have a look throughout the brief hiatus.

Some takes coming up in the new year:

• A Series on Making Capitalism Work for the Poor

• Porno and Other Idealisms

• The Radical Religious Middle

Hope you have a great next week and a half.

Merry Christmas everybody!

Blizzard

2006-12-21T10:51:00.000-07:00

Got buried in a blizzard here in Denver on Andrew’s birthday yesterday. By this morning we had about 32 inches of snow on the ground in our neighborhood. Winds were swirling from every direction and snow blowing sideways at about 30 miles an hour so you’re talking near whiteout conditions.

We went downtown yesterday to celebrate anyway. Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid day squall :^) Andrew's been waiting for a 'snow day' off from school since we moved here and he finally got it on his birthday.

Had a great time at grungy, one of a kind music shops and bookstores where Andrew picked out some of his own birthday presents. Lunch at a favorite hangout and then on to see a sword and sorcery flick which we missed because the theatre shut down early due to the weather. By 3 pm the whole metro area of 2 million people was basically closed including the airport.

Conditions like this create a wonderland. Brilliant icicles poised above your head. Layered snow cornices overhanging rooflines by as much as three feet. Cars slipping and sliding all over the place. Fun. Beautiful.

More blizzard pics here. And hopefully, even more pics when the sun finally comes out and we dig out from under.

Christmas Freedom

2006-12-20T00:48:00.000-07:00

Best word I’ve seen recently on the whole Put Christ Back in Christmas and America is a Christian Nation stuff.

The Old Testament is a phone book length take on the failure of theocracy.

The New Testament is a blog length take on true religion as a counter-cultural force that challenges power, money and violence.

The old take led to the new take. Experience made all the difference. Certain kinds of Christian types who read their bibles closely think God might have had just that progression in mind from the start.

I’ve been following a new traditional media effort called On Faith which tosses out important religious and political questions and gets it going. Not bad for the corrupt conventional media :^) Worth a look.

Introducing Your Denver Thuggets

2006-12-20T00:42:00.000-07:00

Iverson’s on his way to the Rockies. Tats and corn rows in the champagne snow.

We’re real deal contenders overnight.

Can’t double Iverson and Melo at the same time. One of these guys will now get one on ones as a matter of course. They were one and two in the league in scoring while facing double and triple teams. Might be some unusual Mile High fireworks in store. Fun.

The west over east balance of power just got even more unbalanced.

And the Thuggets are the new bad boys of the NBA.

Iverson and Melo and Kenyon Martin on the same team? George Karl in charge?

It’s 50 Cent meets PMS on the hardwood.

The Inmates In Charge of the Asylum

2006-12-19T13:16:00.000-07:00

Paul Kagan, the neo-conservative military strategist who wants to send a big new 'surge' of troops into Iraq, has apparently won over Bush. McCain is pushing for upping the troop levels too. My guess is Bush's 'new strategy' will involve more troops and more firepower, even though most of the military folks seem to doubt the long term effectiveness of that approach.

McCain is a relatively sane guy, so I won't dismiss his ideas out of hand.

As for Kagan and the neo-cons, though, why is anybody still listening to these people? They were right that the Middle East would be better off with democracy, though it's hard to imagine a more obvious insight. Beyond that original thought, they've been wrong about virtually everything else at the cost of around 150,000 lives with 30-40,000 more dying each year as this drags on.

Great article by Paul Campos on the Alice in Wonderland fact that these jokers still have influence and that none of them paid a significant price for their deadly lack of humility. I especially liked the way he describes "an incompetence so grotesque that it is as a practical matter difficult to distinguish from treason...."

Democrats are loving every minute of this. I'm starting to wonder if Bush and some of the conservatives are more than inflexible and rigid. Maybe marytdom has its fans on both sides of the war on terror.

Quien Es Mas Macho?

2006-12-18T00:11:00.000-07:00

Havana (AP)

Cuban officials told a group of visiting U.S. lawmakers that Fidel Castro does not have cancer or a terminal illness, the head of the delegation said Sunday.

U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican, said Castro “suffers from sexual exhaustion.”

"All the officials told us that his illness is not cancer, nor is it terminal, and he will be back," Flake told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “Fidel is recovering his strength, if you know what I mean. I hope I’ve got half his huevos when I’m his age,” the winking congressman added.

Castro's medical condition has been a state secret since late July. He has not been seen publicly since July 26.

Newly elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez cautioned against counting out his friend and mentor. “Like myself, Fidel packs truly Bolivarian revolutionary proportions. Women and the masses love him. He doesn’t even need elections to stay in power. Que grande!”

Cuban state television has begun round the clock broadcasts of a new docu-drama dedicated to Castro entitled Quien Es Mas Macho?

Quien Es Mas Macho? producer Raul Grandemiembro explained the plot of the hit show.

“George Boosh es mas macho? No! Every time that pendejo opens his mouth another Latin American government moves to the left!”

“Fidel has been doing it to the Cuban people for fifty years. Viva Fidel!”

Not Especially Intelligent Design

2006-12-16T12:37:00.000-07:00

More odd stuff that might shed light on the evolution vs. intelligent design debate :^)

• Nasty Back Hair

Some men tend to grow swaths of unsightly hair on their backs. It can ruin a perfectly good view at the beach. What was God thinking?

• Toe Jam

How does it help my genes into the next generation?

• Wisdom Teeth

Why add something that’s gonna get yanked right back out?

The Mix

2006-12-15T11:42:00.000-07:00

** Why Americans (and Brits) are about to lose the language wars even though we speak the world’s most useful tongue. The rise of decaffeinated “Globish.”

** Another sign of the impending Apocalypse

** Sounds like my Denver Nuggets may trade for Allen Iverson as soon as today. Word here in town is that the Nugs will do the deal without having to trade either Marcus Camby or Nene because the Sixers are just looking to create salary cap room. If we get AI without losing Nene you've got a starting 5 with Marcus Camby, Nene, Melo, AI and Andre Miller. You’d have arguably the best rebounding and defensive center in the league, the current number one and two scorers in the league, a top five league assist leader at the point and one of the best up and coming big men in the league. Would be the most talented team Iverson's ever played on and instant contenders. That'd shake it up in the Rockies.

** The Dems got a big scare yesterday with the brain surgery on Democratic South Dakota senator Tim Johnson. Could've lost control of the Senate if he went down permanently.Not to be paranoid or conspiratorial or anything, but could Karl Rove have been inspired by the KGB’s recent poisoning and murder of the Russian dissident in London? I’d check out the Senator’s office, staff and family for traces of Polonium-210 just to be sure.... :^)

** A Conan O’Brien sampler for those of you who don’t stay up late....

Catching a Break

2006-12-14T00:15:00.000-07:00

My nephew Shane caught a rare break today.

He was on trial for sexual harassment and the judge dismissed all charges.

Shane’s one of those people with a heavier load to carry than most of us.

His mom—Jan’s younger sister Julie--struggled with mental illness and drug addiction throughout Shane’s childhood and his dad was absent. Shane never quite made it in school and at 19 he already has a long arrest record.

We had a little celebration for him tonight.

The charges against him in this case were silly from the start. But trouble finds some people cuz the path is well worn.

Our son Andrew is Shane’s half-brother. Julie got pregnant with Andrew on a one night stand when she was on a cocaine jag. We have no clue who the father is and we adopted Andrew because Julie decided not to get an abortion. One of the few good decisions she’s made :^)

So Shane got one path and Andrew another.

I sometimes wonder if the biblical teaching about predestination didn’t come right out of real life family experiencies like these back in the Bronze Age.

“Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated.”

Brothers on different trajectories. No matter what the 'pull up your bootstraps' types claim, some folks do just have a lot tougher path to walk.

Ten Percent

2006-12-13T00:01:00.000-07:00

According to a new CNN poll lots of Americans believe racism is still a big problem in the US.

Only about 10% of the sample identified themselves as racists, though. Seems like the problem is with everybody else. Fair enough :^)

Here’s the take from academia:

University of Connecticut professor Jack Dovidio, who has researched racism for more than 30 years, estimates up to 80 percent of white Americans have racist feelings they may not even recognize.

"We've reached a point that racism is like a virus that has mutated into a new form that we don't recognize," Dovidio said.
He added that 21st-century racism is different from that of the past.

"Contemporary racism is not conscious, and it is not accompanied by dislike, so it gets expressed in indirect, subtle ways," he said.

I’m trying my best to be sympathetic to the full-on racialist point of view.

But when 90% of the country says they don’t harbor racial prejudice, and when the leftist race doctors tell us that the concept of race is so impotent that it doesn’t even rise to the level of dislike, I’ve gotta wonder what all the racialist hubbub is about.

Could class be the primary prejudicial factor we’re trying to put a discerning finger on?

I lost confidence a long time ago that racism was a primary explanation for most of the unfairness in the US.

Still, you’ve gotta wonder about the honesty of all those folks who think race is no big deal except for their neighbor.

In any case, I’d love to meet the ten percent.

Gotta appreciate their honesty no matter what form it might take.

Night Owls of the World Unite

2006-12-12T11:26:00.000-07:00

I stay up late even when I’ve gotta get up early. Messing around doing whatever late at night means more to me than a few extra hours of sleep. At midnight I’m usually in the middle of writing a post or catching up on Conan O’Brien’s shtick or reading a book. Anything but sleeping.

Even so, I’m sympathetic to ‘morning people’ (like my wife) who get up at 5 am even when they don’t have to. Researchers have shown that being a ‘morning person’--just like being a night owl--is determined at least in part by our genes.

So even though I’ve never understood the thrill of getting out of bed while it’s still dark outside, or the allure of eating your Wheaties silently with nothing constructive to do because the morning newspaper hasn’t even shown up yet, I have no hard feelings for morning people. I know they mostly can’t help it.

Of course, morning types are almost never as tolerant of night owls as we late night types tend to be toward the break-of-dawn brigade.

Night owls have to listen endlessly to moralistic proverbs like ‘Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”

We received that gem of wisdom from Benjamin Franklin who it turns out was trapped in the closet and living a lie his whole life. I’ve read some biographies of the guy and he was much more likely to party all night and sleep till noon than he was to get up and milk the cows at 4 am. What a phony. :^)

One of my early mentors told me, ‘Nothing good happens after 11 pm.”

Nothing like an open mind, eh? I was tempted to reply that “Nothing of any kind happens before 6 am” but like most night owls I’m too generous a soul to make those kinds of self-righteous judgments.

Science—as it so often does in these kinds of situations—has ridden to the rescue. Turns out night owls are not only less judgmental, we’re also more creative.

I’m sure further research will discover that night owls are also more charming and more likely to pay their bills on time.

“Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man conventional, dull, and devoid of surprise?” :^)

Long Beach Fire: Truth is Stranger Than Fiction

2006-12-11T00:30:00.000-07:00

You can stick this one under the X Files.

I read today about an unusually destructive inner city apartment building fire in Long Beach, CA @ the LA Times Online.

I was an LA guy for many years before moving here to Colorado and I read the Times online religiously. My family and I also lived in some inner city neighborhoods in SoCal over the years as a part of my work, so I chalked up the story as just another example of slum lords running dangerous and code illegal buildings. Free markets and capitalism at their worst.

Gotta make an important confession at this point. I was a slum lord at one time. Owned a multiple unit property in a poor neighborhood in LA. I did my best to create a good situation for my tenants but I worried a lot about a fire or something unforeseeable.

I also got to know a lot of other slum lords during those years. Let’s just say you’ve got some legit folks amongst those owners. And then you’ve got the rest :^).

A couple of hours after reading the story I checked my email.

I had two emails, both dated Saturday, December 9th.

One came from a friend and colleague at my NGO, Dave Palmer. Dave wrote about the terrible fire at his inner city apartment complex in Long Beach. He asked for prayers and support since his family now had no place to live.

Another one came from a wonderful guy, Dan Lundmark, who I’ve gotten to know over the past few months. Dan runs his own media management firm but lives in the inner city with his wife in order to do Christian ministry. I’ve been working with Dan to revise the website and media tools for my NGO. Dan wrote that his apartment complex in Long Beach had been destroyed by a terrible fire and that he and his family were now refugees looking for a place to live (Dan’s My Space page detailing the destruction).

As I read the two emails and thought back to the story in the Times, I realized that they had both lived in that same ill-fated apartment complex that went up in flames. What are the odds?

I had no idea they were neighbors. As far as I know, I don’t think they knew either. I’m guessing they’ll find out by reading this blog post :^) Or I guess I should say, were neighbors.

How crazy is it that I’d read a story about a fire in the LA Times on Sunday, then check my email and find messages from two friends and colleagues who both were made homeless by that fire, and then realize that they were neighbors who didn’t know they were neighbors?

OK, time to cue the Twilight Zone music….:^)

The Mix

2006-12-09T00:18:00.000-07:00

• My daughter Rebecca flew in today. She’s taking a year off from school at Stanford to work on an internship with Stanford Med School. Great to have her home.

• Saw the new Bond film. Can't figure out how it got a PG-13 rather than an R. I liked it. I read most of the Bond books when I was a kid and this is the closest thing to the original take I’ve seen. Bond comes away from his violent encounters thrashed, trashed and hospitalized. Survival of the fittest without a lot of idealistic cover. The more realism about violence--even in a Bond movie--the better right now.

• UCLA hoops coach Ben Howland knows what's what. The Bruins are ranked number one in the country. The program Howland built before he came to UCLA, Pittsburgh, is ranked number two.

• Bill Maher on hip hop.

Lost in Oregon

2006-12-08T00:49:00.000-07:00

Pretty moved by
the story of James Kim who died trying to rescue his family in back country Oregon.

He set out courageously to find help after a week stranded with his family in freezing temps and dwindling supplies.

But from the standpoint of folks with more experience in the wilderness, he didn’t have a strong chance to survive when he left his family to go it alone.

I’ve spent a lot of time in the back country and had some personal experience with hypothermia.

One time after coming down off Longs Peak here in Colorado I was so disoriented from mid-stage hypothermia that I couldn’t find my Jeep in the trailhead parking lot.

When your core temperature drops too low you lose it.

I stumbled around for a while and then finally ended up in a ranger’s cabin complaining that my car had been towed :^) The rangers covered me with blankets and gave me tea and coffee with big sugar until I warmed up and got enough glucose to get a grip. Turned out my Jeep was sitting in the middle of the parking lot.

Kim was wearing cotton clothing which absorbs moisture and gives no protection against the cold when wet. Instead of staying on the road he tried to bushwhack through extreme terrain. Doesn’t look like he attempted to build shelter for himself. Bad situation and poor choices. I'd guess halfway through his trek he was losing touch.

Yet in spite of a lack of wilderness survival training he made it ten miles through remote terrain before he succumbed. Remarkable. Love for your family can give you strength you didn't know you had.

Unfortunately, in the wilderness love isn't enough. Every time I head out into the back country alone I remind myself of the old climbers adage: the mountains don't care.

Iraq Report: Spanking "The Decider"

2006-12-07T11:05:00.000-07:00

The Iraq Study Group report takes Bush and his gang to the woodshed.

Drop your drawers fellas. Daddy’s got the oak switch and he’s ready to tan some hides!

The ISG repudiates the neo-cons and Bush’s diplomatic and military policy in the Middle East. From the excerpts and summaries, looks like they systematically demonstrate the kind of unrealistic thinking and incompetence that produced the really nasty scenario in Iraq.

Surprise, surprise. :^)

The folks on the panel aren’t exactly Daily Kos or Mother Jones style radicals. Not when guys like Ed Meese and Alan Simpson are doin’ the spankin’. Yet they ended up describing the situation in Iraq in almost the same terms as the most strident opponents of the war have been doing for a few years.

I know the kinds of folks who read P&P will look at the report excerpts and summaries, so I won’t go into details on their description of a war that the report says could cost the US 2 trillion dollars.

I was struck by two items, though, that I thought sort of summarized the whole Iraq fiasco and the Bush presidency in general:

• Only 6 people in the 1000 person US Embassy in Baghdad can speak Arabic fluently

• The ISG recounted how the military counted 93 acts of violence on a particular day in July. The group re-examined the data and found that 1100 acts of violence had actually been committed that day.

They summarized Bush’s approach by dryly noting that “Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes discrepancy with policy goals.”

Two quick summary comments:

• Not sure how you can look at a report like this and still think Condi Rice has been a competent public servant as NSA and Secretary of State.

• In some polls, President Bush is still pulling down popularity ratings as high as 39%. My only question is, “who are these people?” Can’t be the Religious Right cuz only folks smoking substances could approve of the President at this juncture :^) So the mystery remains....

Religious Freedom and Islam

2006-12-06T11:42:00.000-07:00

Saw this short but fascinating article
on the Pope’s recent visit to Turkey. Benedict spent a lot of his time there promoting religious freedom in Turkey and throughout the Islamic world.

Clearly, the rights of Christians and other religious groups are severely limited in most of the Muslim world, so the issue couldn’t be more current.

As a result, lots of folks in the west are beginning to demand ‘reciprocity’ in religious freedom: basically, because Muslims are free to pursue their faith in the west, they argue, Christians and other religious groups should be free to pursue their faith without repression or harassment in the Muslim world.

That raises at least two questions for me:

1. Who should bring that message to the Muslim world?
2. Can Islam remain Islam and allow western style religious freedom?

It’s not clear to me that Popes or preachers or western politicians can carry that message successfully. Too much negative history and distrust for that. In a lot of the Islamic world I’ve experienced, true religious freedom would be seen as a way for Christians from the west to subvert cultures and regimes by manipulating a kind of ‘fifth column’ local Christian community. And in parts of the Islamic world that are less paranoid, the leadership simply doesn’t want to deal with the religious conflict and social upheaval that might develop if Christian groups—or other religious groups—grew strong and more influential.

The article suggests that Muslims living in the west may be the best folks to carry the message of religious freedom to the Islamic world. That’s a pretty fascinating idea. Wonder what would happen if Muslims in the west created think tanks and foundations aimed at influencing Islamic governments toward greater religious freedom? Certainly worth a try.

But even with efforts like that, I wonder how much to expect. I’m not trying to be a complete pessimist :^), but it seems to me that theocracy and a religious monopoly are intrinsic to authentic Islam in a way they are not, for example, to Christian faith and practice. Muslims may live under a secular government but if they take their Islam seriously they must always hope for a religiously dominated government. And while Islamic governments in the past famously made a place for ‘People of the Book’ (Christians and Jews), in fact those minority religious groups were treated as second class citizens and oppressed by any modern standard.

That all makes me wonder if Islam has to be thoroughly reinterpreted and/or politically restricted (as it is in Turkey) if we’re ever going to see real religious freedom in much of the world.

Privatization

2006-12-05T00:00:00.000-07:00

"Efficiency and Value After Death"

The Afterlife (AP)

Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman challenged the ‘communalist’ and ‘irrational’ process of salvation in his first press conference from The Afterlife.

Many observers believe Professor Friedman was the most influential economist of the last 50 years. He was a great champion of individual freedom and free markets and his thinking helped inspire the rapid expanse of economic globalization.

Friedman described his transition from this world to the next.

“It was pretty much what you'd expect.”

“I hovered above my own dying, economically unproductive carcass for a while in the upper right hand corner of the hospital room and then gathered myself for the heroic push towards upward spiritual mobility.”

“After that I moved into an inefficient, poorly designed spiritual tunnel most likely built by pork barrel political funding and socialistic unions.”

“In spite of unneccesary delays and the siren song of sloth and irresponsibility I pulled myself up by my bootstraps toward the bright white light at the end of the tunnel."

“Following all that morally productive effort I found myself in a large entrance hall of heaven that looked depressingly like the Department of Motor Vehicles."

“I was forced to take a number, sit down on a worn out couch, and read a tattered, two year old copy of Readers Digest while I waited hours for my turn.”

“Eventually I got an interview with an insolent guy on the public dime who should have been working the counter at Burger King. He was using a ten year old computer, for Christ's sake. Hard to make yourself understood in that kind of situation. I eventually got to talk to a supervisor who got me through into the heavenly places. Thank God.”

"I'll be speaking to the authorities here about the whole thing. I think it's time we privatized the transition into the Great Beyond," said the noted economist.

Bad Translations

2006-12-04T13:22:00.000-07:00

English is a tough language to learn, so I’m sympathetic to the often misguided attempts foreigners make to translate signs and movie and tv captions from their own language into English.

For some reason, the transition from Chinese to English seems to be the toughest of all. I’ve seen a lot of really funny translations in China, but my favorite was a memorial plaque at a Roman Catholic church in Beijing to Matthew Ricci, a real deal Jesuit dude during the European imperial era who even the Chinese celebrate.

After a long and flowery introduction, the bronze plaque stated that all Chinese Christians owed a debt of gratitude to Ricci for “hardly working to propagate the gospel.”

I think the term they were looking for was ‘hardily’ :^)

Ran across these badly translated English captions from some Hong Kong movie industry flicks. Made me laugh cuz I’ve seen so many signs and captions just like this in China and around the world. We may be in the midst of a shrinking globe but I think we've still got a ways to go....

UCLA Shwack

2006-12-02T17:58:00.001-07:00

Wow.

Didn't see that one coming. Especially the final score. Nine points for SC and two of 'em on a safety?

I enjoyed it as a lifelong UCLA fan. We've been smacked every which way but loose for a lot of years. Maybe the program is on the shwing. If Cal can do it UCLA can.

As an LA guy and a PAC 10 fan, though, I'm disappointed. I would have loved to see SC in the BCS title game.

Nothing flukey.

UCLA was better.

This particular SC team just never seemed to have the fire on a regular basis. They only seemed to play well when they were behind and then for a few key games after the Oregon St. loss woke em up. They looked today like they did for the month before Oregon St.--basically, sleep walking through games. UCLA had the clear emotional edge.

Gotta go with a Michigan/Ohio St. rematch. Still, you've gotta feel for Ohio St. If the BCS system does put Michigan in the BCS game OSU will have to beat Michigan twice in one season to win the national title. Something not quite right about that.

For real deal SC fans, though, you've got a silver lining. SC will return almost everybody next year. I'd guess they'll be more motivated. Could be scary.

60 Is The New 40?

2006-12-02T10:42:00.000-07:00

This time of year I always pick up a copy of one of the national college hoops previews and read it cover to cover.

Most of those guides are crammed with the kinds of obscure trivia that only folks with a full-on basketball jones would appreciate. In order to jam in as much entertaining and useless trivia as possible the print is tiny and the paragraphs are packed in tight.

This year, for the first time, I struggled to read the fine print. Actually, I struggled to read the normal print. Ah, let’s be honest and say I struggled to read anything but the pictures at anything less than arm’s length :^)

They say that 50 is the new 40.

I guess better nutrition, health care and exercise made my gen the first to delay the customary physical nosedive of middle age.

Not sure what role better nutrition played in my case unless you consider Fruit Loops and Lucky Charms to be health foods. Of course, nutritionists claim that the more colorful the food the better it is for you, so maybe I ate better than I thought.

In spite of it all my generational advantages, middle age is finally catching up.

The ghost of my greatest gen Dad would haunt me and taunt me playfully if I ever considered Grecian formula. What would John Wayne do? So I’m a man without a color.

I’ve always thought that you can’t take joint cartilage with you and I’ve had a great time abusing it over the years, so I’m probably getting what I deserve. But man, when I get up in the morning I can usually tell you exactly where most of my joints are located. In my worst moments I can see where all this is going. Little electric cart and Clapper device, here I come....

The memory is starting to go too. Two weeks ago I got behind the wheel of my Jeep and drove about 6 blocks away before I realized that I had no idea why I was driving in the first place. Took me about ten seconds to recover the original errand out of the databanks. Yikes. If you see my picture on the back of a milk carton you’ll know what happened :^)

Maybe I’m just getting spooked with 50 on the horizon.

When I was turning 40 I thought the “50 is the new 40” slogan was cool and prophetic.

Now that I’m pushing 50 I’m looking for a second opinion.

Anyone for “60 is the new 40?” :^)

Most Extreme Missionaries

2006-12-01T00:11:00.000-07:00

OK, last post of 2006 at the expense of Mormons or other self-respecting religious cults. No guarantees about 2007, though.
During this past week at P&P I've been resolving my issues about Jehovah's Witnesses knocking on my damn door before 9 am on weekends wielding the friggin' Watchtower. :^)

This one’s for all my friends trying to do some extreme good in the hood.

Really funny Ozy named John Safran did the vid. Got onto him after watching his Borat-like guerilla satire on door to door 'atheist missionaries' going out on their bikes in twos trying to convert the good folk of Salt Lake City to Darwin and evolution. I guess turnabout's fair play....

Rice: War Between the States "Not a Civil War"

2006-11-30T00:25:00.000-07:00

Washington (AP)

Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice re-affirmed today that the war between the Union and the Confederacy was ‘not a civil war.’

“This administration understands that patriotic Americans can disagree,” said Secretary Rice.

“The conflict between the Yankees and the Rebels may have looked like a civil war to a lot of people. But we believe it’s too soon to tell.”

Xenu Loves You and Has a Wonderful Plan for Your Life

2006-11-29T14:15:00.000-07:00

I’m pretty interested in why people—particularly a lot of really smart folks—believe seemingly fantastical religious stories and myths.

The myths behind Scientology, for example, make the Mormon stories seem prosaic and level headed.

You’ve got a Galactic ruler Xenu who trillions of years ago solved planetary overcrowding by shipping trillions of humanoids across the galaxy in ships like DC-8’s and stacking them like cordwood around volcanoes on the earth and then killing them all by nuking 'em, and, well, you get the idea. Yet somehow a whole bunch of bright and talented post-modern people accept this nonsense as a part of their faith.

Current religious faith is obviously a complicated topic, but let me throw out a take on why so many smart people buy this kind of stuff:

• People buy into religions right now for their ‘practical’ benefits and aren’t too concerned about the myths and theologies behind those benefits.

Basically, post-modern believers don’t lose a lot of sleep over the coherency or truth of theology or foundational mythologies. In every religious group you’ve got folks who devote themselves to parsing theology and mythology and defending the faith, but for the most part, I just don’t think most people really care one way or the other whether God turned the lost tribe of Israel in America into ‘redskins’ because of their evil deeds or whether Xenu used earth as a galactic dumping ground. In fact, in Scientology a believer isn’t even introduced to those myths and stories until they’ve reached a fairly advanced level within the church.

It comes down to practical emotional and spiritual support, a good atmosphere for families, a cohesive and encouraging community, and a decent and effective base for moral strength and growth. Any religion that provides some or most of those things will grow and attract lots of followers—including smart and creative people—no matter how crazy and loopy their theology and mythology may be.

In a way that shouldn’t be surprising. The ‘truth’ of religious faith has always been as much about emotion, community and practical morality as it has about ‘abstract, objective truth.’ It’s praxis more than propositions. Post-modernism simply enhances that effect because it so strongly downplays objective truth and makes entertaining any take on the world--no matter how improbable or seemingly unhinged--a moral duty.

In fact, I’ve come to believe that in our present environment, the more ‘out there’ the theology and foundational myths the better, as long as the religion can deliver the practical goods. Whatever you say about the stories and myths of Mormonism and Scientology, they’re way creative and address some current existential and cultural realities more directly than myths and stories from the Iron Age probably can.

If you want a mythology that directly supports the spiritual, cultural and political ‘chosen-ness’ of America you’d have a hard time coming up with something better than Mormonism. I think that’s pretty appealing to a lot of people here and even overseas where lots of people highly value American culture even if they’re not too pumped about our present political leaders.

And if you likee the sci fi sensibility and want salvation heavy on the psychological healing, ya gotta go with Xenu and Scientology. Lots of people in the market for those goods.

Of course, downplaying the 'truth' of denominations and doctrine and myths and stories is relatively new and a big change from most of western religious history when praxis and propositional truth were both critically important. But I think it's here to stay.

I'm just waiting for some high end game designer to create a new worldwide religion out of some virtual online universe he conjures up. Can't wait to hear that storyline :^)....

Wacky Tales

2006-11-28T00:42:00.000-07:00

Mega Angel Moroni

Religions are crazy stuff.

Not the morality. Most religions share similar ethical codes.

But the foundational stories and myths are almost always wacky miraculous tales with some deeper meanings that can take a lifetime to grasp.

More tomorrow on why a lot of smart people believe this kind of thing in spite of the nonsensical stories. And why they believe it because of the nonsense too.

The Mormons have got some of the loopiest religious stories around.

No need to get into detail when you’ve got South Park to explain it all.

The Founding of Mormonism (ignore the brief intro by the teenager who uploaded this SP episode onto YouTube). This is pretty much the real story. Wow.

The Current Practical Meaning of Mormonism and Religious Tolerance (if you’re easily offended by profanity, remember, this is South Park).

Sacred Briefs and the Oval Office

2006-11-27T12:00:00.000-07:00

Boston (CNN)

Leading Republican presidential hopeful and Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney reassured voters today that his Mormon faith was ‘in the Judeo-Christian mainstream’ and wouldn’t negatively affect his ability to govern from the Oval Office.

Speaking at a noontime press conference, Romney addressed concerns raised by Time magazine columnist Andrew Sullivan, one of the nation’s leading political bloggers, who ignited an online firestorm in a series of recent posts about Romney’s Mormon faith. Sullivan raised doubts about Romney’s viability with “the theocons”
who make up a significant portion of the Republican Party’s base.

“Mormonism is as American as apple pie and long, drawn out military quagmires, “said Romney. “I believe my faith is a particularly American version of Christianity and when conservative religious voters understand that I share their same values of hard work, family, and overeating I believe they will support my candidacy. I look forward to working with them to impose our version of moralism on the entire country.”

Some of Romney’s critics on both left and right have challenged what they believe are Mormonism’s recent history of overt racism, unusual religious practices such as wearing ‘sacred underwear’ covered in religious symbolism, and the religion’s ‘strange’ theology and founding story. Romney’s critics have expressed concern about the viability of a candidate or president who holds such unorthodox views and have wondered about Romney’s independence from Latter Day Saints leadership.

“I think many of us remember the opposition John Kennedy received when he ran for president in 1960 as a Catholic. I believe the opposition I’m receiving right now comes from the same source. It’s simply unenlightened prejudice combined with jealousy over my youthful yet seasoned appearance,” asserted Romney.

“I mean, it’s true that my church systematically excluded blacks from the priesthood and from all Mormon temples until 1978. But who remembers or cares now? Come on, ‘Fantasy Island’ and ‘Dallas’ were still on TV. We’re talking ancient history here.”

“And what’s so ‘out of the mainstream’ or ‘un-Judeo-Christian’ about believing that God lives on a planet near the star Kolob or that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon from ‘Reformed Egyptian’ by peering through a pair of magical stones? Loopy religion? If you want loopy check out Tom Cruise jumping up and down on Oprah’s couch. In any case, what does any of this have to do with my ability to govern?”

A Romney spokesperson, Brigham Younger, took reporters’ questions after the speech and addressed the issue of the Governor’s underwear. “Actually, Governor Romney favors silk briefs that give him a kind of luxuriant tactile sensation throughout a long day of campaigning.”

Back Monday

2006-11-23T00:12:00.000-07:00

More posts next Monday. Happy T Day! And happy November 23-26 for those of you outside the states who may not know a turkey from a cranberry.

A couple of videos to encourage any grass roots idealists who see things slant.

Freeing Idealism

2006-11-22T14:57:00.000-07:00

I argued yesterday that idealism gone bad is nasty stuff, but that strong idealism is necessary for any kind of progressive change. For folks interested in that kind of change, figuring out how to make idealism work well becomes an important priority.

How do you keep idealism from getting wacky and negative?

Well, most of all I think idealists need some checks and balances to keep their idealism healthy and constructive. A few thoughts on those checks and balances:

• Idealists have gotta listen to the critiques of realists and take ‘em into account

I think this quote by Reinhold Niebuhr, the important 20th century Christian theologian, sort of sums it up:

I think there ought to be a club in which preachers and journalists could come together and have the idealistic sentimentality of the one matched with the cynicism of the other. That ought to bring them pretty close to the truth.

I’d add only one thing to that idea. The preachers (idealists) have actually gotta listen.

In general, Niebuhr taught that idealistic morality without realism is naive or worse, and realism without idealistic morality is cynicism or worse. In light of experience and history, I’d say idealistic morality without realism is naïve or much worse, particularly when that idealistic morality gets organized and ideological.

• Idealists need to get their facts straight

This one is a little different than my first point. “Realists’ can sometimes reject idealistic ideas purely out of a deep skepticism about change in general. So while idealists may listen to that type of realist critique, they may not want to take it too seriously.

On the other hand, the strength of realism at its best is a focus on the facts. One of the most striking weaknesses of pretty much all forms of idealism--at their worst--is their willful ignorance of facts or the twisting of facts to suit their ideological purposes.

Idealistic military crusades into countries we don’t know much about aren't generally a good idea. Ignoring well established science isn’t either. Actually understanding the systems you’re trying to change can also be helpful :^)

• Idealists need patience

A significant part of the damage that idealisms tend to cause come out of a basic lack of patience. Change gets forced onto situations and people before they’re ready to own and accept those changes.

• Idealists must recognize that they aren’t as good as their ideals

The history of moral idealism, especially in its organized and ideological forms, is mostly the history of moral triumphalism and every kind of oppression and violence justified by the supposed moral superiority of the idealists.

This sense of moral superiority is the most poisonous element of idealism and does even more damage than the tendency of idealisms to ignore facts. It gives idealists license to oppress, and also lets them eventually ignore and overlook their own obvious shortcomings in living up to their ideals or accomplishing truly useful outcomes.

Basically, what I’m talking about is good old humility and a sense of perspective. Christians might say we’re talking about a basic sense of human sinfulness and frailty.
---------------------------------------------------------

I think if you look at destructive idealisms, almost without exception you see an unwillingness to listen to critics, a playing fast and loose with the facts, and an obvious lack of humility and patience. When you combine those elements with the immense power that idealism has to move people into action, and you add organization and coercive power, well, you’ve got something potentially pretty destructive on your hands.

No need to take time here to look at positive and negative examples of organized idealisms and how they fit the grid I'm laying out. You can do the analyzing in your free time :^)

For progressives, keeping idealism healthy and functioning constructively is job one. We’re blessed culturally to have a pretty high respect for the scientific method, for democratic political checks and balances, and an emphasis on humility in the country’s primary religions, all of which tend to help mitigate the more damaging elements of idealism. We’ve just got to take advantage of those blessings a lot more than we’ve been doing lately.

Sympathy for Idealists

2006-11-21T12:28:00.000-07:00

Pragmatic realism is back.

People and positions that used to be called ‘ruthless’ and ‘amoral’ are taking on a newfound romantic sheen.

In politics guys like James Baker and even Henry Kissinger are looking a lot better to a whole lot of people. Hard core idealists like Christopher Hitchens have trashed Kissinger for years as an amoral monster, but all of the sudden they've gotten a whole lot quieter. Cold blooded pragmatists who pursue more morally limited and less ideological goals are rock stars right now.

No surprise in all that as far as I’m concerned. We talk about a business cycle, but I think an idealism/realism cycle is just as real. What goes around comes around.

Seems to be in the nature of things that idealists start out as a well meaning bunch, usually in reaction to some real injustice or evil. And often in reaction to the percieved cynicism of realists.

Then they get hardened into an ideological stance meant to combat that injustice or evil. Then as time goes by they get arrogant and lose their sense of perspective and balance. Actually, sometimes they start out arrogant and without a sense of balance, but I’m trying to be nice to idealists today :^)

Sometimes they actually attain political or military power. That’s when the real fun begins. Eventually, they often embark on efforts and are willing to use methods that do as much damage or more than the original evil or injustice they are trying to combat. Those efforts and methods normally betray the principles of their idealism.

And, of course, idealists themselves are never as good as their best ideas or ideology. Early on those shortcomings have to be hidden from fellow idealists, though as the ideological crusade goes on you get a lot more ‘wink wink nudge nudge’ blind eyes cast on the wayward. When organized idealism gets far enough along, verbal adherence to the ideals becomes the main thing. Actually accomplishing constructive goals becomes secondary. Retaining power and position end up as the main thing.

You see this kind of thing all the time in non-profit agencies, which tend to be more idealistic. Lack of accomplishment and a lack of accountability are often accepted as long as the organization and its members verbally promote the ideals. In Christian circles this is often euphemistically referred to as “being a prophetic presence.” What that often means is that the organization accomplishes little and doesn’t hold its members accountable but sees itself as a sort of abstract ‘witness’ to the wider Church which doesn’t adhere to the values of the supposedly progressive non-profit.

What can make idealism so dangerous though, especially in its organized forms, is the intensity and power of the whole thing and the eventual willingness in many cases to use almost any means—including violence and intrusive coercion—to pursue its goals.

Ran across this quote by Leon Wieseltier: “More people have died at the hands of idealists than at the hands of realists.”

Yeah, pretty much.

And the worst and most dangerous kind of organized idealism is organized religious idealism. If I can add my own thought to Wieseltier’s, more people have been oppressed and died at the hands of religious idealists than at the hands of all other kinds of idealists and realists combined.

Once a form of organized idealism goes bad and begins to implode, stark realism starts to look a whole lot more attractive. I think that’s part of what’s going on culturally right now here in the US. Neo-conservative thought—which in my mind is the epitome of well intentioned but violent and destructive idealism—and the Religious Right--a pretty text book example of self-righteous and dangerous religious idealism—have been usefully exposed and have created a kind of ‘pragmatic realism’ backlash. And of course, the spectre of current Islamic fundamentalism--an even more virulent form of religious idealism--drives a lot of people into the arms of the realists.

Hey, I said I was going to be nice to idealists today. I’m finally getting around to it :^)

In spite of all the dangers of idealism I mentioned above, we’ve gotta have it.

Cold blooded pragmatism--as attractive as it can be after you’ve been hit upside the head with the downside of organized idealism—turns out in the end to be little more than the straightforward protection of self-interest and often the status quo.

Important progressive change rarely springs out of pragmatic realism. Idealists are rightly motivated by how screwed up things are. And things are screwed up,that's for certain.

But to get it right, progressives of any stripe have gotta have moral and intellectual idealism tempered by powerful checks and balances.

Tomorrow:

• Checks and balances that can set progressive idealism free to be constructive rather than destructive

Kinder, Gentler Voodoo

2006-11-20T11:23:00.000-07:00

Not Your Father's Witch Doctor

Guess Shrub Dubya is in Indonesia today for a 7 hour visit. Still, officials are so worried about the intense anti-Americanism there that 20,000 police and security agents will be on the streets ‘to protect the president,’ according to an AP report.

I mean, if you’ve traveled a lot internationally you know 7 hours is hardly enough time to get out of the airport. Guess they’ll assign about 15,000 of those agents to the baggage claim area.

Anyway, here’s the best part of the story. An Indonesian shaman apparently put the whammy on Bush in a black magic ritual performed last week. The whole thing required the blood of a snake, a goat and a crow. Guess they don’t use ‘eye of newt’ in those parts.

The terrible goal of the curse? Local Indonesian Shaman Ki Gendeng Pamungkas explains:

“My curse will make him bloat like broccoli. Bush will feel unease during his visit.”

Excuse me, but what kind of lame-ass curse is that?

Since when do witch doctors wield their big, bad voodoo daddy deal to give you gas?

Whatever happened to the good old days of real curses?

You know. Financial ruin for you and your family. Shrinking your head from a men’s size 7 down to an extra small. Turning you into a warthog. The good stuff. The full bodied stuff.

It's enough to make you lose confidence in this younger generation....

BCS Crystal Ball

2006-11-18T22:52:00.000-07:00

Ohio State V Michigan. Great game.

Both offenses were impressive.

But both defenses sort of whimped.

I thought I was watching Boise State and BYU. Could have played that game in the WAC and nobody would have known the difference.

I guess a lot of people think Michigan is so good they should get a rematch in the national title game.

But their defense gave up 42 points and over 500 yards. Ohio State’s O is good but not that good.

Tons of hype about that game. Big 10 and SEC types always get hyperventilated about their conferences and teams. Most of the nation’s sportswriters and population still work east of the Mississippi.

SC held one of the best offensives in the country to one touchdown while beating Cal.

They’ll face another strong offense next week with Notre Dame. I’m guessing they’ll shut them down too. ND doesn’t play defense. Is that a Midwest thing this year? I expect SC will roll.

SC spent most of the season sleepwalking through their schedule. The loss at Oregon State obviously woke ‘em up. Finally.

Rutgers blew up tonite and ended any Big East hope. Arkansas will beat Florida in the SEC title game. USC beat Arkansas 50-14 earlier this year. Enough said.

SC has no right to play for the title. They had to have the stars align and tons of upsets to have a chance. The stars aligned. The upsets happened.

I’ve got SC against Ohio State in the BCS championship game. Ohio State is clearly the best team in the country. Yet Ohio State won’t have played for almost two months when that game kicks off. And the master game planner Carroll will have a month to figure out how to stuff OSU.

Who knows :^)?

Bad Marriage

2006-11-18T01:03:00.000-07:00

I’ll come back to the usual light weekend stuff tomorrow.

Thought this Bill Maher interview of David Kuo, the one time Bush White House deputy head of Faith Based Initiatives, was remarkable. Funny and sobering.

After the recent election I’ve lost some of my confidence that white evangelicals can get beyond the unholy marriage of Christian faith and right wing politics.

Kuo and Maher break it down prophetically in a way pastors and non-profit religious leaders should have been doing all along. Not as nuanced as it could have been, but prophetic straight shooting is rarely subtle.

Hang Saddam

2006-11-17T00:20:00.000-07:00

My hit count dropped 60% after the "Spare Saddam" post.

Never seen anything like that in almost two years of posting.

Hey, I'm a market oriented, democratic kind of guy who respects the consumer and the voter.

Hang that son of a bitch :^)!

Respectable Christians

2006-11-16T00:30:00.000-07:00

Confirmation Class

My son Andrew did his first skate punk concert last night at The Bluebird here in Denver. Agent Orange and The Restraining Orders were on the bill.

He’s 13 going on 14. Bar Mitzvah time if we were Jewish.

Pretty much the age for black and white, cut and dried music.

And morality. And religion. And politics too.

If you’ve raised a teen or two you know what I’m talking about. Black and white takes are a necessary step along the way.

Gotta give ‘em some room to work through those adolescent polarities. If you don’t you'll end with a member of the Religious Right or the President of Venezuela.

Andrew went with one of his buddies and his friend's mom who acted as chaperone. I'm so glad she was willing to go. She's in her 30's. I'm a little too old these days to pass for anything but a DEA agent in the mosh pit.

Andrew told me afterwards that some older spiked guy told him, “Wish my mom had come along when I was your age.”

I’ve been taking Andrew through the parables of Jesus. He’s old enough to get what’s going on.

Jesus spent most of his time with prostitutes and punks. Not much attention for the well-scrubbed and comfortable.

Gotta introduce your kids early to the real old time religion if you want ‘em to be respectable Christians when they grow up :^)

Spare Saddam

2006-11-15T00:07:00.000-07:00

Saddam will probably swing.

Wish they wouldn’t do it, though.

Yeah, he’s a monster. If anybody deserves a long drop on a short rope he does.

But still can’t figure out the long lasting upside of killing bad guys in spite of all the understandable emotional reasons for doing that very final deed.

Can most of us agree that governments usually have too much power? And that killing people rarely if ever produces a good outcome?

Why encourage governments to exercise the power to kill convicted criminals?

I mean, lots of folks here in the states believe that governments are normally so incompetent and self-advancing that they can’t be trusted with tax dollars or with regulating business or personal morality.

How come most of those same people are so enthusiastic about giving such an incompetent state the power to take people’s lives?

And wouldn't exercising mercy toward people who showed no mercy to others demonstrate the greater moral legitimacy and greater power--from a Christian point of view--of the state?

Wouldn’t life imprisonment in isolation do the retributive justice trick while at the same time making an important statement about the limits of state power?

Spare Saddam.

Neo-Diplomacy

2006-11-14T00:21:00.000-07:00

Dead Men Tell No Tales

Washington (AP)

At a State Department press conference Monday morning, Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice responded publicly for the first time to last week’s resounding Democratic election victory.

“We want the American people to know that this administration hears you loud and clear.”

“I have the President’s authorization to announce today the end of our previous commitment to ‘Cowboy Diplomacy.’”

“From now on all of us--Republican and Democrat alike--can take pride in our new emphasis on ‘Pirate Diplomacy.’”

“We will replace what many have characterized as a ‘shoot from the hip’ style with a more measured and prudent approach. That means a new foreign policy based on fewer crude insults combined with our more traditional threats of reckless violence,” said Secretary Rice.

“We recognize that our previous slogan ‘Stay The Course’ no longer addresses the delicate demands of the present political moment. Therefore, we will replace 'Stay The Course' with the more intuitively effective phrase, 'Aaaaargggghh!!! Aaaaaaarrggghhh!!!'"

When asked whether the dismissal of ex-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was intended primarily to dodge potentially embarrassing questions about the war in Iraq at the hands of hostile Democratic congressmen, Rice smiled before anwering.

"Dead men tell no tales," explained the Secretary of State.

Focus On The Entrails

2006-11-13T00:42:00.000-07:00

Missoula, Montana (CNN)

American Conservative Neo-Druid leader Rhames Hobson announced today that “turning away from traditional religious values led to the defeat of the Republican Party in last week’s mid-term election.”

Hobson, president and founder of “Focus on the Entrails,” spoke at a press conference held at the organization’s Montana headquarters. Conservative Neo-Druid and Pagan leaders from around the country gathered there to sacrifice chickens, deconstruct the meaning of last week’s election, and plot the political future of the conservative religious cause.

“We’re the most traditional religious group in the world,” said Hobson. “We worshipped trees, shrubbery and decorative ground cover long before there was a Pharaoh. Creeping liberalism threatens us all.”

Hobson began “Focus on the Entrails” in 1979 in an attempt to "spread the gospel" of magic mushrooms and deciphering animal guts. After a decade of positive public response to his original mission, Hobson eventually steered “Focus” onto a partisan political path aimed at supporting religious conservatism.

Billy Bob Odin, Vice Shaman of the Southern Pagan Convention, agreed with Hobson that a rejection of traditional values led to the Republican humiliation.

“When Republicans stray from a full commitment to Mother Earth, the consistent sacrifice of poultry, and the traditional use of hallucinogenic 'shrooms, can anyone really be surprised with this kind of outcome?"

Mud Chuck

2006-11-11T00:10:00.000-07:00

A Video Post Mortem On The Past Political Season

More Election Reflections

2006-11-10T00:33:00.000-07:00

• 70% of white evangelicals voted Tuesday for the current version of the Republicans once again. Same old, same old.

Loyalty can be commendable. But sometimes it demonstrates a lack of observation. C.S Lewis considered it the least of the virtues.

• The evangelical left made a difference this time around.

I don’t like the term evangelical left very much. Anybody in the church who doesn’t buy the right wing thing is a ‘leftist’ these days.

Let me rephrase my point. Christians who don’t buy the right wing thing made a difference this time around.

Not so much by persuading the majority of white evangelical Christians to vote in a more honest and less ideological way. That didn’t happen unfortunately.

But I think the new found commitment and sophistication of church folk who reject the Religious Right gave moderates of both parties and independents greater confidence to challenge the self-righteous folks who have been running the show for too long. I credit Jim Wallis and the crew at Sojourners for some of that new confidence.

• Most intelligent evangelicals understand that the current version of the Religious Right is unsustainable both religiously and politically. A good ass kicking sometimes concentrates the mind and makes an obvious point even clearer.

Ran across this timely essay by Michael Gerson.

At one time Gerson wrote speeches for President Bush. This is the guy who made Bush seem articulate from time to time. An impressive person, needless to say.

He makes a strong case for a new kind of evangelical social engagement that conserves the very few good things the Religious Right has accomplished but leaves it behind for a more authentically Christian and human agenda. Powerful and pretty relevant.

Election Reflection

2006-11-09T00:35:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling Shrub Dubya.

Both of us got censored this week.

I did an Oprah/Saddam Hussein satire on Monday that somebody in the Blogger universe decided wasn't fit for public consumption. Some of you may have seen it. It's gone into the cyber void.

Can't figure out why the Blogger administrators deleted my post.

Could have been the complaints of gays, Republicans, Oprah fans, Batthist sympathisers, Shia militiamen, supporters of therepeutic psychology, Catholics, the Irish, or neo-cons.

I'm betting on some Oprah fan in the conservatory with the lead pipe :^)
---------------------

Re the election my only comment is "What took so long?"

Actually, that's not my only comment. My other comment is, "Nice."

The Republicans got their butts kicked for reasons that were pretty apparent back in the 2004 election. Oh well, better late than never.

A few reasons to be glad:

--In spite of what the conservative chicken littles claimed during the election, the Democratic control of the House and Senate won't mean sodomy and sushi in the streets of Iowa City. Nor will it mean crazy protectionist trade policies or huge tax increases or vengeful witch hunts to ruin Bush and his cronies. And it certainly won't mean an irreponsible pull out from Iraq--Bush has created such a fiasco there that people on both sides of the aisle will be trying to figure out how to limit the damage and salvage something positive.

The D's will want to position themselves to gain the whole enchilada in 2008 so I think you'll see a constructive and common sense approach over the next two years.

The Republicans treated them like garbage in Congress for 12 years in an historically unprecedented display of animus and arrogance, so I expect there will be some reprisals. But I think self-interest will win out.

Also, Democrats had to run to the center to win. Colorado went from purple to deep blue because the Democrats here marginalized their crazies. Democrats now control virtually every significant public office and political institution in Colorado. Believe me, that couldn't have happened unless they proved themselves to be moderates. I think the national election followed that same pattern. The Demo victory around the country was largely a victory of moderation against ideological extremism and an inability to admit mistakes or compromise.

--Common sense immigration reform will probably pass now. Bush could never have gotten his sensible thinking on that topic enacted with an extremist Republican House.

--We'll get some accountability for the first time in 6 years. The Republican congress failed to play their constitutional role. With the change we'll see fewer lackies and yes men. Bush will have to actually listen and snap out of his 'unique' take on the world.

--As a nation we gained instant credibility around the world yesterday. In my travels I noticed that few people in other countries blamed Americans for Bush's first term even though people overseas largely loathe Bush. They chalked that election up to Republican elites stealing the election with bogus voting in Florida and a straight ticket partisan Supreme Court decision.

We lost major cred overseas with the 2004 election. People I talked to were shocked Americans would put Bush and the Republicans back in power. I was sort of shocked too at the time, but I tried to explain the power of fear post 9/11. My international friends were listening but they weren't buying.

I'm guessing a large percentage of world opinion thinks we came to our senses yesterday. That's a good thing for our future foreign policy and influence in the world.

--We'll have the first woman Speaker of the House in our history. That's no small thing.

--At one time Bush was an accomplished compromiser as Governor of Texas. That was the guy Americans originally elected back in 2000. Maybe he can regain his old rhythm and stroke and actually get some important stuff done.

--Karl Rove got his ass kicked down the block. Not just nice. Very nice. Good to see amoral people who damage the democratic process get some payback.

--Rumsfeld fell on his sword as a result of the election results. On one level I feel for the guy because I think he's quite a bit brighter and more talented than Bush but somebody's gotta be the scapegoat. We still can't quite bring ourselves to admit that we have a president that's in subtantially over his head.

On the other hand, given yesterday's election results, maybe we can. :^)

When Your Right Wing Evangelical Leader Is Probably Gay

2006-11-08T00:13:00.000-07:00

More on the election thing tomorrow and Friday.

Wanted to touch base again on the Ted Haggard scandal.

American conservative Christians are sort of fixated on sex. Maybe that’s not a revelation :^)

When a religious movement that purports to follow Jesus gets too fascinated with the homo or hetero jiggy while downplaying service to the poor and remaining largely silent about challenging the love of money you know something has gotten pretty spiritually out of whack

Hard to imagine what it would be like to be one of the leaders of the American evangelical movement and also be gay, or at least struggling to come to terms with your sexual orientation. I truly feel for Haggard.

Currrent Republican politics is based in part on bashing gays. Most of these evangelical and fundamentalist leaders support right wing Republican causes in an almost knee-jerk fashion.

James Dobson, the disturbing (to me) evangelical head of Focus on the Family, sent an email to voters across the state of Colorado a few days ago. He wanted to ‘out’ Democratic congressional Ed Perlmutter because Perlmutter allowed gay people to participate in his political campaign.

The combination of current fundamentalist sexual and political fixations strikes me as pretty unhealthy. Fundamentalism has always been about a black and white, simple-minded escape from the real world. Tempting, but a dead end nonetheless.

How could any person struggling to make sense of their sexual orientation feel the slightest freedom to speak honestly in that kind of church environment?

Taking Responsibility in Colorado Springs

2006-11-07T00:20:00.000-07:00

Had some fun yesterday with the current Oprah sized, American style take on accountability.

I’d love to hear a public figure in the US admit once in a while that they made a mistake without all the explanations and denials and delving into their psyches in order to get sympathy. Non-denial denials and non-confession confessions have evolved into a fine art form. And we've even got a whole segment of the TV industry set up to help people practice that fine art.

Sorry to see the Ted Haggard scandal blow up down in Colorado Springs. For those of you who aren’t following the news he was the founder and pastor of a mega-church in Colorado Springs who was also the head of the National Association of Evangelicals. He was dismissed from his pastorate and the leadership of the nation’s largest and most respected evangelical organization because of “sexual immorality.”

I don’t want to get into a discussion of homosexuality right now though I understand why some of you would probably like to get into it given the nature of the scandal. I’ll delete any comments along those lines so don’t even think about it :^)

Thanks. Time to get back to the post.

I was pretty impressed with the way his congregation, New Life Church, responded to the whole thing.

I know some folks in that church. Seems like most of them understood the church wasn’t a personality cult. They were willing to accept that Haggard lied to them and acted under false pretenses for years as their pastor. They also showed a deep and obvious affection for him and were willing to forgive him. But they also wanted to make sure he was held accountable. Different.

Haggard himself set up an accountability system that gave respected Christian leaders outside of his own church the power to decide his fate if his fitness to lead was ever questioned. That system worked quickly and well. They dismissed him.

Members of his congregation and the outside pastoral panel believe Haggard is still unwilling to be honest about himself. They’ve been willing to speak publicly and on the record about that.

I’ve been in and around churches and Christian communities for many years and I can’t remember a church responding more honestly and publicly to the dishonesty of a Christian leader before. Or more forgivingly. Even more impressive, they haven't tried to demonize the guy who brought the whole situation to light.

Whatever you think of homosexuality or the way conservative Christians respond to it, everybody understands that leaders in any community have gotta be honest. And if they aren’t, they’ve gotta be held accountable.

Haggard himself started out with the kinds of transparently silly denials that people make when they fear losing everything. But since then he’s been willing to admit—at least on some level--his pattern of dishonesty. And when you look at the way his congregation responded and the kinds of effective accountability systems he set up, it makes you doubly sad to see him forced out of ministry.

Our political leaders seem genuinely afraid of being honest about their failures. Why that's true is the subject for another post.

But you’ve gotta be impressed with the way the folks in Colorado Springs handled the whole situation. Honesty combined with forgiveness and accountability. That’ll get it done. Might even be a good model for the political realm.

Gettin' Back To Lovetron

2006-11-04T11:31:00.000-07:00

Dunk You Very Much

Now that I'm sortin' out the NBA, whatever happened to cool, old skool NBA player nicknames? Other than Shaq's 'Diesel' and 'The Daddy,' nicknames have gone out of style in the league. Chick Hearn must be spinning in his grave.

You've got to go back to the 70's and 80's to get the classics.

George Gervin was the "IceMan," Julius Erving was "Dr J," James Worthy was "Big Game James," Charles Barkley was "The Round Mound of Rebound," and Jerry West was "Zeek From Cabin Creek" and "Mr. Clutch."

You had Hakeem "the Dream" Olajuwon and Clyde "the Glide" Drexler who both played for the University of Houston "Phi Slamma Jamma" teams before they got to the NBA. You had "Downtown Freddy Brown" jacking up treys before they counted as treys.

Daryl Dawkins even gave nicknames to his dunks. The two best? Get Out of the Wayin', Backboard Swayin', Game Delayin' Jam and Chocolate Thunder Flyin', Victory Denyin', Little Babies Cryin', Backboard Glass Flyin' I Am Jam! When asked where he went to school before getting to the NBA he claimed he was from "The Planet Lovetron."

I mean, back in the early 80's Lloyd Free actually changed his real name to "World B. Free," which has gotta be my favorite NBA name of all time.

The league changed the rules recently to restrict defenses so we'll get fan pleasing 70's and 80's style scoring orgies once again. While they're at it, why not bring back the nicknames too?

Plenty of good material to work with out there. Where are the clever sportswriters and sportscasters when you need 'em? We need you more than ever, Chickie Baby....

NBA MVP Take

2006-11-04T00:52:00.000-07:00

Not The Best Player?

Here’s my take on the NBA MVP award after 2 games around the league. What’s the point of being patient and waiting for more evidence in the age of gut intuition? Let’s let ‘er rip.

Most NBA general managers and coaches seem to think Kobe Bryant is the best player in the league. Phoenix coach Mike D'Antoni says ‘it’s not even close.’ But Kobe's a cultural bad guy right now with high marketing negatives. And he plays on a mediocre team.

So he obviously can’t be the best player :^)

The MVP award, though, isn’t necessarily about being the best.

Gotta go with The Lebrons. He’s a great player with a better team around him this season. He’ll probably have less pressure to carry the offense which might allow him to actually play some defense. And with Wise Lebron, Business Lebron, and Kid Lebron in his Nike posse how can he possibly lose? I like the Cleveland team a lot. They could get pretty deep into the playoffs.

No way Steve Nash wins a third straight MVP award. Especially since he looks like Beaver Cleaver now after cutting off his stringy long hair. But if Amare Stoudamire is really healthy you’ve gotta like Phoenix’s chances in the West.

Shaq is Jabba the Hut with a sense of humor. No mo awards.

Dwayne Wade’s got too much mileage on the odometer after playing into June and then doing the national team thing. He’ll come on in the second half of the season but it will be too little too late.

Nowitzki? I think he’s peaked. Don’t think the Mavs will win it even though they got better. Other teams in the west got a lot better.

Tim Duncan? If he’s healthy all year no question he could be the MVP. Lots of folks talk about the Spurs as if they’re an old team when in fact they’re pretty young. I think they’ve got a title or two left in ‘em.

Political Tasty Bits

2006-11-02T23:07:00.000-07:00

Parting shots before the election:

** The dean of American conservative journalists, George Will, deconstructs Iraq.

** Fareed Zakaria explains how to salvage something in Iraq and avoid total defeat.

** Why scientists are
praying for new national leadership

** Borat satirizes the dangerous clowns who run Kazakhstan.
How come we can't get a home grown comedian to do this same kind of guerilla comedy aimed at our own current leaders? Check out how the professional White House journalists respond to Borat's news conference. Hilarious.

Cool Political Stuff That Won't Happen

2006-11-02T01:31:00.000-07:00

Gag This Man

Geez, would somebody tie up John Kerry and stick him in the attic until after the election? He's the gift that keeps on giving to the folks who deserve to have their clocks cleaned in the upcoming election. The man's gotta genius for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. At least he was willing to offer a clear public apology for a mistake, something no one among our present leaders has been willing to do for 6 years. Bush just announced he wants Rumsfeld to remain in his job through 2008. Unbelievable. No, check that. It goes beyond unbelievable into the twilight zone.

Always fun to imagine a different political reality during those brief moments of clarity at the coffee break. Here's some cool stuff that won't happen:

• Obama Runs for President in 2008

Definitely nawgahappen. Would be cool to see a black man with no baggage get a shot after a couple of more years in the Senate under his belt. Hey, I said "get a shot," not "get shot." He’s got the role of religion in politics prophetically figured out.

• Hillary Runs With Obama

Definitely nawgahappen. White woman and black man seek to run the show. The extra large fear buttons would get pushed. Win or lose though, good for the country.

• McCain Refuses to Pander to the Religious Right

Nawgahappen. McCain is one of those old school libertarian conservatives I tend to dig. It’s obvious he holds his nose in the vicinity of the Religious Right but he’ll get whacked in the nomination process by the believers if he doesn’t run with somebody the Southern Baptists are willing to take grape juice with during communion.

• McCain and Hillary Run A Civil and Encouraging Campaign

Absolutely nawgahappen.

Even though they clearly like and respect each other a lot.

When was the last time you could say that about the presumptive presidential candidates in an American election? 41 versus Bill in 1992? Not really. Poppy Bush Loves Bubba now but thought he was trailer trash in ’92.

The 'independent' political committees will throw feces into the fan no matter what the candidates do. The political Moore’s Law states that campaigns double in viciousness every 2 years. No reason to doubt those physics.

• McCain or Hillary Win and Appoint ‘The Enemy” to Their Cabinet

Probably nawgahappen but you never know :^)

McCain could appoint Al Gore to the post of Secretary of Global Warming and drive the conservative true believers ape-shit. I’d pay cash money to see that.

Or Hillary could defeat McCain and then appoint him Secretary of Defense. Cool.

It’s not as far fetched as you think. That kind of thing used to be fairly common until pretty recently. Lincoln filled his cabinet with his political enemies because he thought they were the best men available and believed the country needed the very best during the Civil War. Almost impossible to imagine given our current leaders, but there's always hope.

Rocky Mountain Blues

2006-11-01T11:59:00.000-07:00

Hard to say what’s going to happen Tuesday and in the next few years in national politics.

I love Bush’s comment that the Democrats are “dancing in the end zone when they’re still on the 15 yard line.” Exactly. Winning in US politics long ago became more about organization, money and machinery than about better people or ideas. Politics has rarely been either 'civil' or a 'discourse.'And whatever you think of the relative merits of the Democratic or Republican vision or approach, the Republicans have an advantage in the areas that really count.

But Colorado may end up as a bellwether for things to come in the US. We’ve got some fascinating and possibly ‘tectonic’ political shifts goin’ on right now:

• Coloradans have historically voted Republican and registered Republicans outnumber Democrats here by a wide margin. Yet, both the state Senate and House are firmly in the hands of the Democrats, we’re about to elect a Democratic governor in a landslide vote, and our US congressional delegation will likely be strongly Democratic after next Tuesday.

• Polls show that white evangelicals are still the Republican Party’s most solid constituency in Colorado as they are across the nation, but support among that group for Republicans has been dropping steadily for four or five years from almost 70% to about 55% right now. Again, that drop more or less mirrors what’s been going on around the country.

How come Colorado is turning purple/blue? A coupla quick thoughts:

• Bush. The worst congress ever? Enough said.

• Democrats here in Colorado have pushed their nutty folks to the margins while the Republicans here continue to embrace and pander to their wackies. You’ve got Democratic candidates who speak knowledgably about the economy and business while pushing a socially moderate approach. By contrast, the Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor recently said she thought giving gays the right to form civil unions will lead to sex with animals. Compare and contrast.

• Lots of folks here--including quite a few evangelicals if the polls can be trusted--have run out of patience with evangelical Christian leaders who have lost their sense of perspective or political balance. Colorado Springs is often referred to as ‘The Evangelical Vatican” because we’ve got so many conservative Christian organizations—including Focus on the Family--with their headquarters there. James Dobson, the head of FOTF, started out like a lot of well meaning evangelicals who wanted to encourage Christians to get more involved in politics. Good idea.

But at some point he and many other conservative Christian leaders moved beyond encouraging involvement into taking a hardened and extreme partisan position. Dobson was once widely respected in Colorado but now he’s become the butt of jokes and a political liability for many Republican candidates who are trying to appeal to more reasonable and/or independent voters. He’s at it again. Many conservatives here lean libertarian and the constant Christian Right attempt to shape public morality around a couple of narrow issues is starting to wear thin. Seems like this same dynamic may be playing itself out around the country too.

Maybe the combo of reasonable and moderate Democrats, the growing backlash against conservative extremism and the Christian Right, and the defection of previous members of the Christian Right who are fed up, will end up shifting national politics in a major way over the next couple of years. I guess we’ll start getting some answers pretty quick....

Whatever Happened To Conservativism?

2006-10-31T00:14:00.000-07:00

Elections are up next. Let’s get political.

Though John Stuart Mill once said "Conservatives aren't stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives," I have the greatest respect for real conservative thought.

Yeah, I know. Hard to believe.

But it’s true.

My mom was a full-on western style libertarian conservative with an ideological and intuitive thing for personal responsibility and a suspicion of too much power of any kind. And an allergy about invading other countries or the smallest whiff of imperial arrogance. Oh, and a commitment to helping people become economically productive. And an even stronger commitment to affirm traditional values while recognizing the democratic (and libertarian) imperative to ‘live and let live.”

I remember walking the streets of San Francisco in 1964 as a 7 year old with my mom campaigning and handing out cans of orange pop labeled “Goldwater.” We were sticking it to The Liberal, Democratic Man. It took some cajones to support Barry Goldwater in the Bay Area in the mid-60’s. :^) My mom sometimes worried that those “crazy students” at Berkeley would follow us home after a Republican Party rally and “make trouble.”

I left ideological conservatism behind a long time ago because the real world version began to strike me as even more bogus than the usual political spin. When the people who talk about encouraging small government end up consistently expanding government more than ‘the crazy liberals’ you know you’re dealing with a shell game and misdirection aimed at getting well meaning folks to vote Republican. And when support for traditional values combined with a politically libertarian commitment to ‘live and let live” becomes weird southern-fried religious extremism it’s well past the time to head for the exits. And that was my take years ago. Probably not hard to guess my views on the current version of conservativism.

Yet old school, western style libertarian conservatism is worthy of respect. I've often thought that traditional conservativism and the best of liberalism are sort of a political ying and yang--you've got to have both if you want constructive and healthy political outcomes. In fact, I'd say traditional conservativism and liberalism go even deeper than politics. In many ways they reflect critical aspects of human personality and the way various people are 'hardwired' to view the world differently.

A bunch of students at the University of Colorado are setting up a new conservative organization aimed at rejecting what they believe is the betrayal of the best of traditional, libertarian conservative values by the current version of the Republican Party. They think Rovian conservatism is little more than gaining and maintaining power at any cost. Wonder how they got that idea?

Good for them. Maybe their approach will catch on. I’d love to have a chance to vote for or against a new (old?) version of real world conservativism I can feel good about again.

Mid Course Correction

2006-10-30T12:01:00.000-07:00

Washington (Reuters)

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow announced Friday that President Bush will no longer use the term “Stay the Course” to describe his policy toward the ill-fated invasion that has severely damaged his presidency and the election prospects of the Republican party.

Though publicly expressing confidence, White House insiders privately acknowledge that "the invasion has increased sectarian conflict and political division and has harmed a country we were trying to help."

One high ranking official at the State Department said, "Many of us now recognize that the right wing invasion of Washington was a big mistake."

Ambitious Editor

2006-10-28T00:20:00.000-06:00

Got an email yesterday from the editor of Common Ground Journal, an online theological journal with lots of readers among accomplished Christian folks trying to do some good in the developing world. CGJ is apparently a part of the Can Do Spirit Network.

Anybody with enough huevos to give their network that kind of name deserves an honest response.

She wants me to write an article explaining why the spread of Christianity in the two thirds world seems to have had "so little transformational impact" on society.

She’d also like me to break down the less common success stories and explain why some places seem to do better after a big bunch of folks come to Jesus.

I’ve got 3000 words :^)

I’m surprised she didn’t ask me to throw in my take on a unified, universal theory of physics.

I’m guessing she’s in her 20’s.

God bless young people.

Some Jokes Are More Equal Than Others

2006-10-27T00:27:00.000-06:00

This Is How We Do It?

Some really interesting stuff from a couple of you in the comments section of the last post. Fun to think about humor in a little more depth.

Humor doesn’t translate well. It’s situation specific and fluid and so dependent on lots of almost unconscious references and right brain intuitive connections that it probably just can't make the journey across cultural barriers easily.

So when you do satire you can be pretty sure you’ll offend somebody.

And from my experience cross-culturally, when you do pretty much any kind of humor 'across culture' you're gonna get some ticked off folks and a whole lot of blank looks :^) Given how ethnically and ideologically diverse America is, you can't really do humor in any kind of public way without running the risk of hurting some feelings or confusing some people.

But unless you want to eliminate satire altogether--which would cut down big time on the general merriment quotient and remove one of the best and most powerful tools to remind us of our common pretentiousness--the goal of satire should be to take the risk to be funny but to do everything you can to avoid gratuitious offensiveness. Tricky, but I definitely think it's doable. Risk free humor simply isn't very funny cuz the risk part is what gives it the spice and the kick.

It's also much more immediately accesible and even more emotionally powerful than prosaic approaches. I suppose a nuanced, subtle and prosaic discussion of the extent of anti-Semitism in the Muslim world or among blue collar whites in the Southwest would be more 'fair' and illuminating in one sense than hearing Borat singing "Throw the Jew Down the Well,"
but who can deny how much more immediate emotional power Cohen has to show that anti-Semitism is alive and well and how fundamentally stupid that prejudice is.

Seems to me you need both subtle nuance and broader satire in the tool box. Some folks like nuance better but most likee their satire and jokes more.

Having said all that, it's clear some jokes are more equal than others.

Seems to me it’s all about the spirit of the thing. Some examples of good satire/bad satire:

P.J O’Rourke and Steven Colbert:
Risk taking guys without a hostile edge that satirize specific people and situations but do it to expose failings we all share (and privately think are funny in our best moments).

Carlos Mencia and Sacha Baron Cohen (Ali G): Mencia's a really funny working class satirist. Really connects in a human way but unfortunately also packs some underlying hostility. Too soon to tell. The jury is still out. Cohen is hilarious and can be winningly self-deprecating. Doesn't have the undercurrent of anger you feel with Mencia but he goes way over the top sometimes into gratuitous offensiveness.

Anne Coulter and Bill Maher: Very funny political/cultural satirists. Coulter is truly vicious. Maher makes me laugh as much as anybody I know right now and is pretty intellectually honest but he won’t win any humility contests anytime soon. Makes him hard to hear sometimes. Too bad. Great satirists are usually pretty bright folks and arrogance is a common weakness in the genre.

South Park and The Simpsons: The ultimate satirical toons. Lemme do some Rocky Mountain bragging. South Park was created by Colorado folks. South Park is actually a real place in Colorado where I do a lot of climbing. Like I've said before, there's gotta be something in the water in the Rockies. Or maybe it's the lack of oxygen.

In my mind SP is super creative and really cuts to the heart of what's going on but goes way over the top into offensiveness for offensiveness' sake at times. The Simpsons, on the other hand, hit it just about right.

I wish most religious folks weren’t so afraid of offending people.

You've got a whole lot of exceptionally kind people in Christian communities and a good number of folks who genuinely want to be bring groups in conflict together, so the willingness to risk misunderstanding and give offense is low. You've also got a lot of folks who are pretty emotionally fragile--the church is for hurting people, after all! And all of us have a deep and not entirely healthy fear of being laughed at. So I understand why things are the way they are.

But I know there are a lot of very funny types out in the pews with a satirical sensibility because I’ve met some of them. It’s a shame we probably won’t get to hear from ‘em.

Some of us could use the laughs.

The Punch Line That Ends History

2006-10-26T00:08:00.000-06:00

St. Francis had it figured out.

Gotta be clowns for God if you wanna know God.

Christians believe that inflated self-importance is the root of all evil.

Satire is the funniest and one of the most socially acceptable tools to stick a pin in that whole unhealthy thing.

How come religious people—and especially Christians—are so afraid of using it?

Not sure why theologians have paid so little attention to humor either.

While I wait for The Punch Line That Ends History I’ll take
the funniest stuff I can get.

We Are Not Worthy

2006-10-25T00:17:00.000-06:00

"I Having Happy Time"

Here's the third straight post on message. Stay the course!

Most folks doing satire make up all the characters. Others play one of the characters and get real people to unsuspectingly take on the counter point roles on camera.

Sacha Baron Cohen can do both but he's really got the latter goin' on

I've been an Ali G Show fan for years. Still, a lot of people I talk to don't know who Cohen is (a Jewish comedian/satirist from England) cuz Ali G's mostly a cult thing on HBO.

That's all gonna change in a few weeks. Unless you've been living in a cave you know Borat is coming.

This is how you do it.

There's No Place Like Home

2006-10-24T11:30:00.000-06:00

Welcome once again to Focus on Your Embarrassing Family. I'm your host, James Dobson.

Just a reminder to our faithful viewers to buy my books Love Must Be Tough, Tough Love Must Be, Must Love Be Tough?, Be Tough Love Must, and Bringing Up Boys Who Won't Turn Out To Be Fairies.

Though we always avoid politics and stick with the psycho-pastoral dimension here at FOYEF, I want to welcome an important political guest tonite. Many of you will be surprised and pleased to meet one of today's most important public figures.

She's here to announce that she won't be running for president in 2008!

I'd like you all to give our first time guest, Senator Hillary Clinton, a warm Christian welcome. You can just lay hands on the remote and say a special prayer for a lost sheep.

Thank you so much for your gracious introduction, Pastor Dobson.

Frankly, Senator Clinton, I'm shocked by the way you look. None of us have ever seen you this way before.

Well, to be honest, Pastor Dobson, that's exactly why I'm here.

I thought I was an exceptionally bright, courageous and well-meaning woman over the years. I believed I was a committed and god-fearing Methodist since childhood and someone who has advanced women's interests as much as anybody in the past decades. But now I realize I was just fooling myself.

After listening to your wise psycho-pastoral insights for the past few years and reading your books, I've realized I've been living a lie. I've seen the light! I've found the courage to allow God and his NASCAR followers to define me rather than insisting on that false image I always thought was really me.

I just didn't understand a woman's place.

I don't mean to shock your audience, but I've worshipped at the altar of the hairy female leg and have offended against nature and the order of things.

Yes, I admit it! I'm really a witch!! I'm a catty, power hungry bitch!!! I'm a grasping, man hating feminist!!!! (sobs quietly into camera)

But I sincerely want to change. I now realize you cannot serve both Mother Jones and the Lord High God.

And for the good of the country, for heaven's sakes, I can't run for president. My sweet Lord, what would happen if a joker like Kim Jong Il pulled some nuclear stunt during that time of the month? We could end up in WW3 over PMS. It's truly frightening!

Oh, dear, dear Hillary. My faithful viewers and I have known it all along in our hearts. By revealing your true self you've taken the right first step toward healing. I admire your courage in repenting here before my national audience. You're close to the Kingdom, indeed

I knew you would understand. I wanted to come clean here today with the kind of people who've always really understood me.

How easily we're all fooled.

Many of my Republican friends in Washington told me you're one of the most reasonable and deferential people in the Senate toward your male colleagues and that even the Republican senators like and deeply respect you. Karl Rove actually tried to order Republican senators to stop cooperating with you because working with you would enhance your presidential chances. They ignored him.

I was even starting to think I might have been wrong about you and that I might have to reconsider my hostility to feminism.

But you know, putting my biases and prejudices front and center has never let me down. I should have known better!

My spirit wants to do the right thing, Psycho-Pastor Dobson.

But my flesh says, "Yeah, the bitch is back in town! I want to be president! Why can't a woman have a shot at running things for once?! What have we got to lose?!" I shock myself with the kinds of things that go through my mind!

I've even thought of running for president with Barak Obama as my vice-presidential running mate. Are you aware he's a negro, Pastor Dobson?

Oh, what's happened to me?! How could I have let it go on so long?

You're struggling with your sin nature, near-sister Hillary. You'll have to subdue the flesh with the help of my latest compassionate conservative DVD, Submission to White Republican Men is Tough or its companion DVD, Bringing Up Girls Who Won't Turn Out To Be Feminist Witches That Run for President With Ambiguously Liberal Negroes.

Oh, Pastor Dobson, I don't want a political career! I just want to be loved by God and the NASCAR people the way you and Dorothy and Toto are. Nobody wants to be thought of as a bitch all their lives. I just don't have the strength to take it anymore! Will I ever be able to stop being a grasping witch?

Well, there is a way....

Just get out of politics. Shave that unsightly stubble off your legs. Put on the ruby slippers.

Then click your heels together and repeat over and over again, "There's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like home...."

Can Religious Folk Take a Joke?

2006-10-22T21:33:00.000-06:00

"See, Not So Bad Once You're Up."

Haven’t heard a good sermon or read a good article about blasphemy recently.

My son Andrew and I both love Monty Python’s The Life of Brian. Andrew especially gets a kick out of the “Always Look On the Bright Side of Life” song that Brian and his followers sing while being crucified.

I like almost any form of religious satire. Makes little difference which faith or which place. Seems like Jesus himself spent a lot of his time skewering actual religion.

But maybe you can get too much of a good thing.

More traditional Christians have always thought so. And I’m guessing much of the Islamic cultural anger about the west basically comes down to a very different understanding of blasphemy and the kinds of limits on what can be said about God or religious people.

When the Pythons satirized Christianity they made sure to differentiate Brian from Jesus. When I poked fun at violence and power loving right wing Christianity in Confessions of Neo-Conservative Jesus I also made sure that the object of satire was a clearly bogus version of Jesus. To do otherwise would get you huge grief even in the current "secular" west.

When I was an undergrad I heard a famous 70 year old English humorist who came to Stanford say, “All humor is based on the difference between aspiration and actual achievement. At my age, that’s why sex is so funny.”

If that definition of humor is true, can people who believe God is perfect ever use real satire or joke about God? And if religions tend to make a close identification between religious followers and their God, how much satire and humor is OK when applied to religious groups and institutions?

I’m pretty interested in why religious satire tends to produce such intense emotion and even hatred and violence. Seems like kind of a key question right now.

Can religious folk take a joke?

BCS Picks and Takes

2006-10-21T23:19:00.000-06:00

The leaves are falling in Colorado. The first BCS poll is in. Time for some picks and takes on college football.

Cosmic Smack Down?

Oklahoma loses their best quarterback to a used car lot scandal before the season. They lose a game at Oregon when instant replay officials go temporarily blind. They lose the best running back in the nation when he breaks his collar bone while showboating and diving into the end zone at the end of a long touchdown run.

Slow and Potentially Low USC

SC has won 50 of their last 52 games in Division 1. Not sure any major college team will ever pull off that kind of streak again.

I’ve seen most of their games this year.

They look slow and seem to lack the passion of past years. Hard to keep the intensity when you’ve been so successful. Especially when everybody else brings their best effort of the season against you.

Pete Carroll might be losing his emotional mojo.

Best Conferences Top to Bottom

SEC but not by as much as some say. Big Ten. Pac Ten. Big Twelve. ACC.

Why does the Big East gets an automatic BCS bid? Why is the Big East even in the BCS mix?

Best Team That Won’t Win the National Championship

Texas.

Basically the same team that beat SC last year in the title game. Breaking in a freshman qb. He’s getting better every game. They don’t have a strong schedule which will hurt them in the BCS computer rankings but by the end of the season they’ll be one of the best—if not the best—team in the country.

Sometimes All You’ve Got Is Hope

Stanford has lost every game this year. Colorado is 1-7. My guys are taking a beating.

Glad I’m a lifelong UCLA and SC fan too. Always good to diversify :^)

No Great Team

Saw a bunch of games today and every one of them came down to the last minute. Very cool. No great team this year. Gotta like college football without a current dynasty.

BCS Championship Game

Gotta go with Ohio State to beat Michigan and get to the finals.

The other team could be either SC or Auburn.

SC just isn’t playing very well right now. Seems like they peaked early and have been regressing every week since then. Hard to see them getting through the Oregon, Cal, Notre Dame and UCLA gauntlet. If they can pull it off the BCS should just give them the national championship trophy without even playing a title game.

Auburn has an easier road than SC but still rough.

SC could lose one of those four tough games to end the season and still get into the BCS championship game because the computers will reward them for such a brutal schedule. Can’t remember a team losing a game near the end of the season and getting into the championship game but SC could pull it off this year.

Oh Well

2006-10-21T21:41:00.000-06:00

No more political/premature ejaculation/Viagra posts here at P and P. Guess that last one was too obscure or too crude. Made me laugh, though. Sometimes being your own best audience can get you into trouble :^)

The Vice President's Premature Iraq Elation

2006-10-20T00:26:00.000-06:00

Describing the Embarrassing Moment

Vice President Cheney admitted to Time magazine this week that he suffered an embarrassing episode of premature Iraq elation.

Hey, don’t take it too hard Dick. It happens to most guys eventually. Wives tend to be very understanding about that kind of thing.

Maybe it’s that Viagra you're taking.

If so some of the other side effects can be even worse.

If after taking Viagra you experience rigid and inflexible thinking that lasts for more than four hours, consult your doctor. It can be dangerous and cause long term damage to your health and to those around you.

Trusting the Blogosphere?

2006-10-19T13:13:00.000-06:00

I’ve got mixed feelings about the underground media phenomenon.

I couldn’t be more pumped by the democratic explosion of creativity and opinion going on right now. I love it that anybody can start up a blog or make their own video or record their own podcast or create their own game and find an audience. No question in my mind we’re at the front end of a communications revolution that’s going to change everything including politics and religion in a big way.

I mean, look back at the thread from my post Coming Out of the Closet from last week. Where else would that discussion be possible? You’d have to work very hard to get a group of folks with that variety of opinions on homosexuality together in one place and speak in a painfully honest way with each other. But on a blog what would be nearly impossible becomes possible. And everybody benefits from hearing what people really think and feel rather than listening to spin. How great is that?

But on the other hand it seems like the underground media--at least at this point—is so subjective and derivative that I wonder why people trust it as much as many folks do as a source of information.

Most underground media stuff makes Fox News look like a paragon of Solomonic and Socratic balance and evenhandedness. It’s so biased and imbalanced that it’s funny. A couple of months back I thought about doing a satirical piece on how whacky a lot of it is, but I realized that the underground media is pretty much beyond satire. It’s its own satire. No need for a satirist to point out how goofily extreme most of it is. That’s obvious to anyone who spends much time surfing the blogosphere or listening to podcasts or checking out YouTube.

And I think that’s part of the design and the attraction. The underground media is post-modernism. Even if you can’t describe post-modernism easily you can see it and experience it online. It’s all about subjectivity. The person who experiences the whole bewildering thing is left to sort it out and to create their own biased take for the sake of ‘authenticity.’

The underground media is derivative because it still depends on serious mainstream media journalists for the ‘facts’ and the ‘news.’ The blogosphere is like a gigantic and somewhat manic editorial page. Great at getting people’s creative opinions out there but very poor at doing the basic bread and butter work of real journalism or uncovering ‘the facts.’

And at this point much of the blogosphere has become commentary on the rest of the blogosphere. When things get that self-referential the connection to ‘actual events in the real world’ becomes pretty tenuous. You end up with ideological feeding frenzies where members of sub-groups reinforce their own realities regardless of how little that reality corresponds to what's actually going on outside the blogosphere.

Again, I love the underground media. But its no substitute—at least at this point—for real journalism.

Fair and Balanced?

2006-10-18T13:18:00.000-06:00

It's Spin and Trust week at P and P.

Had some fun yesterday with political spin and why folks tend not to trust politicians.

Wanna look today at why people seem to trust the traditional media even less, and tomorrow at why we seem so willing to trust the emerging "underground" media.

Talked with a younger friend last week who is as ‘progressive’ as they come, and I would say as ‘fair’ as they come too. We were talking about something in the news and she finished up her comment by saying, “But of course, if it’s in the media who knows whether you can take it seriously.”

I was a little taken aback because I usually expect to hear that kind of thing from conservative folks whose hostility to the media is as old as the hills.

But I’ve come to recognize that this deeper distrust of the traditional media is a whole lot wider and less strictly ideological than it used to be.

In general, I think the traditional media does a pretty decent job most of the time. It’s not clear to me that ideology deeply colors what’s on offer (with some funny exceptions like Fox News) or that the traditional media is ‘too skeptical.' If anything, my more recent critique is that the traditional media wasn’t aggressive enough in challenging the kind of egregious political spin we’ve been exposed to during the last 6 years.

I understand that the traditional media news outlets are increasingly controlled by a few small companies and rich guys, and that a lot of it is sensationalism and entertainment in order to make money instead of real journalism. And I know that some people think the traditional media is grossly ideologically biased while other post mod types think the whole idea of big media news outlets who 'evenhandedly' report and interpret the news for a wider audience is basically impossible. And there's no doubt that folks right now are savvier about the ways that information and images can be packaged to spin effectively. So I get a lot of the scepticism.

Yet I wonder if we’re on pretty dangerous ground by continuing to fuel the idea that large and professional media outlets simply can’t be trusted.

In my mind that contributes to a breakdown of public dialogue across ideology and subgroups. When everybody only listens to their own ‘in house’ information sources it makes democratic dialogue almost impossible. Seems like we're starving for real dialogue and discussion right now. Can that be achieved unless there are some professional news sources that most fair-minded folks deem acceptably 'authoritative' and 'trustworthy?'

And I wonder if the current hostility toward the traditional media plays right into the hands of political power which always wants to discredit the media because of its potential watchdog role. Maybe that's part of the reason our current governing yahoos have gotten away with so much. Ironically, conservatives, who supposedly want to limit the power of government, may actually contribute to excessive government power by constantly harping on the media.

The Return of Baghdad Bob

2006-10-17T11:44:00.000-06:00

This is Anderson Cooper with CNN's “360” broadcasting from Iraq. I’ve got a special guest tonight. Many of you know him as ‘Baghdad Bob’ or “Comical Ali.”

Baghdad Bob served as the information minister for Saddam Hussein during the US invasion of Iraq and became famous for his shameless and entertaining spin.
Here are some clips of Bob’s announcements made as American troops entered and occupied Baghdad:

"Nobody came here. Those America losers, I think their repeated frequent lies are bringing them down very rapidly.... Baghdad is secure, is safe."
There are no American infidels in Baghdad. Never! Truly. I can say, and I am responsible for what I am saying, that they have started to commit suicide under the walls of Baghdad. We will encourage them to commit more suicides quickly!”

After the war Baghdad Bob left Iraq and became a guest lecturer in Communications at Abu Dhabi U. He was recently hired by Karen Hughes, a longtime associate of President Bush. Hughes heads up the Bush Administration’s public relations efforts to improve America’s image in the Islamic world.

Welcome to my show, Baghdad Bob.

I thank you, manly and grey haired Cooper Anderson. May your effeminate competition shrivel like a fig in the noonday sun!

Uh, well, ok. Thanks.

You once worked for Saddam Hussein. Now you’re a spokesperson for the Bush administration. You’re obviously a survivor. How do you reconcile such a dramatic shift?

My father Baghdad Bill always said to me, “Young Baghdad Bob, the most important thing in life is to know which side of the pita holds the falafel.” This is wisdom Cooper Anderson.

You’re hosting your own morning talk show in Baghdad. Tell us about it.

We call it The Survive Today Show with Baghdad Bob. You know, the usual morning formula. Some cooking. Some weather. Some conversation. Up close and personal stories of beheadings and bomb blasts. Everyday stuff.

We’re getting big audience share among those few who have electricity in the morning. I think our Put The Smack Back In Iraq ad campaign really got your average Ahmad tuning in.

Many people in the US think the Bush Administration's attempts to improve America’s image through public relations campaigns are silly and counterproductive. Your 55 year old Republican boss Karen Hughes recently danced with young rappers in Morocco in a painfully staged attempt to get jiggy with the potential jihadists. A lot of people think this kind of thing is faintly ridiculous, particularly given the obvious failure of the Bush Administration’s foreign policy.

Who says such things?! May a diseased goat drag its nasty bits through their cereal! These people are impotent jackals yapping and nipping at the heels of the Great Lion Boosh. He will crush their scavenging jaws, Allah willing.

The strong majority of Americans—including an increasing number of high ranking Republicans—now believe that Iraq is a fiasco. Well meaning people on both sides of the aisle are trying to figure out how to do damage control and get out as soon as possible. They recognize that Iraq is in the midst of a civil war.

Civil war? What civil war?! There is no civil war!!

Yes, yes, there are some problems. Abdul bumps Mohammed’s sheep. Mohammed insults Abdul. Abdul calls in the relatives. Everybody gets out the AK-47’s. Tens of thousands are killed. You know how it is. Just a misunderstanding and a little overreaction. But no civil war.

Do not be fooled by the Defeatocrats with their shrunken scrotums and their skinny women congressmen who cannot suckle children. They have a bad attitude. That is their problem!

Every day in every way we get a little better. We are taking control of our lives. We will settle for nothing but the best. Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. A stitch in time saves nine. A penny saved is a penny earned. American ends in “I Can.” There is no “I” in team. If this van starts a rockin’ don’t keep a knockin’.

You see, we know and believe in your smart American sayings and wisdom, Cooper Anderson.

With the right attitude we can accomplish anything! (begins singing to the tune of "High Hopes") Once there was a silly old ant, tried to lift a rubber tree plant. Everyone knows an ant can't lift a rubber tree plant.... You know how that funny little song ends, don't you Cooper Anderson?!

I’ve arranged for Tony Robbins, your American inspirational speaker, to do a series of conventions throughout the country next month. We’re calling it the Release Your Inner Winner Before Dinner tour.

Many in America believe the administration’s position in Iraq has degenerated into little more than optimistic slogans and inspirational spin. They believe we're offering the Iraqi people nothing but pep talks because we're powerless to bring about real change at this point. Lots of Americans are hoping for more realistic and pragmatic leadership soon that can take practical steps to limit the damage of a disastrous war. Some say it’s time for the grownups to take charge of the playground.

Spin? What Spin?! There is no spin!!

I can say, and I am responsible for what I am saying, that the militias are putting down their arms even as we speak and joining hands to sing Blowin' in the Wind by your Bob Dylan and also other folk songs by your Tracy Chapman and the Indigo Girls.

We in Iraq have a glorious future, Cooper Anderson! (begins singing to the tune of "High Hopes") But we have high hopes, we have high hopes, we have high apple pie in the sky hopes. So anytime we're feeling bad, really feelin' bad, we just remember that ant, oh, oops there goes another rubber tree, oops there goes another rubber tree, oops there goes another rubber tree plant!

DAM Fine Building

2006-10-16T00:19:00.000-06:00

Those of you who know me know I’m an art and architecture freak.

So I was geeked up big time last Friday when Jan and I went down to the brand new Denver Art Museum Fredrick Hamilton Building. I’ve been waiting for two years. Last week was the grand opening.

The people who founded the Denver Art Museum had a genius for marketing. Could have called it the Denver Museum of Art according to common practice. But would have missed out on every opportunity to sell Denver Art Museum (DAM) products. DAM Fine Art. DAM Fine Paintings. DAM Fine Food in the DAM Fine Cafe. DAM Fine T-Shirts.

Daniel Libeskind--the guy chosen to design the new World Trade Center in New York—designed the Hamilton Building. He’s a painfully hip Swiss global nomad wearing the obligatory black but his work breaks through stereotypes in a big way.

Denver is a visually striking city. A lot of cool architecture. Big skies. Remarkable light. And of course, the Rockies as the backdrop. Very sophisticated arts scene. Very few folks here are easily blown away.

But the Hamilton is the shock of the new in the best sense of that term.

It’s a jagged titanium crystal formation erupting out of the pavement. Libeskind says he was trying to capture the sharp geometric jumble of rocks and shattered angles you see in the Rockies. He definitely pulled it off.

The inside is almost as cool as the outside. Almost nothing at 90 degrees in the whole building. Going up and down the staircase is a little like mountain climbing over irregular terrain.

I loved it but a lot of people who visited the first week said they got vertigo and had to hang on tight to the railing.

What could be better in an art museum? :^) That's what art and architecture are supposed to do--knock you a little cock-eyed so you'll look closely and stop taking things for granted.

At least for the moment, the "dusty old cow town" is at the center of the art world. Sweet!

Check out the pics.

Pics

2006-10-14T00:15:00.000-06:00

Just uploaded a ton of pics to my Flickr page.

You can plow through my photo stream one take at a time by clicking on the 'more of wordcat57's photos' link at the bottom of the Flickr badge on the right border of P and P.

Or, you can go straight to my sets (albums) here.
That’s the best way to do the grand tour.

If you go to the sets everything from “Family Roots” on is brand new.

Most of these shots are courtesy of my wife Jan. I only took up photography more seriously with the invention of digital cameras. With the dig cams you can take a hundred pics, erase the 95 crappy ones and keep the 5 good ones and it costs you nothing. Back in the day you had to pay for every mistake :^) With digital cameras everybody's Ansel Adams.

I promised to upload important family pics to the web a few months ago. Yow. Don’t ever agree to something like that unless you’re really committed. Ended up choosing a little over 500 pics from about 5000 which took zega spare hours. By the time I finished getting ‘em digitized and uploaded onto Flickr I burned a whole lot of free time.

But still, sort of cool to have a visual chronicle of our lives that we can access at any time and that other folks can check out too.

Be back Monday steady posting.

The Case of the Cursing Missionary

2006-10-13T00:10:00.000-06:00

"And May God Bless You All, My Dear @&%$#&*%@!!! Friends"

Got an update today from a friend who just got back from a stint as a missionary in India.

Trying to bring positive change across cultures and world views is tough. I guess we're all learning that very hard lesson once again these days.

Here's a passage from her letter:

Right before I left India, my friend Sunita pulled me aside with an embarrassed laugh. “You know when you say the word 'small?'”

“Yes,” I replied with an ominous feeling.

“Well. Well…...you’re making the wrong sound in Hindi. You’re saying a really bad word.”

She was so embarrassed, she wouldn’t even tell me what it was. I had to wrangle it out of the hair cutter.

Yup, basically every time I went to the vegetable guy, asking for the baby eggplants, or the numerous times I asked about the tiny grapes that didn’t ever appear this past season, and basically every situation where you would use the very important word small or little about things like children, I was in effect saying ”Give me the F**n eggplants!” “Go call your F**n brother!”

I’d say running around cursing out the neighborhood wouldn’t be an ideal missionary tactic, but I guess I’ll have to just rely on Jesus’ grace for that one!

You May Now Touch My Pet Monkey

2006-10-12T00:07:00.000-06:00

My favorite Mike Meyers character back when SNL was funny was Dieter The Post Christian Post Modern Uber Techno Dancing German. Always fun seeing pretentious European artsiness taking a satirical hit or two.

Here's another variation on the same theme by some pretty anarchical and funny backwoods bubbas from Montana. Couldn't be more 'out there' but made me laugh.

After watching this vid and considering that Napoleon Dynamite came out of Idaho I'm guessin' they're spiking our water here in the Rockies.

Can't figure out why Google would pay almost 2 billion dollars for financially hemmoraging YouTube but you've gotta love some of the stuff that sees the light of day there.

Something For Everybody

2006-10-11T00:31:00.000-06:00

We’ve got something for everybody right now in Colorado.

Amendment 43 will change the constitution of Colorado to define marriage as ‘a union between one man and one woman.’

I’m guessing some folks behind this amendment intend to send gays and polygamists fleeing back to California and Utah respectively :^). Others honestly believe that by passing a constitutional amendment people will somehow change their sexual behavior.

Referendum I will give gay and lesbian couples the legal right to join in “civil unions.” Not marriage but pretty much the same civil and legal rights that straight married couples enjoy.

We’re the only state in the union with both of these kinds of measures on the ballot at the same time.

Think I’m gonna vote no on Amendment 43.

I’m a Christian type of guy.

The institution of marriage is basically religious and has always signified the hope for a lifetime union of a man and a woman.

I’m all for it.

I’m doing it.

But I’m not sure we need constitutional amendments to support it. The best spiritual stuff always shies away from depending on the power of the state.

I’m probably gonna vote yes on Referendum I.

Can’t think of too many compelling reasons to deny basic legal and civil rights to people who want to try to care for each other for the rest of their lives.

I’m in no position to judge how well they’ll follow through. Probably not very well if the stats on divorce are any indication.

But why not give ‘em a shot to demonstrate that the stereotypes about gays are wrong?

We’re an experimental democracy. That’s what the whole thing is about and why it’s so cool and worth defending.

Coming Out of the Closet

2006-10-10T00:57:00.000-06:00

Very few people seem to choose their own sexual preference.

I sure didn’t.

Thoughtful Christians are caught in a tough bind.

The Bible seems to teach that homosexual practice is a sin.

The science indicates that sexual preference is mostly beyond the control of individuals.

The current evangelical line splits the difference.

We’re told that being homosexual is ok as long as you don’t think like a homosexual or act like a homosexual and repent of the general results of The Fall in your own life.

I understand and appreciate the biblical passages that seem to teach against homosexual practice and I get the science too.

I’m not posting to rant one way or the other.

But when I talk to a lot of honest and thoughtful Christian people—especially young Christian people—more than a few of them seem to want to avoid the issue because they don’t appear to have confidence in the old time take.

But they can’t speak or write openly about it because of the current fundamentalist climate. If they even raise the question in a serious way they risk getting booted out of the ‘fellowship’ and if they have positions of responsibility they risk losing financial support.

Maybe some folks need to come out of the closet :^)

Christians have supported a lot of dumb stuff in the past based on old-timey and eventually repudiated takes on the Bible.

Hard to know what to make of all this without a more honest discussion.

Is honest discussion in the current climate possible?

Please hold all your biblical arguments about gays. I'm pretty familiar with most of 'em.

I'm really wondering out loud why evangelical Christians can't seem to talk about this outside the seminary setting.

Enjoy Your Flight

2006-10-08T22:40:00.000-06:00

"In the Event of An Emergency Kiss Your Ass Goodbye!"

I’ve wracked up quite a few miles on a lot of airlines around the world.

Here are some facts about flying commercially that most people don’t know:

• Flying at 35 to 40 thousand feet without the protection of the bulk of the atmosphere, passengers are exposed to a whole lot of solar radiation, particularly on long international flights that often get close to the north pole. If you’re a frequent international flier and you eventually mutate into a 100 foot tall freak that attacks downtown Las Vegas you’ll know why.

• About 15 minutes into the flight the captain turns off the seat belt sign while offhandedly suggesting that you keep your seatbelt fastened even while you’re sleeping. Nobody pays attention but unexpected clear air turbulence occasionally throws food carts that weigh hundreds of pounds against the overhead luggage compartments and ceiling of the plane.

• No one has ever survived the emergency landing of a wide bodied aircraft on water in the history of aviation. So no worries about the parts of the safety spiel concerning the flotation devices under your seat or the emergency slides that will double as life rafts. The bright yellow ‘life-jackets’ are meant to make it easier for recovery teams to spot the corpses. If you’d like to increase the chances your remains will be found and identified wear the life jacket. If you don’t care one way or the other, forget about the damn thing and finish watching the movie or get right with God as the plane goes down.

• The flight attendants will also tell you to adopt a head-down fetal position in the event of a crash landing. The stall speed of a modern commercial airliner guarantees it will hit the ground with terminal velocity so you’ll be toast no matter what you do. Getting head down and fetal does tend to preserve dental data. So again, if you want to be identified definitely follow instructions. If you don’t care one way or the other, stand up and dance in your seat or even moon the other passengers. Might as well have some fun on the way out.

Forgiving and Loving Our Enemies

2006-10-07T17:24:00.000-06:00

Pretty moving audio take on the Amish response to the recent massacre of their kids in Pennsylvania. It's short and powerful.

Every once in a great while you get to see the real spiritual deal in public. Pretty inspiring contrast to so much of what's been going on here and elsewhere under the label of faith.

Golf Is Not A Sport

2006-10-06T11:23:00.000-06:00

Had a spirited discussion yesterday with a guy at the gym who tried to convince me that Tiger Woods is one of the greatest athletes of all time.

I was respectfully havin’ none of it.

It all comes down to a single question for me: Is golf a sport or just a game?

I played a lot of golf when I was in high school and college but finally gave it up due to the geologic pace. Maybe I’ll take it up again when I’m in my 70’s. Of course by then I’ll probably be incontinent and drinking out of a sippy cup too :^)

So I’m hardly unbiased.

But anyway, I hit this guy with my patented mathematical formula which clearly demonstrates that golf is simply a game and not a sport.

I won’t bore you with the details of the actual formula, but suffice to say that I grade any potential sport by assigning numerical values to various building blocks of that particular activity. So for example, any competitive pursuit that requires exceptional speed gets 2 points. Quickness gets 2 points. Jumping ability gets 2. Strength gets 2. Fine and gross motor skill coordination both get 3. Concentration and controlling fear get 3's. And so on.

Points can also be subtracted. Any competitive pursuit that can be done successfully by a middle aged guy with a 44 inch waste who just downed a martini loses a point. Pursuits where the competitors have been known to wear checked pants or knickers lose a point. If some other poor guy is forced to carry your equipment around all day, you lose a point.

Pro Golfer John Daly--Exhibit A

I don’t think it’s necessary to go through the whole exercise here and add up the points for golf or even explain the mathematical threshold that gets a competitive pursuit into the realm of ‘real sport.’ Or failing to pass that threshold, reduces a pursuit into the company of other mere games like horseshoes or Twister.

I think you’re feeling me and seeing where all this is going. Sorry Tiger :^)

The Gay Canary in the Mineshaft

2006-10-05T00:33:00.000-06:00

Historically, cities and urban economies seem to grow partly because they offer a more fluid and less judgmental environment than rural areas. Getting bright and productive people together across old timey religious and cultural barriers seems to make the economic world go around.

Or in other words, high levels of social tolerance appear to be a basic building block of economic growth.

Richard Florida’s argument just underscores that long term reality. He and other observers point out that the most economically productive places are also the most socially tolerant places.

When you look at the list of the top post-industrial metro areas which are driving our national economy and feathering the nest of even the most socially intolerant fundamentalist believers, you can’t help but notice that they specialize in greater openness to most every group, including (especially?) gays.

I’ll take a look at the whole gay marriage and civil rights thing next week from a Christian and secular point of view.

Miners used to take canaries in cages down the mineshafts to detect deadly poisonous gases. Canaries turned out to be much more sensitive to those gases than people. When the canaries survived and flourished productive work could go on. When the canaries died it was time to evacuate the mine.

Maybe gay folks and other socially marginalized groups play a similar role now in our urban and national economy. Most of the actual on-the-ground evidence suggests it.

Don’t think the right wing, conservative, Christian free markets group is buying :^)

Check that last comment. Quite a few of them may be buying. That's why I think the current free market/economic development right can't ultimately stay with the southern fried religious right. It's ultimately an incoherent alliance of convenience.

A Perfect Storm?

2006-10-04T14:26:00.000-06:00

Wanted to come back today and tomorrow and touch on a couple of the themes that Richard Florida raises in his book The Rise of the Creative Class and his Atlantic Monthly article I linked to on Monday. I think his take is potentially so key for the future of American cities and for the fight against inequality and social segregation in America.

For those of you who didn’t read the Atlantic article from Monday’s post (I’m guessing that includes most of you—come on, be honest :^) here’s a super brief take on his thinking:

• Florida argues that a new ‘class’ has arisen in America which he calls “The Creative Class.” Basically, these are highly skilled and highly educated folks who serve as the dynamic engine of the relatively new information/creativity based economy, or what a lot of folks call the post-industrial economy. Florida believes they will eventually not only dominate our economy but also deeply influence American culture and politics.

• He also says this class increasingly seeks to segregate itself in a relatively small handful of American metro areas. This synergistic collocation (his term--in plain English, creative gathering) of very bright, very educated and very well paid folks is accelerating because it brings such economic and creative benefits. As these folks live and work with each other it exponentially increases both creative breakthroughs and also individual earning power.

• The economic and cultural success of American cities in the future will depend on where the greatest number of the most skilled people settle.

• But that process is already well underway and a relatively small group of cities like San Francisco, LA, Denver, Seattle, Boston, etc. are the most common destinations of ‘the means migration’ (the huge demographic shift of the creative class to particular urban areas). Florida argues that those cities are becoming economically and culturally dominant and will become even more so in the future. He identifies the cities at the top of the means’ migration list by examining the percentage of city residents with college and advanced degrees and also the rise in real estate prices over the past few decades. He believes these cities with an early head start in the ‘means migration’ derby have a tremendous advantage over other cities and regions.

• He points out that the ‘spatial’ pattern developing in most of these cities is an increasingly wealthy, highly tolerant (more on that in tomorrow’s post) and highly educated class living ‘highly privileged’ lives in the core of the city, catered to by an underclass of service workers living in older surrounding suburbs.

I’m pretty sure Florida's on to something big. The only addition I'd make to his metro spatial take are the mostly homogeneous middle class exurbs growing out beyond the aging suburbs. Middle and upper middle class folks who don't want the creative class scene in the urban core and can't afford homes there seem to be heading that way in large numbers.

Certainly, Denver is following this pattern almost point for point and the urban and regional planning here is rooted explicitly in Florida’s thinking. Our cutting edge and progressive mayor John Hickenlooper quotes Florida regularly. Denver is aggressively seeking to win the ‘means migration’ battle by creating an urban core that will be highly attractive to young creative class types.

Some thoughts on what all this may mean:

Globalization and the post industrial economy have already begun to increase social and economic inequality dramatically. The economy grows but the rewards go to the creative class and the well off almost exclusively. Middle class and underclass wages and living standards stagnate even while overall productivity and corporate profits grow.

In addition, I think we’ve bought into some old timey American values—individualism and meritocracy—in a more extreme way than ever before. Folks right now don’t seem to mind that corporate executives make 300 times what average workers make even when that ratio might have been ten times lower 30 years ago.

Given the current effects of globalization and the post-industrial economy, and what can only be called the current fetishism of individualism and meritocracy, and granted that Florida’s ‘means migration’ is a growing trend, do we have a set of conditions that will produce a kind of ‘perfect storm’ of economic injustice and urban, class based segregation in the near future?

Buddy Christ Does Baghdad

2006-10-03T00:08:00.000-06:00

Buddy Christ

Back tomorrow on cities but couldn’t pass this up. Just too funny.

Saw a news story on CNN about a US military action yesterday against suspected militants in Sadr City, a huge Shiite slum in Baghdad.

Once the US troops left and the cameramen and reporters arrived, some of the militants produced a blown up pic obviously downloaded off the internet of “Buddy Christ,” the funny (to me) Jesus figure from the flick “Dogma” a few years back.

Nothing gets lost faster in cultural translation than humor.

The Sadr Army dudes simply didn’t get that Buddy Christ is a satirical joke Jesus meant to stick it funny and sort of rough to American Catholics and not a serious religious icon.

They were spinnin' crudely and trying to convince the reporters that U.S troops had left the picture behind as a ‘religious calling card’ signifying the ‘crusader’ nature of the American occupation.

Gotta believe there were more than a few western reporters laughing out loud afterwards at the local press watering hole in the Green Zone....

Where the Brains Are

2006-10-02T00:20:00.000-06:00

Denver: Top Five Brain Burg

Ever wonder why some American cities are so expensive that even people with high 5 figure incomes often can’t afford an entry level home?

Or why so many bright and creative young folks end up moving to the same handful of urban scapes where lots of ‘em eventually get forced out by the high cost of living?

Or why American politics and religion seem so divided between certain wealthy urban progressive enclaves on the one hand and less dynamic conservative cities and stalled out rural areas on the other?

Read on. Ran across this sharp take in this month's Atlantic Monthly.

The author, Richard Florida, wrote the book "The Rise of the Creative Class" which has deeply influenced how cities plan for their futures and market themselves over the past couple of years.

He writes about a whole new kind of segregation in the US that may be as powerful as any previous form of the same. Fascinating stuff.

More posts this week on the urban scene in the US and around the world.

A Certain Season

2006-09-30T18:39:00.000-06:00

Trailhead View

Headed up to do some climbing Friday and mountain biking today. Good fall weather so thought I’d jump on it. Just got back.

I'll be 49 next week. Some extra incentive to get after it.

Did a 25 mile hike and scramble up Hallet Peak and back on Friday. Then hammered some cool stretches of rocks and roots today on the otherwise slippery smooth and hard packed Tipperary Creek Loop up in Winter Park.

Hallet Peak

I’m feelin’ sweet in my spirit. The mountains here are always beautiful but in a certain season and light they get past easy description.

On the other hand, I'm so sore I feel like Mike Tyson just worked me over. The young Mike Tyson. My blisters have blisters.

But hey, it was worth it. Gotta stand up once in a while for us old guys livin’ this first life on borrowed time :^)

Resisting Terrorism

2006-09-28T13:21:00.000-06:00

Well, if we’re going to resist terrorism effectively right now, how do we go about it? A few thoughts:

• Keep our eye on the ball

I’ve made it pretty clear I think the way our leaders are selling the ‘war on terror’ is hysterical nonsense so I won’t go back over that ground. But we do have a real danger on our hands that requires serious attention. Unfortunately, Iraq distracted us from the task at hand and made the problem worse.

The primary focus should be on pursuing terrorists. That sounds obvious but we haven't made it our top priority. That means coordinating police, intelligence, and military sectors around the world to go after individuals and cells and not starting wars with countries previously unrelated to Islamic terrorism. I think that kind of relentless and coordinated police work will be necessary for many decades. Some good progress has been made here but not nearly enough because so many resources have been diverted into Iraq. Actually, I think losing the whole term ‘war on terror’ would help focus people on the real task, which is a long term police and intelligence effort against potential terrorists. But of course, that wouldn’t help Rove do his thing nearly as much :^)

Then you’ve got to secure ports of entry like airports, seaports, etc. We’ve made some progress but much less than we should have by this point, particularly with seaports and crucial infrastructure.

And finally, and most important, securing available nuclear materials is critical. Astonishingly, we haven't done much of that in the past 6 years. We’re all worked up about Iran but have done relatively little to secure Russia’s massive leftover nuclear materials. Again, we’ve taken our eye off the ball.

• Stick it out in Iraq for a couple more years and give the Iraqi forces a chance to adequately handle their own self-defense.

I’m very sympathetic to those that think we should remove our troops immediately and think they’ve got an excellent point. Our very presence there creates much of the problem and inflames jihadi sentiment all over the Islamic world.

But sometimes you're stuck without a good choice.

Hanging in there and giving the government and the security forces a chance to stabilize is the least bad option in my mind. To withdraw troops now would ensure an even more robust civil war than the one already going on. And even though I think Iraq is probably going to end up as a terrorist haven whatever we do at this point, immediate withdrawal would make that a certainty. It’s frustrating to have to agree with the people who created the entire mess in the first place and made it near hopeless, but we’ve got to give it a couple of more years.

• Get a new administration as soon as possible

Only two more years to go :^) I’m actually very serious about this. Less tone deafness and a more diplomatic approach would help a lot. Much of the current anti-Americanism is actually anti-Bushism. I believe when he and his gang leave office hostility in the Islamic world will decrease noticeably. Maybe Democrats will get control of Congress and impeach him. Don’t think that would be good for the country but it would sure help drain some of the swamp of hostile anti-American sentiment.

• Invest much more heavily in development in Afghanistan

Two of our top generals testified before Congress last week that Afghanistan is well on its way to becoming a “narco-terror” state once again. Newsweek this week did a great spread on the reconquest of Afghanistan (“Jihadistan”) by war lords and the Taliban. The reality is we abandoned the development of Afghanistan with predictable results. Again, Iraq caused us to take our eye off the ball.

• Actively support democracy and moderation in the Islamic world but not at gunpoint

In the vast majority of cases, imposing democracy and ‘religious moderation’ violently from the top down simply isn’t going to work. Period.

The Palestinian crisis is a key. Honest and vigorous American efforts there would do a ton to reduce the recruiting power of extremists. How come we've done next to nothing in the past 6 years?

• Invest heavily in fighting poverty in the Islamic world and elsewhere

I’ve talked about the whys and hows of this before so won’t say much here. But economic and educational development is a huge weapon in battling terrorism. The big dollars going up in smoke in Iraq would have made a big positive difference elsewhere.

• Pray

If what we’re dealing with is--at root--a spiritual struggle between what is good and what is not on both sides of the present political and cultural divide, seems like one of the most important approaches is prayer for everybody involved. Religious and spiritual folks need to stop focusing on the west versus Islamic radicalism and start focusing on the victory of fairness everywhere. The old timers used to call that ‘the Kingdom of God’ :^)
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Extra added bonus--take a look at the way things might have been in the struggle against terror. Some wishful thinking but still a pretty fascinating 'thought experiment'....