Syncretism 2008

The Great Need of the Hour

{speech was delivered at Ebenezer Baptist Church (MLK, Jr.'s home church) on January 20, 2008}

The Scripture tells us that when Joshua and the Israelites arrived at the gates of Jericho, they could not enter. The walls of the city were too steep for any one person to climb; too strong to be taken down with brute force. And so they sat for days, unable to pass on through.

But God had a plan for his people. He told them to stand together and march together around the city, and on the seventh day he told them that when they heard the sound of the ram's horn, they should speak with one voice. And at the chosen hour, when the horn sounded and a chorus of voices cried out together, the mighty walls of Jericho came tumbling down.

There are many lessons to take from this passage, just as there are many lessons to take from this day, just as there are many memories that fill the space of this church. As I was thinking about which ones we need to remember at this hour, my mind went back to the very beginning of the modern Civil Rights Era.

There are many lessons to take from this passage, just as there are many lessons to take from this day, just as there are many memories that fill the space of this church. As I was thinking about which ones we need to remember at this hour, my mind went back to the very beginning of the modern Civil Rights Era.

Because before Memphis and the mountaintop; before the bridge in Selma and the march on Washington; before Birmingham and the beatings; the fire hoses and the loss of those four little girls; before there was King the icon and his magnificent dream, there was King the young preacher and a people who found themselves suffering under the yoke of oppression.

And on the eve of the bus boycotts in Montgomery, at a time when many were still doubtful about the possibilities of change, a time when those in the black community mistrusted themselves, and at times mistrusted each other, King inspired with words not of anger, but of an urgency that still speaks to us today:

"Unity is the great need of the hour" is what King said. Unity is how we shall overcome.

What Dr. King understood is that if just one person chose to walk instead of ride the bus, those walls of oppression would not be moved. But maybe if a few more walked, the foundation might start to shake. If a few more women were willing to do what Rosa Parks had done, maybe the cracks would start to show. If teenagers took freedom rides from North to South, maybe a few bricks would come loose. Maybe if white folks marched because they had come to understand that their freedom too was at stake in the impending battle, the wall would begin to sway. And if enough Americans were awakened to the injustice; if they joined together, North and South, rich and poor, Christian and Jew, then perhaps that wall would come tumbling down, and justice would flow like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Unity is the great need of the hour - the great need of this hour. Not because it sounds pleasant or because it makes us feel good, but because it's the only way we can overcome the essential deficit that exists in this country.

I'm not talking about a budget deficit. I'm not talking about a trade deficit. I'm not talking about a deficit of good ideas or new plans.

I'm talking about a moral deficit. I'm talking about an empathy deficit. I'm taking about an inability to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we are our brother's keeper; we are our sister's keeper; that, in the words of Dr. King, we are all tied together in a single garment of destiny.

We have an empathy deficit when we're still sending our children down corridors of shame - schools in the forgotten corners of America where the color of your skin still affects the content of your education.

We have a deficit when CEOs are making more in ten minutes than some workers make in ten months; when families lose their homes so that lenders make a profit; when mothers can't afford a doctor when their children get sick.

We have a deficit in this country when there is Scooter Libby justice for some and Jena justice for others; when our children see nooses hanging from a schoolyard tree today, in the present, in the twenty-first century.

We have a deficit when homeless veterans sleep on the streets of our cities; when innocents are slaughtered in the deserts of Darfur; when young Americans serve tour after tour of duty in a war that should've never been authorized and never been waged.

And we have a deficit when it takes a breach in our levees to reveal a breach in our compassion; when it takes a terrible storm to reveal the hungry that God calls on us to feed; the sick He calls on us to care for; the least of these He commands that we treat as our own.

So we have a deficit to close. We have walls - barriers to justice and equality - that must come down. And to do this, we know that unity is the great need of this hour.

Unfortunately, all too often when we talk about unity in this country, we've come to believe that it can be purchased on the cheap. We've come to believe that racial reconciliation can come easily - that it's just a matter of a few ignorant people trapped in the prejudices of the past, and that if the demagogues and those who exploit our racial divisions will simply go away, then all our problems would be solved.

All too often, we seek to ignore the profound institutional barriers that stand in the way of ensuring opportunity for all children, or decent jobs for all people, or health care for those who are sick. We long for unity, but are unwilling to pay the price.

But of course, true unity cannot be so easily won. It starts with a change in attitudes - a broadening of our minds, and a broadening of our hearts.

It's not easy to stand in somebody else's shoes. It's not easy to see past our differences. We've all encountered this in our own lives. But what makes it even more difficult is that we have a politics in this country that seeks to drive us apart - that puts up walls between us.

We are told that those who differ from us on a few things are different from us on all things; that our problems are the fault of those who don't think like us or look like us or come from where we do. The welfare queen is taking our tax money. The immigrant is taking our jobs. The believer condemns the non-believer as immoral, and the non-believer chides the believer as intolerant.

For most of this country's history, we in the African-American community have been at the receiving end of man's inhumanity to man. And all of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays - on the job, in the schools, in our health care system, and in our criminal justice system.

And yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean. If we're honest with ourselves, we'll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King's vision of a beloved community.

We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity.

Every day, our politics fuels and exploits this kind of division across all races and regions; across gender and party. It is played out on television. It is sensationalized by the media. And last week, it even crept into the campaign for President, with charges and counter-charges that served to obscure the issues instead of illuminating the critical choices we face as a nation.

So let us say that on this day of all days, each of us carries with us the task of changing our hearts and minds. The division, the stereotypes, the scape-goating, the ease with which we blame our plight on others - all of this distracts us from the common challenges we face - war and poverty; injustice and inequality. We can no longer afford to build ourselves up by tearing someone else down. We can no longer afford to traffic in lies or fear or hate. It is the poison that we must purge from our politics; the wall that we must tear down before the hour grows too late.

Because if Dr. King could love his jailor; if he could call on the faithful who once sat where you do to forgive those who set dogs and fire hoses upon them, then surely we can look past what divides us in our time, and bind up our wounds, and erase the empathy deficit that exists in our hearts.

But if changing our hearts and minds is the first critical step, we cannot stop there. It is not enough to bemoan the plight of poor children in this country and remain unwilling to push our elected officials to provide the resources to fix our schools. It is not enough to decry the disparities of health care and yet allow the insurance companies and the drug companies to block much-needed reforms. It is not enough for us to abhor the costs of a misguided war, and yet allow ourselves to be driven by a politics of fear that sees the threat of attack as way to scare up votes instead of a call to come together around a common effort.

The Scripture tells us that we are judged not just by word, but by deed. And if we are to truly bring about the unity that is so crucial in this time, we must find it within ourselves to act on what we know; to understand that living up to this country's ideals and its possibilities will require great effort and resources; sacrifice and stamina.

And that is what is at stake in the great political debate we are having today. The changes that are needed are not just a matter of tinkering at the edges, and they will not come if politicians simply tell us what we want to hear. All of us will be called upon to make some sacrifice. None of us will be exempt from responsibility. We will have to fight to fix our schools, but we will also have to challenge ourselves to be better parents. We will have to confront the biases in our criminal justice system, but we will also have to acknowledge the deep-seated violence that still resides in our own communities and marshal the will to break its grip.

That is how we will bring about the change we seek. That is how Dr. King led this country through the wilderness. He did it with words - words that he spoke not just to the children of slaves, but the children of slave owners. Words that inspired not just black but also white; not just the Christian but the Jew; not just the Southerner but also the Northerner.

He led with words, but he also led with deeds. He also led by example. He led by marching and going to jail and suffering threats and being away from his family. He led by taking a stand against a war, knowing full well that it would diminish his popularity. He led by challenging our economic structures, understanding that it would cause discomfort. Dr. King understood that unity cannot be won on the cheap; that we would have to earn it through great effort and determination.

That is the unity - the hard-earned unity - that we need right now. It is that effort, and that determination, that can transform blind optimism into hope - the hope to imagine, and work for, and fight for what seemed impossible before.

The stories that give me such hope don't happen in the spotlight. They don't happen on the presidential stage. They happen in the quiet corners of our lives. They happen in the moments we least expect. Let me give you an example of one of those stories.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organizes for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She's been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and the other day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

So Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."

By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we begin. It is why the walls in that room began to crack and shake.

And if they can shake in that room, they can shake in Atlanta.

And if they can shake in Atlanta, they can shake in Georgia.

And if they can shake in Georgia, they can shake all across America. And if enough of our voices join together; we can bring those walls tumbling down. The walls of Jericho can finally come tumbling down. That is our hope - but only if we pray together, and work together, and march together.

Brothers and sisters, we cannot walk alone.

In the struggle for peace and justice, we cannot walk alone.

In the struggle for opportunity and equality, we cannot walk alone

In the struggle to heal this nation and repair this world, we cannot walk alone.

So I ask you to walk with me, and march with me, and join your voice with mine, and together we will sing the song that tears down the walls that divide us, and lift up an America that is truly indivisible, with liberty, and justice, for all. May God bless the memory of the great pastor of this church, and may God bless the United States of America.

Surge to Nowhere

Andrew Bacevich writing in the Washington Post:

As the violence in Baghdad and Anbar province abates, the political and economic dysfunction enveloping Iraq has become all the more apparent. The recent agreement to rehabilitate some former Baathists notwithstand ing, signs of lasting Sunni-Shiite reconciliation are scant. The United States has acquired a ramshackle, ungovernable and unresponsive dependency that is incapable of securing its own borders or managing its own affairs. More than three years after then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice handed President Bush a note announcing that "Iraq is sovereign," that sovereignty remains a fiction.

A nation-building project launched in the confident expectation that the United States would repeat in Iraq the successes it had achieved in Germany and Japan after 1945 instead compares unfavorably with the U.S. response to Hurricane Katrina. Even today, Iraqi electrical generation meets barely half the daily national requirements. Baghdad households now receive power an average of 12 hours each day -- six hours fewer than when Saddam Hussein ruled. Oil production still has not returned to pre-invasion levels. Reports of widespread fraud, waste and sheer ineptitude in the administration of U.S. aid have become so commonplace that they barely last a news cycle. (Recall, for example, the 110,000 AK-47s, 80,000 pistols, 135,000 items of body armor and 115,000 helmets intended for Iraqi security forces that, according to the Government Accountability Office, the Pentagon cannot account for.) U.S. officials repeatedly complain, to little avail, about the paralyzing squabbling inside the Iraqi parliament and the rampant corruption within Iraqi ministries. If a primary function of government is to provide services, then the government of Iraq can hardly be said to exist.
----------------------
According to the war's most fervent proponents, Bush's critics have become so "invested in defeat" that they cannot see the progress being made on the ground. Yet something similar might be said of those who remain so passionately invested in a futile war's perpetuation. They are unable to see that, surge or no surge, the Iraq war remains an egregious strategic blunder that persistence will only compound.

Old McDonald Had a Pterodactyl ....

Maria Bamford is a crazy genius.

Patton Oswalt on Bush Supporters

Huckabee Picks Up Key Endorsement

"No stoppin' the Huckster now!"

Cole on the GOP

John Cole of Balloon Juice weighs in on why the GOP is "in shambles:"

For starters, people got tired of being associated with these drooling retards. Then, when they realized that these drooling retards had ideological allies running the show in the Bush administration and then began to experience their idiotic policies, they moved from disgusted to outright hostile.

Like me. It had nothing to do with Burke, and everything to do with what the party had become. A bunch of bedwetting, loudmouth, corrupt, hypocritical, and incompetent boobs with a mean streak a mile long and no sense of fair play or proportion.

Elmo Volunteers to Explain War Injuries to Children

From MSNBC:

NEW YORK - It’s not your typical Sesame Street episode. There are no lessons in letters or numbers, but there are plenty of hugs and lots of talk about feelings.

Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization that produces the hit kids’ show, is working on a DVD that will be distributed to military families. It’s designed to help injured veterans talk about their disabilities with their children.

{snip}

More than a million children have parents who are in the military and have been deployed in the last six years. And roughly 18,000 military personnel in Iraq or Afghanistan have been wounded or injured seriously enough to be evacuated.

In the new production, Rosita, a fluffy blue mop-headed muppet, is upset because her father has returned home in a wheelchair. Rosita angrily refers to the wheelchair as “that thing” and reminisces about the days when she could dance to salsa music and kick a ball with her dad.

With encouragement from Elmo, Rosita musters the nerve to talk with her parents about how she is feeling.

“Sometimes I feel a little sad, because things are so different now,” Rosita says during a family outing to the park. “I wish your legs were OK, Papi, and I wish you didn’t have to go to the doctor so much. And I just wish things could go back to the way they were!”

Rosita’s father tells her that although he may have changed, his love for her hasn’t. And he persuades her to hop on the back of his wheelchair so the two can try a new kind of dancing.

{snip}

Knell said Sesame Street is trying to model behavior and provide the vocabulary for parents who need extra help. “In many cases, Mommy and Daddy or caregivers may not have the tools necessary to deal with these very tough-to-teach issues,” Knell said.

Psychiatry professor Stephen Cozza of Uniformed Services University, which trains military doctors, said a parent’s injury or emotional problem is often “a big white elephant in the room that nobody’s talking about.”

{snip}

While the program doesn’t directly address emotional disorders faced by an estimated 20 percent of returning veterans, the DVD can help frame family conversations around that too, Cozza said.

Leslye Arsht, deputy undersecretary of defense for military community and family policy, said Sesame Street is doing something that isn’t easy for the military to tackle alone.

“There is no more credible voice for 3- to 5-year-olds than the voices of Elmo ... and parents trust him too,” Arsht said.

Army Maj. David Rozelle agreed. An amputee who spends time counseling others, Rozelle was injured in Iraq before becoming a parent to two young children.

“These little people our kids trust so much can explain limb loss and help kids cope,” he said. “We don’t do it very well ourselves.”

The statistics on deaths and injuries obviously only deal with the very tip of the iceberg. The costs of the war are nearly incalculable.

Murder, Negligent Homicide, or Taking Care of Business?

Interesting debate at Blackfive in the comments regarding the incident involving US Marines at Haditha.

The official, Lt. Col. Paul Ware, said in a recommendation obtained by the North County Times that rather than face murder charges, squad leader Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich should be tried for the lesser offense of negligent homicide in the deaths of five children and two women.

Ware recommended 10 other murder charges against Wuterich be dismissed.

"I believe after reviewing all the evidence that no trier of fact can conclude Staff Sgt. Wuterich formed the criminal intent to kill," Ware wrote in reference to the women and children. "When a Marine fails to exercise due care and civilians die, the charge of negligent homicide, and not murder, is appropriate."

Blackfive blogger Uncle Jimbo made what I thought to be a reasonable analysis:

While I know that many would have preferred that no charges at all be filed, I believe that LTC Ware's judgment is proper. The actions taken by SSgt Wuterich were not designed to kill innocent Iraqis, but they certainly did, and his choices should be scrutinized. It took a generous reading of the ROE to justify the shootings and he may not even face the negligent homicide charges. But in my mind it shows that accountability matters to the Marine Corps and even if he is convicted on those charges, he and the other Marines involved are owed a huge apology from the lummox Murtha.

But most of Uncle Jimbo's readers don't see it that way. And that is troublesome.

"Mom, You've Got Homework Again in Mr. Frye's Class!"

Interesting approach. Somewhat amazed the guy is getting away with it.

From The New York Times:

The parents of Damion Frye’s ninth-grade students are spending their evenings this fall doing something they thought they had left behind long ago: homework.

So far, Mr. Frye, an English teacher at Montclair High School, has asked the parents to read and comment on a Franz Kafka story, Section 1 of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” and a speech given by Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. Their newest assignment is a poem by Saul Williams, a poet, musician and rapper who lives in Los Angeles. The ninth graders complete their assignments during class; the parents are supposed to write their responses on a blog Mr. Frye started online.

If the parents do not comply, Mr. Frye tells them, their child’s grade may suffer — a threat on which he has made good only once in the three years he has been making such assignments.

The point, he said, is to keep parents involved in their children’s ’ education well into high school. Studies have shown that parental involvement improves the quality of the education a student receives, but teenagers seldom invite that involvement. So, Mr. Frye said, he decided to help out.

“Parents complain about never getting to see their kids’ work,” he said. “Now they have to.”

Some parents, he added, seem happy to revisit their high school years.

“There was one parent last year who would write pages and pages of stuff. It was great, so good to read,” said Mr. Frye, who graduated from Montclair High in 1994.

Others are more resistant. “When my daughter told me about the homework, I looked at her and said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. I graduated. I’m done,’” said Lydia Bishop, a local real estate broker whose daughter Vanessa was in Mr. Frye’s class last year. “I did it very resentfully, but I did it.”

Inaugural Friday Cat Blogging

This is Mr. Allen. Allen is about 20 - 25 lbs of declawed fluffy love. Strictly indoor patrol. Loves to wrestle. Very talkative (part Siamese). Major part of my and Genna's life.

The lamely named Little Kitty. Little Kitty showed up last winter. Genna called me from the driveway to tell me to bring some cat food out. A famished kitty gobbled it up and has been on steady patrol ever since, putting on several pounds. Genna sprang for a $200 outdoor, padded, insulated cat house only to watch Little Kitty snuggle up in a planter full of potting soil.

Putting food on the deck for Little Kitty kind of started a soup kitchen for the local wildlife. We get plenty of possums and there's a wily raccoon who has figured out the feeding schedule. Additionally, there was this cream colored kitty that we would see flash by upon occasion but who would run off the instant he was spotted. Very slowly he got used to us and now comes up to us for pets and will even let us hold him. Missing tail, hence the not-quite-as-lame name of Bobby. Bobby has the most musical purr, singing/purring one note as he breathes in and another as he breathes out.

Rainbow Over Whiteside Cove

click for much larger image

Taken from the deck of my grandmother's house last spring after a monster thunderstorm had just passed through the valley.

Xenophobia Meets the Stupids

• Mexican-American citizen owns business that looks to be a bar in Reno, Nevada.
• Flies Mexican flag above American flag on pole in front of business.
• Someone takes a break from busy life and calls local TV station to inform them of national emergency.
  
• Slow news day plus questionable decision made by news editor equals news team dispatched to bar.
• As cameraman approaches, a feller who claims to be a vet and claims that the provenance of the long knife in his hand also is from the US Army, lowers flags and liberates Stars & Stripes while tossing the Mexican flag to the ground. Makes profound statement.
• Cowed bar owner retrieves Mexican flag and goes back into bar.

But then it really goes to weird, as the local anchor who clearly was doing her makeup in civics class offers up this profound inanity:

"Federal law states it is illegal to fly any flag above an American flag."

And then she goes on to give proof she doesn't understand what it means for something to be a federal law nor does she understand federalism:

"The penalties for these laws vary from state to state."

This excellent website lays out all of proper flag etiquette, which for better or worse, as the site explains, has never risen to federal law. The anchor would have been correct to note that the bar owner was indeed violating flag etiquette as opposed to a federal law. {There is federal flag CODE but, again, not any criminal law}

There are state laws about flag displays. In Nevada for instance, there is a law which states:

"...it is a misdemeanor for anyone to deface or defile the U.S. flag or the Nevada state flag. The law also forbids the use of such flags for advertising or publicity purposes."

What's interesting here is that it is illegal to use the flag for advertising which is why car dealerships across the country vie to see which one can fly the biggest flag....because they support the troops.

Wolf over at milblog Blackfive has put his finger on who is to blame for this sad state of affairs:

"Teachers, Professors, Police, Politicians, Neighbors, Lawyers, Politicians, The President, The Governor, The Mayor, Congressmen, Senators, Legislators, Bosses, Students, Colleges, Schools, Principals, Politicians, Kids, Parents, Internet, TV, Radio, Howard Stern, Mancow, Foreigners, Al Qaeda, Islamists, The French, Movies, Hollywood, California, Pelosi, Reid, Murtha, Politicians, Schools, Councilmen, Lawyers..."

I and my fellow teachers are at the top of the anti-flag conspiracy. Hmmm. We all fly one in our classrooms. Actually, I have several, including my favorite, the Gadsden flag (pictured at the top of this post) which was first seen on the battlefield of Bunker Hill in the American Revolution, considered by many historians to be the first American flag, which is hoisted in all its 3x5' glory.

I love my country and I love the flag, all versions of it. But I sure don't like xenophobia. And xenophobia married to militarism with a stiff case believing anyone who doesn't support a war of choice is unpatriotic, is gross, obnoxious, and has nothing to do with what the flag, and more importantly, what the Constitution stands for.

If Wolf's lessons of democracy are what we are to be inculcating in Iraq, if the "deciders" have a firm a grasp of civics as the Reno anchor, then the whole enterprise is doomed, not to mention the trouble we've got here at the house.

{The YOUTUBE video cuts the anchor commentary, but you can watch the whole un-edited nastiness here}

Mark Morford Goes to Whole Foods

..Why the hell can't this be the way of American business overall?

It's like some sort of drug, something warm and happy and dangerous and visceral they inject into the lighting system or mist all over the carefully constructed mountains of pornographic produce or slather all over the nearly religious seafood and meat departments because, oh my sweet Jesus with a Le Creuset ramekin and 10 pounds of artisanal Gruyere, there really is something frighteningly addictive about the glorious hellbeast grocerypalooza known as Whole Foods.

It's like this otherworldly vibration, this wickedly overblown slice of succulent, obnoxious, must-have lifestyle nirvana for the health-conscious semi-progressive well-moneyed hipster set and also those who really, really want to think of themselves as such.

And best/worst of all, it's all overlaid with this amazing sheen of healthy, pro-green, socially responsible attitude that effortlessly chips away at your cynicism and seems to suggest a bit more of a statement than just, you know, "Hey kids, if you shop here, if you buy into the ethos and if you eat the right kind of organic lettuce and can afford our huge tubs of crab-artichoke bisque, well, you are on the right track. You are, in fact, approaching enlightenment."

{snip}

Because here's the thing: While it's terribly easy to accuse the joint of being the very embodiment of pseudo-progressive ideals wrapped in pitch-perfect marketing that goes so far beyond a mere grocery store, so far beyond the place you need to dash into to grab some sour cream and a pack of condoms, there is indeed something more to this joint's existence, something that, in the age of bloated Wal-Marts and tract homes like a cancer and a president with a fifth-grader's vocabulary, is actually worth celebrating.

I mean, my God. Merely skimming the company's own press releases, reading up on its various foundations, its commitment to transparency in how it does business and the issues it faces as a so-called "do-gooder" company, its current No. 5 ranking in the Forbes list of the 100 best companies to work for, its surprisingly progressive positions on supporting local farmers and promoting sustainability and humane animal treatment, its commitment to community, its overall dedication to minimizing chemicals and additives and all the mountains of toxic crap our country swims in like a noxious river, well, it's tough not to sit back and go: Wait, if they can do it, why the hell can't this be the way of American business overall?

{snip}

Because it turns out — hey wow and go figure — you can actually make a great deal of money by, you know, caring about the products you sell and the people you sell them to. It turns out it might actually be possible to run a large, profitable corporation and still have something resembling a conscience, an idea that seems almost antithetical to the brutal capitalist ideal of money-uber-alles.

Yes, Whole Foods is far from perfect. Yes, the large-scale "industrial organic" model the store adheres to, as Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" so expertly lays out, has its share of major drawbacks. Yes, maybe I've just been suckered in and drunk the organic Kool-Aid. And yes, far too many of the yuppie moms who shop there have the same $400 strollers and the same Range Rovers and the same perky haircut. Whatever.

The truth remains: Would that more businesses behaved this way. Would that more corporations were cursed with a conscience, a sense of community and decency and an overall ethos of holistic health. Plus the damnable place makes you want to eat better and cook more and spend your kids' college fund on fresh duck sausage and 10 bottles of tawny port and a case of organic grass-fed free-range lube. What's not to like?

One might not like the fact that Whole Foods is "corporationy" but in Asheville we have two other alternatives, Earth Fare and Green Life which I basically cannot tell apart except for the fact that for some aesthetic twitch, I still prefer Dorothy Lane Market in Dayton, OH.

Questionable Devolving to Bizarre

From Education Week:

Questionable...

The issue of whether teachers should be permitted to carry guns in schools has once again triggered heated debate among educators and lawmakers, this time in Oregon and Michigan.

The Oregon case involves a lawsuit filed by a high school teacher in the 12,400-student Medford school district who contends she should be allowed to carry a licensed concealed weapon on campus.

The teacher, who has a restraining order against her ex-husband, denied to authorities that she was carrying a gun at school. But she filed suit in the Jackson County Circuit Court on Sept. 18, under the pseudonym “Jane Doe,” claiming that her concealed-weapons permit should allow her to carry a gun on school grounds.

Oregon law allows anyone with a concealed-weapons license to carry guns into public buildings, but most school districts have rules barring employees from carrying weapons onto school grounds.

Bizarre......

In Michigan, meanwhile, state Rep. David Agema, a Republican, has introduced a bill that would give districts the option of allowing a teacher with firearm certification to have access to a registered gun on school grounds.

“We have recent federal reports that al-Qaida is targeting our schools, which are sitting targets,” said Trevor Z. Pittsley, a spokesman for Rep. Agema. “This bill is not at all about guns. It’s about keeping our kids safe.”

I admit that I have been caught fully unaware that AQ had me and my fellow teachers and students in their cross-hairs. I'm sure a handgun will thwart their pitiful plot. Maybe we can use it to shoot the survivors in the death throes of an anthrax attack.

Contemporary Political Discourse

Ed Brayton of Dispatches From the Culture Wars gives us Maxim #1: (using the revived Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill spat as an illustration)

When I offered the possibility that the stories Hill told may well have been true and still not be a genuine case of sexual harassment, I was immediately attacked from both sides; the liberals claiming that I was obviously a sexist who thinks all women are liars, while the conservatives were claiming that I'm obviously biased against Thomas, probably because he's black, for even suggesting that he could possibly have made a few crude comments. And that, sadly, is pretty normal for political discourse these days.

It's not enough that our political opponents be wrong, they must be evil. We can't just explain why we think they're wrong, we have to imagine some glaringly obvious character flaw that explains why they're wrong. I'm sure I'm guilty of this from time to time myself, but it's something we should all try and avoid as much as possible.

Partisan politics is far too much like sports rivalries. Once you begin to identify yourself as an advocate of X and an opponent of Y, it is all too easy to set up cognitive filters that distort the way we see reality. The X filter strains out any information that might cause one to question X, while the Y filter strains out any information that might cause one to consider Y.

We build up simplistic dichotomies with entirely different standards for belief and we begin to think solely in terms of Us and Them. If one of Us is accused something wrong, we demand absolute proof before we'll accept it; if one of Them is accused of doing something wrong, the mere allegation is all the proof necessary. After all, we all know what They are like, don't we?

Yep

Pulp Fiction Suitcase

What was in the suitcase that Jules and Vincent had to retrieve?

This makes sense to me.

Sir Al

click for larger image

Moonshine Patriot's take on the Diane Sawyer/Jenna Bush Interview

From the Moonshine Patriot

Sawyer: who is the disciplinarian in the family mom or dad

Jenna: Grandma Barbara that woman is pure evil

{snip}

Diane: describe yur fiancee

Jenna: he's outdoorsy he's a lumberjack and he's okay

Diane: but he's really political

Jenna: no not really he only worked with karl rove to get ahead
Diane: does he get to sleep with Not Jenna

Jenna: yes i will be traveling alot

Diane: what will you do differently from Chimpy and the Joker

Jenna: well based on their example and my whole family i think we'll just skip the whole having kids thing

Diane Sawyer: yes three generations of imbeciles is probably enough

Diane: your dad is teh most powerful man in teh hemisphere

Jenna: yes I’ve learned to read and met black people

Diane: you wrote a book

Jenna: yes its like bob marley meets a Bennetton ad

A Heart Touched, a Mind Opened

Things we never said come together
The hidden truth no longer haunting me
Tonight we touched on the things that were never spoken
That kind of understanding sets me free
--Elton John


Mark Morford reports:

It was one of those surreal, suspended moments, an unexpected little hiccup in the otherwise bleak sociopolitical continuum where you couldn’t help but pause and gasp and sit back and let your bitter cynicism and your hard-won ennui fall away and actually allow yourself, for now, just this once, really and truly believe what you were seeing.

Could it really be happening? Was there really any way in hell a straight white male BushCo-era Republican would dare step up to a live microphone in front of a TV camera in a major American city and honestly admit that, well, he was wrong, and he is very sorry, and he has now officially reversed his position and now fully supports gay marriage and will actually sign a city council resolution acknowledging and advocating same?

And furthermore could this politician, during said cynicism-defying announcement, actually choke back tears — real, human tears, not the fake, creepy kind you see from, say, Ted Haggard or Larry Craig or Lynne Cheney after four martinis and an hour staring at her husband — such a genuine display of emotion that you can’t help but think it might actually be coupled to a living, breathing human soul?

Yes, it happened. Just recently, down in San Diego. Jerry Sanders is the politico, and he’s apparently very much a (moderate) Republican mayor and a former police chief, and he apparently has a gay daughter no one really knew was gay and members of his mayoral staff are also gay and somehow, some way, both these facts played into his decision to reverse his position on gay marriage and go public in what has to be one of the most honest, humble and heartfelt public displays of ideological evolution by a Republican since … well, I can’t even think of any. Can you?