Tuesday, September 15, 2009

No sign of life


Pro-life, my ass.

This (above) is the kind of thing we can come to expect today from some of America's thoroughly politicized national "pro-life" organizations.

For the low, low price of $5, those seeking to uphold the sanctity of human life "from creation to natural death" can join the American Life League in making sport of the natural death of a politician they've officially designated as "the Other." Funny this should come from an organization that says we must fight Planned Parenthood because it sells sex "as bait to steal souls — your children’s souls."

With tacky revenue-generators like
"Bury Obamacare With Kennedy" and Pharisaical demands about whom the Roman Catholic prelate of Boston may or may not grant a Roman Catholic funeral, one must wonder what happened to ALL's "soul." Apparently, at some point the souls of ALL and other significant portions of the pro-life movement must have been pilfered by the Republican Party.

It had to be soul theft, because Lord knows the pro-life movement didn't get enough in return for it to be considered a transaction.


IF GROUPS such as the American Life League aren't mere tools of the GOP and the health-insurance industry, why is ALL condemning some Catholic organizations for signing on to the mere concept of health-care reform? From a recent ALL press release:
Catholic Charities USA, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and the Catholic Health Association are urging their members to support "healthcare reform now," (i.e., current legislation that includes tax-subsidized abortion and rationed care for the sick and elderly).

ALL was alerted to the scandal when supporters passed along an action alert issued jointly by Catholic Charities and the de Paul Society, in which they tell members and supporters, " [W]e must maintain momentum for health care reform efforts with calls and emails supporting health care reform immediately. The gr
oups that do not support health reform have been blanketing House members in opposition to any reform. Your members of Congress need to hear from you that you support health care reform, and that the system needs to be reformed now."

The Catholic Health Association produced a video which begins with a clip of President Obama, the most pro-abortion president in history, rallying Congress to support his health care plan. The de Paul Society inserted the video in its web site.

After American Life League issued a statement condemning this move, Catholic Charities USA described "online media reports" as "inaccurate," "disingenuous" and "politically motivated."

"We reported, verbatim, the statements these organizations sent their members," Brown responded. "These groups are apparently attempting to work out a backroom deal with the Obama
administration. Their primary concern is universal health care, while the preborn and the elderly are left behind as collateral damage. As institutions rooted in Catholic social teaching, these groups should be at the forefront of the fight against the injustice of rationed care for the poorest of the poor, of tax-subsidized abortion and contraception, and of disregard for the health of the sick and elderly.
THE TROUBLE IS, today's health-care system is all about rationed care, as well as subsidized abortion and contraception -- all at the hands of private, profit-driven insurance companies. Every denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions, every denial of payment for treatment received, every lifetime limit on claims and every denial of coverage for life-saving treatment is all about rationing care so that insurance companies' profits might be maximized.

Likewise, some 86 percent of private insurance policies now cover elective abortions.
Who needs government, right?

One supposes that babies must somehow be less dead when dispatched with revenues from policyholders than when the deed is done by "government." If this supposition is false, then where are the all the ALL press releases hyperventilating against the evil, baby-killing private insurers?

If ALL and other "pro-life" groups are so committed to the sanctity of life "from creation to natural death," why do they rail against health-care reform
period instead of merely decrying the objectionable proposals within the present health-care reform bills? This is especially relevant given that federal "death panels" exist only in the fevered imagination of Sarah Palin, and taxpayer-funded abortions under "Obamacare" are far from a done deal.

And what about ALL making sure reams of its tasteless, mean-spirited little "Obamacare" protest sign found their way all around the weekend "tea party" in Washington? What better way for a group to associate itself with stuff like this:



IN CASE you can't read everything, the yelling woman's sign calls President Obama a "fascist," and her shirt reads "The Cure for Obama Communism Is a New Era of McCarthyism." Fascist communists???

And ALL, in its infinite wisdom, also successfully managed to associate pro-lifers with this, too:


ONE THING can be said of ALL, just as it can be said for the "teabaggers" in general -- their zeal, and anger, is all-consuming.

In the name of the people, they do the bidding of corporate America.

In the name of freedom, they call -- or remain silent amid calls -- for a "new era of McCarthyism" . . . and the ideological witch hunts that accompanied the original era of McCarthyism.

And in the name of God and "a Christian nation," they tolerate threats of armed revolt, demonize those who disagree with them, make light of a senator's death, sow hatred and fear . . . and ultimately give aid and comfort to the Prince of Darkness and his evil designs.

The ironically named American Life League -- that which accuses others of stealing souls -- acts as if its primary directive is to steal the soul of the pro-life movement and set it against itself. And, once again, Americans are not without their reasons for equating "pro-life" with "pro-nut."

AS AN ORDINARY Catholic layman who believes what his church proclaims -- as someone who really does embrace the right to life from conception to natural death -- I find that there is indeed a last straw, and that it has disappeared.

And I now wish to disassociate myself from what is commonly understood to be "the pro-life movement."

This utterly and unfortunately politicized "movement" may be pro-something, but that something isn't necessarily life. Or the Author thereof.




IN CASE YOU'RE INTERESTED, here are some of the folks with whom the American Life League decided to get in bed.

Granted, these folks probably don't represent a majority of those at the Washington "tea party." But if they represent even 20 percent, be afraid. Be very afraid.

Roland the Crippled Wheelchair Gunner


My old man was not right!

My old man was not right! My old man was not right! My old man was not right! My old man was not right! My old man was not right! My old man was not right!

HE WAS talking crazy talk. My old man was not right!

I must keep repeating this. And this, from Monday's Washington Post, does not represent a trend:

D.C. police said they are searching for a gunman in a wheelchair who shot a woman in her right foot Monday, then fled before patrol cars arrived.

The attack occurred about 1 p.m., moments after the 47-year-old victim had stepped off a Metrobus in the 1200 block of H Street NE, said Capt. Mike Gottert.

The woman, whose wound was not life-threatening, told police that "she had some kind of verbal dispute with the guy two weeks ago," Gottert said. "She was riding the bus. She got off. He came up and shot her. Didn't say anything. Just shot her."
BUT IN CASE it does, please do what you can to placate our wheelchair-user population. Do kind things on their behalf. Help Jerry's Kids!

No, really. Help Jerry's Kids. The telethon's over, but so what?

The life you save may be your own.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Yo, Kanye! Your time is up








I think we've had enough from Kanye West, don't you?

Now off with him, then.

Oh, and I'd like to associate myself with these remarks from Pink, who tried to kick Kanye's ass, but was stopped by security:

"'Kanye West is the biggest piece of s*** on earth. Quote me.'"

Oh, and because this is a low-rent, no-class fool we're discussing, note that the first two videos are filled with off-color language. Why couldn't they just let Pink at him, eh?

Pug. In diapers. Snoring.


This is Smudge.

He's a little friend we're dogsitting for a while. He likes to sleep and snore loudly. The snore loudly is a pug thing, I think.



DID YOU KNOW
there's such a thing as doggie Depends? I do now. Poor Smudge -- the grief he must get from the other dogs.

Smudge is a sweetie, though. Kind of like Shrek.

Jim Carroll: I'll miss him. He died.


Jimmy started playing ball when he was a kid,
Started writing too, told us everything he did,
Catholic boy big star, in the paint and with a pen,
Poetry in motion, and looking for a fix, fix,
Poetry in motion, and looking for a fix, fix

Jump shot, junk shot, he was a boy genius
But, damn, the kid needed something intravenous,
Shoot some hoops, write some books,
Hustle on Times Square for that damn fix, fix
Hustle on Times Square for that damn fix, fix

Traded NYC for the DTs, cleaned out his brain
On the West Coast, wrote some more verse
Tried to sell some books, tried to shake that curse
Got on the stage, turned poems into punk, punk
Got on the stage, turned poems into punk, punk

Basketball Diaries, the Jim Carroll Band
Took the cards he got dealt, played out his hand
He was a punk poet -- banging heads, writing verse
That's how he lived; that's how he died, died,
That's how he lived; that's how he died, died

Saturday, September 12, 2009

3 Chords & the Truth: Who are we now?


Sometimes, you stumble upon stuff.

Sometimes, it can get you to thinking hard.

And, sometimes, you just have to stop and wonder "Who am I?"

Last spring's Baton Rouge High senior video (above) was something I stumbled upon this week. And it ended with something that hit home:

Remember, this is who we were.

Who will we become?

THIRTY YEARS of memories came flooding back. Thirty years ago, I was where last semester's seniors were. And the same questions were on our minds, too.

Thirty years on, I wonder.

Who was I?

Who did I become?

Indeed, who did we all become? Sounds like a theme for a set on 3 Chords & the Truth, the show where we're not afraid to look at such things. In a musical manner, of course.

It's the Big Show, and you can find it here. And here. And at the upper right-hand corner of the blog.

3 Chords & the Truth. Be there. Aloha.

AND Bob Meyers . . . rest in peace, buddy.

Friday, September 11, 2009

There's a 'birther' born every minute


That didn't take long.

Go to the World Net Daily "superstore," and you too can call President Obama a liar for the low, low price of $5.95.

If magnetic bumper stickers aren't your style, perhaps you could choose something from the "Tea Party Store," the "Birth Certificate Store" or the "Don't Tread on Me Store."

I understand "birther" yard signs are all the rage today. You can have this attractive item for only $19.95.

The "Where's the birth certificate?" standard is a full 28-by-22 inches and would be an excellent complement to an authentic "Don't Tread on Me" flag ($39.94).

After all, what's political asshattery if you can't make a buck off of it, right?

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Nuke attack imminent. Story inside.


Apocalypse is now.

See Lee Benson, Utah section.

So -- wondering why the imminent death of millions and the end of the United States as we know it isn't worth the front page -- the curious reader turns to Benson's column in the Utah section of the Deseret News in Salt Lake City.

WHAT'S IN that column, an interview with "terrorism expert" Daniel J. Hill is enough to challenge one's continence:

The man who predicted 9/11 is worried that its sequel is imminent.

"Muslims that I talk to say things like, 'America thinks they're safe now. They've forgotten about 9/11. But watch, Daniel. Stay near your TV. It's going to be bigger than 9/11,' " he said.

Hill said the next terrorist attack will involve suitcase nuclear bombs that will be detonated in small, low-flying two-seater private airplanes manned by men hanging onto the belief that, like the 9/11 hijackers, they are about to die as martyrs and enter paradise.

He is not alone in suggesting such a scenario. A 2007 book, "The Day of Islam," spells out the details, as do any number of Internet sites about a plot called "American Hiroshima."

The nukes, he said, will be detonated over New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Miami, Houston, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

I asked Hill, "Why now?"

"Eight years from 1993 to 2001, eight years from that 9/11 to this 9/11," he said. "Symbolism. They're big on symbolism."

"Ramadan started two weeks ago Saturday," he said, referring to the Muslim holy month of fasting. "It always hits around Ramadan."

Eight years ago, Hill predicted the attack would come on Oct. 16 — almost in the middle of that year's Ramadan (the timing of Ramadan varies from year to year). He was about a month off.

"I don't know the second, hour or day. I just know they have the means, will, motivation and desire to do it," he said, noting that it's believed that years ago the suitcase nukes, acquired from former USSR operatives, were smuggled into America across the Mexican border.
ANYWAY you cut it, what we have here is a staggering act not of terrorism, but instead of journalistic incompetence and irresponsibility. This goes double in an age when people are so gullible as to seriously believe Barack Obama is a card-carrying Muslim communist who isn't the real president because he really was born in Kenya, not Honolulu.

Let's look at this a second.

The Deseret News thinks it's sitting on a story, from a "credible" source, that a nuclear attack upon seven American cities may be days away, and it gets 17 column inches in a column in the freakin' Utah section? Really?

Not only that, the editors of the Deseret News, are going to go with a -- sorry -- "atom bomb" of a story about an imminent American apocalypse, and it's 17 single-sourced inches by your local columnist, who couldn't be bothered to spend a little Google time fact-checking the thing? Really?

THE EDITORS of the Deseret News are going to risk scaring the poo out of readers -- and especially the populations of New York, Washington, Houston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Miami -- without even bothering to also interview a few terrorism and nuclear-weapons experts on the phone to see whether they've heard the same things? To see whether it would be possible for al Qaida to acquire "suitcase" nukes and smuggle them into the United States?

Really?

If you're a newspaper columnist or newspaper editor, you're going to herald the possible End of the World as We Know It -- or at least as New York, Washington, Houston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Miami know it -- without even checking to see whether "suitcase" nukes even exist . . . especially ones that can fit into a two-seater Cessna?

Really?

The J-school grad in me looks at this kind of glow-in-the-dark yellow journalism and isn't surprised that the newspaper industry has about had it. Especially if one thinks the Deseret News is typical.

The cultural realist in me looks at the whole mess and wonders why the Deseret News isn't making more money.

And the Catholic in me is pretty sure he knows why Mormons don't drink. If this is what's turned out by stone-cold sober columnists for a newspaper published by a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Lord knows what they'd come up with drunk as a skunk.

(Hey! I know what you're thinking. Don't go there.)


OF COURSE, Benson's missive on the predicted hell bombing of the United States isn't even original. It's just more regurgitated paranoia and fear-mongering from the depths of the lunatic right. World Net Daily, otherwise known as Birther Central, has been all over this for years. And all the Art Bell types republish it.

Sad, because it doesn't take much Internet effort to track down some thorough debunking of this stuff. Like this 2005 piece by Richard Miniter on Opinion Journal.com:

A month after September 11, senior Bush administration officials were told that an al Qaeda terrorist cell had control of a 10-kiloton atomic bomb from Russia and was plotting to detonate it in New York City. CIA director George Tenet told President Bush that the source, code-named "Dragonfire," had said the nuclear device was already on American soil. After anxious weeks of investigation, including surreptitious tests for radioactive material in New York and other major cities, Dragonfire's report was found to be false. New York's mayor and police chief would not learn of the threat for another year.

The specter of the nuclear suitcase bomb is particularly potent because it fuses two kinds of terror: the horrible images of Hiroshima and the suicide bomber, the unseen shark amid the swimmers. The fear of a suitcase nuke, like the bomb itself, packs a powerful punch in a small package. It also has a sense of inevitability. A December 2001 article in the Boston Globe speculated that terrorists would explode suitcase nukes in Chicago, Sydney and Jerusalem . . . in 2004.

Every version of the nuclear suitcase bomb scare relies on one or more strands of evidence, two from different Russians and one from a former assistant secretary of defense. The scare started, in its current form, with Russian general Alexander Lebed, who told a U.S. congressional delegation visiting Moscow in 1997--and, later that year, CBS's series "60 Minutes"--that a number of Soviet-era nuclear suitcase bombs were missing.

It was amplified when Stanislav Lunev, the highest-ranking Soviet military intelligence officer ever to defect to the United States, told a congressional panel that same year that Soviet special forces might have smuggled a number of portable nuclear bombs onto the U.S. mainland to be detonated if the Cold War ever got hot. The scare grew when Graham Allison, a Harvard professor who served as an assistant secretary of defense under President Clinton, wrote a book called "Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe." In that slim volume, Mr. Allison worries about stolen warheads, self-made bombs and suitcase nukes. Published in 2004, the work has been widely cited by the press and across the blogosphere.

Let's walk back the cat, as they say in intelligence circles. The foundation of all main nuclear suitcase stories is a string of interviews given by Gen. Lebed in 1997. Lebed told a visiting congressional delegation in June 1997 that the Kremlin was concerned that its arsenal of 100 suitcase-size nuclear bombs would find their way to Chechen rebels or other Islamic terrorists. He said that he had tried to account for all 100 but could find only 48. That meant 52 were missing. He said the bombs would fit "in a 60-by-40-by-20 centimeter case"--in inches, roughly 24-by-16-by-8--and would be "an ideal weapon for nuclear terror. The warhead is activated by one person and easy to transport." It would later emerge that none of these statements were true.

Later that year, the Russian general sat down with Steve Kroft of "60 Minutes." The exchange could hardly have been more alarming.

Kroft: Are you confident that all of these weapons are secure and accounted for?

Lebed: (through a translator) Not at all. Not at all.

Kroft: How easy would it be to steal one?

Lebed: It's suitcase-sized.

Kroft: You could put it in a suitcase and carry it off?

Lebed: It is made in the form of a suitcase. It is a suitcase, actually. You can carry it. You can put it into another suitcase if you want to.

Kroft: But it's already in a suitcase.

Lebed: Yes.

Kroft:
I could walk down the streets of Moscow or Washington or New York, and people would think I'm carrying a suitcase?

Lebed: Yes, indeed.

Kroft: How easy is it to detonate?

Lebed: It would take twenty, thirty minutes to prepare.

Kroft: But you don't need secret codes from the Kremlin or anything like that.

Lebed:
No.

Kroft: You are saying that there are a significant number that are missing and unaccounted for?

Lebed: Yes, there is. More than one hundred.

Kroft: Where are they?

Lebed: Somewhere in Georgia, somewhere in Ukraine, somewhere in the Baltic countries. Perhaps some of them are even outside those countries. One person is capable of actuating this nuclear weapon--one person.

Kroft: So you're saying these weapons are no longer under the control of the Russian military.

Lebed: I'm saying that more than one hundred weapons out of the supposed number of 250 are not under the control of the armed forces of Russia. I don't know their location. I don't know whether they have been destroyed or whether they are stored or whether they've been sold or stolen. I don't know.

Nearly everything Lebed told visiting congressmen and "60 Minutes" was later contradicted, sometimes by Lebed himself. In subsequent news accounts, he said 41 bombs were missing, at other times he pegged the number at 52 or 62, 84 or even 100. When asked about this disparity, he told the Washington Post that he "did not have time to find out how many such weapons there were." If this sounds breezy or cavalier, that is because it is.

Indeed, Lebed never seemed to have made a serious investigation at all. A Russian official later pointed out that Lebed never visited the facility that houses all of Russia's nuclear weapons or met with its staff. And Lebed--who died in a plane crash in 2002--had a history of telling tall tales.

As for the small size of the weapons and the notion that they can be detonated by one person, those claims also been authoritatively dismissed. The only U.S. government official to publicly admit seeing a suitcase-sized nuclear device is Rose Gottemoeller. As a Defense Department official, she visited Russia and Ukraine to monitor compliance with disarmament treaties in the early 1990s. The Soviet-era weapon "actually required three footlockers and a team of several people to detonate," she said. "It was not something you could toss in your shoulder bag and carry on a plane or bus"

Lebed's onetime deputy, Vladimir Denisov, said he headed a special investigation in July 1996--almost a year before Lebed made his charges--and found that no army field units had portable nuclear weapons of any kind. All portable nuclear devices--which are much bigger than a suitcase--were stored at a central facility under heavy guard. Lt. Gen. Igor Valynkin, chief of the Russian Defense Ministry's 12th Main Directorate, which oversees all nuclear weapons, denied that any weapons were missing. "Nuclear suitcases . . . were never produced and are not produced," he said. While he acknowledged that they were technically possible to make, he said the weapon would have "a lifespan of only several months" and would therefore be too costly to maintain.

Gen. Valynkin is referring to the fact that radioactive weapons require a lot of shielding. To fit the radioactive material and the appropriate shielding into a suitcase would mean that a very small amount of material would have to be used. Radioactive material decays at a steady, certain rate, expressed as "half-life," or the length of time it takes for half of the material to decay into harmless elements. The half-life of the most likely materials in the infinitesimal weights necessary to fit in a suitcase is a few months. So as a matter of physics and engineering, the nuclear suitcase is an impractical weapon. It would have to be rebuilt with new radioactive elements every few months.

THE WORST PART of the Deseret News' irresponsible, unvetted fear-mongering is that it really might happen some day -- maybe even as soon as Daniel Hill thinks . . . though the "suitcase nuke" thing strains credibility to its breaking point. At least for now.

Because al Qaida really is still out to get us, the subject deserves a thorough, sober examination. One quite unlike the single-source bit of hackery from a credulous local columnist buried inside a middling newspaper in Salt Lake City.

Killing him softly with their song?


Politico finds all the really rich remarks.

Like Republicans, in the wake of "You lie!" and lynch-mob "town halls," faulting President Obama and the Dems for being "overly combative."

I MEAN, really.

Republicans — some of whom expressed open contempt for Obama by scanning their BlackBerrys or holding up copies of GOP bills during the speech — saw the president’s remarks as a Democratic call to arms that belied the president’s oft-repeated calls for bipartisanship.

"I was incredibly disappointed in the tone of his speech,” said Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).”At times, I found his tone to be overly combative and believe he behaved in a manner beneath the dignity of the office. I fear his speech tonight has made it more difficult — not less — to find common ground.

"He appeared to be angry at his critics and disappointed the American people were not buying the proposals he has been selling... If the Obama administration and congressional Democrats go down this path and push a bill on the American people they do not want, it could be the beginning of the end of the Obama presidency."

YES, IT'S A SHAME Barack Obama couldn't be high-minded and civilized like Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina, Glenn Beck and all the wingnuts conjuring up visions of swastikas and hammers and sickles.


Wednesday, September 09, 2009

For lack of a heavy cane. . . .



Tonight may have been South Carolina's "finest" political hour since Strom Thurmond's segregationist presidential bid in 1948 -- if not Rep. Preston Brooks' 1856 game of whack-a-mole in the U.S. Senate chamber . . . using the head of Sen. Charles Sumner, R-Mass., as the "mole."

During President Obama's speech on health-care reform before a joint session of Congress, Rep. Joe Wilson, R-Seditionland, provided one of South Carolina's top political moments -- but not the top political moment -- since the state came up short on slavery and segregation during past periods of American ferment. Tonight's bid for glory fell just short, mainly due to Wilson's lacking a heavy, gold-headed cane . . . and that he was too far away from Obama to throw a shoe at him.

STILL, according to this story on MSNBC, the congressman gave it the ol' college try. Think Ole Miss, 1962:

Without naming Bush, Obama blamed his administration for bequeathing him “a trillion-dollar deficit when I walked in the door of the White House ... because too many initiatives over the last decade were not paid for — from the Iraq war to tax breaks for the wealthy.”

“I will not make that same mistake with health care,” he said.

The remarks contributed to a sense of palpable tension in the room. When Obama promised that his plan would not cover illegal immigrants, Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., shouted “You lie!” — the most obvious of several instances when the president was greeted with audible disagreement.

The Associated Press reported that Obama’s wife, Michelle, shook her head in disappointment.
OBVIOUSLY, they do things differently in South Carolina, and Wilson forgot that Americans don't do "Question Time" like they do in Britain. Just like our national legislators don't duke it out on the floor like they do in Taiwan and South Korea.

Unlike Britain, the chief executive here is not a prime minister but, instead, a president -- a head of state as well as government. American legislators would no more -- well, at least until today -- scream "You lie!" at a president than Brits would flip off the queen.

It would be like giving the finger to the nation itself.

Then again, they've developed quite the knack for that in the Palmetto State over the last century and a half. Wilson's fellow Republicans likewise seem eager to learn all the wrong lessons from history.

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Only a slight exaggeration


Unfortunately, in this day and age, this isn't too far from what passes for the kind of "news" that gets people afraid that their president is going to turn their kids into commies with one schooltime speech to students.

(Click on picture for full-size view.)

Monday, September 07, 2009

Agriculture today


Friday at the Nebraska State Fair in Lincoln. I think that if the cattle had opposable thumbs (hell, fingers) and cell phones, they'd probably be texting "HELP!!!!"




Friday, September 04, 2009

We are devo. D-E-V-O


People are dumb.

And sometimes their "religious" views are, too. That's why, every so often in some burg somewhere, a news story like this will pop up. This time, it was in Sedalia, Mo.

THIS Associated Press story ran Sunday in the Columbia, Mo., Missourian, and it disappoints me to no end that I didn't stumble upon it until today:
T-shirts promoting the Smith-Cotton High School band's fall program have been recalled because of concerns about the shirt's evolution theme.

Assistant superintendent Brad Pollitt said parents complained to him after the band marched in the Missouri State Fair parade. Though the shirts don't violate the school's dress code, Pollitt noted that the district is required by law to remain neutral on religion.

"If the shirts had said 'Brass Resurrections' and had a picture of Jesus on the cross, we would have done the same thing," Pollitt said.

Designed with the help of band director Jordan Summers and assistant director Brian Kloppenburg, the light gray shirts feature an image of a monkey progressing through various stages of evolution until eventually becoming a human. Each figure holds a brass instrument that also evolves, illustrating the theme "Brass Evolutions."

"I was disappointed with the image on the shirt," said Sherry Melby, a band parent who teaches in the district. "I don't think evolution should be associated with our school."
THE MAJOR FREAKOUT by parents at this woebegone school represents Reason No. 24,789 that I'm Catholic. Here's what the church believes: God is God, and He was free to create mankind any way He wanted to. If evolution was how we came to be, so what?

So maybe the Genesis story of Adam and Eve isn't literally true as a journalistic account. So what? That doesn't necessarily mean there wasn't an Adam and Eve at some point, and it doesn't mean that the most profound truths come only through a literal retelling of events.

Genesis is true. That doesn't mean God literally pulled a rib out of Adam's side and made Eve out of it. I guess allegory isn't a vocabulary word at Smith-Cotton High School.

Just like the idea that science can illuminate the truth of scripture resides nowhere in the closed minds of some "Bible-believing" folk.

Thursday, September 03, 2009

Glenn Beck and the Road to Dallas


With Glenn Beck, it's not about Van Jones. It's not about the "green" adviser to President Obama at all.

It's about proving Obama a communist. That and the spirit of Dallas . . .
and of right-wing nutism.

FROM A TRANSCRIPT of Beck's show this afternoon on the Fox News Channel:
The bloggers and detractors can say I'm targeting Van Jones, but too many things have been happening in this country that just don't make sense. Amazing things like President Bush telling us he's all about security, but leaving our borders wide open. All the way down to the latest: Medicare and Medicaid are broke, so let's double-down and have an even bigger system modeled on that.

It doesn't make sense.

During the campaign, the president said, you want to know what my policies are, look to the people I surround myself. So we did.

Van Jones said the same thing: "personnel is policy." What does this tell us? Well, in the case of Jones and several others in the administration, it says the president has an agenda that is radical, revolut
ionary and in some cases, Marxist.

We've laid this all out in their own words, for weeks. But, for the last 24 hours, everybody has been talking about the Republicans instead. Apparently what's captured the notice of so many people since we played the video on Wednesday, is the fact that Van Jones called Republicans a naughty name in February of this year.

Well, Jones has apologized. He's sorry he said the A-word about Republicans.

He is not sorry however, about any of these things:

— That he's an avowed communist

— That he believes we need a "whole new system"

— No apology for his campaign to free communist cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal

— Not a word from Van Jones about being a member of the revolutionary, communist group, STORM

— He has not apologized for his radical past as a black nationalist

There's been no apology for saying that we should redistribute wealth to Indians:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: No more broken treaties. No more broken treaties. Give them the wealth! Give them the wealth!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

He's not sorry for that.
BECK, BY HIS own admission, is using people like Van Jones to "prove" the president of the United States is a communist. Communist.

In the modern American lexicon, can there be anything worse than that?
Communist. The word we can't say without a sneer.

Communist. The Soviet Union was communist. Ronald Reagan called it the "Evil Empire." For more than 40 years, we were prepared to blow up the world, if need be, to protect ourselves from it.

Communist. What can be worse than that in the all-American, pro-capitalist universe. Communist equals tyranny. Communist equals totalitarianism.

"Better dead than red." Better yet,
"Better dead Reds," right?

This is the uniquely American context in which the unfortunately American Mr. Beck makes his accusations against Jones and the president.

When the right called Bill Clinton a communist, you always got the sense -- or at least I always got the sense -- that it was in the
"hippie pinko commie lib" sense of the word. With Obama, I think people like Beck and his fellow travelers really, really mean it.

And you have to wonder how much of this is just an extension of the "Obama is a Muslim" paranoia accompanying the rise of The Other -- the rise of a black man -- to the pinnacle of American politics and, now, to head of state.

I think the last time the right was this unhinged -- and this serious with its "communist" talk -- was the ascension of another Other to the presidency . . . the nation's first Catholic in the White House, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

We remember the kind of rhetoric unleashed against him, particularly across the segregated South. And we remember what happened to him, and how some on the right cheered that the fringe-leftist Lee Harvey Oswald got to the pinko first.

This is the kind of fire with which Glenn Beck is playing. Somebody's going to get burned.

Probably all of us.

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

We can haz brain???


While Maria Bartiromo was showing the Scarecrow there's hope for him yet sans cerebellum, the Omaha City Council was busy Tuesday sending another message to straw men everywhere.

Abandon all hope.

I sat on the council's marathon budget-deliberation story for the better part of a day, wondering if their eventual vote in favor of a "budget" (as opposed to a budget) would smell any better after it had aired out overnight and most of the day. The answer is no.

FROM THE Omaha World-Herald:
Mayor Jim Suttle was skeptical today about whether the Omaha City Council's budget plan is based on realistic numbers.

“It was very chaotic yesterday,” Suttle said in an interview with The World-Herald. “We have to now see how it all adds up.”

After nearly nine hours of debate and maneuvering, a divided council Tuesday approved a 2010 budget that includes Suttle's property tax hike to pay city debt but makes more than $10 million in changes, including a 2½-day voluntary employee furlough and a new satellite TV fee.

The approved budget now goes to Suttle for review and any possible vetoes.

Suttle said he will study the council's changes and is willing to work with council members. But he said he's concerned that some of their ideas won't bring in as much money as they hope.

If revenue sources fall short next year, he said, the city could end up having to repeat this year's round of cuts to swimming pools, libraries and other services.

“I don't want to repeat this summer, next summer,” Suttle said. “I'm really guarded about that.”

Some council members also were dissatisfied with the budget, but for different reasons.

The budget was approved on a 4-2 vote after a debate that stretched until nearly 11 p.m. Council members Pete Festersen and Jean Stothert voted against it because it contains a tax increase to pay debt on projects such as the Qwest Center Omaha.

That tax increase would cost the owner of a $100,000 house an extra $24 a year.

An $11 million shortfall in the budget was addressed with the help of a new, $50 inspection fee for satellite TV dishes and the voluntary furlough plan for all city employees. Both were proposed by Councilman Chris Jerram.

(snip)

Initially, the budget did not pass. Councilman Franklin Thompson voted with Festersen and Stothert to reject it, citing the tax increase.

Thompson later switched to become the deciding vote in passing the measure.

“I do believe the council has been cornered, but I believe this council has done everything it can to do the right thing,” Thompson said. “My constituents are going to be disappointed in me.”

YOU GOT that right, Franklin. I'm your constituent, and I'm disappointed that Ben Gray was the only grown-up on the city council. I'm disappointed Gray was the only council member to realize the city had already cut into the bone . . . and that it was time to tell taxpayers to bear their share of the burden of self-governance.

And now the council has passed a sham of a budget, one that kicks the fiscal can down the road for a date with another crisis in a few months.

Voluntary furloughs? Lord God, what kind of insanity is that?

Most of the council declared they couldn't expect property owners to pay enough more in taxes -- about $52 extra a year when all is said and done -- to cover the city's budget shortfall and debt-service obligations, yet they expect city employees to voluntarily forfeit 2 1/2 days' pay?

That's not just your average, everyday insanity, that's some heavy-duty, patently unjust insanity.

TO MAKE THIS short and not-so-sweet, the council-passed Omaha city budget is the biggest fiction you're likely to see until the next Glenn Beck Show. And the council members to blame for it have proven themselves unworthy of their office.

If she only had a brain


In journalism school, the professors told us there was no such thing as as a bad question.

They were wrong.

The whole world is agape at
the jaw-droppingly brain-dead question from CNBC's Maria Bartiromo to a 44-year-old congressman. Medicare . . . just for old people? Who'd a thunk it?.

Walter Cronkite, I am sure, is so happy he didn't live to see his profession brought to this new low.

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Sound and fury signifying whack job




Paddy Chayefsky saw Glenn Beck coming.

And he left us with the film Network in 1976. Paddy Chayefsky may have been the last of the Hebrew prophets of God.

It's eerie, actually. Now that the Fox News Channel has its own Howard Beale -- really, just replace the fainting spells with crying jags, and you have Glenn Beale . . . or Howard Beck -- there's only one place for it to go.

If I were Glenn Beck, I wouldn't be worried that it's the Obama lovers lurking in the shadows, assembling a hit squad. I'd be worried about keeping my ratings high.

THEN AGAIN, if the flat-topped demagogue keeps up his Mormon incarnation of Father Charles Coughlin, we all may have bigger problems than FNC turning into UBS. See, Beck's problem -- and ours -- is that he's doing the shtick of another spiritual predecessor, Sen. Joseph McCarthy, and turning the volume up to 11.

McCarthy saw communists behind every bush and in every nook of the U.S. government, then set out to use legislative mechanisms to effect an internal purge. Beck, on the other hand, is telling us that the president is a communist -- that the Reds have taken over the whole government -- then says we have to do something about it.

And his followers are left to fill in the blank. It sounds to me like a chickens*** call to revolution -- ginning up the mob, then maintaining plausible deniability with a wink and a nudge.

THE LATEST "commie" Beck sees lurking in the Obama administration is Van Jones, the new special adviser on "green" jobs.

Beck thinks Jones is a commie. Beck thinks Jones poses a threat to the republic -- a threat to constitutional democracy.

A transcript
from tonight's TV show:

A new system of what? Is he talking about more than just solar panels? Let's look again at the entire context of this statement — he's saying that this can't be only about new forms of energy:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JONES:
If all we do is take out the dirty power system, the dirty power generation in a system, and just replace it with some clean stuff, put a solar panel on top of this system. When we don't deal with how we are consuming water. We don't deal with how we're treating our other sister and brother species. We don't deal with toxins. We don't deal with the way we treat each other. If that's not a part of this movement, let me tell you what you'll have: You'll have solar-powered bulldozers, solar-powered buzz saws, and biofuel bombers, and we'll be fighting wars over lithium for the batteries instead of oil for the engines and we'll still have a dead planet. This movement is deeper than a solar panel! Deeper than a solar panel! Don't stop there! Don't stop there! We're gonna change the whole system! We're gonna change the whole thing!

(END VIDEO CLIP)


This is social justice.

Can we stop claiming that this man is just an average, everyday, capitalist American? Can we at least start having the necessary discussion of whether we want communists in the United States government as "special advisers" to the president? Do we even want communists to have lunch with our president?

Barack Obama did not campaign openly on "changing the whole system." He did, however, five days before Election Day, tell us this much:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)


THEN-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE BARACK OBAMA:
We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) [sic]

Very few Americans paid attention then. Are you paying attention now?

If our founding principles are no longer relevant — if the system with which this country was founded is somehow unjust or unworkable now — and communism, Marxism or socialism is the right and relevant path, then let's have that discussion in America. But to subversively bring in a "new system" through the back door, in the middle of the night — no, that's unacceptable.

But this goes further than whether Van Jones is a capitalist or a communist. Look at what else Jones said at this conference:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JONES:
And our Native American sisters and brothers who were pushed and bullied and mistreated and shoved into all the land we didn't want, where it was all hot and windy. Well, guess what? Renewable energy? Guess what, solar industry? Guess what wind industry? They now own and control 80 percent of the renewable energy resources. No more broken treaties. No more broken treaties. Give them the wealth! Give them the wealth! Give them the dignity. Give them the respect that they deserve. No justice on stolen land. We owe them a debt.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Give them the wealth? Is that what you voted for?

Does that sound familiar at all?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)


REV. JEREMIAH WRIGHT:
We believe God sanctioned the rape and robbery of an entire continent. We believe God ordained African slavery. We believe God makes Europeans superior to Africans and superior to everybody else too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

It may also bring to mind the man who gave the prayer at President Obama's inauguration ceremony, the man on whom President Obama just bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Reverend Joseph Lowry:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)


REV. JOSEPH LOWRY:
And in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back; when brown can stick around; when yellow will be mellow; when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)


No? Let's try it again. Here's more from Van Jones — again, to be fair, this is from his "ancient history catalogue" — this past March:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JONES:
What about our immigrant sisters and brothers? What about our immigrant sisters and brothers? What about people who come here from all around the world who we're willing to have out in the field, with poison being sprayed on them, poison being sprayed on them because we have the wrong agricultural system. And we're willing to poison them and poison the earth to put food on our table, but we don't want to give them rights and we don't want to give them dignity and we don't want to give them respect?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHAT WE HAVE HERE is a delusional, paranoid "political commentator" -- or perhaps just a cynic for the ages -- who not only sees unfiltered social-justice rhetoric and thinks it's Marxist, but who also thinks the entire concept of social justice is a communist plot.

And on top of that, he has the gall to single out a living hero of the civil-rights movement -- Lowery -- and cite his inauguration benediction as further evidence of the "red menace" descending upon us.

Yes, there is a menace afoot that threatens our civil society and American democracy. It's not Van Jones . . . or Joseph Lowery . . . or even Barack Obama.

It's Glenn Beck and the right-wing, tinfoil-hat masses who take him seriously.

If what Van Jones said is evidence of communist intent, then color me red. (And can you believe Beck's disputing settled history that Native Americans were horribly mistreated amid an avalanche of treaties broken by the U.S. government?)

IF WHAT Beck excerpted of Jones' remarks is proof-positive that the man is a Marxist, then so am I. And so is the pope, and all the Catholic bishops of the world.

And so is every American Catholic who believes what the church proclaims . . . what Jesus Christ proclaimed.

Here is a lengthy except from the Catechism of the Catholic Church on (gasp!) social justice:

I. Respect for the Human Person

1929
Social justice can be obtained only in respecting the transcendent dignity of man. The person represents the ultimate end of society, which is ordered to him:

What is at stake is the dignity of the human person, whose defense and promotion have been entrusted to us by the Creator, and to whom the men and women at every moment of history are strictly and responsibly in debt.

1930
Respect for the human person entails respect for the rights that flow from his dignity as a creature. These rights are prior to society and must be recognized by it. They are the basis of the moral legitimacy of every authority: by flouting them, or refusing to recognize them in its positive legislation, a society undermines its own moral legitimacy. If it does not respect them, authority can rely only on force or violence to obtain obedience from its subjects. It is the Church's role to remind men of good will of these rights and to distinguish them from unwarranted or false claims.

1931
Respect for the human person proceeds by way of respect for the principle that "everyone should look upon his neighbor (without any exception) as ‘another self,' above all bearing in mind his life and the means necessary for living it with dignity." No legislation could by itself do away with the fears, prejudices, and attitudes of pride and selfishness which obstruct the establishment of truly fraternal societies. Such behavior will cease only through the charity that finds in every man a "neighbor," a brother.

1932
The duty of making oneself a neighbor to others and actively serving them becomes even more urgent when it involves the disadvantaged, in whatever area this may be. "As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me."

1933
This same duty extends to those who think or act differently from us. The teaching of Christ goes so far as to require the forgiveness of offenses. He extends the commandment of love, which is that of the New Law, to all enemies. Liberation in the spirit of the Gospel is incompatible with hatred of one's enemy as a person, but not with hatred of the evil that he does as an enemy.

II. Equality and Differences Among Men

1934
Created in the image of the one God and equally endowed with rational souls, all men have the same nature and the same origin. Redeemed by the sacrifice of Christ, all are called to participate in the same divine beatitude: all therefore enjoy an equal dignity.

1935
The equality of men rests essentially on their dignity as persons and the rights that flow from it:

Every form of social or cultural discrimination in fundamental personal rights on the grounds of sex, race, color, social conditions, language, or religion must be curbed and eradicated as incompatible with God's design.

1936
On coming into the world, man is not equipped with everything he needs for developing his bodily and spiritual life. He needs others. Differences appear tied to age, physical abilities, intellectual or moral aptitudes, the benefits derived from social commerce, and the distribution of wealth. The "talents" are not distributed equally.

1937
These differences belong to God's plan, who wills that each receive what he needs from others, and that those endowed with particular "talents" share the benefits with those who need them. These differences encourage and often oblige persons to practice generosity, kindness, and sharing of goods; they foster the mutual enrichment of cultures:

I distribute the virtues quite diversely; I do not give all of them to each person, but some to one, some to others. . . . I shall give principally charity to one; justice to another; humility to this one, a living faith to that one. . . . And so I have given many gifts and graces, both spiritual and temporal, with such diversity that I have not given everything to one single person, so that you may be constrained to practice charity towards one another. . . . I have willed that one should need another and that all should be my ministers in distributing the graces and gifts they have received from me.

1938
There exist also sinful inequalities that affect millions of men and women. These are in open contradiction of the Gospel:

Their equal dignity as persons demands that we strive for fairer and more humane conditions. Excessive economic and social disparity between individuals and peoples of the one human race is a source of scandal and militates against social justice, equity, human dignity, as well as social and international peace.

III. Human Solidarity

1939
The principle of solidarity, also articulated in terms of "friendship" or "social charity," is a direct demand of human and Christian brotherhood.

An error, "today abundantly widespread, is disregard for the law of human solidarity and charity, dictated and imposed both by our common origin and by the equality in rational nature of all men, whatever nation they belong to. This law is sealed by the sacrifice of redemption offered by Jesus Christ on the altar of the Cross to his heavenly Father, on behalf of sinful humanity."

1940
Solidarity is manifested in the first place by the distribution of goods and remuneration for work. It also presupposes the effort for a more just social order where tensions are better able to be reduced and conflicts more readily settled by negotiation.

1941
Socio-economic problems can be resolved only with the help of all the forms of solidarity: solidarity of the poor among themselves, between rich and poor, of workers among themselves, between employers and employees in a business, solidarity among nations and peoples. International solidarity is a requirement of the moral order; world peace depends in part upon this.

1942
The virtue of solidarity goes beyond material goods. In spreading the spiritual goods of the faith, the Church has promoted, and often opened new paths for, the development of temporal goods as well. And so throughout the centuries has the Lord's saying been verified: "Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well":

For two thousand years this sentiment has lived and endured in the soul of the Church, impelling souls then and now to the heroic charity of monastic farmers, liberators of slaves, healers of the sick, and messengers of faith, civilization, and science to all generations and all peoples for the sake of creating the social conditions capable of offering to everyone possible a life worthy of man and of a Christian.

IF YOU'RE GLENN BECK, the compiled doctrine of Christendom's most ancient religion is just as good -- or bad -- as the Communist Manifesto. And
67,515,016 American Catholics apparently must be poised to reprise Mao's Long March -- this time straight through the U.S. Constitution, all the nation's running-dog capitalists and right into the Fox News Channel studios.

Beck passed from the realm of broadcast buffoonery long ago. Now he apparently fancies himself the leader of an all-American, pro-capitalist "counterrevolutionary" army.

Well, maybe he doesn't. The dangerous thing, though, is that he wants his audience to think he is.

IF AMERICA is indeed still possible, Americans will consign this present-day leader of postmodern Know-Nothings to the ratings cellar and the ash bin of history.

And if we don't . . . Jesus, mercy. Mary, pray.