So fresh and so clean.

As I've mentioned before, I have an ambivalent relationship with religion in general and Roman Catholicism in particular. Suffice it to say that I'm usually a heretic among the faithful and an apologist among non-believers. The latter position--never easy to maintain--has recently become even more difficult due to an impressive streak of three news stories in two days which have revealed that the biggest threat to Roman Catholicism is the abject cluelessness of its own leadership.

The incident most attractive to the international media took place in Brazil, where the life-saving abortion of twins from a pregnant nine-year-old rape victim resulted in the excommunication of her mother and doctors.

The story most immediately troubling for Americans consists of a Chicago bishop threatening to close Catholic hospitals should the Freedom of Choice Act be passed.

And finally, remarkable for sheer absurdity, the Vatican's official paper, L'Osservatore, celebrated International Women's Day by publishing an article (which I can't find in its entirety anywhere) declaring that the washing machine is the invention most responsible for liberating women.

So, in the interest of saving children's lives, the Brazilian bishop punishes a group of people for saving a child's life while the rapist (the girl's stepfather) escapes excommunication, which should not surprise anyone familiar with the Vatican's procedure for handling child molesters within its own ranks. Meanwhile, in Chicago, the church cleverly denies its clout and plays the victim, vowing to engage in civil disobedience to the great detriment of millions of real victims. Its many mouthpieces are quick to point out that these are private hospitals, but neglect to mention that they receive public funds and seem to have forgotten that this same qualification has historically been the argument for refusing care based on race, inability to pay, and other no-no's for the Holy See. Then of course there's the washing machine, which liberated women much in the same way that Eli Whitney's cotton gin lightened the workload of southern slaves, or that the guillotine helped create a climate averse to capital punishment, or that the atom bomb has succeeded in deterring war since 1945.

What bothers me is not that I disagree with the church's positions--that's nothing new--but the belligerence with which it has suddenly decided to express its views. In these instances the church has picked its battles for the express purpose of provoking confrontation. From the absolutely disgusting display in Brazil to the vindictiveness of the threat in Chicago to the downright idiocy of the washing machine article, the Catholic Church has decided that its best chance at survival in the twenty-first century is to emulate the Jerry Springer show. Continuing to employ such a strategy will not only destroy the church in the long run, it will take a whole lot of credulous sheep down with it.

photo credit: Samsung

An unintended hiatus.

I was recently told by a dear friend that if I claim to have an active blog, I'd better at least have an entry posted during the current year. I think he's right, but I've also got student papers to grade, a seminar paper to write, taxes to file, applications to complete, and a series of exam lists to compile. 2009 started badly for me and, although things have actually begun to look up, there is not enough time in a day to do the things that I need/want/hope to get done. So here is my first blog of 2009. Consider it (assuming I still have readers) a written vow to put down my thoughts more frequently.

And now, in case you have not yet seen it, I give you Bobby Jindal as the GOP's human sacrifice. Poor guy.

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Rant.

Jindal channeled Mr. Rogers at the start, and it was downhill from there. Evoking Katrina, bringing up debunked myths on high speed rails, ranting about a volcano safety program. This was not an accident. He was sacrificed by his own party.

But why?

Neoconservatism and neoliberalism have both learned to capitalize on the trend to failure. Why train for the high jump when you can get away with lowering the bar? The Republicans have made nothing but stupid moves since Obama got elected. Rush Limbaugh is now considered a party leader, and was one of the few commentators to defend Jindal's speech.

Why?

They want expectations lowered. Or they're stupid, but for the sake of conversation let's assume that this is a very sophisticated ruse.

The president commits to healthcare and the very next day Democrats turn up on TV remarking that, while universal healthcare is of course the ideal, it's not very likely to happen and, well, we'll take what we can get. The president vows to close Gitmo and end torture, then waits a few weeks before vowing to carry on the War on Terror in a manner disturbingly similar to what we've grown used to (including renewed bombings in Pakistan). This is accompanied by reports of possible court challenges to the closing of Gitmo and even a Democrat now arguing that if we can keep it well-run and respectable, maybe closing Gitmo isn't such a good idea.

Extinguish the light at the end of the tunnel and people will just be happy just to set foot on solid ground.

This is politics. Lowering expectations in these circumstances may not be such a bad idea, but this is more than a plea for level-headedness, it's cynical propaganda, and it works with Jindal's absurd history lesson: America's work is done. Racism's over. Now don't expect too much.

Now.

One day you'll have to explain to your kids why yesterday mattered as much as it did. With time you may need to be reminded why even some Republican pundits got teary-eyed. It's much more than just white liberal guilt. That guilt has a source, and that source has to be remembered. Some of it still has yet to be addressed.

I found this clip online of Kenneth Clark interviewing James Baldwin some time in the 1960's. I think it provides an important perspective on what happened last night and why all those popping champagne bottles were absolutely justified. But it also provides some perspective on the daunting amount of work still to be done in the area of justice and equality with regards to all people. Baldwin fit into more than one disenfranchised demographic, and his words here on how to look at radical movements (specifically radical Islam, although not the kind we yap about these days) are just as relevant--and just as ignored--as they were then. It's a devastating and beautiful interview.

The Second Coming.

There's a pseudo-religious fervor that has gripped this election and it scares me a bit. The last eight years and the economic crisis have given much of the current discourse a certain tinge of the apocalyptic, so that we can cast our vote for assigning one man the the title of messiah. Looking forward to the moment when the the curtain goes up and the savior is exposed as a mere human, one must wonder what we have in store.

What's my name?

Republicans are obviously all about the working class. But the proletariat don't know what's good for them, and since the labor-oriented pick of Sarah Palin for VP candidate didn't exactly energize working people nationwide, McCain needed a new saint. Now Joe the Plumber, archetype for the politically-manufactured myth of right-leaning American labor, has turned out to be less than a godsend for McCain's campaign. The solution? More Joes. Except they're not all Joe, and they're not all plumbers. That's because diversifying the catalog of working heroes will get us all onboard when we see how much we can relate to somebody on McCain's generic job list of supporters.

I mean, we all know that McCain has the votes of plumbers, moose hunters, and naughty librarians locked down. Now the challenge is to get everyone else. So we are gradually being introduced to Jane the Engineer, Tom the Carpenter, Bill the Electrician, Bob the Builder, Oscar the Grouch, and so on. That's not a joke, it's actually what the McCain camp now considers appropriate content for oratory and political discourse (well, Oscar the Grouch is a joke, but his opinion doesn't matter--motherfucker's probably on welfare, and you know what Mama Palin says: now is no time to be experimenting with socialism!).

Listening to these speeches one gets the sense that the Straight Talk Express is now run by mediocre schoolchildren doing a group project on their weekly vocabulary word, "vocation." They make two columns, then start picking names to go with jobs. But, not wanting to sound like nerds, they actually make a concerted effort to produce the most banal lists possible. So for one column they come up with "plumber, painter, electrician, mechanic, janitor, nurse, secretary." In the other column they list "Joe, Jim, John, Sally, Harold (not Harold, that sounds professorial--Harry), Peggy, and Frank." Draw lines connecting names to professions and you've got yourself a Republican populist litany of saints.

The trick is to be as unoriginal as possible. By aiming for the generic you supposedly cast a wider net and eventually bring in all those faceless, nameless people who can relate to your faceless, generically named examples. But it's not working, maybe because all those nameless and faceless folks really do have names and faces. Maybe it took them eight years, but they've finally figured out that the candidate you want to have a beer with isn't always the guy that should run the nation. Maybe people don't want economic analysis from an unlicensed plumber.

So as I lament the realization that Sarah the Hockey Mom will probably never give a shout-out to Brian the Grad Student, it occurs to me that--for uniqueness and elitism, respectively--one name and one profession could never, ever be in John McCain's canon. And since Joe the Plumber hasn't succeeded in warming us to John the Maverick, maybe it's time we lend our ears (and votes) to Barack the President.

Rock the vote?

From The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce, a few terms to keep in mind over the next few weeks:

POLITICS, n.

A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

POLITICIAN, n.

An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When he wriggles he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice. As compared with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being alive.

PRESIDENCY, n.

The greased pig in the field game of American politics.

PRESIDENT, n.

The leading figure in a small group of men of whom -- and of whom only -- it is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of them for President.

  If that's an honor surely 'tis a greater
   To have been a simple and undamned spectator.
   Behold in me a man of mark and note
   Whom no elector e'er denied a vote! --
   An undiscredited, unhooted gent
   Who might, for all we know, be President
   By acclimation.  Cheer, ye varlets, cheer --
   I'm passing with a wide and open ear!
Jonathan Fomry