Not the Sharpest Tool in the Shed

Two days ago I had just about all I could stand from David Brooks, the Grey Lady's token "smart" conservative. Today got me from "just about all" to "You tool!"

The apologetics Brooks practises in his editorial on the Iraqi constitution is so patently dishonest, and in such bad faith, that I had to write him a letter expressing my feelings. I was a little peeved when I wrote it. Please pardon my French. I'm sure you, dear reader, can make the same points in kinder, gentler language, and I encourage you to try.

Remember, tilting at idiots is a noble, if hopeless, calling. Good luck!

Brooks,

Just read your latest, "Divided They Stand" and was impressed by your effort to take the lemon that is the Iraqi constitution and turn it into lemonade. What can I say? You are a complete and utter tool. I thought of going with idiot, or asshole, both of which aptly describe you, as does fatuous, arrogant, Pollyannaish and blind, but in the end I decided that tool captured you best:

1) Tool (n.) American slang; Originally a reference to the male member and now synonymous with suckup, sycophant, gasbag, git, and dickhead.

2) Tool (n.) implement, something made use of. In the sense popularized by the 101st Fighting Keyboardists: useful idiot.

You, Brooks, are a tool. But what I want to know is why?

Did they beat you up one too many times in high school? How else does one come to suffer such a severe case of Stockholm Syndrome? How did you go so wrong, Brooks? How did you become the buttboy for the fratboy who would have most eagerly and brutally mocked you as a child? Watching you sell your soul to justify this bumbling brat, whose fuckups are measured in human lives, makes me want to puke.

By a stunning coincidence, your editorial is running on the same day as news of the latest Sadr-sponsored uprising. His militia killed Casey Sheehan. Do you feel it yet, Brooks? Do you feel what a tool you are? No, I didn't think so. That's the other unmistakable quality of a tool: he doesn't realize he's a tool.

You quoted Ruel Gerecht. Do you also share his feelings about the loss of women's rights in the new Iraqi constitution? He recently said, "I'm not too worried about that." Has it occurred to you that Mr. Gerecht would have uttered the very same words prior to the war if asked about the prospect of American casualties? No doubt there are a good many things Mr. Gerecht never worries about. That doesn't mean the people whose lives are actually affected don't worry (See Safia Taleb al-Souhail) nor does it mean the people whose lives are actually affected don't die (see Casey Sheehan).

David, you're almost funny when writing about the rich and self-satisfied. Like they say, Write what you know. But you don't know shit about Iraq. No piece of paper is going to paper over this Mesopotamian clusterfuck. Why don't you wake up, smell the burqa, and write something honest for a change?

-Todd Smith

God is in the Semantics

Here is a recent bit of bullshittery from an AP reporter describing Cindy Sheehan:

Sheehan lost a son in Iraq and has emerged as a harsh critic of the war.

Sheehan began a vigil outside Bush’s ranch, a demonstration that has been joined by more and more other anti-war protesters.

Why does the reporter call her a harsh critic? The harshest thing I ever witnessed at a vigil was some mild irritation caused by dripping candlewax.

Cindy Sheehan is a critic of the war, period. You might reasonably describe her as eloquent, or better yet effective, but harsh? Cindy is harshing Bush's mellow, no doubt, but that's hardly the same thing.

Look at her! Calling this woman harsh is like calling Cheney lovable. The reporter intends to discredit Sheehan by painting her criticism as strident, irrational, and mean. That's not news, it's an editorial.

Concern over a single adjective may seem excessive, a matter of semantics, a minor detail, but God, we are told, is in the details, and none of us should tolerate the kind of lazy reporting that conflates partisan talking points with the facts.

Please take a moment to contact the Associated Press and urge them to urge their reporters to cut the crap and stick to the facts.

War, Meet Fog

I finally saw Errol Morris' documentary The Fog of War last night, and I was blown away. I resisted seeing this film for two years, not because I wasn't in the mood for a good anti-war film, but because I feared another attempt to combat Bush's Folly by tying it to Vietnam. That was then, this is now, I thought. Wrong. Spend some time with former Secretary of Defense McNamara, and you'll see why.

Whatever you think you know about Robert McNamara, you have never seen or heard him like this. He doesn't draw parallels between Vietnam and Iraq. He talks about Vietnam and the parallels come flying at you like a sortie of B-52 bombers over Hanoi. The parallels are not to the causes of the Iraq war, which one can plausibly, if incorrectly, argue bear no relation to Vietnam. No, the truly shocking parallels are between our current President and LBJ, between Rumsfeld and McNamara, between the misguided strategic thinking going on at the highest levels then and now, and, most tragically, between the errors of judgment and failures of moral imagination that led to unnecessary loss of life. It is a sobering film.

In the run-up to the Iraq war, the best and brightest inside the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department all became enamored of a film called Battle of Algiers, its subject the French war in Algeria. They hoped to learn something about the nature of the Arab enemy and the methods (including torture) employed by the French in their doomed effort to wipe out a relatively small group of "terrorists." The film offers many lessons. Sadly, it was the most important of these lessons that our leaders ignored: the French lost. It is too late to draw further lessons from Pontecorvo's masterpiece. Not so with The Fog of War. I doubt Bush has seen it, and while far from stupid, I suspect he would fail to grasp its implications.

Still, I am prepared to send him my copy, if even one person can promise me it won't get lost in the fog.

Johnny Rotten Cash

I have a theory I'd like to share and get a little feedback on. It's something that smacked me upside the head during a coast to coast road trip I took a while back. I happened to pass through Nashville, where I visited the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, the Grand Ole Opry and numerous other points of interest for the nascent fan of hillbilly music. And while I was there it struck me that country is the new punk.

The controversy over and ensuing popularity of Toby Keith's pro-war song "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)" was still being trumpeted as an important skirmish in the culture wars v.9/11 (though it was his heaping helping of cornpone "Beer for my Horses," that was burning up the country charts that summer). The ony conclusion a liberal could draw was that Toby Keith was an ignernt redneck whose love for his country and hatred of its enemies was blind. And he was damn proud of it. You don't like it? Fuck you and the horse you rode in on! The man had clearly flunked his cultural sensitivity training course at the community college.

Yet as much I disagreed with his lyrics, I couldn't help thinking, I LOVE THIS GUY! Don't get me wrong. Toby Keith is an execrable musician, but his attitude is pure punk. It's an attitude I saw throughout the country pantheon, from gods like Johnny Cash and George Jones right on down to unpolishable turds like Toby Keith.

This was odd because, growing up in Texas, I actively rejected country and everything it stood for. I did so because I was a Texan, and in Texas you were either a shit-kicker or you were not. If you think I'm being insulting, then you don't know that the most popular country music station in Houston was KIKK (pronounced "kick") FM. The only thing standing between KIKK and KKK, as far as I could see, was I. Country music meant the Future Farmers of America, Ropers, Randy Travis, Travis Tritt, jingoism, racism and Charlie Daniels, that bearded, big-bellied, fiddle playing devil from the back of beyond. So I threw out Hank Williams and Patsy Cline with the bathwater.

It wasn't until I moved to New York and could listen to the music without the cultural saddle bags attached that I began to hear what I'd been missing. I quickly became a fan of those country musicians that all hipsters are encouraged to love: Hank and Patsy of course (who I always liked anyway, a hell of a lot more than Thomas Dolby or Bananarama) but also Steve Earle, Lyle Lovett, Johnny Cash. After my trip to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, I discovered Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, George Jones, Emmylou Harris, Bill Monroe, Ralph Stanley and dozens of others. And thanks to long days spent behind the wheel listening to the radio, even my resistance to artists like George Strait, someone I remembered well from my anti-shit-kickin' days, began to fade. I fell in love with his hit "Tell Me Something Bad About Tulsa," despite the fact that it includes the line, 'Tell me how those old oil wells smell in the wind.' Now that's just bad, but he sang the line with such conviction, such authentic, forthright, unironic, unabashed sincerity, I fell in love with it anyway, warts and all.

Maybe that's the secret. Country music ain't always pretty, musically or politically, but the musicians and the fans don't give a fuck (or as Michael Stipe put it in a non-country song: "They're real; they mean it."). Not giving a fuck, having the spine to sing what you believe whether or not it's popular (or even right) is pure punk. Toby Keith is a punk rocker. Steve Earle is a punk rocker. The Sex Pistols were punk rock, and Johnny Cash was punk. Hell, the fact that he's dead is punk. By contrast, today's self-styled punks - Green Day and Avril Lavigne, to name two - are like the meeting of a black eye-liner pencil and a marketing campaign on an operating table. Punk is dead, long live Country.

Now for some of y'all, the new punk is scary (shouldn't it be?) 'cos some of its I-don't-give-a-fuckness seems like ignorance, pure Red State guff. But most isn't. It's what we in Texas politely call "a little differnce of opinion," and as flaming liberals, aren't we supposed to tolerate those little differences of opinion better than anyone?

As I sit here, the country deep in my bones, I know those differences are indeed little. I know that they pale beside the majesty of the music itself, and that there's a reason even Toby Keith remembered to put a little Blue in his furious punk anthem.

Casey's Ghost

The blogosphere is now All Cindy All the Time, and my initial reaction to the overkill is: ABOUT FUCKING TIME! It is fitting we discuss this war through the prism of a single grieving mom. I was wondering when we'd get around to weighing Bush's Folly against the individual lives it has destroyed. I was wondering when we would focus on the retail cost, when fine words like "hero" and "noble sacrifice" would burn off like morning mist to reveal the human faces underneath. I am grateful that this conversation has begun. Cindy deserves our thanks for forcing it on a reluctant press and an even more reluctant President. Her proximity is clearly cramping the President's style. This woman is shamelessly tainting the joy he takes at playing ranch: the brush clearing, the pickup truck driving, the fund raising, the brush clearing. Yet try as I might, I find it hard to grieve for his lost vacation.

Ah, the vacation... It may appear to be a separate issue, but I believe it is intimately related to the tragedy of Cindy Sheehan's loss and the broader tragedy of our impending failure in Iraq. To paraphrase James Carville: It's the vacation, stupid. Bush's refusal to meet with Cindy Sheehan is unseemly, but no more so than his refusal to attend the funerals of our servicemen and women killed in Iraq, lest in attending one he find himself compelled to attend them all. Attending death, in the sense of acknowledging its true meaning and full weight, is what Bush fears most. To do so would force him to consider the dead in the same way the families do, not as symbols useful for propping up his deranged vision, but as a long and painful series of facts. Human facts. We all know how the President feels about facts. He's been on vacation from them since the beginning. This trip to Crawford is only the most recent physical enactment of an ongoing mental event. Facts don't fit this President's worldview. They must be ignored, kept at a safe distance. And they have been. George Bush is a shallow man, and like most shallow men, he knows better than to set foot in the deep end. So he avoids a confrontation with Cindy Sheehan at all costs, because behind her he sees the ghost of her dead son. George Bush isn't avoiding Cindy. He's avoiding Casey. He is avoiding them all. George Bush sees dead people.

Whether or not anyone else sees Casey's ghost, we all sense a failure of moral imagination in the President's refusal to meet with her, and this sense is magnified because, in theory, he has nothing better to do right now, nothing but time on his hands. Why can't he walk, jog or mountain bike down the driveway and talk to this poor woman? So what if he talked to her before? She's changed her mind about the war and about him. That makes her what? Like a lot of other Americans? She gave her son. She gave the President a piece of her heart. She's earned the right to give him a piece of her mind.

Lost in Place

I peeled open my copy of The Onion today and like its organic cousin it made me cry and cry. The top story: Bush Vows to Eliminate U.S. Dependence on Oil by 4920. Now why is that funny? Because it's true.

I sometimes think George Bush is a closet Taoist, so patient is he. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, that is if Dickie and Turdblossom say it's OK for me to take that step. If not, nevermind. I don't want to get on the wrong side of Karl Rove, know what I'm saying? Whatever bold new initiative W may propose, you can be sure the deadline will coincide with the college graduation of your great great grandniece.

I've been stewing about it since he came out in favor of the hydrogen fuel cell engine, which is a little like coming out in favor of penicillin during a polio epidemic. NO SHIT, SHERLOCK! The question isn't if we should replace the internal combustion engine, but when. If you went back in time and told Karl Benz, who developed the first practical automobile powered by the internal combustion engine - in 1885 - that we'd still be using the same technology over a century later, he'd scheisse his lederhosen. What apocalypse, he would ask, interrupted the march of progress and science? What epic disaster stopped the industrial revolution in its tracks? What gang of idiots left future generations dependent on a technology that was intended only as a single step on the journey toward better, cleaner modes of transport? The oil companies? Ach, I should have known.

With the leadership we currently enjoy, Herr Benz will be rolling in his grave for another generation at least. Let us harken to George Bush's clarion call to action:

With a new national commitment, our scientists and engineers will overcome obstacles to taking these cars from laboratory to showroom so that the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen, and pollution-free.

A child born today? Is he giving the best minds in America EIGHTEEN YEARS to build a new car engine? Jaysus Christ, George. It ain't rocket science! This is rocket science:

Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolutions, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a part of it - we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding.

Yet the vows of this Nation can only be fulfilled if we in this Nation are first, and, therefore, we intend to be first. In short, our leadership in science and in industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world's leading space-faring nation.

We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say that we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.

There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain. Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others,too.

Read the whole thing. You'll weep recalling we once had Presidents of this caliber. Kennedy gave that speech at Rice University, in my hometown of Houston (yup, Texas, folks) at a time when NASA was planting glorified oil drums atop ICBMs and sending America's craziest and bravest into low earth orbit. Walking on the moon must have seemed as improbable at that time as the prospect of a family picnic on Mars seems today. As improbable as the Rice Owls beating the Texas Longhorns, in case you didn't get the joke. (My guess is Lyndon wrote that line.) But did Kennedy say, "Look y'all, it's hard work. We'll get around to it when your children's children are collecting their privatized Social Security checks." No. He declared the time is now. And Americans rose to the challenge, as we always do. Where do we find a similar vision today? Certainly not in the White House. John F. Kennedy made a promise to the future, one kept not in the the eight years allotted, but in seven. George Bush demands over twice that time to come up with a modified lawnmower. See the differnce?

I sometimes imagine a race of murderously judgmental aliens roaming the galaxy trying whole worlds. They finally reach earth and must decide whether our planet deserves to be spared. Our court-appointed defense attorney, young, idealistic, has reams of evidence in our favor: Homer, Dante, the poetry of Rilke, the music of Bach and the Beatles, Van Gogh, Matisse, Brancusi, Dostoevsky, Faulkner, the cinema of Bresson, Kurosawa... "They invented Music, Art, Love, God! Please, just listen to this Bill Monroe album! Could we have invented Bluegrass? No! Not in a million years. They must be spared!" the young idealist pleads.
Then the prosecutor steps to the bar, clears his throat. "They still use the internal combustion engine."
"Say what? When did they invent it?" the judge would like to know.
"1876, by their calendar."
"What year is it now?"
"2005."
"Case closed," says the judge, as he reaches for the big RED BUTTON...

How To Stay Young

A friend recently blogged about a lovely album she's been listening to. I lent it my ears. I liked.

Can anyone doubt music is the greatest of the arts? If I could sing I would never have gone to film school. Hearing a new sound, a great line, makes me feel eighteen again, and after a certain age (hint: 30) that is a very nice feeling. So:

1. Keep discovering new music. It continually awakens feelings you didn't know, or may have forgotten, you had.

2. Keep reading poetry. It reminds you that few valuable insights have anything to do with money.

3. Keep making love. It's great for your skin, and your soul.

4. Keep changing your mind. It means you learned something new and acted on it. If you're beyond learning and taking action, you might as well be dead. Or a pundit.

5. Keep trying to change the world. If you think it's too late, see 4.

6. Keep moving. Literally. A little kinetic activity now and again goes a long way - dancing, riding in the Tour de France, getting up to change the channel. It all helps.

7. Stop celebrating your birthday. If you can't remember how old you are, you never have to worry about acting your age. Acting your age past 30 is a death sentence.

8. Travel. Even if it's just down the road, new sights keep the mind and heart alive.

9. Be kind. It shocks people, which is funny when you think about it. It also feels good.

10. Laugh.

11. Keep adding to this list.

Bringing It All Back Home

Shrub is growing up. He's given up the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) for the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism (GSAVE). For someone who is no fan of evolution, our President is evolving. (Soon Molly Ivins may have to call him Lil' Bush.) Yes, the President finally acknowledged that success in our struggle against the evildoers will be defined primarily by how many hearts and minds we win, not the body count. This is no small advance, like the moment when early hominids first began to walk upright. From perpendicularity, our promotion to Homo Sapiens was assured. Far more assured than the outcome of the GSAVE, but we should not underestimate the importance of this change in official language. Now we can win, because we have replaced an old slogan with a newer one! And the new slogan makes for a peppier acronym! You get the feeling the White House secretly convened the SuperFriends and issued them new Team GSAVE uniforms:

GEORGE
These ones really work, guys.

THE WONDER TWINS
Form of...an idiot. Shape of...abject failure.

Up until now, we are being told, the hearts and minds message was lacking. Unfocused. Or simply, like Phase IV of the Iraq War, marked "TBD." Messaging was the real problem! But now we're on it. We're gonna say the right things.

I'm no different from George Peppard's cigar-chomping "Hannibal" Smith of A-Team fame: I love it when a plan comes together. So I was excited to hear the President put his most trusted counselor in charge of the State Department's Office of Public Diplomacy - no, not Karl Rove, you can already smell the burnt on him, he's toast- Karen Hughes, mother of John! If she's smart, she'll hire Weiden + Kennedy, the ad agency that turned Nike into such a successful worldwide brand with just a swoosh and a slogan. I'm sure they can do the same for Brand America, once George agrees to shut his pie-hole and outsource all his speeches to Tony Blair.

Deep down, though, I don't reckon Karen Hughes, for all her Texas charm (well, I see it - she reminds me of my elementary school teachers), will make a damn bit of difference, because George isn't going to outsource his speeches. More importantly, he isn't going to outsource his thinking. If you want to know what chance this man has of bringing the world together, just look at how well he's done at home. Look at all the uniting going on right here. No divider, he. (Must resist irony, must say it straight.) Here it is straight: a President whose theory of leadership is to divide and conquer doesn't stand a snowball's chance in Texas of winning this thing we're in, no matter what he chooses to call it. (GOTME?)

The Religious Atheist and Other Conundrums

I hate to take y'all to church. I know how much I hated going as a kid, but I just finished reading Jon Krakauer's new book, Under the Banner of Heaven, and it is amazing. Anyone interested in religion in America should read it immediately. It's about Mormons. I know something about Mormons. I grew up with Mormons. There were quite a few of them in Katy, Texas. My first heart-rending crush was on a Mormon girl in freshman Algebra who used to flirt with me shamelessly but refused to date me for reasons having to do with the exclusivity of that faith. As a Catholic, I was not one of the elect, and so there was no hope - short of conversion - for me to enter her pure fold. Someone eventually did enter her pure folds, however. The last time I saw her was in a Wal-Mart parking lot, in a Wal-Mart uniform. I was home from college for Christmas. She quickly recounted the sordid tale of how she'd gotten knocked up at nineteen, been excommunicated, had the baby, and was now working as a cashier to make ends meet. I felt waves of jealousy and relief wash over me. You never can tell about people, no matter what they claim to believe.

Now for today's sermon...

America has passed through several Great Awakenings in the course of her history. Individuals usually have one or two of their own. Mine came in the seventh grade, when my science teacher explained the theory of the Big Bang (that's right you flat earthers, you deniers of carbon dating, stop fighting evolution, it's cosmology you should really be afraid of). I was making my First Communion at the time and full of big questions like: "But who created God?" The answers I received in my CCE classes were unsatisfactory. The Big Bang, on the other hand, blew my mind wide open. It grabbed hold of me and shook me awake. It explained so much randomness and evil. It also left a gaping hole where God had been. If I didn't need God to create the world, then what did I need him for? I tried to hold on to Him, deciding that maybe God was responsible for other things. Maybe He wasn't the architect of the universe, maybe he was the janitor. I tried to find a place for Him in my evolving conception of life, but He became smaller and smaller. Even if he only created Man, well, Man is a mess. How can a perfect Being create Man in his image, and Man be such an unmitigated disaster? The priests tell us it's because God gave Man free will. But if He knew we'd only use our free will to take a ten thousand year shit all over His creation, why would he give it to us in the first place? God is omniscient, after all. He's known from the beginning how it was all going to go down.

Besides, if it is so important that we freely choose good, why are there jails? We don't allow criminals to go on using their free will after they prove unworthy of it. Why would God allow us this criminal freedom? Ah, to test us! But I despise this vision of God. The SAT God. Just testing you, folks! Bullshit. Who can accept a God who sits in heaven fucking with his creation, you know, just for the fun of it. It can't be very satisfying for the Lord of the Universe. When I look around I see a handful of people, at best, worthy to enter heaven: Socrates, Lao Tzu, Jesus, Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Henry Miller, Mother Theresa (yes, I read Hitchens' book, but come on!). I'm sure your short list would be different, and that's fine, but it would be short. Many are called, few are chosen. I can just hear Jesus now: "Dad, what can I say? You were right and I was wrong. I kept giving you shit about the Flood, kept begging for one more chance to redeem those nasty fuckers. I really believed it would work, but it's been two thousand years since I let them nail me to that stinking cross, and look at them. Have they learned anything? Fuck 'em. They don't deserve to live. I say Kill 'em all, let You sort 'em out!" Well, that's what I'd be saying if I was Jesus. I hope it's not blasphemous to admit I sometimes put myself in Jesus' place. Isn't that what we're supposed to do? From The Imitation of Christ to WWJD? Christians have been urged to get into Jesus' head, his heart, his life. So even now I try, and on those rare occasions when I succeed, I see one pissed-off dude.

These are the thoughts of a religious atheist. I gave up my faith, but it refused to give up on me. I keep thinking about God. Trying to understand what He was trying to do, what He hoped for this world, and how I can work to fulfill His wishes. So what if He doesn't exist. He is still the image of perfection. I'd rather aspire to His will than to fame or fortune. (Sure, I could go on Fear Factor and eat stewed maggots with the best of them, but it would leave me feeling so empty.) It took me many years to admit I didn't believe in God anymore. I thought if I admitted I didn't believe in Him, He would strike me down. (There's a good Catholic for you!) Yet I never became strident in my newfound Godless Communism. I never ridiculed faith, nor those lucky enough to have it, as I always saw my own loss of faith as a tragedy, not as some joyful release from cant. Think about it. Take one look at this fucked up world and tell me it makes you happier to think there is no one to tally our deeds, to reward the just and punish the wicked. Without faith, however irrational, I sometimes think the world would annihilate itself in a matter of weeks. Belief is the hand staying our appetite for destruction. We know the impulse to rape, pillage and destroy, but something holds us back (at least from going all the way down that path). That something is fear of God. His existence is irrelevant. We all doubt it, but all secretly suspect. He's up there! He sees me! I better put that cookie back in the jar! Everyone secretly fears they'll be held to account for their actions. It makes you grateful for fear.

In some ways I'm more involved with the Lord today than when I believed in Him. I am attracted to God, even more to His Son. I hover on the edge of faith. Growing up in Houston I used to watch preachers and healers on late night TV: Jimmy Swaggart, Benny Hinn. They were good, no doubt about it. They had something. I often listened to their low rent cousins on the radio. It was gripping. God just grips you, even when you don't believe in Him. I will never pass up a chance to listen to someone's testimony. In college, street preachers and latter-day prophets often stopped by campus to proclaim the Good News. I made it a point never to miss one. I never minded their presence in my secular world. Sometimes I was so moved I would cry. Then I'd go back to my dorm, drink liquor, take drugs, fuck my girlfriend without a condom and know that if there was a hell, I was surely going to it. Oh well.

I take the faithful seriously. I take the extremely faithful extremely seriously. I myself still love Jesus, even though I don't believe He was the Son of God (there is no God, so how can He be?). The hypocrisy of those who do believe in Him - who talk the talk but can't seem to walk the walk - infuriates me more than it does God (if He existed). Sometimes I want to SCREAM: What part of "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven" don't you understand? What part of "Blessed are the peacemakers" don't you understand? Their Sanitized, Reaganized, Ayn Randified, Fully Incorporated, Limited Liability G.I. Joe Jesus makes me want to puke. My sole consolation is that, should they turn out to be right - if there is a God watching over us and His justice awaits - then none of their deeds has escaped his omniscient eye. No need to start a homegrown Baader-Meinhof gang. Henry Kissinger is already toast! So is George Bush. I just wish I could see his face when he finally faces St. Peter and is asked about the Iraq War.

SAINT PETER
What about all the innocent civilians who were killed because you started this war? The women, the children, the men who were tortured to death though innocent?

GEORGE
Um...but I was saving even more from a monster! Saddam Hussein! He killed hundreds of thousands during his reign. He was a devil!

SAINT PETER
Didn't your father supply him with the weapons he used to murder those innocents? Didn't your own Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, once go to Baghdad and shake his hand, after he gassed the Kurds?

GEORGE
He'd only gassed Iranians at that point. D'oh!

SAINT PETER
Besides, we're not talking about what Saddam Hussein did. We're talking about what you did.

GEORGE
But I meant well.

SAINT PETER
Yes, I know. You'll find your intentions over there, on that road...

(Saint Peter indicates the ROAD TO HELL.)

SAINT PETER
Now get going!

GEORGE
NO!

SAINT PETER
Say hello to Saddam for me!

Of course, I doubt Christians of this stripe really and truly believe in God. If they did they would already know He is watching and weighing every deed and they wouldn't be behaving the way they do.

There's a great Lenny Bruce line about the city I now call home: "In New York, even if you're Catholic, you're Jewish." Maybe I find that joke so funny because I was raised in the first faith he mentions and decided to marry a nice girl from the latter, so in my case it has become literally true. Maybe it's because I've always felt the two faiths have so much in common (above all their staggering preoccupation with guilt). I know Lenny wasn't making a statement about theological affinities. He was suggesting the overwhelming influence of Jewish culture on this amazing city. But the Church I was raised in also has its domain of overwhelming influence. It's called the world.

You can guess from the way I turned out, I never really got along with the Church. When it wasn't boring it seemed downright crazy. I've begun reading in Apologetics, that misguided attempt of religion to explain itself rationally. Catholic apologetics begins with the Church's belief that the Eucharist is the actual body of Christ, and that the wine is his actual blood. Aside from the humorlessness of this literal interpretation of Christ's words in John 6:51 - I mean, if Jesus really wanted the disciples to eat his flesh and drink his blood, they could have done it right then and there, with Peter taking the left forearm and Judas the right foot - there is the more disturbing fact that every time a Catholic takes communion he is cannibalizing the Son of God. For Christ's sake! And don't get me started on Original Sin - if God knows all from all eternity, then he knew Eve would not be able to resist the temptation to eat the fruit of The Tree of Knowledge. For that matter he knew the serpent would tempt her. So why did he create the serpent and why did he plunk that fucking tree down RIGHT THERE! It don't make sense. The story just doesn't hold holy water.

Yeah, well, there are a lot of problems with the concept of God. Too many. That's why I gave Him up for Lent. But He refuses to give me up. So here I am. Here's my version of the joke: "In the Church, even if you're an atheist, you're Catholic." What more can I say? I am, and I am.

Bastards of Oil

If I see that BP ad one more time I'm gonna SCREAM! You know the one. The one that asks the burning question: "Which would you rather have - your car, or a cleaner environment?" BECAUSE THOSE ARE YOUR ONLY FUCKING CHOICES, AMERICA! GOT IT?

Back in philosophy class, we used to call this a false disjunct. Which would you rather have - higher taxes, or your freedom (the freedom that comes from keeping every bloody penny you earn, accumulating a mountain of untaxed wealth, using it to build a McMansion surrounded by razor wire, a minefield, and a twenty foot high electric fence, paying a high school dropout - or more likely, an unemployed veteran of the Iraq war - minimum wage to guard the perimeter while you cower inside, cradling your flat screen HDTV and hoping against hope that when the time comes he'll muster the courage, on your behalf, to open fire on the ravening hordes of homeless children fucked over by a bankrupt government...WAIT! There is no government, because there are no more taxes to pay for all those frivolous things governments do, like educate those children for "free," or protect us from Osama Bin Laden)...well, which do you want? BECAUSE THOSE ARE YOUR ONLY FUCKING CHOICES, AMERICA! GOT IT?

Just kidding. That was a false disjunct, or in the vulgate, bullshit. Real Americans see through bullshit pretty easily. Which is why BP casts fake real Americans in their ads. Instead of seeing through bullshit, fake real Americans say things like: "Give up my car? That's like asking me to give up chocolate!" (The fake real American in the offending BP spot looks like the kind of woman for whom giving up a Whitman's Sampler now and again would indeed constitute a hellish sacrifice.) But let's leave her eating disorder out of it for a minute and parse what's really going on here.

What's really going on is very simple. BP is lying. BP is lying because it's a big fat greedy bastard of an oil company with a lousy environmental record - one of the worst - and it wants to distract us from that black and viscous fact by showing that fake real Americans think cleaning up the environment is so dang crazy it's like taking chocolate from a fat lady. How else view policy changes that would result in Americans using less BP product? (Then again, eating lots of chocolate won't result in THE END OF LIFE AS WE KNOW IT. Unless you're this guy.)

It's the same bait and switch Trent Lott pulled the last time Congress was thinking of hiking fuel economy standards. You may remember him standing on the floor of the Senate next to a very large photograph of a very small car that he famously derided as a "purple people eater." It was a masterful bit of fearmongering: You raise gas mileage, you die!

Except that it isn't true. Death is not the only alternative to a more fuel efficient car. Just as walking is not the only alternative to a cleaner environment. Of course, if BP can convince you otherwise, you are likely to be far more indulgent of its environmental incontinence. Look, America, we have no choice. We've got to pump more and more oil, and you've got to consume it, and when you pump oil, well, spill happens.

Please contact BP and tell them to cut the bullshit. But be polite. Don't call it bullshit. Call it a false disjunct.

Ready, Fire, Aim!

The Democrats are at it again. They wasted no time forming a circular firing squad after recent remarks by DNC Chairman Howard Dean portraying Republicans as fat cats who never had to do an honest day's work in their lives. Democrats promptly pissed their pants. Before the stain could dry a gaggle of self-appointed party leaders threw themselves in front of the cameras, so eager were they to perform the traditional hand-wringing ceremony. The good doctor's remarks were tut-tutted and distance was taken from the radical notion that there is anything shady about the party of Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and Tom DeLay. Smooth move, guys.

It seemed clear to me the Chairman had his tart little tongue planted firmly in his populist cheek, but the joke went right over the heads of our party Olympians. Which isn't surprising - most of them long ago evicted their sense of humor to make room for preening self-importance. This was exemplified by the performance of Joe Biden. Damn Joe, what kind of Democratic party is it if we can't even hate rich people anymore? The whole thing makes me want to scream. WHAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHEEEEYAAAAH! Damn. That felt good. (I finally understand where you were coming from, Howard.)

It's telling that the current leadership will instantly marshal all the passion and eloquence at its command to decry one of their own, but not to defend the party's honor. What sane woman wants to date a man who refuses to defend himself when attacked by some asshole in a bar? What sane man wants to date a woman who constantly bitches about her friends? Yet this is how we behave. Is it any wonder we keep striking out with voters? They see how we treat our own and they are disgusted. Instead of taking on the asshole in the bar, we think we can get the girl by becoming Asshole Lite. Or we think we can improve our individual fortunes at the expense of our friends. My mom knew better. She used to tell me and my brother, "If you can't think of anything nice to say about someone, don't say anything at all." It's homespun wisdom the Democratic party would do well to follow. As I don't expect it to do so, let me couch my advice in terms more likely to touch the power hungry heart.

Dear Senator Biden et al.,

You are not helping. You are not helping yourself, and you
are not helping your party.

NOW SHUT THE FUCK UP!

Respectfully,

Todd Smith

A final note on ideology. "Centrist" Democrats claim that Howard Dean can never lead the party back to power because he is too extreme. He is accused of waging "class warfare," by which the chickenshit - er, centrist - wing means he should stop reminding everyone that a worker who puts in 40 hours a week ought to damn well make enough to live on. (Radical stuff!) I would remind these centrists of another "extremist" who continued to stand up for what he believed in after initially leading his party to massive electoral defeat. His name was Barry Goldwater.

Today we have a name for the Goldwater progeny: President, Senate Majority Leader, and Speaker of the House.

Danger Will Robinson

So much stupid shit happens in the course of any given day that it's impossible to keep track of it all, and in the interest of maintaining my sanity I don't try. Consequently it's hard to pinpoint which particular instance of stupid shit incited me to start this blog. No, wait - it was a top ten list.

The list I'm talking about was compiled by the nattering nabobs of negativity over at Human Events magazine, where a committee of unreconstructed reactionaries recently selected the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries. There were some real surprises:

4) The Kinsey Report. Kinsey's research merely confirmed what we all already suspected: our parents are (or at least were) freaks. His crime, according to the brain trust at Human Events, was "to give a scientific gloss to the normalization of promiscuity and deviancy." Is that what talking honestly about sex does? I personally think MTV does a much better job of normalizing promiscuity and deviancy, though I admit to lingering doubts about their scientific credentials.

7) The Feminine Mystique. Headline: Betty Friedan Nearly Upsets Karl Marx as Das Kapital Ekes Out 6th Place on Stupidest List Ever! Human Events apparently holds Friedan single-handedly responsible for tricking impressionable females into believing they might find more satisfaction in the workplace than the kitchen. Plus, she banged a communist. Why all the outrage? Communists are hot! (I base this entirely on Garbo's performance in Ninotchka.) More shocking is that Friedan opens a six-pack of whup-ass on Nietzsche, whose Beyond Good and Evil is relegated to 9th place. How can anyone take seriously a group that thinks women are scarier than Germans!

I don't know much about Human Events beyond their low opinion of human events these past 200 years (typical conservatives!) but I am generally of the opinion people should do whatever the hell they want, be it watching NASCAR, machine-gunning ripe fruit, engaging in consensual "sayex" with their cousins, or making lists - Don't Tread on Me You Can Do Whatever The Fuck You Want, that's my motto - but there is something rotten about the Human Events list...something that reeks of...what is that stink? Oh yeah! National Socialism. The Nazis too compiled lists of harmful books. Then they burned them. Remember what Heine said about book burning: "Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen." He was right, of course. Compiling lists of dangerous books is a prelude to eliminating them. Given that a book is nothing more than a collection of ideas, and ideas call the human mind home, such a list is a prelude to eliminating human beings, lest they precipitate more untoward human events. I'm not saying some of these books (Mein Kampf, for example) haven't proved harmful. No, wait, that's exactly what I'm saying: BOOKS DON'T KILL PEOPLE; PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE. If you want their bad ideas to die like a dog in the street, send them into the street, where they can be exposed to that glorious disinfectant, sunshine.

I do go on. Forgive me. This is my first entry and I was rushed. (As Goethe said, "If I had more time, I would write a shorter letter.") In the past my response to such instances of stupid shit has been to try and ignore it, fail, and then stew about it, becoming a little more aggrieved at the state of the world while doing exactly nothing about it. No more. This time my indignation actually produced a tangible result: a letter. I've never written a letter to the editor before, but the idiotarians at Human Events awakened the slumbering beast within. I started this blog to tell you about it, to encourage you to awake and scream. No more free passes for stupid shit! Fighting back is good for your mental health. Besides, it can be fun. I've reprinted my letter below in the hope that it will encourage you to compose one of your own and send it to the editors at Human Events. Be sure to copy me if you do. I'll try to post a few of the cheekier efforts right here.

To: editors@humaneventsonline.com

Subject: 'Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries'

Dear Sirs,

Thank you for providing me with a good laugh and the reassurance that, as Dick Cheney might say, your movement is in its death throes.

Harry Crocker? Fred Smith? Prof. Brad Birzer of Hillsdale College? (Isn't that where Humbert Humbert taught English to fawning bobbysoxers in Lolita?) Your panel of has-beens and intellectual bottom feeders isn't qualified to judge a Gong Show episode, much less discuss political theory or the history of Western Philosophy. We both know most of them have never read the books on this list. (Do you expect me to believe Phyllis Schlafly is actually literate?) And seeing the promoter of the Swift Boat Liars given a forum in which to decry one of the great minds the Western philosophical tradition - I mean Nietzsche, not Ralph Nader - is enough to make a stone cry.

Good luck to you on your next list, in which Ann Coulter will select the 'Ten Most Harmful Dialogues of Plato' and demand of Socrates' ghost, "Why do you hate Athens?"

-Todd Smith

Boy Howdy!

Dear Friends, Bitter Enemies, Undecideds,

Welcome to Howard Beale Street, my blog and alter-ego. Does that make it my blego? (And there will be puns.)

I here assert no authority beyond my own personal experience. I don't pretend to know any more about the way of the world than its current leaders. I understand the blogosphere needs a new addition like New York needs a new avant-guard theatre troupe. I feel your pain. Now you're going to feel mine.

You can look forward to intermittent postings about life, love, politics, religion, philosophy, country music (and the other kind), cinema, theatre and dance. If I left anything out, don't worry. I'll get to it eventually.

They say in cyberspace no one can hear you scream. Thank God. Like our friend the atom, these rants and raves will consist of mostly empty space. I never promised you a rose garden. Or ideas. Or insight. I just know that I can't keep my mouth shut any longer.

And so, Al Gore, thank you for inventing the internets. I'll sleep better at night once I get this off my chest.