“Crunchy” conservatives.

Some folks are trying to be real conservatives, but they appear to be just as unthinking as many of the folks in the movement.

I first read Rod Dreher’s Crunchy Con Manifesto on Ben Witherington’s blog, and found it sufficiently obnoxious enough to rant about.

Why “crunchy”? Probably because they don’t consider themselves to be soggy. Considering how most activism is really just an organized reaction to things people are dissatisfied about, Dreher, author of Crunchy Cons, decided to market his particular variety of conservatism by writing a creed, or “manifesto,” explaining what makes him so very different. I’ll list his points, with my commentary.

1. We are conservatives who stand outside the contemporary conservative mainstream. We like it here; the view is better, for we can see things that matter more clearly.

Yeah, that’s what every self-imagined non-conformist says. All of them claim to be outside the mainstream. God forbid any single one of them happen to be normal. Unless we’re ridiculed for being different… in which case we’re rather desperate to be considered normal, and try to argue convincingly that we really are normal and not really some zany fringe group like we’re depicted. If ever the Crunchy Cons get ostracized from the centers of political power because they’re seen as fringe elements or extremists, their organizers will make that same desperate lunge for the center, just to hold on to any pull they might have gained. Just like when Pat Buchanan left the Reform Party.

2. We believe that modern conservatism has become too focused on material conditions, and insufficiently concerned with the character of society. The point of life is not to become a more satisfied shopper.

It’s not just conservatism. It’s liberalism too. Your average progressive is encouraged to think about fair trade and global impact when they make their purchases, yet they’re never encouraged to think about whether they should make such purchases in the first place. They’re encouraged to ask, “Should my new car be environmentally friendly?” not, “Does a family with two drivers actually need a third car?” This is a valid point, but it’s not solely a conservative issue.

3. We affirm the superiority of the free market as an economic organizing principle, but believe the economy must be made to serve humanity’s best interests, not the other way around. Big business deserves as much skepticism as big government.

How on earth can you have a free market and the restraints upon it necessary to make it serve humanity’s best interests? Doesn’t this idiot understand that this statement is self-contradictory? He’s calling for both capitalism and socialism. This is like saying, “Americans shouldn’t have to pay taxes, but they must be required to finance their government.”

4. We believe that culture is more important than politics, and that neither America’s wealth nor our liberties will long survive a culture that no longer lives by what Russell Kirk identified as “the Permanent Things”—those eternal moral norms necessary to civilized life, and which are taught by all the world’s great wisdom traditions.

On the contrary. In rejecting the “Permanent Things,” we are moving the country towards more liberties and more wealth. Fr’instance, we’re in the process of legalizing gambling. It started with Nevada and New Jersey, spread to the state lotteries, Indian reservations, and Mississippi River, and is making lots of money on the internet. More people are free to gamble; more people are making money off it. Porn, prostitution, and drugs are rapidly following. The decay of morality means greater freedom to sin, and great profit to be made from sinful behaviors. America’s widening freedoms are turning us more and more the “Great Satan” that the Muslims already call us.

5. A conservatism that does not recognize the need for restraint, for limits, and for humility is neither helpful to individuals and society nor, ultimately, conservative. This is particularly true with respect to the natural world.

Very true. Probably the only profound statement Dreher makes.

6. A good rule of thumb: Small and Local and Old and Particular are to be preferred over Big and Global and New and Abstract.

In my experience as a reporter, small business and local government is often just as corrupt, and much less accountable, than big business and big government. Small and local does not mean noble. Small means small. Local means local. Same with any other adjective. Old and particular ideas can be just as evil as new and abstract ideas.

7. Appreciation of aesthetic quality—that is, beauty—is not a luxury, but key to the good life.

Nah. It’s appreciation of the inherent goodness in an object. I would rather have a good, functioning car than a snazzy one. I would rather have an honest, faithful wife than a gorgeous one. I would rather worship a good God than a popular one. Beauty is superficial and misleading, which is why Satan appears as an angel of light.

8. The cacophony of contemporary popular culture makes it hard to discern the call of truth and wisdom. There is no area in which practicing asceticism is more important.

You mean a person who watches a lot of movies can’t tell the difference between fact and fiction? No wonder you and your kind are so paranoid about The Da Vinci Code. I am not confused by pop culture because I have been taught to critically think. Anyone who has been taught critical thinking can discern truth; anyone who prays and reads scripture regularly can learn the Holy Spirit’s wisdom. Depriving yourself can’t teach this to you; you can’t practice your thinking skills when you’re deprived of things to think about. There is a purpose behind asceticism, but it’s not to clear your head so you can think. It’s so you can listen. You need to learn to think regardless of the cacophany.

9. We share Kirk’s conviction that “the best way to rear up a new generation of friends of the Permanent Things is to beget children, and read to them in the evenings, and teach them what is worthy of praise: the wise parent is the conservator of ancient truths…. The institution most essential to conserve is the family.”

True. But unfortunately many families are dysfunctional. So while we work to conserve functional families, we need to likewise create support systems to make up for the poor child-rearing of dysfunctional families. And I don’t mean prisons. I mean better public schools, pop culture that encourages good behavior rather than consumerism, and incentive systems that teach people to be better parents. Otherwise all you’re rearing up are isolated exceptions to the rule.

10. Politics and economics will not save us. If we are to be saved at all, it will be through living faithfully by the Permanent Things, preserving these ancient truths in the choices we make in everyday life. ln this sense, to conserve is to create anew.

If we are to be saved at all, it is through Jesus Christ and a relationship with him, not by following the Permanent Things (or the Law, or the Tao, or whatever you else want to call it). It is to obey him and demonstrate this obedience by loving those who don’t obey regardless. And again—because I have to be logical in all this—exactly what fool writes a political manifesto in which he denounces the very politics he claims to embrace?

Maybe they’re crunchy because they crumble so easily.

Buyer's remorse.

Kerry’s getting married!

I say this because my sister Kerry likes to greet people by saying, “I’m getting married!” which she won’t be able to say anymore in a month or so, which will mean she’ll have to come up with a new saying. Probably “I got married!” or something like that.

Thank God, for her wedding I don’t have to wear another stupid tuxedo. But I figured I should wear something nice, and since all the suits I have in my closet are secondhand junk, I decided it was time for me to finally buy some decent threads. “Decent” means “not another polyester monstrosity from the Salvation Army that I can wash in the regular cycle.” I wanted something lightweight, made of wool and silk, custom-fitted, and no more than $500 including tax and alterations.

My budget, by the way, is not based on what I can afford. I can afford better. My budget is based on what I want to pay for something. If I can’t find something for the price I want, I don’t buy it. This is why I don’t yet have a video iPod; I’m not paying more than $200 for it, and I’m not getting one until I can find it for that amount. Some call it cheap. I call it setting my own value on something.

My budget put me at the Men’s Wearhouse in Capitola on Saturday. They frequently advertise suits at $200, which is an old marketing strategy to get you into the store to get the cheap suit, and then you wind up finding a nicer one for “only” $300, and talk yourself into spending the extra $100 because the nicer suit is so much nicer. My chances were good at staying within my budget.

The Men’s Wearhouse also has another strategy. They try to sell you an ensemble, not just a suit. Yes, you’ll have a suit, but what shirt will you wear with it? What tie? How about shoes? And it makes sense. Why buy a custom-fitted suit, then wear your lousy $10 Walmart sneakers and your $4 thrift-store collared shirt under it? So they sold me on the shoes, some dress socks, two shirts, two ties to go with the shirts… and I went $350 over my budget, but I figured I could afford it, and I'd look good.

It was on the bus ride home that this started to annoy me.

I had a budget of $500. I spent, instead, more than $800. For what? Two shirts, two ties, socks, and shoes. Good quality clothing, but have I ever spent that much on those individual items? I looked my receipt over. Have I ever spent more than $30 on a pair of shoes? No. What, then, was I doing spending $135 on a pair of shoes? Did I like them? Well, I liked them better than the other shoes in the store, but they weren’t particularly comfortable, and felt a little loose in the toe and heel, and stiff otherwise. I wear sandals 90 percent of the time anyway; all shoes feel uncomfortable to me, but the last thing I need at a wedding is to be constantly agitated by uncomfortable shoes. And it was already an uncomfortable price.

“All right,” I figured, “when I go back to pick the suit after it had been altered, I’m returning the shoes.” I looked again at the receipt. “And the socks. I’m not spending $20 for socks.”

Saturday night, as I was going to bed, I decided to look at that receipt again.

The shirts were $55 apiece. They’re nice shirts, and it’s really difficult to find shirts in my neck size. I have a size 19 neck. (Go ahead and make your wisecracks about it.) Most shirts made for a size 19 neck are 2XL or 3XL, which means I look like I’m wearing a small pup tent, especially with all the extra fabric on the sleeves. But in my mind, shirts should be no more than $30. So, back they’d go. The ties—one was $20 and one was $30. Those are normal prices for silk ties. But I have ties, and like them better. Back they’d go.

And Sunday morning, I decided I wasn’t going to wait until next week to return everything; I was doing it today.

The salesman didn’t look too pleased when I returned all my merchandise. “You’re still getting the suit?” he asked, and of course I said yes. If I like how the alterations come out, I’ll likely get many more suits from them. The prices are good. But I couldn’t justify the extra expense to myself.

Besides, I have yet to buy wedding presents.

Amusing comic strip: Hong Kong Jesus.

Sinfest by Tatsuya Ishida, 5/22/2006

Saw the new 𝘟-𝘔𝘦𝘯 movie.

Yesterday, while walking home from the library, a bird tried to land on my head. Three times. It was like a scene out of The Birds, only with just one of them. What the heck was that about?

Tonight I saw X-Men 3, which didn’t suck as much as the internet reviews made it out to. I think professional movie reviewers forget that your average movie-watcher will be perfectly happy with a decent plot that noticeably advances, believable enough acting without over-emoting, special effects that don’t look like the computer animation from VeggieTales, and humor that doesn’t confuse socially offensive with funny.

…Actually, your average movie-watcher would put up with a movie that didn’t have any of those things so long as someone attractive flashed a boob. In my case, however, I want all those things in the movies I watch, and am happy when they’re in there and annoyed when they’re not. In the case of X-Men 3 the plot was decent, the acting was decent, the special effects were entertaining, and the producers are retarded if they don’t make another sequel. And don’t worry about killing off more characters; there are plenty of mutants to replace ’em with.

That’s what the X-Men comic books are all about: Replacements. You write a bunch of comic book superheros, each with a superpower or two to keep ’em interesting, put them in a book and let them percolate among the fans. The more popular ones get their own books and leave—to be replaced by more new mutants. The less popular ones turn evil (and thus become more interesting) or get killed off or disappear or something. Once the popular ones become boring, rotate in the new mutants. The fans keep reading, the money keeps pouring in, and everyone’s happy.

Tomorrow I have to buy clothes. I hate shopping for clothes. It’s gotta be done, though. Hope no more birds attack.

𝘌𝘯𝘳𝘰𝘯: 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘎𝘶𝘺𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘰𝘰𝘮.

Kent’s Recommended Watch:
Alex Gibney:
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

Enron executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling were convicted today of fraud and conspiracy in their attempts to hide Enron’s losses from investors. Read the FoxNews article.

Coincidentally, I finally got this documentary, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room from Blockbuster, after waiting six weeks to see it. I watched it Tuesday. It’s pretty fascinating; it’s another cautionary tale of good old fashioned greed taking over good old fashioned capitalism.

The folks who ran Enron really just wanted to make lots of money, didn’t care how they did it so long as they could get away with it, and did… with help from the SEC, several prominent investment banks, the Arthur Andersen accounting firm, and every shareholder who only looked at Enron’s soaring stock prices and never asked what the basis was for this continuing upward climb. It was also entertaining to watch Enron’s energy traders mess with California during our recent energy crisis. (The documentary claims they created the problem; I think we created our own problem by botching energy deregulation, allowing Enron to easily take advantage.)

One of the people I watched this with was stunned at how much Enron got away with—and how much complicity went on in order to enable Enron to get away with it. But human evil never surprises me anymore. One learns to expect it, especially when humans are tempted with tremendous sums of money or power. The amazing thing is when they aren’t corrupted by it. The amazing thing is when people voluntarily give up power. That’s what we find so unbelievable; I have no trouble with the idea of people trying to seize more and more until it becomes their undoing.

I should warn you though. Parts of this video should be renamed Enron: The Most Gratuitous Nudity Ever Seen in a Documentary. There’s a bit in the middle about a Enron executive named Lou Pei who had a thing for strippers, and the documentarians decided some good images to show in the background might be that of topless strippers. So think twice before using this documentary in a classroom.

Christian meditation.

One of the bigger problems that the western church has suffered in the past 40 or so years is it doesn’t encourage meditation anymore.

Meditation, which we read about in the Psalms, is quite simply taking a passage of scripture and turning it over in your head. It doesn’t necessarily have to be scripture; it could be a prayer to God, or something God told you, or anything like that. You just have to eliminate all the other distractions around you that could get your mind to wander—obnoxious music, noise from the TV, ringing telephones, and so forth—and just concentrate on the words God has given you, and ask for the Holy Spirit to enlighten you. And see if you don't hear him talking to you quite clearly.

The problem is this sounds much too much like eastern meditation. And of course it would. Both are forms of meditation. Eastern meditation is different in that you clear your mind. Middle eastern meditation requires you to fill your mind—with the word of God.

Unfortunately, there are some idiots who are so convinced that any meditation is evil—that any resemblance to eastern meditation means it’s a devilish scheme to corrupt Christianity—that they’re trying to anathematize Christians who do this. They can’t believe it’s God speaking to the people who meditate on his word; it must be a temptation from the devil. Dispensationalists in particular believe God doesn’t talk to his people any more; he stopped talking once scripture was written, because he supposedly said everything he needed to say. Seems to me any teaching that shuts off God from speaking to his people would be devilish, and any teaching that discourages meditation on God’s word would make a person the least in the kingdom of heaven.

To be fair, if you’ve been wrapped up in eastern meditation, it takes a while to snap out of the mindless nonsense and meditate properly. But to chuck all forms of meditation just because you’ve been doing it wrong—well, it’s as if you said, “Up to this point I have been eating nothing but junk food. I must reform. So I will stop eating altogether.” Or it’s as if you decided that because you were wrongly praying to Krishna, prayer is wrong and you shouldn’t pray to YHWH either.

It’s just dumb. And it encourages the worst kind of stupidity. People who don’t meditate will never get beyond a certain point in their Christian walk. They’ll be too busy looking out for heresy and compromise to ever get any deeper in their relationship with God.

They won’t ingrain any Scriptures in their heart. They might think they have, ’cause they’ve memorized some favorite verses. ’Tain’t the same thing. I’ve memorized lots of verses, but I never did anything with them—and they never did anything to me—until I meditated on them. If I never meditated on them, I’d be reciting them whenever I wanted to prove a point, but they wouldn’t have changed my life; they’d simply be another tool in an arsenal I could use to knock other Christians around with my brilliance.

And if these people never hear God talk—and they’re convinced he simply doesn't do that any more—we can obviously see why.

Devotional’s back up.

I hadn’t been blogging devotional entries for a while. It’s mainly because I lost a little focus on the point behind a devotional.

See, I’ve been doing my personal devotions, but I haven’t been posting them. It’s because I started working my way through the gospel of Mark on the devotional blog. In my personal devotions, I’ve been leaping from passage to passage, and since none of them were from Mark, I didn’t post them. Which is dumb. I wasn’t writing a commentary; I was writing a devotional.

So I hopped on the blog and pulled down all the Mark entries. I’ll likely post them again eventually; I’ve already re-posted one of them. But now it’s going to bounce around with my normal devotional life, and if you were wondering what happened next in Mark, go read it yourself.

Immigration and English and fearful whites.

I’d like the United States to institute a policy where for every immigrant we get from Mexico, we have to deport a lazy American.

Seriously. Mexican immigrants are, in my experience, some of the hardest workers I have ever met, and our country would do well to have more of them come to this country, become Americans, and stay here. The only reason they sneak across our border is because we don’t let them in. We should let them in. It should be as easy for Mexicans to come to the States as it is for Americans to visit Mexico. But it isn’t, and I can’t see any good reason why this should be the case.

The reason why the United States has immigration quotas is pure and simply racism. We wanted to stop the influx of Asians during the Gold Rush. Currently, we want to stop the influx of brown people from Mexico. And if they do come here, we want them to jump through some hoops that we nationals never had to jump through. They have to take an English exam and a history exam. If they pass, they’ll know more about the rules of English and our government and history than most Americans. Every American should be required to take those tests before they can get the benefits of citizenship. But if that were the case, a lot of Americans would quickly become non-voters. (I say big deal. They don’t vote anyway.)

Why this fear of other races? It isn’t the other races per se. Talk to your average fearful whites and they’ll tell you they have no problem with Asians or Mexicans or blacks or anyone else—but if they come to this country, they have to assimilate. They have to speak English. They have to “take on American customs.”

That’s what assimilation means in this country. It means to stop acting “ethnic” and start acting “like an American.” Give your kids American names. Wear American clothes. Speak an American language. …Okay, now replace “American” in those sentences with “American Indian.” Does it work? No? How about “white”? Ah, there we are.

Fearful whites don't mind a massive influx of Mexicans so long as the Mexicans come to this country and start acting white. If they came here and immediately began speaking accent-free English, ate at McDonalds, joined a Protestant church, and started shopping at the Gap, there would be no controversy. Instead, they come here and insist on retaining their culture… like every other immigrant in American history.

The result that I find the most interesting is that America has managed to develop a rather large and significant Spanish-speaking subculture. They’re American, same as the whites; they just don’t speak White. (I mean English.) And when the White-speakers talk about sealing our Mexican border, the Spanish-speakers rightly and vocally call it racism.

I can’t see this latest Senate vote—to make English the official (or “common and unifying”) language as anything but a backlash against them. It’s entirely unnecessary. It’s especially unnecessary considering the large number of Spanish-speakers in this country who will immediately find themselves shut out as a result of it. It’s as if the United States has decided to pass a national Jim Crow law. This is not a ban on Spanish, but it will in effect be a ban on the government speaking Spanish to its constituents.

My attitude has always been that Americans should be required to learn to speak a second language. Preferably Spanish. If everyone spoke Spanish, most of the nervousness about Mexican immigrants would disappear; racism is usually based on willful ignorance, and forcing much of that ignorance away would do a lot of good. Congress should pass a law, instead, requiring that schools teach Spanish. But will they? No; their campaign contributors are fearful whites, who are taking advantage of the white majority in Congress and getting them to slap down another race and make it look like patriotism.

An unhealthy interest in heresy.

The publicity machine is ramping up for The Da Vinci Code. The movie will be out this weekend, and probably one of the biggest bits of genius involved in promoting it has been suckering nearly the entire Christian church into talking about it.

Either we’re “correcting its errors,” á la Josh McDowell (who, by the way, stands to make some pretty good coin if he can sucker enough pastors into buying enough of his anti-Da Vinci Code studies) or we’re suggesting a full-on boycott like Barbara Nicolosi (who recommends that we attend any other movie this weekend to show “Hollywood,” as if Hollywood is a person, that we’d rather watch crap than heresy. Okay, that’s not the way she puts it; that’s just the logical conclusion of her reasoning.)

Thanks to the worldwide Christian conniption fit, I have to read about this bloody movie every day in Christianity Today’s email newsletter; I had to read about it this weekend in the Assemblies of God’s weekly magazine, Today’s Pentecostal Evangel; and I keep running into Christians on a daily basis who go on and on and on about it. In fact I was speaking to someone today whose pastor has embarked on a THREE WEEK SERIES about the Da Vinci Code. From the pulpit. Including study guides. So, for three weeks, that church doesn’t get to hear about Jesus’s love and God’s grace; they get to hear a blow-by-blow refutation of the latest movie from the director of The Grinch, Splash, and Cocoon. Has anyone, by the way, come to believe in Whos, mermaids, and spaceships full of old people as a result of those movies? No? Okay then.

Part of me says see the movie and boycott the Christian bandwagon. I’d much rather watch heresy than listen to stupidity.

I don’t blame the movie for distracting the church from its responsibility to seek and save the lost. Anything will distract the church from its duty. The church has the attention span of, to quote a different movie, a ferret on crack. If it’s not abortion, it’s the latest financial scandal; if it’s not gay bishops, it’s an unaccredited Christian college that doesn’t believe in academic freedom. So much of the news about the church has nothing to do with Jesus’s mandate to make disciples. If it did, we’d see real change in this country and many others. Instead, it has to do with the same sort of problem Paul advised Timothy against:

I urged you to stay there in Ephesus and stop those who are teaching wrong doctrine. Don’t let people waste time in endless speculation over myths and spiritual pedigrees. For these things only cause arguments; they don’t help people live a life of faith in God. The purpose of my instruction is that all the Christians there would be filled with love that comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and sincere faith. But some teachers have missed this whole point. They have turned away from these things and spend their time arguing and talking foolishness. [1 Timothy 1.3-6 NLT]

I fail to see how instructing the church against heresy teaches it to love one’s neighbor. Teach the church the truth; let the error unravel itself.

Challenging through music.

I went to Vacaville over the weekend to visit Mom, partly for Mothers Day but mainly because Friday was her birthday… and now that I’m not in school and don’t have Saturday classes, I figured it’s good to visit her on a monthly basis. My family doesn’t tell me anything that’s going on, so in order to stay in the loop, as it were, I just have to visit. (In fact, it’s probably a conspiracy of theirs to deliberately keep me out of the loop so that I do visit.)

My allergies, in Vacaville, were just horrible. Sneezing, dripping, coughing… but in Santa Cruz, they don’t exist. So maybe I won’t visit in May again. I gotta time it for when the pollen isn’t around.

Whilst I was there I got to reading a back issue of Kerry’s Relevant magazine, which is a magazine for twentysomethings who don’t feel they can entirely reject secular culture, so they read things like Relevant in order to try to “engage it”—in other words, discuss and critique it. But in reality, that actually won’t ever happen. They’ll read Relevant and similar magazines in order to justify their continuing sell-out to pop culture, and so they can feel spiritual when they listen to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Flaming Lips and say to themselves, “True, the spiritual content of these CDs are wack, but I can now discuss these bands’ angst with non-Christians thanks to my new postmodern apologetic. Thanks, Relevant! You’ve made me relevant.”

No it hasn’t. But I already ranted about the hypocrisy of the emergent church here and here. It’s one of the bigger ironies of the emergent movement—so pomo of them!—to reject the traditional church as being full of hypocrites, and in so doing they’ve become new ’n improved hypocrities.

Side rant over. Relevant, though encouraging the problem, even so has some interesting articles. I was greatly amused by the interview with Derek Webb, former Caedmon's Call frontman who is apparently really controversial. Except he really isn't. The lyrics of his latest album, Mockingbird, aren’t anything critics of Evangelicalism haven’t been saying for decades. It’s just new to Christians who don’t read. The knee-jerk reaction of a lot of them will be that he’s gone liberal or apostate; many others will dismiss it as too radical to be practical; the rest will listen to it, agree with it, love it, share it with their friends, yet continue to behave the same way they always have, letting its message fall on the wayside for the ravens to eat.

I like the lyrics, and agree with a lot of them, but I’m not going to buy the album. I don’t like the music! I was never a Caedmon’s Call fan; and it wasn’t because they didn’t know how to pronounce Caedmon either. It’s the same problem that plagues a lot of Christian pop: Little musical ability combined with a big you’re-all-apostate attitude, or (conversely) catchy songs combined with a replace-“baby”-with-“Jesus”-so-they’ll-play-us-on-K-LOVE vibe.

I’d rather listen to U2; they’ll challenge me spiritually just as much, plus they rock, and unlike most other Christian bands they’re actually doing something to help the poor.

Yacht Rock.

Yes, I am a fan of the band Steely Dan, and own all their CDs. I started listening to them in the early ’80s and haven’t stopped. I think it’s the heavy jazz influence that I appreciate.

A friend of mine, knowing this, told me that I should therefore appreciate the Channel 101 show Yacht Rock. The show is not about Steely Dan; it’s actually about Steely Dan backup singer (and occasional Doobie Brother) Michael McDonald, and Kenny Loggins, who has never sung on anything the Dan produced. The show takes little bits of pop music history and extrapolates them into ridiculously funny episodes about McDonald, Loggins, and their fascination with “really smooth rock ’n roll” …although Loggins will occasionally sell out and do a hard rock song for a movie soundtrack.

I keep thinking as I watch it, “At some point, one of these guys they’re lampooning is gonna watch this and sue.” There was another Channel 101 show, House of Cosbys, about a fanboy-scientist who cloned Bill Cosby a few too many times; Cosby’s lawyers sent him a cease-and-desist order that resulted in a pretty stupid and foul final episode. But maybe Loggins and McDonald aren’t making Bill Cosby’s kind of money anymore. Or they blew it all in the ’70s on coke and yachting; I have no idea.

Steely Dan singer Donald Fagen is portrayed in one of the episodes; you can’t understand a bloody word “Fagen” says, which is supposed to be the running joke about him. I have no trouble understanding him, either in his songs or in interviews; in fact, I think he articulates a lot better than McDonald does. I still don’t know most of the lyrics to McDonald’s music… but then again, I was never really paying attention. To me, smooth rock is background music and not really meant to be taken all that seriously. But if you know anything about the genre, you’ll be amused by the show.

Midterm elections #5: Single-issue voters.

Stop voting for the hypocrites who pander to your cause!

Since Clark brought it up, I thought I’d rant about the single-issue voter.

Whenever we talk about single-issue voters, we’re pretty much talking about people who are against abortion. There aren’t many other single issues out there that get people so riled up. There are definitely environmentalists who only vote on that issue; I know a few. That’s about it.

In both cases, these folks concentrate on their one issue because they see it as absolutely important. The anti-abortion crowd see abortion as murder; they simply can’t vote for anyone who condones it. The pro-environment crowd likewise sees pollution as murder—not necessarily of humans, though we are “collateral damage,” so to speak—and they can’t vote for anyone who permits that. No other issue is as important or as urgent to them. Everything else must fall by the wayside in the pursuit of their goal.

You gotta admire their conviction, if not their brains.

I’ve seen the anti-abortion “voter’s guides” nearly every election; they keep sending them to churches, and I keep going to church. They endorse all the candidates who say they’re against abortion. (Some of them make an exception for candidates who are against abortion but are in favor of other “anti-family” things that the guides are against. One of the “anti-family” things, I notice, is being a Democrat.)

That sounds impressive, but if you do a little investigating, you’ll find that a lot of these anti-abortion candidates have voting records that don’t exactly match up with their public statements. In other words, they’ve done little or nothing to ban abortion; they’ve done little to nothing to stop funding for organizations that promote abortion; and they’ve done absolutely nothing to provide for the women who have opted out of abortion and want to try to raise children under the shadow of poverty and abuse.

Does the federal government financially support any crisis pregnancy centers? No. Why? They’re all faith-based. What about President Bush’s faith-based initiatives? Makes no difference. Congress does fund women’s shelters, but nothing specifically designed to provide alternatives to abortion. Unless you count abstinence programs.

It’s even harder for the environmentalists. Show me a politician who hasn’t politically backed a corporation that took a dump on the environment. You can’t find one above the state or local level. Who do you think funds these people’s elections?

That being the case, I think we first need to STOP VOTING FOR HYPOCRITES. Once the parties get it into their heads that hypocrites can’t win, especially among Christians, they’ll stop backing them, or at least stop sending them to the churches for their unofficial (’cause it’s illegal) backing.

We also need to recognize that we’re directing a lot of sound and fury at the wrong targets. The abortion debate will be decided by the state houses and the Supreme Court. Why, then, are we focusing so much angst on the House? The House members don’t confirm justices. They don’t ratify treaties. It’s not their job! And it’s already full of (supposedly) anti-abortion Republicans who would change the Constitution today if they could be guaranteed the Senate vote and the state house vote. But we tend to ignore the state house elections, because we mistakenly think Congress is more important.

Same with the environmentalists. And they need to work harder on the presidency; the Kyoto accords will be violated, and the EPA and Interior will be run by tools of the polluters, only so long as Bush is in office. Find a pro-environement candidate for 2008. Preferably someone who isn’t a hypocrite.

In the meanwhile, what about other pro-life activities? Is the death penalty murder? Is the war? We keep calling these things “justice” because the president does—is he right? Would Jesus execute a convicted felon in the name of justice? Would he go to war to stop terrorists or power-mad dictators? Would he condone any of his followers doing likewise?

What about the things that Jesus demonstrably found most important—the poor, the sick, the needy, the hungry, the children? What are we (and by extension, our elected representatives) doing about that? Jesus never spoke out against abortion, even though the Romans practiced child exposure, which is far worse. He did speak out against the rich oppressing the poor, something our government does nothing about every day that the gas prices stay above $3 a gallon. (And it doesn’t help the environment any that all the hybrid cars are actually only getting 26 miles per gallon.)

But work on the anti-hypocrite thing first. That’s more than enough of a task for everyone to follow. Just concentrating on that may take the next two lifetimes.

“My problem with Christianism.”

I liked Andrew Sullivan’s post on Time Magazine so much I stole it and posted it here.

My problem with Christianism: A believer spells out the difference between faith and a political agenda.

by Andrew Sullivan

Are you a Christian who doesn’t feel represented by the religious right? I know the feeling. When the discourse about faith is dominated by political fundamentalists and social conservatives, many others begin to feel as if their religion has been taken away from them.

The number of Christians misrepresented by the Christian right is many. There are evangelical Protestants who believe strongly that Christianity should not get too close to the corrupting allure of government power. There are lay Catholics who, while personally devout, are socially liberal on issues like contraception, gay rights, women’s equality and a multi-faith society. There are very orthodox believers who nonetheless respect the freedom and conscience of others as part of their core understanding of what being a Christian is. They have no problem living next to an atheist or a gay couple or a single mother or people whose views on the meaning of life are utterly alien to them—and respecting their neighbors’ choices. That doesn’t threaten their faith. Sometimes the contrast helps them understand their own faith better.

And there are those who simply believe that, by definition, God is unknowable to our limited, fallible human minds and souls. If God is ultimately unknowable, then how can we be so certain of what God’s real position is on, say, the fate of Terri Schiavo? Or the morality of contraception? Or the role of women? Or the love of a gay couple? Also, faith for many of us is interwoven with doubt, a doubt that can strengthen faith and give it perspective and shadow. That doubt means having great humility in the face of God and an enormous reluctance to impose one’s beliefs, through civil law, on anyone else.

I would say a clear majority of Christians in the U.S. fall into one or many of those camps. Yet the term “people of faith” has been co-opted almost entirely in our discourse by those who see Christianity as compatible with only one political party, the Republicans, and believe that their religious doctrines should determine public policy for everyone. “Sides are being chosen,” Tom DeLay recently told his supporters, “and the future of man hangs in the balance! The enemies of virtue may be on the march, but they have not won, and if we put our trust in Christ, they never will.” So Christ is a conservative Republican?

Rush Limbaugh recently called the Democrats the “party of death” because of many Democrats’ view that some moral decisions, like the choice to have a first-trimester abortion, should be left to the individual, not the cops. Ann Coulter, with her usual subtlety, simply calls her political opponents “godless,” the title of her new book. And the largely nonreligious media have taken the bait. The “Christian” vote has become shorthand in journalism for the Republican base.

What to do about it? The worst response, I think, would be to construct something called the religious left. Many of us who are Christians and not supportive of the religious right are not on the left either. In fact, we are opposed to any politicization of the Gospels by any party, Democratic or Republican, by partisan black churches or partisan white ones. “My kingdom is not of this world,” Jesus insisted. What part of that do we not understand?

So let me suggest that we take back the word Christian while giving the religious right a new adjective: Christianist. Christianity, in this view, is simply a faith. Christianism is an ideology, politics, an ism. The distinction between Christian and Christianist echoes the distinction we make between Muslim and Islamist. Muslims are those who follow Islam. Islamists are those who want to wield Islam as a political force and conflate state and mosque. Not all Islamists are violent. Only a tiny few are terrorists. And I should underline that the term Christianist is in no way designed to label people on the religious right as favoring any violence at all. I mean merely by the term Christianist the view that religious faith is so important that it must also have a precise political agenda. It is the belief that religion dictates politics and that politics should dictate the laws for everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike.

That’s what I dissent from, and I dissent from it as a Christian. I dissent from the political pollution of sincere, personal faith. I dissent most strongly from the attempt to argue that one party represents God and that the other doesn’t. I dissent from having my faith co-opted and wielded by people whose politics I do not share and whose intolerance I abhor. The word Christian belongs to no political party. It’s time the quiet majority of believers took it back.

I should’ve thought of that. “Christianist” is a term I suppose I’ll be using now.

Flashback time.

Sixteen years ago, in 1990, I was on the staff of the CSU Sacramento State Hornet.

I was poking around the back issues, stealing ideas. Some of the best ideas come from things people have tried already; ask anyone who makes old TV shows into feature films. In the process I came across an old magazine entitled “Survival.” It was a survival guide to life at Sac State, written back in the ’70s—had to be, because the writers were bellyaching about how a one-bedroom apartment could cost you as much as $60.

“What a great idea,” I said, and talked the editor into producing one for the ’90s.

It was pretty much my project, so I gathered together a few writers and illustrators and connived them into writing articles for it. I wrote the bulk of it. In the end, we wound up calling it the “Campus Guide” because CSUS was publishing an “officlal” Survival Guide, and we didn’t want to confuse the names with one another.

But mine was much more popular. Mainly because it was written by me, and not in an official tone of voice either. The “official” guide pointed out how much it cost for a semester parking sticker, and the proper locations to park. My guide advised students to spray-paint their cars yellow and orange, slap a realistic-looking CSUS seal on the side, and park anywhere on campus that Facilities Management does.

The next semester we decided to take the title “Survival Guide” back. Admissions were asking for extra issues of the State Hornet's guide rather than a reprint of the “official” guide. And we got in trouble with one of the local pizzerias because the newspaper staff kept using the $2 personal pizza coupons from the back issues. (To be fair, we were buying about 20 personal pizzas a day, but this is what you get when you don’t put “One per customer” on the coupon.)

CSUS still has the Survival Guide, and to my astonishment someone pointed out to me it still contains one of my articles in it. I’m not credited, but it’s definitely mine. The copy, except for the date, hasn't changed in 16 years. Frightening.

Adding and dropping classes.

It is imperative that you go to the class on the first day. Try to get there early enough to steal a seat away from a student who is actually enrolled in the class. Some professors will tell everyone at the beginning of the class that the class is FULL, that there’s no more ROOM, and that they’re not accepting any add slips at ALL. PERIOD. Ignore this; it’s meant to drive away the faint of heart.

At that point, the instructor will probably go through the roll, and then ask if there’s anyone whose name wasn’t called. Of course, here’s the point where you will be told the class is FULL, there’s no more ROOM, and that they’re not accepting any add slips at ALL. PERIOD. Ignore this; it’s also meant to drive away people who can’t handle personal confrontations.

Ask these professors if you can at least sit in on the class. If they’re hesitant, tell them that you want to take this class eventually and that you at least want to see what it’s all about. Or appeal to their egos and tell them that you want to watch the best professor at Sac State do what he or she does so well.

Some professors will at this point relent, which means you can hang around long enough to get in just before the add/drop deadline (Feb. 12). After the first exam, students will drop the class at an alarming rate anyway. When this happens, you're home free.

Other professors—the ones with the souls sucked out of them long ago—will repeat that they’re not taking any more add slips and that’s it. Some will actually demand that you leave. In those cases, it’s probably best that you do leave before somebody pours water on them and melts them.

How much more old junk of mine is floating around out there on the internet? The mind reels.

Truthiness.

It’s not what you know; it’s what you feel.

Someone emailed me a copy of the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner, held last Saturday, in which Stephen Colbert got to give the final speech. CSPAN posted Colbert’s segment online, and of course you can watch the whole thing if you’d rather.

If you’ve ever seen The Colbert Report, it’s a full-on parody of a typical right-wing talk show, and Stephen Colbert takes that know-it-all obnoxiousness and kicks it up another notch. Facts, Colbert claims, are not important. It’s what we feel that is. It’s things that are not so much truth as “truthiness,” a term he coined. (There’s some overhyped controversy about whether he really did coin it. Staying in character, Colbert says it doesn’t matter what the dictionary says. He feels he coined the word.)

Republicans are notorious for disregarding facts when they get in the way of the party line; just look at how they respond to global warming: “Not all the science is in yet.” Science is never definitive, but we have just enough of it to know there’s a problem… and why in hell are these idiots defending pollution anyway? Because polluters vote Republican?

To be fair, Democrats do it too. Privatization of Social Security is the only way the system will continue to viably exist in 25 years, but privatization is “greedy” and “short-sighted” because Democrats are afraid evil businessmen will take all their privately-controlled Social Security money and invest it in something like Enron, only worse. But whom would you rather have watch your money: Politicians who refuse to pass campaign finance reform laws and never get voted out of office for it, or businessmen who go to jail if they don’t follow the rules?

Okay, let me hit even closer to home: Pre-tribulation rapture. It’s not in the bible; I’ve looked extensively. The only way you could get the bible to support the idea of Jesus pulling the Christians off the earth before the really bad stuff at the End happens is by twisting scriptures—quoting half a verse and ignoring the other half, and flagrantly misinterpreting prophecies that aren’t about the End. It’s a viewpoint that appeared only a century ago, after the comfortable, overfed American Christian came on the scene and wanted to reconcile his comfortable lifestyle with Jesus’s warning that following him means persecution would happen, so the conclusion was to adopt the Pharisees’ attitude that riches meant blessings from God. Pretrib rapture is a very popular belief among these folks because they want it to be true, and don’t really care to do the research. I argue that it can’t be proven from the bible; they say they “know” it to be true regardless. Tim LaHaye says so.*

Anyway. At the dinner, Colbert went on about how facts are irrelevant, it’s what you feel in your gut that matters, and how he and the president are on the same page about this. The amusing thing is, it’s obvious the president doesn’t want to be on the same page about this. He looked noticeably uncomfortable throughout the speech, probably wondering if this guy was serious (and therefore insane) or kidding. Colbert, in essence, roasted the president, and it was fun to watch the entire audience get uncomfortable listening to it (although, to be fair, the video Colbert showed at the end was stupid). Say what you will about Colbert; that took balls.

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*Ever notice that the folks who are taking The Da Vinci Code way too seriously—in spite of it being fiction—are the same folks who take Left Behind way too seriously?