Questions

Every once in a while, we experience what, I believe, in the future, will be referred to as a "Miles" moment. You don't have to be familiar with LOST, specifically, the final episode of the most recent season, to get the point. Just picture a situation wherein the major players are all dedicated to a difficult, bizarre, or strident course of action, and are suddenly derailed by a pointed, incisive question by one member of the group, in this case the one named Miles. The moment made for a delicious few seconds of television. But it can happen in boring everyday life. A situation evolves, and suddenly someone you know asks a question that seems to throw a new light of clarity. It's been happening from time immemorial. Like the way my life hinged on the moment I dared to ask "Why couldn't a man where a woman's pants? They're hot aren't they?" But seriously.

Imagine: some activists approach a talented film maker named Doug. They ask for a donation to "fight global warming." He says, humbly, that he'll be glad to donate to their cause, if they can answer a question first. Smelling the money (activists have a special nose for that) they say "Lay it on us." Then comes the simple query: "What temperature is the earth SUPPOSED to be?" They thought about it, and then realized. They'd have to look elsewhere. For funds, if not answers.

Of course, it isn't always a happy light that comes on. I can never forget the night when, at a club where I had, with reckless abandon, danced the night away many times with my friends, I asked my sweaty self: "What is this place? What is dancing? What does this mean?" I realized I didn't get it. I couldn't dance the rest of the night. And I still don't get it. I've tried to dance since, but I can't work it like I did when I didn't know I didn't get it.
Likewise, I had never questioned the end of World War 2. The entire war is a sacred cow of sorts. And the math seemed to bear out the idea of killing a whole mess of people from one of the aggressor nations in a few seconds from hell, in order to prevent the hellishly protracted taking of even more lives on both sides. Then, in one fell swoop, the mad genius of antiwar.com asks me to ask myself "Why couldn't have Truman tested the Bomb on some deserted cay or atoll in the Pacific? Surely the level of undeniable destruction would have been enough to scare the Axis powers into submission. Did those thousands of people really need to die?" Immediately I say to myself, Of course not! That makes perfect sense! Then, Wait a minute. Then, as a whole mess of thoughts that had literally not been allowed come flooding in, I hear myself saying, Holy Crap.

The real classics are the ones that allow for intellectual evolution. Descartes' question about the tree falling in the forest gets dismissed rather too easily by most people, who answer "Who cares about a tree falling in the forest? So nobody hears it! Whatever." But I once asked some students of mine to really let themselves think about it for a week and then right a paragraph or two. One of the more brilliant girls who ever lived did just that, and answered Descartes in a way that had him smiling in his grave. "The tree never makes a sound whether you are there to 'hear' it or not," she said. "By living, it produces energy. By falling, it produces the same thing. If you happen to be present when it falls, you can interpret that energy as sound. But the tree only produces energy. You produce the interpretation."

People with those kind of answers might just continue to let themselves ask the hinge turning questions. Are you one of them? You don't have to be wearing girl pants to know.

Call to nonaction

I am not here, today, to pimp the achievements of others. But in the interests of being able to take a break from talking politics, I must direct you to a wonderful blog, that does a better job than I ever could of trashing partisans on both sides. A delightful blog. Slightly overwritten, but when a skewer is well manipulated, one mustn't quibble over verbosity. Please enjoy this insightful thrashing of just a few of the truly unpleasant people claiming to run our country, courtesy of antiwar.com. Please also read some of his older and newer postings. I think you'll find something to get behind, even if you don't agree with him entirely. He even has the guts to go after sacred cow John Stewart. NICE. And if you don't like what you read on some level, then don't ever talk to me again about anything political ever.

So read him, then come back here for frivolity. After today. Today we must dismiss another round of sad individuals from the Arena of Ideas. (We did this before, but perhaps we were too kind.) We are, since the election, and perhaps more than ever, in danger of sullying the sacred arena with the mental droppings of people with Half-a-Brain syndrome. Hence, the following dismissals are hereby issued.

*If you think Letterman is still funny, then see you later. Take your tired, partisan, flabby sense of humor and go somewhere else to laugh at jokes about Sarah Palin's daughter being raped. You'd think bitter partisans would be thanking her for the way she helped John McCain torpedo the party you, in your enlightenment and zenitude, mock and hate and deride. Suddenly now its OK to laugh at sexual aggression against a young woman? We have a tent set up for you and your ilk outside in the parking lot, Andew Dice Clay will be your moderator.

(BTW--this is coming from a lifelong Letterman fanatic. I used to stay up late on school nights to watch him. I once wrote and recorded a tribute song called "staying up late with dave." That said, he's tired, old, and openly campaigning for his completely one sided view on a show that used to make me laugh. You should watch CRAIG FERGUSON and see how it is done.)

*If you think that Sean Hannity and Keith Olberman are not the same person, goodbye. Watch them both on a split screen and count how many times they attack attack attack. They are, if not the same person, opposite sides of the same coin. Both shills for the party they "unofficially" represent. I have almost never heard a substantive discussion from either one. But I have noticed that people suffering from Half-a-Brain almost always love one and hate the other. Therefore, all die-hard fans of either guy are to congregate behind the port-a-potties behind the smoking area at the west exit. As long as none of you mention either guy by name, you'll all think you're all talking about the same partisan hack, and you'll get along swimmingly.

*If you ever railed against the deficits piled up by the Bush administration, then you were right. There is no way to cast the national debt in a positive light. If, on the other hand, you have remained silent on the subject as Obama tripled the combined debt of all other presidents, then good riddance. In other words, (we'll put it simply, knowing to whom we're speaking) if you called Bush on his horrible, but comparatively small debt, good. If you give Obama a pass on his disgusting, unfathomable debt, then get out. You are bad for the country. You are bad for whatever school employs you to poison the minds of its students. You are bad for the community in which you live and the household that puts up with you. In fact, you are not simply to be escorted to the parking lot. You are to GO TO HELL. If you pass go, you can collect $200 of the worthless money Obama is printing by the truck load if it makes you feel any better.

*If you support, in ANY WAY, the idiot who shot the abortion doctor, or the recent shooter at the Holocaust Museum, you are excused to leave. Permanently. You are not permitted to remain in the parking lot. There is no opportunity for you to return. You are banned for life from the Arena of Ideas. But this is too obvious; and most of you left a long time ago, because almost no one in the arena ever listened to you. But just in case there are any of you left: GET OUT.

ADDENDUM: if you tried to make political hay out of the doctor's death, (i.e. if you tried to identify the murderer with the pro-life movement, like Olberman, or if took the occasion to say the doctor deserved what he got for taking thousands of 8 month old humans apart with surgical implements) you are likewise excused.

*If you have been following the Lindsay Lohan saga and ignoring the Korean Nuclear saga, then go to the lobby for a little shock therapy. (Don't be worried, they say it isn't as bad as a taser.) If you know more about the travails of ANY CELEBRITY than you do about the horrific oppression of women who try to leave North Korea, and the journalists who tried to document their plight, then report to the adjacent percussive therapy room. A couple slaps to the face might wake you up enough to re-enter the arena. Until the shocks or slaps have had the desired effect, please refrain from discussing legit issues, even in the lobby.

Perhaps, with this purging of the riff-raff, we can give a bit of intellectual stimulus to the mental economy. This being done, we return next week with something completely different.

Lost Party

We're all pretty well sucked into Lost. We talk about it. We get together to watch it. We make video parodies of it and post them on the Internet.

At the, ahem, explosive season finale party, we invited some charming people who hadn't seen the show before. Halfway through, one of them says: "at least it isn't a soap opera." It was a funny, smart observation that made me stop and think: "Wait a minute, this whole thing really is off the rails and melodramatic. Am I only forgiving it because their kool-aid was so excruciatingly delicious when I drank it in season 1?"

I've tried not to think about it since, but it has become undeniable. There are aspects of that show that are maudlin enough, and twists that are bizarre and inexplicable enough, to qualify it as a soap opera. On the surface of it, this can't be good. Just like the summer I baby sat my Aunt Terry's kids in the mid-80's, I am addicted to a soap opera. But is Lost simply the Young and the Restless with cool special effects, a super sexy cast, and and even more convoluted multi-year story line?

No.
Even if it is a soap opera, it is a glorified, enhanced, power punching prime time version that no midday ham handed hack job ever approached.

Hence, to all detractors I can only say: You can't come in the middle. Watch the first and second season on DVD. They EARNED this soap. They crafted this opera. Watch it. Do yourself a favor. Once you smoke that crack, I can promise that you'll stand and say with the rest of us: I KNOW WHAT LIES IN THE SHADOW OF THE STATUE--ME.

K.I.S.S. me goodbye

When I die, I have but one request: Keep it simple.

I've never thought death was a big deal. It is, i realize, the only REAL existential crisis; but that doesn't mean it should be complicated or difficult. Like EVERY OTHER PERSON who ever lived, I'll be here one minute, gone the next. My affairs will be in order. I will have lived a full rich life, even if it happens tomorrow.

So I'm asking you, please, to keep the funeral arrangements simple.

A shovel is all you'll need. No maudlin fanfare. No mourners. No bogus recaps of "a life well lived" or well wishers pretending I had some great effect. Just a hole and a pile of person. Toss me in it and go.

Except of course, I've always loved the sea. Sadly, as with so many other aspects of my life, she didn't love me back. She always made me throw up all over her. Come to think of it, that might have more to do with her hatred of boats. At any rate, it was a complex relationship, and that's the only real reason I can think of that I was overcome with paralyzing fear every time I got near her. So perhaps, if only for poetic reasons, I'd like to be buried at sea. Simply, without pomp, of course, and without circumstance, but definitely at sea.

I don't know what that entails, permit wise. It might be complicated, which would go against the general tenor of my wishes. Perhaps you could just do a Weekend at Bernie's thing: sneak my lifeless corpse out on a whale watching boat and dump me unceremoniously overboard. I hope there are no legal ramifications for you.
Come to think of it, go ahead and get the permit. That sounds less complicated than an extended legal wrangle.

Hmm.

As long as you're having to go through the rigmarole of the permit, we might as well go ahead and get a casket. On land, a pine box would be more than enough. Too much even. But I'm afraid that might float. I think this one might have to be steel, or iron. That sucker will sink like a rock. I hope that isn't expensive. And you know what would be cool? A window. A round one, like on a ship, right over my face. That would be cool for some scientist someday in a submarine to discover this tank of a casket, with this withered corpse staring out of the window. Plus, on the off chance that I'm not actually dead, but paralyzed like that guy on the Twilight Zone, I'd at least get to watch some interesting stuff on the way down. And you know what? As long as I'm going to the bottom of the ocean, it might has well be the deepest part of the ocean. The Marianas Trench. That's it. Find that--somewhere off the coast of Monterey--and drop me out there, in my iron casket with a submarine grade window.

Speaking of submarines, it might be cool to have one follow me down, just in case I do wake up. Plus they could film it, and it could be part of an awesome reality show about people's final wishes. Call it "Death Wish," or "Finality Follies." The profits from that will certainly off-set any expenses you might incur carrying out my simple wishes for my very simple funeral.

I Hate You(r hypocrisy)

Ceteris Paribus.
This Latin phrase, meaning, "all things being equal," was to be a simple way of comparing two ideas, or situations, or individuals. I used to enjoy the act putting two divergent contingencies on equal footing, so as to compare them by their actual merits. The result was almost always a deeper appreciation of both sides of the story and the various adherents to either one.


But then you came along. You partisans. You ideologues.


The sad thing is, I know in advance exactly how you will react to what follows. I know, with absolute assurance, that you are not capable of analysing this situation. As soon as the idea that your Man might not be perfection incarnate, you abandon your right and your responsibility of rational thought. I've seen this too many times to try and deny it now. So, essentially, I might be writing this for myself; I don't think you'll get to the end.


That said, let's take baby steps. First, let us establish that I am no fan of the former president--and not just because I have never been nor will I ever be a fan of ANY politician. It is not just because it is intellectually reprehensible, morally infantile, and against the founding principles of our country to position one's self as an acolyte of any public official or personality. No, I was no fan of his because he was objectionable, domestically ineffectual, and was in a position to embarrass his country when he embarrassed himself. He spent too much of the people's money and used a crisis situation to overstep what the Constitution says a president can do. That's why.

With me so far?

Then let me admit that I also do not HATE the former president. Neither am I stupid enough to conjecture that he is stupid, or evil, or that he wanted to destroy America in a mad quest for power. Moreover, he had no effect whatsoever on me personally. In NO WAY, NOT EVER, did anything he did ruin my day, or effect my level of optimism. I'll admit that my sphincter did indeed tighten a little when he misspoke. But other than that, THIS IS AMERICA, I'd say to myself, and HE'S JUST THE PRESIDENT.

Hope I didn't lose you there.

Now let us utilize our imagination. I want you to imagine that the press, and, more importantly, the PEOPLE of this great nation treated all politicians equally. Picture that. Take a minute and try to wrap your head around both sides of what that contingency might entail. Now let me present you with a situation or two. Keep in mind that I am not going to present my opinion. Not once. I am only going to present some facts, and ask you to ask yourself some questions.

*What do you think might have been said, or thought, about Bush if he had refused to turn over ANY records, from his college transcripts to his birth certificate? Might there not have been a media circus? An outcry for disclosure? Conspiracy theories?

*What if, as governor (because he was not a senator) had secured a large grant for a hospital, which then proceeded to hire his wife for a well paid, (and by some accounts, bogus) position with almost no responsibilities--a position that ended promptly when he began his run for president? Might a reporter have asked him a question about that? What might you have thought? Would you have an opinion about people in power securing money and position for family members? Might you have gotten out your thesaurus and used the word "nepotism?"

*What if Bush had once been contracted to write a book about the Constitution (I know, I know, Bush is too dumb to have even written a birthday card, let alone a book. Ha ha. Done yet? This is hypothetical. Let us move on.) Imagine he had signed on to write said book, about the CONSTITUTION, and had instead written a book about his dad. Do you think that people would have let that go, no matter how good the book was? Can you admit that the fact would at least have been raised for scrutiny? We know it's illegal for a public official to sign a multi-million dollar book deal. What if Bush had smartly taken advantage of the brief period between the election and the inauguration (when he would have been technically unemployed), to sign a very lucrative deal? Might someone on MSNBC have mentioned it, at least in passing?

*Imagine that Bush had nominated lobbyists and tax cheats for his cabinet (after promising to eliminate the same). What might the media and commentators and columnists and Daily Show writers have said?

*Imagine that Bush had said in a press conference that his administration was working hard to "put an end to privacy," (as a certain current president said after shooting three Somali venture capitalists in the head, we know he meant "piracy"-was the teleprompter wrong?). Imagine the late night talk show jokes and scoffs of coffee house faux intellectuals. Speaking of teleprompters . . .

*Imagine, if you will, that Bush had a well known almost total dependence on a teleprompter, and took it everywhere, and had several embarrassing gaffs that occurred when said teleprompter done him wrong. (As in "And let me--wait. I already said that. Go ahead and move it up." An exact quote from the current president.) How many comedians would be ALL OVER THAT?

*Pretend for a second that Bush had made a beautiful campaign promise to post all legislation on-line before signing it, thereby giving the people a chance to scrutinize it and comment. Then imagine that he proceeded to sign several pieces of legislation with no apparent thought toward his promise. Is it possible that you might have been slightly embittered? (That is, if the press even bothered to mention it.)

*Imagine that a candidate, any any candidate, had spoken out against a foolish and mismanaged war. Then, as president, had suddenly had a change of heart and (silently) stuck to the previous guys plans almost to the letter? Would you change the face on your anti war bumper sticker? And what if he had railed against the way the previous regime had intruded upon the privacy and civil rights with, say, warrant less wire taps, but then, upon becoming president, decided (curiously) to extend (and perhaps EXPAND) said wire taps? Might you angrily shake your fist in protest against the oppression? Might you make a you tube video with myopic caricatures of the president and his jingoistic cronies?

*What if a candidate made an INSPIRING promise to scour the budget, to go over it with a fine toothed comb and eliminate waste of all kinds. Then imagine said candidate reiterating said promise as president. Then imagine his people spending $328,000 dollars on a photo op. Could Bush have possibly gotten away with that? And what if that photo op was of Air Force 1 and two fighter jets fly very low over the city that will never forget how similarly low flying planes killed thousands of people and traumatized millions. Imagine that the president's "people" had INEXPLICABLY demanded total secrecy about the photo op, thereby insuring that the city be traumatized. If that happened to be Bush, and not Obama, might you not have a passing thought about the bungling insensitivity of the people in the Whitehouse? Would you expect that Keith Olberman would tacitly accept a tersely worded "apology?" Really?

*How did you react when Bush sought the support of the international community to attain his international ends? I remember. It was ridicule. It was contempt. What might you have for a newer president who seeks out help with his militaristic ends on another front, and finds his request tossed unceremoniously in his face by every single potentate and political entity in the world? Where is your contempt for a president who seeks to enlist help, even with economic issues, and meets with almost no cooperation whatsoever?

*And what if Bush had spontaneously, creepily laughed out loud when he talked to 60 Minutes about the failing auto industry? What if Bush had insulted developmentally disabled people on Jay Leno? What if Bush had promised jobs in his first week, and 100 days later unemployment was at record highs? What if Bush had stated he didn't want to "micro manage" the failing auto industry, and then consistently did JUST THAT until they were bankrupt? AND WHAT IF BUSH HAD SENT THE NATIONAL DEBT TO RECORD LEVELS, NUMBERS UNHEARD OF IN RECORDED HISTORY? Might you not have a negative opinion about the inevitable inflation? Might you not worry (as Bush's detractors did so vehemently) that the president is bankrupting our children?

And what if Bush had been given a free pass on ALL OF THE ABOVE by his followers, party members, and the press? I'm going to go out on a limb and say that would bother you. Well, you may (or may not, sadly) have guessed that all of the above were all perpetrated by your superstar president Obama. They are the hallmarks of his first 100 days.


I know what you said about Bush every day for eight years. I accept the validity of your opinions, though my ears are still recovering from your shrill, panicky tones. But much as I welcome your relative silence on a sonic level, on a moral level I have to ask:

Where are you now?

Ronaldino

So my good friend Keith Lowell Jensen, the Evangelical Atheist, brings up that despite Reagan's charm, or sense of humor or something, he considers the deceased president "The Freaking Antichrist." My first thought is of the equally deceased Phil Hartman's portrayal of Reagan during SNL's glory years. I can't think of Phil Hartman without feeling deeply saddened for at least 10 minutes, but I'm not maudlin enough to let it affect a conversation. In a second, I actually get to thinking about Reagan. Keith is smart enough (and funny enough) to be taken seriously, so I test the mettle of his statement, and prepare a response.
I'm about to say: "Aw c'mon, don't exaggerate. You can disagree with him all day--even hate him, as I know that floats the boat of your ilk--but ANTICHRIST? Don't you think that's a little strong? He won in a landslide twice. He couldn't have been THAT bad."

But then I realize: what could the word Antichrist mean to a proselytizing atheist? For a believing type, the word has some pretty serious implications. (I've had to put the beat down on a couple religious types who ascribed the title to Obama.) But to a devout, faithful unbeliever? It has to mean the opposite, right? I realized that by calling Reagan the Antichrist, Keith was singing the praises of his favorite president. So now I have to re-test the mettle of his statement. I have to completely change my response.

NOW I'm about to say: "Aw, c'mon, don't exaggerate. You can like him all day--even worship him, as I know that floats the boat of your ilk--but ANTICHRIST? Don't you think that's a little strong? He won in a landslide twice, but he couldn't have been THAT great."

But before I got it out, we had changed the subject. Something about the merits of Presidents insulting retarded people on late night low brow television, or something. I lost track. I was sad about Phil Hartman.

PS: I wasn't kidding about Keith being seriously funny. Everyone should go see his show (sure to feature more of his crazed, hyperbolic worship of Ronald Reagan) this weekend. Check him out at www.atheistcomedian.com.