What is it like to have a president who's extremely intelligent, and whose view of faith is mature, non-fundamentalist, and open? We're about to find out.
The fundies are not going to like Obama's simultaneous born-again status and non-dogmatic stance. And I'm personally going to enjoy that frisson. Here's an excerpt from an excellent 2004 Obama interview. The whole thing is very much worth reading if you want to know Obama's mind. He goes into an astonishing level of detail about his faith and views for a politician. This was also clearly long before Rev. Wright decided to go well off the reservation:
Obama: …Alongside my own deep personal faith, I am a follower, as well, of our civic religion. I am a big believer in the separation of church and state. I am a big believer in our constitutional structure. I mean, I'm a law professor at the University of Chicago teaching constitutional law. I am a great admirer of our founding charter, and its resolve to prevent theocracies from forming, and its resolve to prevent disruptive strains of fundamentalism from taking root ion this country.
As I said before, in my own public policy, I'm very suspicious of religious certainty expressing itself in politics.
Now, that's different form a belief that values have to inform our public policy. I think it's perfectly consistent to say that I want my government to be operating for all faiths and all peoples, including atheists and agnostics, while also insisting that there are values that inform my politics that are appropriate to talk about.
***
Obama: …There's a vanity aspect to politics, and then there's a substantive part of politics. Now you need some sizzle with the steak to be effective, but I think it's easy to get swept up in the vanity side of it, the desire to be liked and recognized and important. It's important for me throughout the day to measure and to take stock and to say, now, am I doing this because I think it's advantageous to me politically, or because I think it's the right thing to do?…
***
Wow. Well done, America.
11/13/08
Is Palin lobbying for a new tense?
Since the largest of our media outlets won't leave Bible Spice to her own devices there in Wasilla there, I must lodge a protest. Our old pal Bush was best summarized by a Garrison Keillor statement: "He is a man to whose mouth the English language goes to die." But Palin makes Bush looks like quite a master of the language. After reading too many (well, one was too many) of her statements over the past months, I've finally got a theory about why the woman can't go gently into that good Arctic night.
Sarah Palin is trying to ease the entry into the language of a new verb tense, a new manner of speaking. When asked about situations, she defaults to often-incomplete sentences or absolutely mind-boggling juxtapositions of sentence-like construction, employing verbs in their "-ing" forms, necessitating both the grating lack of the letter g and a nebulous, ongoing state of existence in which no action is ever completed. It's absolutely maddening, but it's also fascin-aid-een. And I hope her stealth effort to change the language won't be being successful, also.
Witness the madness (all actual sarah Palin quotes):
Reining in government growth, recognizing government certainly plays appropriate roles in building infrastructure, providing tools for our families, for our businesses, but then government kinda getting outta the way as you have great oversight making sure that there isn't the corruption and the abuse, but government, I think get outta the way and let the private sector do what it does best.
I think it's what I'm representing and what the message is and that is true reform of government that is so needed, and having a representative of someone who has a track record of showing that, yeah, you can, you can do this, you can reform, you can put government back on the side of the people, you can fight corruption.
As he considers sitting down and talking to [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad or [former Cuban President] Fidel Castro or [North Korean President] Kim Jong Il, some of these dictators, without preconditions being met, essentially validating some of what those dictators have been engaged in, that could be one of the scenarios that Joe Biden is talking about is, as a result of that, that proclamation that he would meet without preconditions being met first.
***
I would go on, but I don't think I can stand it. But I'll give a try myself:
Being a person there who is talking in a way that, having people look at it, isn't going to be making a statement that isn't scrutinized. Also wanting to be talking in the same, having a crisis problem that maybe somebody wants to, you know, talk like, people can go for themselves on the Web now also and they can, to be creating statements that are just like Sarah Palin's, also.
My esteemed colleague Stephanie Kraft has helpfully created a name for this new Palin tense: the peripatetic itinerant present.
To be employing it as often as you like. Or never, also.
11/12/08
The War to End All Wars
Happy Armistice Day. It's because of the end of World War I that today is Veteran's Day. That's a conflict which has long fascinated me. It was the slaughtering of most of a generation, with battles in which the wounded drowned in mud, and soldiers fought in miserable trenches while the body parts of their dead comrades helped form the bulwarks that protected them. It's hard to comprehend the extremes of that war–it was likely the most horrific slaughter in human history. It was, in large part, a catalyst for the Modernist movement in literature, in a way the dawning of the kind of existentialist-tinged psyche and psychology we consider modern with a small m.
War obviously does terrible things to all those who experience it, yet their stories are riveting. I've been engaged for a few years now, at the suggestion of my friend and former bandmate Blisshead, in setting to music the stories of a World War II vet I know, a fascinating dude from Memphis named Harris Mills. I find that his stories demand attention–you're helplessly compelled to listen as the horrors unfold, although he's also quite fond of subverting all that with humor.
If you care to listen to some of Harris Mills' storytelling, you can check out some of it here. (I'm the one in the goggles. But then I always seem to be the one in the goggles.) You can check out Blisshead's solo take on some of the same material here.
11/11/08
A Cult Following
There are strange consistencies when it comes to apocalyptic religious cults. For one thing, like celebrities, they get to live in "compounds." (I hope someday to own a "compound," if I can figure out what constitutes a compound versus a mere house, or estate.) For another, they always predict apocalypse and get it wrong (only one of them can ever actually get it right, when you think about it). And they always seem to engage in questionable or even abusive sexual behavior. Sheesh.
Whatever it is that makes these odious people tick, I think some enterprising psychologists ought to make a study of modern "messiahs."
Here's the latest missed apocalypse. There's something fascinating about nutty nutballs, as ma femme calls them.
11/11/08
Loose Ends
I find myself at a loss for words about politics. And this is a good thing. This is the thing I've been waiting for for almost eight years. I still loathe what George Bush and his cronies are up to, the last-minute deregulation spree, the securing of a "legacy" of mayhem and power-grabbing. But it's really coming to an end.
So what needs saying? Not much! What needs doing? Hanging loose. Enjoying the weather. Building a fire in the chiminea and watching bats fly. That sort of thing. The political world is showing many signs of returning to its old accustomed mix of boredom and half-baked inspiration. Much better than being up to one's eyeballs in fights about democracy itself. It ain't over, but it's a very pleasant interlude.
Time to go in search of new material, so more later….
11/11/08
Who knew they were so hilarious?
You know how some people look at a cow and say,"Hey, get a load of that leopard"? Well, I don't either, but what an awesome statement this is (from Powerline):
"Obama thinks he is a good talker, but he is often undisciplined when he speaks. He needs to understand that as President, his words will be scrutinized and will have impact whether he intends it or not. In this regard, President Bush is an excellent model; Obama should take a lesson from his example. Bush never gets sloppy when he is speaking publicly. He chooses his words with care and precision, which is why his style sometimes seems halting. In the eight years he has been President, it is remarkable how few gaffes or verbal blunders he has committed."
Bush is indeed a very careful and precise speaker. Remember when he decided the right word to use for fighting the terrorists was "crusade"? And then there was that "Paki" business. And "make the pie higher," and "My fellow astronauts." And "Too many OB/GYN's aren't able to practice their love with women all across the country." The eight thousand more available here definitively prove that Bush was the most well-spoken president since they've been making presidents.
Bush was also the first black president.
And he sleeps with a copy of the Constitution under his pillow.
11/09/08
