Have you ever noticed those restaurants that are always packed to the gills--Hacienda Colorado, The Claim Jumper, Texas Roadhouse, et. al.--always serve up portions that no normal human being could eat in one sitting? The food itself is just passable and, allowing for the different "cuisines" being featured, tastes the same, has the same texture, the same shiny plastic sheen on the salad dressings, the same apps, the same house special margaritas, the same sad low end wines from California.
The people, both customers and waitstaff, look the same as well. There will be lots of overweight families out celebrating a birthday, or a graduation from junior high, or the purchase of a new pick-up. The men will be sporting guts that strain their "Nobama" tee-shirts and chances are they'll be wearing ill-fitting baseball caps with mesh panels built in and a brim that advertises bull semen or something along that order. The women, except for the lack of a baseball cap, are pretty much indistinguishable from the men and the little children are all clinically obese. Everybody at the big table set for eight (the grandparents are tagging along) has a great time talking about the day and the special event. But when the young and depressingly happy servers bring out the groaning plates of artery clogging meats and potatoes, the conversation stops and the family gets down to the serious business of feeding. These places are not dining rooms; they're feeding troughs.
We went to a Texas Roadhouse a couple nights ago. I would have written this yesterday, but it took me longer than normal to digest (ahem) the whole experience. The place was packed. There were people beginning to line up by the front door waiting to get a table just as we were getting seated. We were led through this maze of cedar planking to a two-top booth in a back cubby hole next to two tables celebrating birthdays and both looking remarkably like my description above. They seemed nice enough and the fact that there was just barely enough room for our happy waiter and his even happier busboys to squeeze through between our two tables didn't bother me at all until it was time to bring out the cake, or the cupcakes in this case.
From the back of joint, somewhere by the glass case displaying different cuts of withered looking beef came an incessant pounding and then a parade of all the staff led by a waiter carrying a full sized leather saddle. I can only assume it was imported from the lone star state. They wedged the saddle in the aisle between our tables and got everyone in the restaurant--everyone except Kathe and I--to yell a big Texas "Hee-Haw" in celebration of this chubby little kid's special day. He had a hard time climbing up on the saddle and his leg was a little too chubby to fit between our tables, but hey, who noticed? After the little celebration the folks in the restaurant all took a few minutes to settle back down to the serious business of stuffing chunks of, in most cases, well-done beef in their mouths. The folks at the birthday table immediately quieted down after the saddle had been removed and dug into their chocolate sundaes, the ones they ordered to supplement the cupcakes.
The birthday celebration may have been annoying, but our food, with the exception of some pretty good fried pickles, wasn't even mediocre. But mostly it is the service at such places that sets them apart. The folks at Texas Roadhouse are evidently bound and determined to turn their (at least) 75 tables four times a night. We got our cokes right away. The pickles took a little longer and we were just starting to appreciate how thin and crispy they were when we had to push the plates aside to accommodate our salads. I had just sprinkled my blue cheese crumbles when Kathie's prime rib and my rib eye came. They must order their meat from the same company that supplies King Soopers. That's exactly how indigestible it was. I ate half of mine and took the rest home. K did the same. She likes masking the taste and texture of sub-prime beef in tomato soup the next day. I would do the same, but I don't like tomato soup. We decided to forego dessert and beat a fast retreat, determined never to return. When we walked through the throngs of silent feeders, everyone on the wait staff smiled broadly and wished us a pleasant evening. They smiled so much because they probably felt guilty about feeding us such swill.
Some people eat to live. Those are the folks who get excited when they see a Cracker Barrel up ahead on the interstate. I ate at a Cracker Barrel in Nebraska once. The breakfast buffet was bountiful, crowded, and nightmarish.
Next time I go out to eat, I'm going to Mizuna. If Mizuna offered blue cheese crumbles with their salads I'm pretty sure the wait staff would sprinkle them on for me.
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Sunday, August 24, 2014
Nannying and Politics:
Two words that normally don't inhabit the same space
I spent about three hours yesterday working on QUAD, my latest attempt at writing a novel, when I wrote myself into yet another gaping hole and decided to quit for awhile and reread some postings in Starkeyland. I was particularly struck by some of the political rants posted a few years ago in response to all the partisan name calling and down right dishonesty. The thing I noticed about them was that they sounded well informed. I had done my homework. I had read all the crap on THE DAILY BEAST, THE NEW YORK TIMES, HUFFINGTON POST, THE DRUDGE REPORT, POLITIFACT, FACTCHECK, and on and on. If there is anyone out there who actually keeps up with this blog, you will undoubtedly have noticed two things: first, the postings are coming fewer and farther between, and second, there is precious little politics..
I have explanations for that. We don't blog so much anymore because we are being the nannies for Willa and Jaydee now that both Ken and Franny have jobs that take them out of the home. Kathie and I wake up around 5 in the morning. Instead of going to the Y like we have normally done for the past twenty years or so, we stay home, have coffee, read the paper, watch the football network. I normally go down to the computer around half past 6 to work on my book. Then I leave around 8:15 to pick up the girls at their home. I get back to my home about 9:30. We usually do something worthwhile with the girls in the morning. We go to the zoo, or to one of the museums, or to the Botanic Gardens, things like that. One day a week we hang out at home and have the girls' grandmother, who is currently suffering from Alzheimer's and in an assisted living facility, over for lunch. Another day we are apt to take them to a park or on a little hike along the South Platte. On Thursday, the last day of our four day week of nannying, we take them to the Columbine Library to nose around and take Willa to a toddler class. It's good practice learning to play with others for when she starts real school.
We feed the kids lunch somewhere around noon and if we're lucky put them down for naps at 1:30. If the naps take, and they usually do, Kathie and I spend a blissful hour hanging out, talking, having a drink or two. The kids are normally back at it around 3 or 3:30 and we spend the rest of the day watching a movie (BRAVE, FROZEN, THE LORAX, we've bought them all). At 4:30 we hook up with Franny at DU and the kids go back home.
There just isn't much time to blog given all that, but my life does feel richer than it has the past few years and not just because we are getting paid.
I also have an explanation for the lack of political commentary lately. I figure what's the point? Ken is still mightily involved in the upcoming midterms, targeting key races around the country for CREDO and coordinating all their activities by focusing on uninformed Democratic voters, the voters, usually young people, who are too lazy or stupid to vote during the midterms, thus guaranteeing that gridlock in Washington will be here to stay. Franny, on the other hand, is no longer part of the political fray. Instead, she's working at DU as the Director of Alumni Something Or Other. She likes it. She doesn't have to read Mike Allen every morning and watch MORNING JOE. I've followed suit. I simply don't read about it with the same scrutiny I used to and I'm a happier man for it and, as Ken has pointed out to me on more than one occasion, the country so far is surviving my lack of attention.
With all that in mind, what I'm about to say, instead of being based on my reading, is simply a couple of uninformed knee jerk reactions to the current political season as manifested in political ads.
I don't understand why Mark Udall, who I think is a terrific and truly bipartisan senator, is running such a stupid race. When the ads from Americans For Prosperity (read: Koch brothers) lambaste Udall for casting the deciding vote for Obamacare, I always get first amazed and then furious and then sad. Are there really people out there who believe that there was a single deciding vote for Obamacare? Is the electorate really that stupid? The answer is an unqualified yes! When other versions of those attack ads appear talking about how health care cost are still rising (OF COURSE THEY'RE STILL RISING YOU IDIOTS. NO ONE SAID THEY WOULDN'T. BUT THEY ARE RISING MORE SLOWLY THAN AT ANY TIME SINCE 1965!), or that 300,000 folks have lost their insurance (THAT MANY PEOPLE ALWAYS HAVE TO CHANGE THEIR COVERAGE FOR A VARIETY OF REASONS. IT HAS BEEN EVER THUS AND HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH OBAMACARE!), or that tons of poor people have seen their premiums increase (OF COURSE THE KOCH BROTHERS ARE NOT MENTIONING THAT PREMIUMS INCREASE AS COVERAGE BECOMES MORE COMPREHENSIVE. THEY ALSO DON'T MENTION HOW SUBSIDIES WILL EASE THAT PAIN FOR THE VAST MAJORITY OF PEOPLE). In other words, those ads are complete and unvarnished bullshit and yet Udall doesn't fight back.
Of course, Udall is at a huge disadvantage. The attacks on Obamacare lend themselves to soundbites; the explanations for what's really happening with health care are complicated. People have to be smart and open minded and patient, three qualities in short supply, to understand them. And even if they did understand, they would still refuse to believe. So I go back to my previous comment. What's the point?
Do us all a favor and vote for Udall. Do us all a favor and base your vote on truth rather than demonization.
I spent about three hours yesterday working on QUAD, my latest attempt at writing a novel, when I wrote myself into yet another gaping hole and decided to quit for awhile and reread some postings in Starkeyland. I was particularly struck by some of the political rants posted a few years ago in response to all the partisan name calling and down right dishonesty. The thing I noticed about them was that they sounded well informed. I had done my homework. I had read all the crap on THE DAILY BEAST, THE NEW YORK TIMES, HUFFINGTON POST, THE DRUDGE REPORT, POLITIFACT, FACTCHECK, and on and on. If there is anyone out there who actually keeps up with this blog, you will undoubtedly have noticed two things: first, the postings are coming fewer and farther between, and second, there is precious little politics..
I have explanations for that. We don't blog so much anymore because we are being the nannies for Willa and Jaydee now that both Ken and Franny have jobs that take them out of the home. Kathie and I wake up around 5 in the morning. Instead of going to the Y like we have normally done for the past twenty years or so, we stay home, have coffee, read the paper, watch the football network. I normally go down to the computer around half past 6 to work on my book. Then I leave around 8:15 to pick up the girls at their home. I get back to my home about 9:30. We usually do something worthwhile with the girls in the morning. We go to the zoo, or to one of the museums, or to the Botanic Gardens, things like that. One day a week we hang out at home and have the girls' grandmother, who is currently suffering from Alzheimer's and in an assisted living facility, over for lunch. Another day we are apt to take them to a park or on a little hike along the South Platte. On Thursday, the last day of our four day week of nannying, we take them to the Columbine Library to nose around and take Willa to a toddler class. It's good practice learning to play with others for when she starts real school.
We feed the kids lunch somewhere around noon and if we're lucky put them down for naps at 1:30. If the naps take, and they usually do, Kathie and I spend a blissful hour hanging out, talking, having a drink or two. The kids are normally back at it around 3 or 3:30 and we spend the rest of the day watching a movie (BRAVE, FROZEN, THE LORAX, we've bought them all). At 4:30 we hook up with Franny at DU and the kids go back home.
There just isn't much time to blog given all that, but my life does feel richer than it has the past few years and not just because we are getting paid.
I also have an explanation for the lack of political commentary lately. I figure what's the point? Ken is still mightily involved in the upcoming midterms, targeting key races around the country for CREDO and coordinating all their activities by focusing on uninformed Democratic voters, the voters, usually young people, who are too lazy or stupid to vote during the midterms, thus guaranteeing that gridlock in Washington will be here to stay. Franny, on the other hand, is no longer part of the political fray. Instead, she's working at DU as the Director of Alumni Something Or Other. She likes it. She doesn't have to read Mike Allen every morning and watch MORNING JOE. I've followed suit. I simply don't read about it with the same scrutiny I used to and I'm a happier man for it and, as Ken has pointed out to me on more than one occasion, the country so far is surviving my lack of attention.
With all that in mind, what I'm about to say, instead of being based on my reading, is simply a couple of uninformed knee jerk reactions to the current political season as manifested in political ads.
I don't understand why Mark Udall, who I think is a terrific and truly bipartisan senator, is running such a stupid race. When the ads from Americans For Prosperity (read: Koch brothers) lambaste Udall for casting the deciding vote for Obamacare, I always get first amazed and then furious and then sad. Are there really people out there who believe that there was a single deciding vote for Obamacare? Is the electorate really that stupid? The answer is an unqualified yes! When other versions of those attack ads appear talking about how health care cost are still rising (OF COURSE THEY'RE STILL RISING YOU IDIOTS. NO ONE SAID THEY WOULDN'T. BUT THEY ARE RISING MORE SLOWLY THAN AT ANY TIME SINCE 1965!), or that 300,000 folks have lost their insurance (THAT MANY PEOPLE ALWAYS HAVE TO CHANGE THEIR COVERAGE FOR A VARIETY OF REASONS. IT HAS BEEN EVER THUS AND HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH OBAMACARE!), or that tons of poor people have seen their premiums increase (OF COURSE THE KOCH BROTHERS ARE NOT MENTIONING THAT PREMIUMS INCREASE AS COVERAGE BECOMES MORE COMPREHENSIVE. THEY ALSO DON'T MENTION HOW SUBSIDIES WILL EASE THAT PAIN FOR THE VAST MAJORITY OF PEOPLE). In other words, those ads are complete and unvarnished bullshit and yet Udall doesn't fight back.
Of course, Udall is at a huge disadvantage. The attacks on Obamacare lend themselves to soundbites; the explanations for what's really happening with health care are complicated. People have to be smart and open minded and patient, three qualities in short supply, to understand them. And even if they did understand, they would still refuse to believe. So I go back to my previous comment. What's the point?
Do us all a favor and vote for Udall. Do us all a favor and base your vote on truth rather than demonization.
Thursday, June 26, 2014
Moving The Bomb Line On Climate Change
Yossarian has nothing on the North Carolina legislature
This little news item ("Rising tide. Damp Market." The Denver Post, June 26, 2014) from North Carolina wins my first sporadically awarded Moving The Bomb Line Above Bologna prize in tribute to Yossarian doing just that in Catch-22 to avoid a suicide bombing mission. It seems that back in 2011 North Carolina state officials, under the direction of a Democratic governor, released a study that showed the water levels on the coast rising 39 inches by the end of the century! They were even in the process of creating a web site showing all the properties that would be inundated by the year 2100. They figured North Carolineans could look at the handy web site as a guide to preparing for the future.
Well, one lobbyist for realtors and home builders, combined with plenty of Republican state legislators and assorted climate change deniers, set about to fight the report. With the help of a newly elected Republican governor, North Carolina's legislator "took back" the report and instead released information for the next 30 years only. According to the more limited study, coastal water levels would only rise by 8 inches. The realtors were happy. The Republicans were happy. Together, they had managed to save 31 inches. If that's not conservation, what is?
Let's be fair for a second. It is hard to blame a homeowner or businessman living on the outer coast. A web site guaranteeing the imminent destruction of your property and all the surrounding properties would most assuredly devastate your region's economy. Good luck selling. Good luck attracting tourists. How long can you tread water? I'm glad I live in the mountains where I only have to worry about avalanches, landslides, wild fires, and floods.
On the other hand, 97 % of the scientific community not employed by the Koch brothers agree that if we don't act now, phenomena like the inundation of North Carolina' coast are inevitable. Of course, they're probably inevitably no matter what we do, but hey, let's keep a good thought. So, explain to me how acting to curb climate change, to limit our carbon footprint, to be sustainable, etc., etc., is going to cost us too much money. How much is it costing to rebuild Atlantic City and the rest of the east coast after Sandy? How many more times in the next 100 years are we going to have to rebuild it again? It seems like acting now would be more cost effective. If the 39 inch prediction is true, and the confidence is high, then $700 billion dollars of property will be below sea level in 2100 and an additional $730 billion will be at risk at high tide.
I know I don't understand about business (pause to genuflect here) and job creation and all that, but all those figures in the last paragraph seem like real money to me. We ought to muster the political will to do something about it, something other than moving the bomb line and hoping nobody will notice.
This little news item ("Rising tide. Damp Market." The Denver Post, June 26, 2014) from North Carolina wins my first sporadically awarded Moving The Bomb Line Above Bologna prize in tribute to Yossarian doing just that in Catch-22 to avoid a suicide bombing mission. It seems that back in 2011 North Carolina state officials, under the direction of a Democratic governor, released a study that showed the water levels on the coast rising 39 inches by the end of the century! They were even in the process of creating a web site showing all the properties that would be inundated by the year 2100. They figured North Carolineans could look at the handy web site as a guide to preparing for the future.
Well, one lobbyist for realtors and home builders, combined with plenty of Republican state legislators and assorted climate change deniers, set about to fight the report. With the help of a newly elected Republican governor, North Carolina's legislator "took back" the report and instead released information for the next 30 years only. According to the more limited study, coastal water levels would only rise by 8 inches. The realtors were happy. The Republicans were happy. Together, they had managed to save 31 inches. If that's not conservation, what is?
Let's be fair for a second. It is hard to blame a homeowner or businessman living on the outer coast. A web site guaranteeing the imminent destruction of your property and all the surrounding properties would most assuredly devastate your region's economy. Good luck selling. Good luck attracting tourists. How long can you tread water? I'm glad I live in the mountains where I only have to worry about avalanches, landslides, wild fires, and floods.
On the other hand, 97 % of the scientific community not employed by the Koch brothers agree that if we don't act now, phenomena like the inundation of North Carolina' coast are inevitable. Of course, they're probably inevitably no matter what we do, but hey, let's keep a good thought. So, explain to me how acting to curb climate change, to limit our carbon footprint, to be sustainable, etc., etc., is going to cost us too much money. How much is it costing to rebuild Atlantic City and the rest of the east coast after Sandy? How many more times in the next 100 years are we going to have to rebuild it again? It seems like acting now would be more cost effective. If the 39 inch prediction is true, and the confidence is high, then $700 billion dollars of property will be below sea level in 2100 and an additional $730 billion will be at risk at high tide.
I know I don't understand about business (pause to genuflect here) and job creation and all that, but all those figures in the last paragraph seem like real money to me. We ought to muster the political will to do something about it, something other than moving the bomb line and hoping nobody will notice.
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Plato at the Googleplex - Michael Lewis on Wall Street
A Prose Cocktail
The combination of PLATO AT THE GOOGLEPLEX by Rebecca Goldstein and Michael Lewis’ FLASH BOYS is a disturbing cocktail, one I haven’t been able to stop thinking about, especially since every time I turn around I see another connection. I bought the Goldstein book because the reviews made it irresistible. The book follows the delightful conceit that Plato is on a book tour for his most recent work, THE REPUBLIC, and in the course of the tour does interviews with techies at Google, a tiger mom, a cable news host (read: Bill O’Reilly) and a brain scientist. When I started the book poolside in Belize, I was mostly looking forward to Plato’s evisceration of O’Reilly; instead, I got a delightful review of Platonic thought, the history of philosophy, Greek myth, and modern science in one. But more than that, I was reminded of the key philosophical questions that drew me to philosophy in the first place. As an added bonus, the book is clearly a playful, but nonetheless stern, rebuke to modern day pundits and politicians of all persuasions.
There are all kinds of great questions: Why is there something rather than nothing (ontological)? Is it better to live a short life full of significance, or a long life undistinguished (Achilles, not to mention Pippin)? How does one live a life that matters (teleological)? They are all fun to debate in the campus coffee shop at all hours of the night and morning.
But I want to talk mostly about laws and justice here. Plato proposes a fascinating thought experiment. Imagine you had in your possession a ring that would render you invisible whenever you wore it, reminiscent of Perseus’ helmet in CLASH OF THE TITANS (“I’m invisible. Can’t you see that.”). When invisible you could do anything you felt like with no fear of getting caught, no fear of retribution. You could walk into a house and take whatever you wanted. You could rifle money out of cash drawers. Lurk around girls’ or boys’ locker rooms. Steal cars. Take free rides on airplanes. Anything. Would you take advantage of that situation? Regardless of your answer, what percentage of the rest of us would? Most everyone would answer, “Of course not. Of course I wouldn’t take advantage.” But do you think that’s an honest response? If you had the ring long enough, wouldn’t you be tempted to use it for little stuff? You’re short of cash and you’ve left your bank card at home. Wouldn’t you slip on the ring and score that Twinkie, or that $100,000 bar? Who’s it gonna hurt? And wouldn’t that make the next transgression a little easier? I mean, that’d just be human, right?
Plato goes off from that experiment to suggest that at the extreme end of the range of human desires lies the ring. If heaven or hell were not hanging over our heads, we would all ultimately agree that being able to do anything we would like to do and get away with it would be ideal. Of course, we would also agree that the worse that could happen to us is if someone else who was getting away with everything did anything to hurt us. The space between those two conflicting desires is the realm of law and justice. Since we have no choice but to live in a community (Plato thought that anyone who lived outside of society was by definition either a god or a monster), we have to cooperate to survive. We have to have a social contract. And to do that we would have consider questions like “What is the good life?” “What makes life matter?”
Even more than that, the good of the polis, the city-state, outweighs the good of the individual. Anything else equals chaos. Sparta honored collective glory. Individual glory—a life that matters—was secondary to the glory of the state. Athens gloried in the individual, but a life that mattered for the individual was still one that furthered the state. The braid of beauty, truth, and goodness held this magical society together. The pursuit of any part of this trilogy was the purest endeavor and one that could not help but further the good of the state. All politicians in Plato’s utopia would be the poorest people in the state and forbade extravagance so as to guard against the inevitable corruption that comes from the combination of power and wealth.
In the ultimately unsatisfying chapter where Plato is interviewed by the Bill O’Reilly character (It is unsatisfying because you finally see that it is not possible to win an argument with a prating knave.), Plato asks Roy McCoy if he would rather refute someone, or be refuted? Would he rather hurt another, or himself be hurt? McCoy treats it like a trick question. Of course, he would rather refute, would rather hurt than be hurt. What kind of idiot wouldn’t? Plato is just that kind of idiot. He is the kind of idiot any polis needs to hold it together. The USA of the first part of the twenty-first century is in short supply of such idiots and if we had them they would just queue up to be demolished by the pundits, the cable news hosts, the bought and paid for politicians.
That’s why PLATO AT THE GOOGLEPLEX fits in so nicely with FLASH BOYS. The Plato book shows us how to make a better polis. Michael Lewis’ book shows us why that is a pipe dream. We all know the story. Wall Street types, whose only motivation is to make increasing amounts of money, discovered that they could game the system by simply placing their orders faster than anyone else. If a person could find a price fluctuation between the futures market in Chicago and the exchange on Wall Street, he could make a lot of money by placing a virtually instant order to buy or sell.
That is an epic over-simplification, but suffice it to say that all that technical wheeling and dealing aside, FLASH BOYS is a book about unbridled greed and our culture’s tacit acceptance of that fact.
Folks just made a whole shit load of money by jumping the market and in the process screwing the little guys, the guys who lost value in their retirement, the mutual funds who were naive enough to play by the rules. When the book’s hero, the guy who spearheads the push to figure out the scam, tries to establish a fair stock market that wasn’t based on bilking the common man, he went to the big banks to get them to participate. At first, when asked why he was doing this, why he was giving up a big money job to make the market fair again, he simply told them that he wanted to do the right thing. That response was greeted by such genuine bewilderment that he didn’t raise a dime. When he changed his story and rigged some numbers to suggest that he would make an eventual killing on the deal, the investors lined up at his door.
After I finished the book, I looked up a number of negative reviews to find out what all those Michael Lewis haters were saying. Not much. The main thing I took away from the reviews was that Lewis was ignoring the fact that HFT (high frequency trading) created liquidity, put more money into the economy, and of course (prepare to genuflect) created jobs. None of those reviewers seemed bothered by the amoral pursuit of money and the shameless disregard of others that seems to control our economy. Bill O’Reilly and the folks at FoxNews would call that democracy. Plato, not knowing what to call it, would simply weep.
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
CHRISTIANIST CHARITY
A Contradiction In Terms
I shared a thing by Andrew Sullivan on Facebook yesterday. It was a well documented attack on Sarah Palin's statement that "Waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists." More than that--because we all know that anything that Palin says is bound to be so absurd as to make attack unnecessary--he attacked the "Christianists" (his word) who support such sentiment and the gathered NRA convention goers who wildly applauded her statement.
I introduced the post by paraphrasing James Baldwin's wonderful statement on a Dick Cavett show: "The most segregated hour in the week is high noon on Sunday." I bastardized that statement with my paraphrase: "The most unchristian time and place of the week is in church on Sunday." Okay, so I took some major liberties with Baldwin, but this is a blog so who gives a shit? Predictably, that overstated paraphrase got some reaction. Let me paraphrase. A few folks maintained that in their particular church there was all kinds of Christian charity. Their church helped those less fortunate. One person even said that his church had black people in attendance!
But an attack on the good that churches do was not my intention and it certainly wasn't Baldwin's or Sullivan's. I love churches. I cannot walk into the sanctuary of any church without feeling overwhelmed. I almost always start crying. I can safely say that I have spent more time in churches and on altars dressed in black cassocks and white chasubles than anyone I know who isn't a priest. I can still recite the prayers at the foot of the altar in Latin and I can't seem to get the text of The Baltimore Catechism out of my head.
Churches are great. It's the people inside them I'm not so sure about. You see, I look askance at the kind of charity promulgated by churches. I think it too often serves as a way to build up credits in one's spiritual bank account, thus enabling the "Christianist" to perpetrate all sorts of damage during the rest of the week. Of course, there are all kinds of churchgoing Christians who don't limit their charity to one hour on Sunday. They are Christians 24/7.
But the kind of Christians who Sullivan terms "Christianists" aren't like that. They go to church, give money to augment the building fund, send donations to some random kid in Africa in need of saving and all the rest. But when they aren't in Church feeling holy, they are holed up at home listening to FoxNews, getting angry at all those takers--you know, the people of color who are content to live off the hard work of others--who are after their money, cheering every time John Boehner makes fun of immigration reform, or figures out a way to block gun regulations, or insures tax breaks for corporations even as he blocks them for those of us who don't have a deep pocketed lobby working to preserve our power. Those same "Christianists" are the ones who just a couple of years ago were excited about a new project financed by some right wing foundation or other to rewrite the bible in order to remove its liberal bias--Christ was surely joking when he made that eye of a camel comment, right? Those same "Christianists" see nothing wrong with torture, or death penalties, or destroying immigrant families who simply want to survive. Those are the people Andrew Sullivan is attacking and rightly so. And I join him in that attack.
I shared a thing by Andrew Sullivan on Facebook yesterday. It was a well documented attack on Sarah Palin's statement that "Waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists." More than that--because we all know that anything that Palin says is bound to be so absurd as to make attack unnecessary--he attacked the "Christianists" (his word) who support such sentiment and the gathered NRA convention goers who wildly applauded her statement.
I introduced the post by paraphrasing James Baldwin's wonderful statement on a Dick Cavett show: "The most segregated hour in the week is high noon on Sunday." I bastardized that statement with my paraphrase: "The most unchristian time and place of the week is in church on Sunday." Okay, so I took some major liberties with Baldwin, but this is a blog so who gives a shit? Predictably, that overstated paraphrase got some reaction. Let me paraphrase. A few folks maintained that in their particular church there was all kinds of Christian charity. Their church helped those less fortunate. One person even said that his church had black people in attendance!
But an attack on the good that churches do was not my intention and it certainly wasn't Baldwin's or Sullivan's. I love churches. I cannot walk into the sanctuary of any church without feeling overwhelmed. I almost always start crying. I can safely say that I have spent more time in churches and on altars dressed in black cassocks and white chasubles than anyone I know who isn't a priest. I can still recite the prayers at the foot of the altar in Latin and I can't seem to get the text of The Baltimore Catechism out of my head.
Churches are great. It's the people inside them I'm not so sure about. You see, I look askance at the kind of charity promulgated by churches. I think it too often serves as a way to build up credits in one's spiritual bank account, thus enabling the "Christianist" to perpetrate all sorts of damage during the rest of the week. Of course, there are all kinds of churchgoing Christians who don't limit their charity to one hour on Sunday. They are Christians 24/7.
But the kind of Christians who Sullivan terms "Christianists" aren't like that. They go to church, give money to augment the building fund, send donations to some random kid in Africa in need of saving and all the rest. But when they aren't in Church feeling holy, they are holed up at home listening to FoxNews, getting angry at all those takers--you know, the people of color who are content to live off the hard work of others--who are after their money, cheering every time John Boehner makes fun of immigration reform, or figures out a way to block gun regulations, or insures tax breaks for corporations even as he blocks them for those of us who don't have a deep pocketed lobby working to preserve our power. Those same "Christianists" are the ones who just a couple of years ago were excited about a new project financed by some right wing foundation or other to rewrite the bible in order to remove its liberal bias--Christ was surely joking when he made that eye of a camel comment, right? Those same "Christianists" see nothing wrong with torture, or death penalties, or destroying immigrant families who simply want to survive. Those are the people Andrew Sullivan is attacking and rightly so. And I join him in that attack.
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Route 66
Katherine today.
I'm bridging a gap between too many hours in the sun by a pool (yummy indulgence) and a Rockies spring training game tonight by thinking about our trek here on the remnants of Route 66. The drive is rife with memories and tedium and nice little private jokes with Jim. Jim contends that large numbers of private jokes are a prerequisite to a good marriage. I'm not sure if he's being descriptive or prescriptive or ironic. We are an interesting pair--I seek sympathy and need to vent. He offers solutions and a good ribbing. I love him. I need him these days.
My mom has Alzheimer's. My brother and I are moving her to assisted living memory care. It's awful. I am immersed in memories of her (wonderful and truly awful) and full of empathy and realizing all my fights to keep her independent have been wrong. Her decline has been precipitous and I am a sad little girl.
In the midst of all this, I ran away from home to Rockies Spring Training in Scottsdale Arizona. I'm a master at running away. My mom is brave, but not me. As a little girl I ran away to Stapleton Airport. I got on a real live plane once. We lived within a mile of the airport and I ran there often. The stewardesses at the check-in gates learned to call Mom as soon as they saw me.
Even though I've been good and done my bit helping Mom, I ran away from home and I feel guilty and I am here in Scottsdale and enjoying the amazing sun (how I love it) and the Rockies and everything. I digress.
I want to talk about Route 66. It is an interesting road an a part of our journey from Denver to Scottsdale. I've been on that road off and on since I was eleven years old. I thought about it this time.
We have done this trip enough that I consciously try to think of a new way to look at it each trip. I decided I'd focus on Roadside Attractions this trip. I was thinking about Mom and her adamant and forceful battles with Dad about stopping at stupid Roadside Attractions. She always won. I remember thinking how weird it was she wanted to see the Shoshone Ice Caves or the largest piece of lava in Idaho ("Lave is free--make your own soap!"). I learned as a traveling parent that moms and kids need to pee and move about and her fascination with the Roadside Attractions was more about parenting than curiosity.
I figured this Roadside point of view would be fun when we passed a place in Larkspur that offered miniature golf and goat rides. But that was it until Santa Fe. There was an Italian restaurant in Trinidad with singing waiters and since Trinidad is the sex change capital of the country, I contemplated the singing wait staff as a Roadside Attraction. I decided not to go there.
The only other Roadside Attraction of note was the NRA Wittendon Center just south of Raton, New Mexico. I don't think Mom would have battled for a stop here.
We stayed the night in Santa Fe and headed off on the highway that would begin to follow the Route 66 my childhood.
It wasn't long before I realized that there are no more family Roadside Attractions. They are almost gone. Grown-up things have taken over. Kids watch movies in the backseats of cars and Roadside Attractions are casinos on Native American Reservations. My least favorite Roadside Attraction was Knife City. It had a ton of signs about the various lethal weapons they offered (high capacity clips were offered as well) and only one sign mentioned kitchen cutlery.
There was a 90 mile stretch of Arizona just after we entered the state worthy of note. The roads in Arizona stink compared to New Mexico and Colorado. I'm sure the tax rate is lower though.
Also, that part of the road is on the Navajo Reservation. It was also one of the few parts of the road that echoed my memories of Route 66. There were competing "Indian Villages" with jewelry and moccasins and tepees (one to smoke in), beaded belts, and fireworks. The signs were bright and competitive. I somehow wanted to stop. Just for old times sake. Jim would have stopped for me. He'll do almost anything for me. I couldn't even explain why I would and never said a word. I don't want to stop on the way back either. I'm pretty much over the Roadside Attraction thing.
In Gallup, New Mexico, we passed the El Rancho Motel. We had lunch there once and might do so again on the way back. It's where John Wayne stayed when he made movies with John Ford in Monument Valley. It's really cheesy. That's the point. The burgers were okay. That's the most I would recommend and that's iffy.
There's not much else to report. We saw our first Saguaro near Bumble Bee Arizona (no services) and shortly after that there was a "Scenic View with Vending Machines." What--no Wifi?
I have had a wonderful time in the sun here in Arizona. I have seen a Rockies game and am headed to another tonight (this is when they seem to do their best) and yesterday I spent a day at the spa at the Camelback Inn. I had dinner at the sports bar at the Four Seasons in Carefree last night. When I run away, I run away.
My mom ran way from home because she was trapped at home. I run away from home because home is hard and I need to take a deep breath before I face the next battle.
The Route 66 of my childhood was a road dotted with one-story motels. Most of them had swimming pools and metal pool chairs that semi-rocked and parents who drove like madmen all day long to collapse in those chairs while they watched their kids use up energy in those pools. I loved checking into the motels. My mom would carry in a "beach bag" that was filled with gin and tonics for her and Jim Beam for my dad. My brother and I were ordered to the pool and we dove in with glee and Mom and Dad got tipsy and happy and life was good on Route 66.
Travel well.
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Responsible Journalism
You Have To Want It
I don't have to tell anyone that since the advent of 24 hour news cycles and screaming, ranting, venting ideologues masquerading as journalists, the news has metastasized into this self-referential monster that has almost no relationship to the Truth (whatever that is). The sheer volume of the crap makes reading the Sunday paper a daunting task.
As an old journalism teacher, however, I do have some suggestions on how to pare down your reading to only the essential stuff. You'll notice that there are two kinds of stories that appear on the news pages (We won't even talk about the op-ed stuff.): stories objectively reporting things that happen in the world and stories telling us the reactions of politicians and pundits to those happenings. For instance, the breeching of security at Benghazi and the subsequent deaths were serious things that actually happened in real time, but that only comprised a relatively small part of the coverage. The main coverage of Benghazi focused on political reactions and fall-out. In other words, it devoted a lot of air time, a lot of column inches, to meaningless political posturing and finger pointing, none of which had anything to do with the actual event.
In that spirit, I spent my morning going through my news web sites while waiting for my new paper delivery person to get the Post and the Times here before EIGHT-FUCKING-O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING! I went through THE DAILY BEAST, THE HUFFINGTON POST, FOX NEWS, and POLITICO and simply wrote the headlines of all those stories that would, to my way of thinking, constitute a complete waste of time to look at. I'm going to resist my natural impulse to make snarky comments about each item and just let the list speak for itself.
THE LIST (in no particular order)
"Ann Coulter Disparages Browning Of America"
"Sarah Palin Delivers Vehement CPAC Speech"
"The Right's Plan To Demolish Labor Unions"
"Newt's CPAC Blunder"
"Michelle Bachman Takes A Jab At Hillary Clinton"
"Bobby Jindal Gets A Much Needed History Lesson"
"Rand Paul: Obama Is Shredding The Constitution"
"McConnell: Congress Won't Make A Lot Of Big Important Things Happen This Year"
"Santorum Weighs In On Why The GOP Loses"
"Perry: I Don't Think Nugent's Shocking Comment Was Racist"
I have to add a third category here: all those lurid, leering articles about celebrities and their fascinating lives.
"The Absolute Worst Thing You Can Do With A Kit Kat"
"Justin and Selena Eat Breakfast Together"
"An Inspiring Tale Of Three Pussycats"
"Miley Cirus Needs A Teleprompter To Remember Her Lyrics"
"Why You Should Embrace Slow Sex"
"Selfies Of The Week"
After you get by all the garbage listed above (just the tip of the iceberg), you will discover some pretty good journalism, but you have to want it.
I don't have to tell anyone that since the advent of 24 hour news cycles and screaming, ranting, venting ideologues masquerading as journalists, the news has metastasized into this self-referential monster that has almost no relationship to the Truth (whatever that is). The sheer volume of the crap makes reading the Sunday paper a daunting task.
As an old journalism teacher, however, I do have some suggestions on how to pare down your reading to only the essential stuff. You'll notice that there are two kinds of stories that appear on the news pages (We won't even talk about the op-ed stuff.): stories objectively reporting things that happen in the world and stories telling us the reactions of politicians and pundits to those happenings. For instance, the breeching of security at Benghazi and the subsequent deaths were serious things that actually happened in real time, but that only comprised a relatively small part of the coverage. The main coverage of Benghazi focused on political reactions and fall-out. In other words, it devoted a lot of air time, a lot of column inches, to meaningless political posturing and finger pointing, none of which had anything to do with the actual event.
In that spirit, I spent my morning going through my news web sites while waiting for my new paper delivery person to get the Post and the Times here before EIGHT-FUCKING-O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING! I went through THE DAILY BEAST, THE HUFFINGTON POST, FOX NEWS, and POLITICO and simply wrote the headlines of all those stories that would, to my way of thinking, constitute a complete waste of time to look at. I'm going to resist my natural impulse to make snarky comments about each item and just let the list speak for itself.
THE LIST (in no particular order)
"Ann Coulter Disparages Browning Of America"
"Sarah Palin Delivers Vehement CPAC Speech"
"The Right's Plan To Demolish Labor Unions"
"Newt's CPAC Blunder"
"Michelle Bachman Takes A Jab At Hillary Clinton"
"Bobby Jindal Gets A Much Needed History Lesson"
"Rand Paul: Obama Is Shredding The Constitution"
"McConnell: Congress Won't Make A Lot Of Big Important Things Happen This Year"
"Santorum Weighs In On Why The GOP Loses"
"Perry: I Don't Think Nugent's Shocking Comment Was Racist"
I have to add a third category here: all those lurid, leering articles about celebrities and their fascinating lives.
"The Absolute Worst Thing You Can Do With A Kit Kat"
"Justin and Selena Eat Breakfast Together"
"An Inspiring Tale Of Three Pussycats"
"Miley Cirus Needs A Teleprompter To Remember Her Lyrics"
"Why You Should Embrace Slow Sex"
"Selfies Of The Week"
After you get by all the garbage listed above (just the tip of the iceberg), you will discover some pretty good journalism, but you have to want it.
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