This Is What You Voted For

More torture.

A Nation Bickering About Smoking While Iraq Burns

Yes, that's right: Letter-writers from across the nation are united in their outrage--not that the steely-eyed smoking soldier makes mass killing look cool but that the laudable act of mass killing makes the grave crime of smoking look cool.

More.

One-Eyed Nation

From the Madison Capital Times;

I look high and low for a sense of outrage at what America is doing in Iraq and see only tepid glimpses. But of course, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

On the day when some 500 people marched for peace in Madison, about 80,000 made it to the Badger game against Minnesota. Bucky triumphed, as did death and destruction in Iraq. We claimed the coveted Axe and hammered Fallujah with 500-pound bombs. Yes, "we." It's being done in your name and in your children's.

More.

Good to Be Back Home

I was away for a couple of days, visiting relatives in West Palm Beach.

While waiting on line for the plane this morning, someone noticed my "Bush Again?" t-shirt. It has a picture of "The Scream" on it. He thought it was a great shirt, but he said that he was so depressed by the election that he no longer talks about politics.

I said I had to because I love my country.

Here's a good post from Defective Yeti (thanks Atrios) that captures how I've been feeling:

Oh, and one last thing. A lot of progressives are joking about "moving to Canada" -- myself included . But if you're one of those folks who insists that they are really, really considering it, please: do us all a favor and go. The Republicans will be happy to see you leave, and the rest of us don't really need you hanging around and reinforcing the stereotype that liberals (a) are so unpatriotic that they will ditch their nation in a time of need, and (b) feel entitled to the benefits of a government (like, Canada's) without having to work for it. If you're "totally serious" about moving this time, then pack up and head for the border, compadre. Otherwise, dig in your heels, roll up your sleeves, gird your loins and get ready to fight, like the rest of us intend to do.

Left Behind

Reading Diary

This year, mainly because of family commitments, I have not been able to read as much as I would like. Most of my friends are avid readers; I have always been a little jealous of people who manage to read more than I do. There is so much out there that I would like to read--on my wish list now is Philip Roth's The Plot Against America and Visions of Gerard by Jack Kerouac. (I have since picked up Visions of Gerard--which I will try to read on my Thanksgiving vacation in sunny Florida.)

I have never read any Roth, but there was something about the review in The Times that caught my eye. I generally don't buy hardbacks, but I might break that rule in this case. I just finished a collection of Kerouac's journals, edited by Douglas Brinkley, and I want to read as much Kerouac as I can. I read On the Road three years ago (the wrong time for it, but even though I was in my mid-thirties, I just wanted to GO), and I read Tristessa. There's something about Visions of Gerard that really attracted me--I read the first page in the bookstore and it reminded me a little bit about my brother, who died way too young at 34. And I know that despite it all, people don't change much from the time they are nine, or seven, in my case. There is much wisdom there.

I am currently finishing up The Cost of Discipleship, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. All I really know about him is that a lot of christian activists (Martin Luther King Jr., for example), have read him as a source of their thought, and that he was executed by Hitler for his role in the plot to assassinate him. (I am not exactly sure of Bonhoeffer's role.) The meat of the book is a meditation on the Beatitudes (origin, per Kerouac, of term "beat"), and the tension there always is between not hiding your light under a bushel and the "hiddenness" of the devout life. Simply put (at the risk of being a reductionist), the christian must not be "reflective" in living her life, but must DO or not. What is meant by "reflective" is that you should not let the good that you do become an object of your reflection; what that really is is a form of pride and idolatry. (I am not sure what I think about the translation from the German--the translator uses the phrase "kith and kin" twice!)

Bonhoeffer's theology is perhaps a little more traditional than mine, though I like and appreciate traditionalists such as C.S, Lewis. Having grown up Roman Catholic, it's been very interesting to read a Protestant theologian. As for myself, I am a quaker and my theology is christian universalist.

Back to Jack--I just loved his journals and they really were a revelation to me. He had a bit more money (at least after he published his first book, The Town and the City) than I thought he did, and it was great to see his relationship with his mother. He also worked a lot harder than he lets on--a big part of the journals are writing logs, where he keeps daily track of his output, and his creative victories and defeats. And it puts to rest the urban legend that On the Road was written in one sitting!

I hope to write more about what I'm reading soon.

Of Mice and Men??

Now Weissman says he is thinking about making chimeric mice whose brains are 100 percent human. He proposes keeping tabs on the mice as they develop. If the brains look as if they are taking on a distinctly human architecture — a development that could hint at a glimmer of humanness — they could be killed, he said. If they look as if they are organizing themselves in a mouse brain architecture, they could be used for research.

More.

Sound Familar?

Now that the administration claims a mandate, it's time to use that political capital. I read in yesterday's Washington Post, where outgoing secretary Powell now says that Iran poses a threat. It's as if Richard Perle or Paul Wolfowitz took an old speech about Iraq and had some flunky cross out the "q" in "Iraq" and replace it with an "n."

In the run up to the last war, The New York Times, though not as bad as Fox, took Chalabi and administration propaganda and passed it off as fact. I am sure this was a big reason that there even existed such a species as the pro-Iraq war liberal.

But they won't be fooled again.

How many will be?

Someone Please Help Me

Another attack on another mosque.

Isn't this a war crime??

This is beginning to look more and more like a holy war. (Some oxymoron, that.) I am sick of hearing that "they are an an enemy that knows no rules," and therefore we should not treat them with kid gloves. Try this for a thought experiment--what if China decided to attack St. Patrick's Cathedral?

Morals, morals, morals--I am sick of this weird Armageddon-loving, rapture-creating, warrior Jesus-believing, baby killing (yes, BABY KILLING) theothugracy that has hijacked Christianity and this country.

Fallujah

What the corporate media won't let you see.

The Nuremberg Principles

We need a reminder.

Whose "Values?"

"The cries for Democrats to overcome their "out-of-touch-ness" and embrace the predominant faith all dodge the full horror of the situation: A criminal has been enabled to continue his bloody work with the help, in no small part, of self-identified Christians."

There's more in a great piece in this week's The Nation by Barbara Ehrenreich.

I reject the propaganda narrative that Kerry lost the election because of "values" so-called. I voted for Kerry (after wrestling with his position on the war) precisely because of values--values that will never accept preventative war (per se a war crime), 100,000 Iraqis killed, torture as American policy, "enemy combatants," a lying president, etc.

I live in a different world from those who countenance the deaths of thousands in a nihilistic war, but get all bent out of shape if two guys look at each other funny. That's like trying to save the silverware as the house burns.

Apparently Unarmed

Sounds like a war crime to me.

I Smell a Rat Too

I hear that India, the world's most populous democracy, can count its vote to the exact person.

We, obviously, cannot. There's enough perculating out there that makes me a little bit uneasy about the 2004 election's results. It's not so much that I think it is impossible for Bush to have won, it's just that I can't believe the exit polls could have been so wrong.

Colin Shea smells a rat.

Playin' Make-up, Wearin' Guitar

Talkin' about The Replacements last night with some friends made me realize again how great they are.

My favorite Mats song:

Left Of The Dial

Read about your band in some local page
Didn't mention your name, didn't mention your name
Sweet Georgia breezes, safe, cool and warm
I headed up north, you headed north

On and on and on and on
What side are you on?
On and on and on and on
What side are you on?

Weary voice that's laughin', on the radio once
We sounded drunk, never made it on
Passin' through and it's late, the station started to fade
Picked another one up in the very next state

On and on and on and on
What side are you on?
On and on and on and on and...

Pretty girl keep growin' up, playin' make-up, wearin' guitar
Growin' old in a bar, ya grow old in a bar
Headed out to San Francisco, definitely not L.A.
Didn't mention your name, didn't mention your name

And if I don't see ya, in a long, long while
I'll try to find you
Left of the dial
Left of the dial
Left of the dial...

Much, Much Worse Than Ashcroft

Antonius said it much better than I can, so I direct you to his post.

And I'm sure it will get worse...

God Help Us

I Still Have Not Lost faith

I can't get to sleep tonight--I can't wait to vote!

I am watching Bruce Springsteen on C-SPAN at a Kerry Rally, and it's hard to describe how I feel after he did an acoustic version of Thunder Road, which he dedicated to Kristen Breitwieser, one of the Jersey Girls (and a hero of mine) who forced Bush to create the 9/11 commission.

It's the restful calm before the storm. I remember nine months ago taking a bus ride with (mainly) kids to canvass door-to-door for Howard Dean and feeling that this election I would have to do everything I can to make the country mine again.

As I write this, I really do feel that the whole world is watching, and I feel a calm excitement about how the day is going to turn out. I realize that whoever wins, I still have work to do,

And this song's been playing in my head:

No Surrender

Bruce Springsteen

We busted out of class had to get away from those fools
We learned more from a three minute record than we ever learned in school
Tonight I hear the neighborhood drummer sound
I can feel my heart begin to pound
You say you're tired and you just want to close your eyes and follow your dreams down

We made a promise we swore we'd always remember
No retreat no surrender
Like soldiers in the winter's night with a vow to defend
No retreat no surrender

Now young faces grow sad and old and hearts of fire grow cold
We swore blood brothers against the wind
I'm ready to grow young again
And hear your sister's voice calling us home across the open yards
Well maybe we could cut someplace of our own
With these drums and these guitars

Blood brothers in the stormy night with a vow to defend
No retreat no surrender

Now on the street tonight the lights grow dim
The walls of my room are closing in
There's a war outside still raging
you say it ain't ours anymore to win
I want to sleep beneath peaceful skies in my lover's bed
with a wide open country in my eyes
and these romantic dreams in my head