A Right To Be Wrong

Love Hurts

noreply@blogger.com (CaS) — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 20:27:00 +0000

It was her collar that finally did me in.

I had taken it off several weeks ago, after poor old Poopie (publicly known as Snoopie) let out a cry of frustration, pain and fear because one of her claws got caught in it while she slept. Thankfully I was home when she woke up, and I rushed down to free her. And then I figured she probably didn't really need the collar anyway. Just a few weeks shy of 20 years old at the time, deaf, mostly blind, and not all that quick on her feet, she wasn't going for any walks anytime soon. She certainly wasn't going to be making a daring escape from our yard. So I took the collar off, set it on the counter, and didn't give it another thought.

Until we got home from the vet this morning.

For weeks now -- well, maybe months -- Amy and I have been finding it harder and harder to avoid making the big, final decision for Poopie. Sure, she was old, and blind and deaf. And, yeah, her days of being spry were well behind her. But she could get around. She seemed to like wandering the yard. She definitely still liked to eat. It just wasn't quite time. Not yet.

But she was fading. And winter's come on sudden and hard in Minnesota; for a dog who didn't like the cold, that meant no more sniffing around in the yard. In the last few days, I think she started to give us the sign we were waiting for. Sudden howling barks, for no apparent reason. Pain? Confusion? Fear? The trouble with pets is, no matter how much you love them, or think you know them, you really can't be sure what they're trying to tell you. For all I know, she was a crotchety old dog yelling the canine equivalent of "Hey, you idiots! I'm old and I want more food! It's not like a few extra pounds are gonna kill me."

But it sounded sad. Forlorn even. And it sounded like it was time. So yesterday we made the call. Well, Amy made the actual phone call. Turns out she's a little tougher than I am about this sort of thing. So first thing this morning, we carried our old friend out of the house for the last time, drove her to the vet, and Amy held her while she quietly slipped away from us.

It was peaceful.

It sucked.

I cried some, and thought I had it out of my system. We went home, a bit numb, and lacking anything else to do, went down and started cleaning the area where Poopie slept. It wasn't fun or joyous, but all was basically under control until Amy, while rummaging around the counter (if you've seen our house, you know that any interaction with the counters requires a certain amount of rummaging) happened upon the collar. I looked at the faded blue nylon, with the worn name tag I made Poopie when she moved into our house more than 6 years ago, and I lost it. Sobbed like a little girl. (Yeah, yeah, it's a sexist comparison, but vivid description isn't always p.c.)

I sobbed for the obvious reasons. I've known Poopie almost all my adult life, and nearly as long as I've known Amy. She was always the first to greet us when we drove up the Luedtke homestead on the plains of western Wisconsin, bounding with excitement and energy that I've nearly forgotten. She took up the city life at our Minneapolis home the summer after Amy's mom died. I loved her, and to quote a not particularly good song, sometimes love hurts.

But I sobbed, too, for a somewhat less obvious reason. Making the decision to end her life forced me to confront the difficult question of whether, for all I loved her, I was as good to her as I could have or should have been. It's not that I was cruel to her. I wasn't. But I aspire to be, and like to think I am (in my own introverted way) a caring, compassionate and loving person. In the 20 hours or so between when we made the decision and this morning's trip to the vet, I couldn't avoid questioning how well I had lived up to those aspirations with Poopie. And I wasn't entirely happy with the answers.

Yes, we gave her a home. We fed her, pet her, gave her a yard where she could wander or find a sunny spot to sleep. Still, as her age isolated her a little more from the household activity, I could have made a little more time for her. But there were our other dogs and cats -- who were energetic and spry -- to play with, work to get done, TV to watch, videogames to play. Cleaning up the messes she made was an almost daily (often 2 or 3 times daily) routine that wore at our patience, and so it was often easier to leave her be and wait for her to fall asleep (which, to be fair, is mostly what she wanted to do anyway).

I guess this sort of second-guessing is to be expected when we lose a loved one. The finality of death forces us to contemplate opportunities lost to us, and from there we don't have to travel very far to wallow in a pool of regret. I don't want to do that. Not for long, anyway. I loved that little, smelly, sweet, loud, hungry dog. I'll miss her, even if life will be a little easier not having to clean up after her every day.

So I hope, the next time I see her collar, I don't get lost in regret for the might-have-beens, but instead tear up because of the space her absence leaves in my chest (I know it's cliche, but it literally feels like there's a hole cut out right around my heart; I guess cliches have to start somewhere), and maybe learn from her death to make time for the pets -- and I suppose even the people -- who are still in my life.

A Few Of My Scariest Things

noreply@blogger.com (CaS) — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 01:46:00 +0000

The trick-or-treaters were too damned lazy to climb the stairs to my front door, but I'm still pretty sure it's Halloween today. So in the holiday spirit, I offer a few scary things to keep us all up at night:

1. Taking the "Plan" out of family planning. President Wtf has named his new acting deputy assistant secretary for population affairs. Her name is Susan Orr. She used to work for the Family Research Council, which, in keeping with a rule regarding all political organizations that put "Family" in their name, is self-righteously evil. Her new job puts her in charge of the federal government's family planning office, despite (or because of) the fact that she opposes contraception. Six years ago, when Bush proposed eliminating a requirement that federal health insurance cover contraceptives, she declared herself "quite pleased, because fertility is not a disease." Fortunately for her, mental health benefits were left intact.

2. Disease, sprains, gashes and broken bones. At least if you are among the millions of Americans without health insurance, particularly if you are counting on the President to craft a health care plan to help you out. Problem is, he thinks we already have a plan: "I mean, people have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room." Yes he really, actually said that. On purpose. So much on purpose that it's posted on the White House website.

3. Sexual frustration in Jackson, Mississippi, where for the second time this year the police department has made a daring raid on an adult bookstore and arrested hardened (heh) criminals for selling sex toys. Police made two arrests, which, according to one resident, is two more than they made in all of 2006 for drug dealing. The evidence of the crime was confiscated for further anal ysis.

4. Lonely DVRs. In a few short hours, members of the Writers Guild will go on strike (meaning they will stop writing movies and -- it tears at my soul to even type this -- TV shows) unless the Axis of Producers (or whatever they're called) agree to ... well, I don't know what the writers want them to agree to, exactly. Here's what I do know: Writers. Can. Not. Go. On. Strike. The producers should give them whatever they want, just don't screw with my TV shows (especially in Jackson, Mississippi). I don't have a big-ass HD television and an HD digital video recorder for my health, people. Get Bill O'Reilly on this; here's an actual culture war for him to worry about. Lewis Black starts many of his shows with the observation that America doesn't have any culture. I love Lewis, but he's wrong on this point. TV is our culture. Let Europe have its fancy opera and pretentious art. I need to find out what Michael Schofield's gonna do when he learns Sara got her head cut off, and if Starbuck has come back as some sort of evil Cylon-human hybrid. Where will I get my news without The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert? I need my TV, damnit. Please don't make me go out and buy The Fall Guy on DVD.

The Trouble With Larry

noreply@blogger.com (CaS) — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 03:37:00 +0000

I'm troubled by the case of Larry Craig. And not just because I've used the bathrooms at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

I'm troubled, in large part, by just how easy it was to make that joke. I'll come back to that, because there are a bunch of other aspects of this bizarre little case that trouble me.

Let's start with an easy one. The law. Or, more precisely, whether Senator Craig, violated it in his quest to get violated. At first blush (and there should be a lot of blushing in this story), the Singing Senator (really, he is -- I can't make this stuff up) stands accused of using a secret code to try to get laid. As the ACLU pointed out in the friend of the court brief it filed on Craig's behalf (oh, the irony), asking somebody if they want to have sex is speech. Speech is still protected under the United States Constitution. And that speech is made in bars across this great nation every day of the week. Though the code is usually a bit easier to translate.

For the answer to this issue, I think we have to look at a second or third blush. The senator did more than use a wide stance and some hand taps to let anyone who might know the secret code that he was ready and willing. He also stood accused of staring through the crack in the police officer's stall for a minute before settling in to make his proposition. That's an invasion of privacy that may justify the disorderly conduct charge. Still, I do get a certain sense of glee at the idea of the Minnesota Court of Appeals buying the ACLU argument and tossing out Craig's guilty plea on the grounds that he was exercising his First Amendment right to ask a guy in a men's room if he wanted to have sex.

Which brings me to the next troubling aspect of this case: Men go into public bathrooms to try to have sex with complete strangers. This is troubling for a couple of reasons. First, creepy. Second, and perhaps less obvious, it's just sort of sad and pathetic. Actually, it's a lot sad and pathetic. And not just for the men, but as a reflection on a culture that is so unsure of its own moral grounding that it has to demonize and diminish men who happen to be sexually attracted to other men, forcing them to deny an aspect of who they are to such an extent that they reveal it only in anonymous encounters with other men who are also hiding from the society, their families, and themselves.

And that brings things back to my original point. I'm troubled by my own reaction to this story, by the ease with which I mock Larry Craig at a time of what must be excruciating personal turmoil. It's not that I don't understand why this is a public matter. I do. Senator Craig has been quite outspoken against those who are out, crusading against the idea that gay people should have rights, and championing the defense of the institution of marriage against whatever it is religious conservatives think gays are gonna do to it. The hypocrisy is not lost on me. How could it be?

Still, I probably don't need to find such amusement in Senator Craig's public pain. To an extent, I can empathize with him. I am, in many ways, an intensely private person. Merely contemplating the possibility of publication of my personal life (boring as it may be) triggers a moment of chest-constricting panic. Well, maybe not exactly panic. But definitely serious apprehension (which, frankly, sounds much less dramatic than "panic"). So maybe I should laugh less at jokes about his "wide stance" and his "he-doth-protest-too-much declaration that "I am not gay" and remember that this human being suffering the ridicule of a nation is, after all, a human being. A flawed, sometimes mean-spirited, often hypocritical human being to be sure, but a human being nonetheless. And, honestly, that makes him not all that much different from the rest of us.

So maybe I should laugh less at the jokes about Senator Wide-Stance. But I probably won't; some of this stuff is pretty damned funny, after all. If he can be flawed, so can I.

Fuzzy Genius

noreply@blogger.com (CaS) — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 15:36:00 +0000

No real entry from me today. I'll let Satch, Bucky, Rob and the Votemaster 5000 do all the clever exposition for me.

A Glass Two-Thirds Gross

noreply@blogger.com (CaS) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 00:07:00 +0000

There's been a bunch of hullabaloo about the one-third of men who don't regularly wash their hands after using the bathroom. It might be missing the point.

Shouldn't we be more worried about the two-thirds who keep whizzing on their hands?

Plenty of Blame To Go Around

noreply@blogger.com (CaS) — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 00:27:00 +0000

Oh, where to start with the whole "General Betray Us" mess?

It's tempting -- and warranted -- to go after the Republicans in the Senate for sponsoring a resolution condemning MoveOn.org's New York Times ad. To lash them with withering commentary for wasting the time of the United States Senate with a debate over how one organization chose to debate the war in Iraq.

But, really, would that be fair? It seems a bit like yelling at a puppy for eating the hamburger you dropped on the floor. They couldn't be expected to control themselves. Their president's little war is an unmitigated disaster, with the only real question now being how to minimize the catastrophe caused by our national arrogance and ignorance. So of course the Republicans would leap at the chance to change the debate, and even to somehow blame the liberals for the mess.

For true frustration, I'm having a hard time choosing between Senate Democrats and MoveOn itself.

MoveOn pisses me off because of the idiotic decision to take out the ad in the first place. I mean, c'mon, did they really think they could beat the Republicans in the battle to reduce painful, complex political issues to petty, meaningless jingos? The Republicans practically invented that game. They certainly wrote all the rules. They also kept all the copies of the rulebook, and can revise it any time they want. So at least one of those smart-but-overly-earnest young radicals at MoveOn must have read the headline to that ad and thought, "Hmmm....I wonder if Republicans might, in an orgasm of gleeful cynicism, turn that around on us and suddenly make this whole war debate about us resorting to childish name-calling instead of being about the thousands of people dying in Iraq." Well, apparently they didn't. But they should have.

But the Democrats...The Democrats.

Sigh.

The democrats. I'm not convinced they even deserve capitalization anymore. I cut them some slack when they couldn't set deadlines for troop withdrawal, and couldn't set limits on funding for the war. The truth is they simply don't have the enough votes in Congress to oppose the President that directly. And, to be fair, there is room for debate over when, how, and perhaps even whether to draw down our troops (having created the catastrophe, I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of now walking away and abandoning the Iraqi people to the thugs that will take over in the vacuum left by the U.S. military -- but that's a debate for another day).

All reserves of slack, however, were cut off when they not only let this ridiculous piece of legislation see the light of day, not only allowed it to take up precious time on the floor of the United States Senate, not only failed to cut off debate on it, but voted for and passed it.

Let me repeat that. Democrats, the party I count on to offer at least some protection to the civil liberties enshrined in our Constitution, voted, on the floor of the Senate of the United States of America, to condemn an act of free speech.

No. No. No.

Seriously, No. For the love of Bob the Refrigerator God, try, just for a little while, to have some principles and to stick by them.

That's it. No clever wrap-up. Just a desperate plea to the party I voted for: You won the election, so please start acting like it.

I'm Ba-ack

noreply@blogger.com (CaS) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 03:28:00 +0000

I know, I know. I've failed to keep up on this whole blogging thing. No entries in 2 months. But, in my defense, the president of the United States takes a whole month off every year.

Anyway, I promise my readers that I'm really gonna seriously think about writing more.

In the meantime, enjoy this tidbit from an anchorairhead on MSNBC last week. She made the observation with no apparent sense of irony while her network showed riveting coverage of O.J. Simpson's lawyer driving the murderer/Ocean's 11-wannabe to the Las Vegas airport:

"I sometimes wonder if there isn't some other news happening in the world that maybe we should be covering."

"Sometimes"?

"Maybe"?

We are so screwed.

This Just In...

noreply@blogger.com (CaS) — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 15:03:00 +0000

From the apparently very well-funded Department of No Kidding comes this study:

College students have sex because college students like to have sex.

Stunning.

More surprising -- that college students came up with a total of 237 reasons to have sex. I'm pretty sure that a) the first 150 were all variations on "Getting laid feels good" and b) after number 157 the surveyed students were just making things up to mess with the brainiacs doing the survey.

Didn't See That Coming

noreply@blogger.com (CaS) — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 01:01:00 +0000

So W let Scooter off the hook.

How to react? Sure, I could point out the mockery this makes of the presidential pledge to punish anyone in his administration responsible for the outing of a covert CIA operative. Or rant about how stupidly contradictorily ridiculous it is for Bush to pretend he "respects" the jury's decision that Scooter was guilty of obstructing the investigation of that breach of national security, while simultaneously kicking that jury in the nuts* by letting the guy skate. And then I could get really wound up about the shameful disregard of the rule of law, and the hypocritical elevation of party politics over national security, wrapping up with screed on how any grown man who calls himself Scooter should go to jail on general principals. Or maybe principles. Definitely one of them.

But seriously, is it worth it? My honest reaction to yesterday's breaking news:

Gee, there's a big fucking surprise.

Of course he cut Scooter loose. Why wouldn't he? What does he have to lose at this point? The approval of the American people? His poll numbers are already in Nixonian territory. He doesn't care what we think. And here's a little secret for you knuckleheads who voted for him, and now suddenly realize you don't like him -- he's never cared. His entire administration has been a great big "Fuck You" to the Constitution, the democratic principals it embodies, and the American people. W, Cheney and their cronies have been giving us the finger for nearly 7 years, and a majority of us not only sat there and took it -- we thanked them for it by giving them 4 more years to screw with us.

To be fair, for a while there W did try to pretend he cared what we think. He sucked at it, but he gave it the old college try (which in his case does not involve trying very hard). But now he doesn't even have to fake it. He knows 75 percent of us think he's doing a lousy job. But thanks to the 26 percent of you who couldn't figure that out in November 2004, there's nothing we can do about it. We can't fire him. And he knows it. So he pretty much gets to do whatever dumbass thing he wants.

And he knows that too.

My theory is his inner frat boy has completely taken over. And the inner frat boy doesn't see those low poll numbers as a sign he's driving the nation off a cliff. No, the inner frat boy sees a beer- and coke-induced challenge. The inner frat boy has ripped off his shirt and is yelling in the inner ear of the leader of the free world:

"Duuude! Twenty-five percent is nothin'! Dude, you can sink that baby to 20 easy! You can do it! Paint the White House purple! Have a kegger in the Rose Garden! Send more troops to Iraq! Don't puss out on me, man! TWENTY! TWENTY! TWENTY! TWEN....ack!

"Dude, I choked on a pretzel."
____________________________________
*I know it's a somewhat sexist choice of words since there were probably women on the jury, but sometimes the strongest imagery isn't gender-neutral

An Apple, Tree Sort of Thing

noreply@blogger.com (CaS) — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 23:52:00 +0000

I've had a hard time figuring out just how to start this piece. I mean, I know what I want to say, but can't quite find a clever way to get there. I guess that's sort of the central challenge in all good writing.

The beginning, I suppose. Well, not THE beginning, but A beginning -- the beginning of the idea for this piece. My nephew was born a few weeks ago. His name is Logan (I assume after Marvel's Wolverine, but haven't yet been able to confirm that)*, and he is my parents' first grandchild.

This piece isn't about him. The little bugger's gonna get plenty of attention. He doesn't need more from me. Hell, he already has his own website. No point in over-inflating his little ego so soon.

Ok, it's sort of about him. But only because it was inspired by a picture on his website. A picture of Logan and his grandfather.

My dad.

You see (and if you clicked on the link already, your really did see), Logan's not supposed to be here just yet. He was supposed to be weighing my sister down and making her summer horribly uncomfortable until sometime in August. Human biology being the unpredictable creature it is, things didn't work out as planned, and the little guy had to be delivered almost 3 months early. I'm no expert, but I think it's safe to say that medically speaking, this was less than ideal. My sister and her husband do, I suppose, have the rare opportunity to be new parents and still sleep through the night. But that sleep would be a lot sounder if they didn't have to go home every night without their little boy, leaving him in a hospital intensive care unit while his body tries to catch up on those last few months of development.

But this piece isn't about them, either.

It's about that picture of my dad on Logan's website. Nothing on that site hit me quite as hard as that picture. Take a minute and find it so you know what I'm talking about. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Back? Ok. So maybe you see what I see, maybe you don't. I see the human being I aspire to be.

Some explanation is in order. The belief has been expressed in some circles that I bear certain similarities, characteristically speaking, to my father. By which I mean my wife thinks I'm his clone.

This strikes me as scientifically unlikely.

Still, I won't deny that we have some characteristics in common. Neither of us is particularly expressive of our emotions. Or excessively talkative. I might also share a tendency toward understatement. He does not suffer fools gladly. His sense of humor is dry, and he has been known, on occasion, to be a bit of a smart-ass. Some have made similar accusations against me. I won't say they are entirely unfounded.

That persona is only part of my dad's character, though. In that picture with his grandchild, I see much of the rest. He may not express his emotions much, but his feelings have a depth. Never in my life have I doubted how much he loved me, or that he was proud of me. I'm sure the same is true for my brother and sister. Sure, he got mad at me when I did some dumbass thing (which happened every now and then when I was growing up), but I usually knew (even if I refused to admit it at the time) that he had cause to be angry. It's that not suffering fools thing, especially when the fool in question is a son who knows better. He expected me to live up to my potential, and trying to meet that expectation has made me a better person.

That sounds cliche, I know. And it is, especially on Father's Day. It is also wholly inadequate. There's so much more that I can't quite find a way to capture -- frustrating for a guy who makes his living crafting words. Let me try a bit more.

My dad is loyal. He will be there for anybody who needs his help. Cliche, again, but also true.

He has a quiet self-confidence. Not arrogance, just a solid belief in himself. I think that sense of self is part of what makes it possible for him to talk to just about anybody, to accept people for who they are, and to make them feel comfortable.

My dad has great common sense -- and not in that annoying knee-jerk way some people use common sense as a substitute for actual thinking. And he has a powerful sense of right and wrong, of justice. He probably doesn't know it, but he's made me a better lawyer. In the practice of law, right, wrong and justice can get buried under statutory language, decades of precedent and the minutiae of legal analysis. Lawyers have been known to concoct arguments that might just be a bit too clever. Sometimes, when those legalities start to run away with a case, or I find myself being perhaps a tad too creative with an argument, I ask myself, "Would Dad buy this?" If, in the imagined conversation I have with him, my dad concludes it's bullshit, I figure it probably is.

Mostly, my dad is a fundamentally decent person with a full, loving heart. When I saw that picture of him reaching his hand out to his tiny grandson, my heart caught. I could feel what he was feeling (or at least what I think he was feeling). How much he worried about my sister and her husband, how he would take on their fear and pain if there was any way he could, the love and adoration inspired by little Logan, how he would fix it all if he could, and his frustration that he can't. I don't believe in God or angels, but guardian angels don't get much better than my dad.

Now and again, I find out that people see some of those same characteristics in me. A friend of Amy's once told her about how strongly loyal she thought I am. A kid I represent told me she was glad to hear my voice when I called. People trust my judgment for no more reason than they seem to think I'm fair and that I know what I'm talking about (even if I'm not always so sure).

When that happens, I think maybe these people are seeing in me a little of what I see in my dad.

I hope so.

So happy Father's Day, Dad.

And thanks.

___________________________________________________
*It may also have been after the airport, I suppose. His dad has done a lot of flying in his lifetime, and maybe the Boston airport holds a special place in his heart. Again, this is unconfirmed.

Curses!

noreply@blogger.com (CaS) — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 02:22:00 +0000

The self-declared culture warriors took a bit of a beating last week. It was just in time.

"Self-declared," by the way, because they aren't so much warriors as indignant blow-hards (some of whom have their own TV and radio shows) and because they wouldn't know culture if it reached up and slapped them on the ass.

Which, conveniently enough, brings me back to my point. The beating. Delivered, at least in part, by their commander-in-chief and his chief puppetmaster.

First, I'm afraid I'll have to bore you with some history. Sorry. On the up side, it's the history of naughty words on television, which should be at least a little interesting.

For decades, the Federal Communications Committee has charged itself with the weighty task of protecting our children from bad words on TV and the radio. The little brats are on their own everywhere else. It even came up with a definition of what qualifies as bad words. They are, in legal lingo, "indecent," a concept the FCC declared to be "intimately connected with the exposure of children to language that describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory activities and organs." All of which is a fancy way of saying "indecent" means words about pooping and screwing, without, you know, being indecent about it.

Ok, fine. This obsession with sex and defecation probably seems a bit silly and infantile to much of the world, but there probably isn't a burning need to graphically describe either of them during prime time. And the rules were applied carefully, so it took a pretty blatant violation to draw theFCC's attention. The classic case was the broadcast of George Carlin's seven dirty words during prime time. While punishing the broadcast of that particular bit is almost painful in its irony, even hardened America-hating liberals can probably grudgingly agree the broadcast wasn't a terribly good idea.

And then came Emperor Bush, and the social conservatives he had to please.

It all came to a head (so to speak) at the Golden Globes in 2002 or 2003. Bono got on stage and described some award as "really fucking brilliant." Inevitably, some ass whipped his indignity into a fine froth of righteousness and complained to the FCC. The FCC's enforcement bureau, being staffed by apparently reasonable human beings, dismissed the complaint. For nearly 30 years, the FCC policy had been that "fleeting expletives" are not indecent. This was clearly a fleeting expletive, so there was no basis for punishing the broadcast.

The righteous were having none of that. They owned the government now, so they -- not reasonable people -- would decide what was indecent. Which would be funny, if it didn't turn out to be true. In 2003, the FCC board (populated with several Bush appointees, selected, no doubt, to satisfy the same conservative busybodies who bitched about Bono's offhand remark in the first place) overturned the decision of the enforcement staff. And it wasn't fucking around. It didn't just overturn that isolated decision. It junked nearly 30 years of precedent and came up with brand new policy. Henceforth, it declared, any use of the words "fuck" or "shit" would be treated as indecent. And fined. Heavily.

To which, the United States Court of Appeal for the Second Circuit last week said -- and I'm paraphrasing here -- "WTF?"

Struggling to defend an indefensible shift in policy, the FCC made a series of arguments, all of which the Court declared -- paraphrasing again -- bullshit. I found the full discussion fascinating. Then again, I like to curl up with a good decision on the law of reinsurance, so maybe I'm not the best judge of what makes interesting reading. A portion of the opinion, though, must be universally accepted as truly fucking awesome.

The FCC insisted its new policy was absolutely necessary because it is "difficult (if not impossible) to distinguish whether a word is being used as an expletive or as a literal description of sexual or excretory functions." The Second Circuit called that a dumbass argument -- more or less -- explaining to the apparently very sheltered members of the FCC board that these words, "as the general public well knows, are often used in everyday conversation without any 'sexual or excretory' meaning." To prove its point -- and this is the awesome part -- the Court had to look no further than the occupants of the White House. As you may recall, in a telling example of his grasp of the intricacies of foreign policy, Bush was caught on tape explaining to Tony Blair that the solution to the problem in Lebanon was to “get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit.” Even more famously, Vice President Dick (how's that for indecency?) Cheney adroitly and persuasively responded to an argument by telling a United States Senator to "go fuck yourself."

I think the Second Circuit's reasoning went something like this: If a barely functional idiot and a soulless android can tell the difference between a fleeting expletive used for emphasis and a graphic depiction of fornication or defecation, then so can the rest of the country.

Again with the paraphrasing.

Whatever the Court's precise reasoning, it's timing couldn't have been better. The decision was issued early in the week. So on Thursday, if the universe were just, we could well have heard this on a 24-hour news station:

"Welcome back to CNNBC Fair and Balanced News. As we were reporting before the break, recent developments in Iraq .... Wait, interrupting here for Breaking News. We are being told that hotel heiress Paris -- Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me! This shit isn't news!"

Chipping Away At the Fabric of Space-Time

noreply@blogger.com (CaS) — Sun, 20 May 2007 23:52:00 +0000

There are certain laws of the universe that should be held inviolate (a fancy way of saying they shouldn't be screwed with), lest the bonds that hold the cosmos together begin to crumble beneath our feet.

E = MC-squared, for example. Not sure what it means, but you do not want to devalue E.
1 + 1 = 2. That one I understand.
Don't cross the beams.
People whose nation you have just bombed to hell will not throw flowers at your feet and greet you as liberators.
A Diet Coke cancels out the calorie count of whatever you eat with it.
When traveling back in time, do not meet yourself.
Pringles come neatly stacked in cardboard tubes.

Well, we're screwed. Because sitting before me is a bag of Pringles rice chips. Szechuan flavor. Tasty.

A bag.

I don't care that the chips are made of rice instead of potatoes. I love chips, and would eat them if they were made of tag-board, as long as they were crispy and had enough salt or other irresistible artificial flavor. Szechuan apparently qualifies as a sufficiently delicious flavor, because even as I compose this warning, I am munching on them and dropping their delicious crumbs all over my keyboard in utter disregard of the fact that these tasty snacks are unraveling the fabric of space and time.

Because Pringles, no matter how tasty, do not come in a bag. They come in a tube. That is the entire point of Pringles. Put 'em in a bag and they aren't Pringles anymore. Now they're just chips.

Succulent Szechuan barbecue heralds of the end-times.

Who knew the Apocalypse would taste so good?

Plus One

noreply@blogger.com (CaS) — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 00:03:00 +0000

Thirty-two bells tolled today at a Nevada college for the victims of yesterday's shooting in Virginia, for the families who lost a son, a daughter, a mother, a husband.

They forgot one.

Thirty-three people died on that Virginia campus. One of them was the young man who pulled the trigger. What he did was horrific, almost beyond most of our ability to contemplate. But he, too, was a victim.

A victim of what, exactly, we may never know. He was a loner, isolated, suffered perhaps from deep depression. Something drives a human being to commit such atrocities. Something broken, something lost.

But whatever drove him, whatever broke in his heart or his mind, he was a human being. Just like the other people who died at his hand. I don't expect a memorial to him, or an outpouring of sympathy. Still, to leave him out of the count of the dead just seems callous. He may have lost sight of the value of a life, but that doesn't mean we should.

Think of his family. Like those other 32 families, they lost a son and brother yesterday. But in a way, they may have lost more. The other victims are being honored, remembered, eulogized. Bells chime out in their memory. But the shooter's family isn't part of that national mourning. Their loved one has had his humanity stripped from him.

Dehumanizing him is natural, I suppose. If we treat a man who could do such a thing as a monster, we can more easily pretend we share nothing in common with him. That it could never be us, or someone we know, who falls so far into mindless, hopeless despair and anger.

If he's just human, like us, well ... who knows?

His name was Cho Seung-hui.

He did a terrible thing. And he was his own final victim.

Oh for ... well ... His sake!

noreply@blogger.com (CaS) — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 00:34:00 +0000

I guess maybe I just don't get art.

And that's fine with me. Most of the time, I'm happy to ignore some of the more idiotic things self-declared connoisseurs try to pass off as art. But when some idiot artist and his posse force me into something that comes even remotely close to kind of a little bit agreeing with William Donahue, well then they've gone too far.

Donahue is the loudly outspoken president of the Catholic League. He's also a first-class self-righteous, hypocritical attention slut. I could bother to do some research and find examples to bolster this point, but for the sake of simplicity, just take my word for it. He is one hateful son of a bitch.

Which makes it excruciatingly painful for me to admit that he might just have a point about the chocolate Jesus.

Chocolate Jesus, you see, is the brainchild of Cosimo Cavallero. He apparently is a renowned food artist.

Yes.

"Renowned."

"Food artist."

Press reports call him "quirky."

Well, his latest quirk is the sculpting of a life-sized Christ on the cross. Naked. And reportedly well-endowed.

This piece of Easter-candy-gone-horribly-awry was supposed to be exhibited at a hotel in New York beginning this Monday. The display was scheduled to close on Sunday, known to some as Easter.

The hotel canceled the showing, however, when Christian groups, including Donahue, met the offensive piece with their own PR offensive. That, of course, isn't surprising. What is surprising -- stunning, even -- is that the hotel appears to have been genuinely surprised that hanging a naked confectionery Christ in its lobby on the highest of the Christian holidays might offend some people.

Clever phrases elude me. All I can say is that that is unbelievably, mind-numbingly dumb. Overzealous frontal lobotomy dumb.

Donahue, true to form, overreacted in a manner carefully calculated to blow the story way out of proportion while simultaneously maximizing his media exposure, declaring in typical bombast that the hotel would "rue the day it sought to declare war on Christian sensibilities."

Declare war?

C'mon Bill. Just once, could you tone down the rhetoric and do your faith more service than your clip file? Wouldn't it have been enough to tell the press that as a Christian, you are disturbed and offended by this casual, thoughtless, pointless and stupid dilution of the event that is at the core of your faith? And wouldn't a little forgiveness have been more in keeping with the spirit of the man who you believe sacrificed himself to wipe away the sins of humanity?

Still, in the end, this atheist blogger comes down, however painfully and reluctantly, on Donahue's side. Anatomically-correct-choco-Jesus was either a work crafted to offend or a work of staggering stupidity. Cavallero had a right to create it, but that doesn't mean anybody had to lend it merit by agreeing to exhibit it. At the very least, anybody who thought it was worth displaying (I suppose it might be; again, I don't get art) should have known it was offensive to a lot of people.

Still, artistically speaking, the sculpture is a big step up for the "quirky" Cavallero. From the photos, it looks to be at least a passable bit of sculpting. It stands in stark contrast to some of his past work, which include using melted mozzarella to repaint a Manhattan hotel room, spraying five tons of pepper jack cheese on a house in Wyoming, and burying a four-poster bed in 312 pounds of processed ham.

In the world occupied by the well-adjusted, that's not art. It's what moms everywhere would declare a "mess." Or, perhaps, a "waste of perfectly good food."

So maybe I don't get art. But I think it's more likely that what I don't get is why people insist on calling pretentious asses artists.

Educational TV

noreply@blogger.com (CaS) — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 17:58:00 +0000

I occasionally run into people who tell me with obvious self-satisfaction that they don't watch TV.

Well, except for PBS.

It's probably because I hang out with the liberal elite.

What these fine people, with their impressive educational credentials, seem to be missing is that they are depriving themselves of the fine educational value of modern television.

For example, without television -- well, television ads to be specific -- how would anyone know that having an erection for more than 4 hours is an actual certified medical condition. Priapism, it's called, I learned from the helpful sellers of Cialis.

Like any good lesson, though, the Cialis revelation raises whole new questions. Like, 4 hours? Seriously? That long before it's a medical condition? How did that get set as -- pardon the choice of terminology -- the cut-off? At 3 hours and 30 minutes, all is well? Just a really good batch of Cialis?

Maybe those questions will be addressed in the next ad campaign.

Anyway, the discourse on painfully swollen male genitalia for some reason got me thinking of Robert Novak.

Go figure.

It turns out that Novak could use a little televised education. Which is surprising, since he makes much of his living by appearing on television. It was, in fact, during one of those television appearances last week that the gap in his education was revealed.

Novak, you may recall, is the columnist who revealed to the world that Valerie Plame was a covert operative for the CIA. She had been working extensively on investigation of Iran's nuclear capabilities, so you can see why telling the world (which, for any Fox News viewers who accidentally happen to read this, includes the aforementioned Iran) what she was up to might not have exactly been in the national security interests of the United States.

So last week, Plame went to Congress to explain why outing her to the world was dumb. It was a pretty simple message. Fox News decided to have a commentator during her testimony. Kind of like the color commentary on Monday night football, only even less necessary.

They picked Novak.

'Cuz that's both fair and balanced.

During his commentary, Novak explained that it wasn't all that big a deal that he published Plame's name in one of the most read newspapers in the world. She wasn't covert, he said, and he explained why:

During the 2000 campaign, she gave money to Al Gore. (That's not the reason she isn't covert -- it's just the reason Novak screwed her over). When you donate to a presidential campaign, you are supposed to list your employer. Plame listed a front company. Not the CIA. And that's why she wasn't a covert operative, according to Novak.

No need to read that again. You read it right the first time. It doesn't make any sense, and Novak's an idiot. But that particular aspect of his idiocy could have been cured with just a small dose of TV. Anybody who watches TV knows the spies have to construct a careful front company so they can stay covert and undercover and sexy.

Ok, the last one might only apply to Sidney Bristow on Alias.

The point is, if Novak spent less time on TV, and more time watching TV, he would know that listing a fake employer is how spies stay covert, not how they blow their cover.

Anyone who watches TV know it's the manipulative evil bosses who blow the spies' cover.

You can see that show on PBS. It's called the news.

A Hero Passes. Now What?

noreply@blogger.com (CaS) — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 17:32:00 +0000

Captain America is dead.

Technically, I suppose, he was never alive, except as a collection of drawings and ideas that sprang from the minds of generations of comic book writers and artists. But ideas have life, in their own way, and in last week's issue of the comic book that bears his name, the idea that was Captain America died on the steps of a federal courthouse at the hands of a sniper.

I don't know why Marvel decided to bring this iconic character's story to such a dramatic terminus. Chances are it had more to do with the publisher's bottom line than with the Jeffersonian marketplace of ideas. But whether Marvel intended it or not, Cap's assassination symbolizes more than just a decline in comic book sales.

Captain America, of course, has always been a character rich in symbolism. He debuted a few months before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and surged to popularity as a symbol of American freedom and bravery during World War II. Costumed as he was in the Stars n' Stripes, he really couldn't help but stand out as a sort of walking, talking and fighting American flag.

Like many comic book characters of the time, the 1940s Captain America offered a simplistic, one-dimensional portrayal of good versus evil. He was Captain America; he was literally wrapped in the flag. He was good. The flag was good. America was good. By definition, what America did was good. Just what it meant for America to be "good" -- or the ways in which it might fall short of that goal -- never came up.

A couple of decades later, though, when Captain America made his comeback, our collective view of America (and maybe "goodness") had developed some depth and become more subtle. In the 1960s and 70s, wondering about the wisdom of our leaders was no longer the province of select radicals. It began to permeate cross-sections of society, imbed itself in our popular culture. And the good Captain began to reflect that depth. He still stood as a symbol for America, but he no longer took for granted that everything America's government did was right and good. He asserted the right to question his government, to follow his own moral compass, to reject and oppose orders issued by the American government if those orders ran afoul of the American ideal symbolized by his Red, White and Blue uniform.

Don't get me wrong. Captain America was no lefty pacifist. He fought. He killed. He accepted the need for violence as an instrument of policy. It would have been a pretty boring comic book if he spent every issue giving Red Skull a stern lecture on the democratic process.

But Captain America rejected the idea that violence ordered by his government was necessary and justified simply because it was ordered by his government. In recent years, he harbored serious doubts about how the government waged the war on terrorism, questioning surveillance of American citizens and challenging the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo. Captain America did not always like what his government was doing in his name.

In our name.

What's great about Captain America is that it's awfully hard to question the patriotism of a guy who runs around in star-spangled tights. When Captain America questions what America is doing, not even Dick Cheney could just write him off as anti-American. As a symbol, Captain America could make us look deeper at what it means to be a patriot, to be a citizen, to love this country.

To be American.

Cap saw America for what it is, or at least what it aspires to be. America is not merely a place on a map. It is not a president or even a whole government. It is not infallible. It is a set of evolving ideals, rooted in the belief that all people are created equal, that government should be of those people, by those people, and for those people. It is a place where dissent is not merely the right of the people, it is their sacred obligation.

Timing is everything. In this case, it is serendipitous that Captain America died in the same week i) a Justice Department audit revealed the FBI's rampant abuse of the Patriot Act, ii) Lewis Libby was convicted of lying to protect his bosses' underhanded tactics; and iii) serious questions were raised about whether U.S. attorneys around the country were fired because they didn't pursue enough investigations of the president's political opponents.

Of course he also died at a time when nearly 70 percent of the nation opposes the president's policies. Dissent is everywhere, and dissent is easy when most people agree with you.

What Captain America showed us, when his book was at its best, is that questioning the government, even when the government is overwhelmingly popular, is the height of patriotism.

But what concerns me about Captain America is that a fictional comic book character understands the essence of American democracy so much better than our non-fictional president.

Some Thoughts on Self-Employment

noreply@blogger.com (CaS) — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 22:52:00 +0000

Regular readers may have noticed a bit of a drop off in the frequency of my posts, as well as a precipitous decline in their length. This, it turns out, is a side effect of having opened my own law firm.

So I figured as a sort of blogospheric karma thing, if running my own firm has been distracting me from serving the loyal reading public, then it's only appropriate that I at least share some thoughts on this departure from steady pay into the adventure of self-employment.

So, here goes:

WHAT HAVE I DONE?!?

I suspect there are others, but somehow none of them manage to get heard over that one.

A Moment of Silence

noreply@blogger.com (CaS) — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 22:44:00 +0000

Robert Adler, co-inventor of a device that makes life worth living -- the TV remote control -- died Thursday. He was 93.

I can only hope and trust he went out while channel hopping.

Lessons from Jamaica

noreply@blogger.com (CaS) — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 02:19:00 +0000

Hershey's announced this week it's cutting its workforce by 11 percent. I'm not sure why. After 5 days at a Jamaican beach resort, I can't believe U.S. candy sales are down.

Here's some of what I learned on my winter vacation:

My wife looks pretty good in a bikini.

Many, many other people do not.

We saved Europe from the Nazi menace. The least they could do is show a little appreciation. Nothing major. I don't want to be too demanding. How's this? When European men travel abroad, to warm weather, beach-including destinations, European customs officials should look through their luggage, remove any and all Speedo or Speedo-like swimsuits and replace them with full-size swim trunks. And possibly a girdle.

Rum is good.

All you can drink rum is not necessarily a good idea for my wife.

How To Survive A Presidential Speech

noreply@blogger.com (CaS) — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 15:05:00 +0000

As a public service, I offer this brief post in preparation for President Bush's speech tonight -- the one in which he will try to persuade the voters who just kicked the Republicans out of Congress because they are pissed about the Iraq war that we shouldn't just stay in Iraq, we send a "surge" of more troops.

Drink.

Not indiscriminately, of course. I propose drinking through the lens of public policy. It's a little like beer goggles, but more intellectual.

I propose a pretty basic drinking game. When the president utters certain phrases, you imbibe, as follows:

"Victory": This one's a gimme. Chances are it shows up in the first sentence. To make sure you stay conscious for the rest of the speech, only half a drink for this one.

"We'll stand down as the Iraqis stand up": A classic, but seems to be falling into less frequent use, possibly because even Bush is starting to realize it's meaningless and trite. 1 drink.

"Fight 'em over there so we don't have to fight them here": This one's a bit off topic for tonight's speech, but a Team Bush favorite. 1 drink, plus a second drink in the hope the terrorists never heard of Google Maps or Mapquest.

"Nukular": 1 drink. Bonus 2 drinks if he actually pronounces it correctly.

"Cut 'n run": If he's still using this one after the drubbing his party took in the election, we're in serious trouble. 2.5 drinks.

"9/11, September 11 or September the 11th": No drinks. I don't want to be blamed for alcohol poisoning.

At the end of the speech, add up the drinks to see who won.

If no one in the room is able to add, it will be easier to figure out who loses.

That would be us. And the people of Iraq. And our troops.

Aren't games fun?

Yes Virginia, there is a Koran

noreply@blogger.com (CaS) — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 00:59:00 +0000

A brief update on an earlier story:

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn) was sworn in yesterday, together with all of the other members of the 110th Congress. As threatened, in an act of defiance some believe was deliberately crafted to undermine American civilization, he swore his oath with his hand on the Koran.

Not the Bible.

Because he's Muslim.

Please see my earlier post on this topic for a more detailed explanation of why this really shouldn't matter, and why the people who insist it does are nuts. Yeah, I could probably put some sort of magic link in here so you could jump to the post with a click, but seriously, how lazy are you? Scroll down like 8 inches and read the thing. Go ahead, we'll wait.

Ok.

To the best of my knowledge, American civilization has not collapsed. Well, not any more than it already had under the crushing weight of reality television, too much fast food, and whatever lapse in judgment is responsible for allowing Britney Spears out in public.

However, Ellison's swearing in may well have highlighted American decline in a way his detractors never intended.

In a move that was powerfully symbolic and politically brilliant, Ellison selected for his swearing in a copy of the Koran that came from the personal library of Thomas Jefferson. Who was one of the Founding Fathers. Who, in 1779, championed religious freedom and tolerance, authoring one of the nation's first laws protecting the right to practice, or not practice, the religion of our choice. The law declared:
..no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.
Actually, I shouldn't say "declared," as in past tense. The law is still in force today, more than two centuries later.

As an article of the constitition of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

You see, when he wrote it, Thomas Jefferson was the governor of Virginia.

Ironically, of course, much of the outrcy over Ellison's swearing of an oath on the holy text of a minority religion came from the good people of modern Virginia and one of their elected representatives. So congratulations Rep. Goode and your constituents. American civilization may not have crumbled under the weight of religious freedom, but you've managed to prove that Virginian civilization has fallen a long way in 200 years.

Huh?

noreply@blogger.com (CaS) — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 04:21:00 +0000

I learned two things about Bill O'Reilly in recent weeks that should not both be true. A time-space continuum must rupture into tiny, weeping pieces if both things exist in the same universe.

First: During a December 13 episode of the Factor, O'Reilly tackled the issue of gay parenting as part of the Right's hilarious implosion over Mary Cheney's pregnancy. He applied to the discussion all of his usual keen insight -- disregarding years of research contradicting his position that "nature dictates a dad and a mom is the optimum" as something he didn't want to "deal with," and utterly failing to grasp the distinction between the biological function of procreation and the purely cultural function of parenting (even after a guest explained it to him in simple words and short sentences). No surprises there. Pretty standard fare. But then he asked the show-stopping question (well, it stopped the show for me, because at that point I just had to turn it off):

Why, he wondered, if same-sex couples can be as good of parents as not-same-sex couples, "wouldn't nature then make it that anybody could get pregnant by eating a cupcake?"

I'll leave that for your contemplation, because there is truly nothing I can add to it.

Second: Bill O'Reilly -- the same Bill O'Reilly who saw some sort of analogy between same-sex parenting and conception by frosting -- has a Master's degree from the Kennedy School of Government. At Harvard.

Huh.

So Bill O'Reilly might not actually be an idiot. Maybe he just plays one on TV.

I Swear....

noreply@blogger.com (CaS) — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 22:51:00 +0000

Unbelievable.

No, wait, I only wish it was unbelievable.

Keith Ellison is my newly elected Congressman. He's a Democrat. He also happens to be a Muslim.

That's not the unbelievable part. I couldn't really care less that he's Muslim. His religious beliefs are his own. I care about him voting the right way on things that actually affect the future of this country. Because I think he'll do that, I voted for him.

Apparently, however, many people do in fact care that he's a Muslim. Or at least that he refuses to hide the fact that he's Muslim and won't pretend to be a Christian when he swears his oath of office.

This all blew up the first time a month or so ago when Ellison let it be known that he would place his hand on the Koran when he took his oath, rather than on the Bible. I hardly took notice of the announcement because a) I don't care what book he puts his hand on as long as he upholds the Constitution; and b) Duh! He's Muslim. Why in any deity's name would he swear his oath on the Christian Bible?

Well, a right-wing blow-hard dumbass named Dennis Prager didn't see it that way. He wrote a piece published on right-wing websites decrying Ellison's decision as an act that "undermines American civilization."

Yes, he was serious. No, it was not published in the Onion.

Everyone must swear on the Bible, Prager wrote, because "America is interested in only one book, the Bible. If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don't serve in Congress .... Mr. Ellison, America, not you, decides on what book its public servants take their oath."

Reading Prager's article inspired in me a strong desire to ask him three questions:

1. Have you ever actually read the Constitution? I know it's hard to read all those words, but did you at least make it to the First Amendment? The one about Congress not establishing a religion?

2. Do you have no sense of irony (much less decency)?

3. Would you kindly shut the hell up?

I didn't ask those questions at the time, or write anything else about Prager's idiotic article, because even though this is America, and Prager has a right to be wrong, I prefer not to add, even in a small way, to the dissemination of wrongness on this scale. My naive hope was that it would simply fade away into unread oblivion.

Much like this blog.

No such luck. Prager not only got air time from Sean Hannity, but he also got to appear on real news channels like CNN with real journalists. Still, I held my peace, hoping it would blow over.

Wrong again. This time the outrage came from the Commonwealth of Virginia, where citizens apparently actually took time to write their own congressman -- Republican Virgil Goode -- to share their dismay that a guy they didn't elect from a state they don't live in was swearing an oath on the Koran out of respect for a religion they don't practice. In a letter to those constituents (and you have no idea the self-restaint it's taking to keep me from making some entirely unfair, gross generalization about the intelligence and/or education of said Virginians) Goode made it known that he shared their pain. But he also has the solution:

The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don't wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration, there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran. I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America.

Ok, this thing has gotten long enough, and I have videogames to play, so just a few quick points in response to the distinguished jackass from Virginia.

First, "the Muslim Representative's" name is Keith. Where do you think he came from? (For the record, he was born in Detroit. Which, Representative Goode, is a city in Michigan. Which, I should also make sure you understand, is a state. In the United States. Of America).

Second, I'm pretty sure (though I haven't bothered to look it up) the largest block of immigrants coming to this nation is from Latin America. Latinos tend to be Christian, not Muslim. I know you think they all have brown skin Representative Goode, but even if that were true (it isn't) it would not mean they are all the same.

Third, READ THE FUCKING CONSTITUTION! Discriminating against people for their religious beliefs violates it, and your attempt to do so violates your oath of office.

What, Santa Ran Out of Coal?

noreply@blogger.com (CaS) — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 01:12:00 +0000

Look, I understand that Christmas is originally a Christian religious holiday.

Well, not "original" exactly. More like confiscated from pagan religious traditions, much like many of Christianity's modern traditions. Jesus wasn't actually born on December 25 in the Year 0 (or would it be Year 1? That always confuses me), and there almost certainly wasn't a decorated tree in the manger. Though some pine boughs might have helped freshen up the place.

Still, even if Christmas is really a solstice celebration with Christian themes grafted onto it, that grafting happened a long time ago, so today's Christians have a pretty solid religious claim to the holiday. I suppose that explains why a Los Angeles company thought it would be a fabulous idea to give 4,000 talking Jesus dolls to Toys for Tots to distribute to poor children whose families can't afford to buy them presents.

Toys for Tots basically said thanks, really, but, um, no thanks. The organization's president explained its toys are distributed on the basis of financial need, and he did not want to run the risk of offending Jewish or Muslim children.

That, of course, set off the crazy Christian Right. Facing a public relations mess, a few days later Toys for Tots changed its mind, agreed to take the dolls and said it had found "appropriate places for these items."

And that, of course, set off the people on the silly Secular Left, who declared Toys for Tots (which is affiliated with the U.S. Marines) was breaching the separation of church and state by "clearly showing the government's preference over one religion."

Humbug.

In their rush to use these stupid dolls to score points in some culture battle only they and Bill O'Reilly care about, these adults are missing a much more important point:

A 12-inch talking Jesus doll is a lousy present.

Not just for Jewish or Muslim children. Or Buddhist, Hindu, or atheist children. Or children who pray to the great Spaghetti Monster. It is a horrible crappy present for pretty much any kid, including Christian kids.

Kids in families who get their Christmas toys from programs like Toys for Tots have enough problems without spending Christmas morning unwrapping a hippy-looking doll that tells them how blessed they are to be poor. That morning, kids -- rich kids, poor kids, middle-class kids, grown-up kids* -- want something fun, a toy, an action figure, building blocks, a dollhouse, games. If they end up with some proselytising doll, they're gonna wonder what they did to piss off Santa.

Christmas may be a Christian holiday, but it isn't just a Christian holiday. It hasn't been in a long time. It is also a secular holiday. And, yeah, a commercialized holiday. But it's also a hopeful holiday, and it should be a fun holiday. Most of all, it's a children's holiday, and they don't need it ruined by a bunch of self-righteous, self-involved pompous adults trying to advance their agendas.

So leave the preaching dolls in the warehouse. Jesus would understand. After all, he knows what it's like to get bad Christmas presents.

I mean, what was he supposed to do with frankincense and myrrh?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
*Inner Child: WHERE'S MY WIIIIIIIII?

Keeping An Open Mind

noreply@blogger.com (CaS) — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 02:20:00 +0000

I am a liberal.

I'll give you a moment to get over the shock.

Now, as a liberal, I am duty-bound to have certain beliefs. You know, hating America, thinking babies make for good eating, stuff like that. My beliefs of course, are right. Not Right as in Coulter and O'Reilly, but right as in correct.

The key to being a liberal, though, is recognizing there are people out there who believe things different from what I believe. Some of them even go so far as to actually disagree with me. Preposterous, I know, but there it is. And the really important thing about being a true liberal is to accept that those people have a right to those differing thoughts, beliefs and opinions.

They're wrong, of course. But they have a right to be wrong.

Clever how I worked the blog title into a blog entry, don't you think? (You don't have to think so, but you're wrong if you don't) (See! There it is again. Genius.)

Nevertheless, and despite my deep conviction of my own rightness, every now and then a story comes along that makes me wonder if those other people really might not be utterly and thoroughly wrong. Or at least that I might not be quite as perfectly right as I thought. Liberals are open-minded that way. It's what makes us better than other people.

One of those stories happened in Wichita a couple weeks back. It all started when three men decided they needed to ...

Before I go any further, I should clarify something. I am not making this up. Even a career in law did not prepare me to concoct anything this ridiculously stupid.

So anyway, these three guys were mad about some stereo speakers, and figured the best way to solve their problem was to kidnap some teen-ager. Really. And we're not even to the stupid part yet.

It should come as no surprise that these guys did not exactly execute their plan flawlessly. To prove I am not making this up, I quote now from the Associated Press article:

WICHITA, Kan. - A botched kidnapping ended with one of the assailants shooting himself in the groin, Wichita police said.

That would do it.

The guy wasn't done, though. After shooting himself "in the left testicle" when he shoved a pistol into his waistband (I'm no firearms expert, but unless it was a really tiny gun, I suspect the AP could safely have started that sentence "After shooting off his left testicle...") the would-be kidnapper "cringed" -- who wouldn't? -- "causing the gun to fire again and strike him in the left calf."

I read the story and immediately found myself wondering: Is this an argument for or against gun control? I mean, I'm a liberal and so it should go without saying that I am in favor of making sure no one has a gun so the UN can sweep down in its black helicopters and make us all renounce God in forced gay marriage ceremonies. Or, if not that exactly, at least I think handguns should be more carefully regulated than they are now because in the hands of bad guys they can be dangerous. Deadly even.

But if the bad guys are going to shoot themselves in the nuts, letting them keep the guns might well make them less dangerous to the rest of us.

And then I realized the question was deeper and more profound. This incident may prove both liberals and conservatives wrong about the very question of creation. I mean, c'mon. If this guy is the product of Intelligent Design, then the head Designer is in for one heck of a product liability suit.

But Darwin's not off the hook either. If humans really are the result of an evolutionary process, eliminating the weakest genes through generations of survival of the fittest, shouldn't we be past the point of shooting off our own testicles? If this is where climbing the evolutionary ladder for tens of thousands of years has gotten us, that first rung must have been pretty far down.

On the other hand, this may just be a particularly drastic example of evolution making an abrupt course correction. Now if it would only do something about Coulter and O'Reilly.