God bless you, Al Sharpton!

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Al Sharpton spoke out against Prop 8 at he Human Rights Ecumenical Service in Atlanta on Sunday. Check this out! He said:

"There is something immoral and sick about using all of that power to not end brutality and poverty, but to break into people's bedrooms and claim that God sent you."

Furthermore, "It amazes me," he said, "when I looked at California and saw churches that had nothing to say about police brutality, nothing to say when a young black boy was shot while he was wearing police handcuffs, nothing to say when they overturned affirmative action, nothing to say when people were being [relegated] into poverty, yet they were organizing and mobilizing to stop consenting adults from choosing their life partners."

"I am tired," he went on, "of seeing ministers who will preach homophobia by day, and then after they're preaching, when the lights are off they go cruising for trade...We know you're not preaching the Bible, because if you were preaching the Bible we would have heard from you. We would have heard from you when people were starving in California--when they deregulated the economy and crashed Wall Street you had nothing to say. When [accused Ponzi scammer] Madoff made off with the money, you had nothing to say. When Bush took us to war chasing weapons of mass destruction that weren't there you had nothing to say."

"[Social conservatives] will start with the gays but they will end with everybody else," he said. "If you give the Pat Robertsons of the world the theological right to condemn some, then you give them the right to condemn others."

Amen, Al, and thank you for giving me a bit of renewed faith in American Christianity.

A Serious Question

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One of the newest conservative talking points I've heard from various right-wing pundits is that, despite their landslide electoral losses, this is still a "center-right country". At the same time, a fellow named Wakefield Tolbert has been carrying on something of an argument with @bdul muHib on the comments section of the post about homeschooling. I say "something of an argument" because it's very difficult to track what exactly Wakefield is talking about. I challenge someone to summarize his arguments for him into some concise, coherent form. Anyway, when challenged about the impenetrability of his writing he dismissed @bdul and myself by associating us with the "liberal chimpanzees" over at Slate.com. I will freely admit to being a liberal, and this isn't the first time my opinions have been wholly discounted for it, but in the context of this new talking point about this being a center-right country, I want to know what "liberal" means to conservatives, what conservatism means in the wake of the Bush presidency, and where this notion of center-right comes from.

This is a genuine question. Bill Bishop, in his excellent blog during the election titled "The Big Sort", explained very convincingly that we choose our politics as a consequence of our lifestyles, and, more and more, we are moving to live near people like us; hence the political and geographical polarization in our country. Bishop referenced some study that showed that conservatives are better at understanding where liberals are coming from than vice-versa. At first I frowned at that. We're liberals. We're touchy-feely. We like to understand other points of view. So how is it we can't understand our conservative neighbors as well as they understand us? But the more I thought about it, the more I had to admit that it's true, at least in my case. I just can't wrap my mind around the apparent contradictions I see coming from the conservative side, and I fail to see those same contradictions on my own side of the fence. So I'm asking for help.

To keep things relatively simple, let's see if we can even agree on definitions. Conservatives, going back to Buckley, figured out that they needed to distill their vision down to ten words. Those were:

Strong Defense
Free Markets
Lower Taxes
Smaller Government
Family Values

George Lakoff proposed these ten words as the progressive values:

Stronger America
Broad Prosperity
Better Future
Effective Government
Mutual Responsibility

I think those are both pretty decent summaries of the values upon which conservatives and liberals base their policy proposals, but I'm sure we could quibble about the wording, and I'd have no problem with that, because these small, nuance difference have huge consequences. Think this is just semantics? Think about the difference in opinion when you ask people what they think about estate taxes on the wealthy vs. death taxes on business owners. Or torture vs. enhanced interrogation techniques.

When I look at the list of values, I can see why liberals like me are so pissed off at Bush. He has not made America stronger in the world by any measure. Prosperity has grown only among the tiniest sliver at the top. Our future looks much bleaker than it did eight years ago. Our government has proven itself to be woefully incompetent on a number of fronts. And some Americans are paying very heavy tolls for all Bush's mistakes (too many have paid the ultimate price) while others have only been asked to do a bit more shopping. For a liberal, his record is dismal.

But how do conservatives see it? Bush, according to every military expert I've read, has stretched our military to the breaking point, all the while ratcheting up our need for military strength in the world, making us that much more vulnerable. His emphasis on free markets not only showed the dangers of deregulation, but then he abandoned those principles to bail out the banking industry. He lowered taxes on the wealthy, but did so while growing the federal deficit to such a degree that it's not really a tax cut but a differed tax increase on the next generation that will put every tax increase ever proposed by any other president to shame by comparison. He created the single largest bureaucracy in the history of the federal government in the form of Homeland Security, and oversaw that greatest expansion in the size of the federal government of any president. He appears to have stuck to his guns on issues of family values, but this has shown in stark relief that these family values are focused almost exclusively on limiting gay rights and protecting the unborn: Even Bush's greatest accomplishment in office, his increase in aid to Africa, is mitigated by the fact that he stipulated that none of the money could go to clinics which provided abortion or even contraception. For those of us who think decisions like these are best made between a woman, her doctor, and her God, Bush's insertion of his own agenda into women's health decisions in the third world means his definition of family values is very... focused. Add to this an elective war where as many as a million Americans and Iraqis have died, a million members of families lost in a war that didn't need to happen, and this definition of family values strikes us liberals as completely vacuous. But what do conservatives think?

And here's the thing; while the conservative talking heads keep saying this is a center-right country, on almost every issue I can think of, the polling data doesn't back them up. Most Americans believe a woman should have a right to make her own reproductive health choices. Most Americans think this war was wrong. Most Americans think the government's handling of Hurricane Katrina showed them to be inept. Most Americans think that the government should be doing more to help people suffering during this economic downturn (pro-Broad Prosperity) but are infuriated by the way it bailed out Wall Street (showing they're also pro-Free Markets, with limits). Most Americans want their government to provide more oversight of the financial sector.

Jon Stewart challenged a conservative guest on just this point (I think it was Mike Huckabee), arguing that the history of the United States has been one of slow but inexorable progress away from bigotry and aristocracy toward pluralism and inclusiveness. When conservatives say this is still a center-right country, are they just referencing our tendency to move toward social progress at a very slow pace? If so, then isn't conservatism just associating itself with every kind of prejudice and backward attitude we've had to struggle so hard to put behind us? What am I not seeing which will help me understand conservatism?

And what is it I don't see about liberalism which dictates that a conservative can apply that label to me and dismiss everything I have to say? What can a conservative see, that I can't, which would explain such antipathy toward liberalism?

And... Exhale.

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This will sound schizophrenic, but after staying quiet about some depression for weeks, I'm currently listening to Barack Obama in a podcast of Stephonopolus' "This Week", and I'm already feeling better. I don't think Obama is some kind of messiah, and I know he will disappoint me many times over the next four years, but just having a president who can speak articulately and intelligently about his policy proposals is such a dramatic change from the last eight years of "Bring it on", "Stay the course", Heckuva'-job-ruining-the-country style of leadership, it's such a relief to know things will be better, not perfect, not ideal, but better, that my spirits are lifted.

Depression Confession

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I'm writing this in church, but later I'll post it to the blog; the traditional place of confession meets the modern, the holy meets the tacky.

I've been depressed since Christmas. The pneumonia probably didn't set a great tone for the year, and the outbreak of new fighting in Gaza hardly lifts the spirits. Frankly, missing worship at my own church on Christmas Eve due to an ice storm didn't help. But some time has passed, and these explanations aren't enough to justify my depression.

So let me confess: In two areas of my life, the better I'm getting, the further I get from good enough. The calendar year has turned over, I've finished another revolution around the sun, and these artificial goalposts I've chosen are now just a bit further from my fingertips.

One of these goals is the publication of the novels I write. Why should that be so important to me? I wonder if anyone has done any research on the relationship between the ages at which we choose our arbitrary, external goals and the power they hold over us. I'd bet that part of the reason publishing has such a hold on me is precisely because I started so young, writing my first full length novel at 14. Sure, it was crappy, but the experience provided space to fabricate this elaborate fantasy of how my life would be when people were finally reading books I'd written. As I've grown the fantasy has eroded, except for the hard pit at its center; I would be happy and fulfilled. Now, both as a hobbyist and as a teacher of creative writing, I have the time and means to work on my craft. My writing improves with every revision. I'm getting better. But every set-back, every rejection, every second guess of each word in that ineffective query letter pushes that goal off just a bit further. This becomes my dream deferred.

As challenging as that might be, sitting in secret in front of my computer on a Friday night, it only punctuates a week where I wade in these deferred dreams. Just as I hone my writing craft, as a teacher I'm polishing my courses, tweaking my lessons, refining my delivery. But it seems my students are less and less motivated. I try to tell myself this is a product of my own age; the human impulse toward conservatism and despair that compels us to dismiss the next generation as lazy, immoral, in every way inferior to our own. I won't buy into that. I'm too liberal, I suppose, adhering too much to Kennedy's axiom that "We have come too far, we have sacrificed too much, to disdain the future now." I refuse to blame the kids completely, but I do think they've been inundated by a consumerist culture that tells them their futures will be provided, shrink wrapped and deeply discounted, by the local big-box store. It's my job, in part, to teach them that they will have to work harder and yearn for greater things, or they will find themselves trapped in a kind a caste misery they can't yet appreciate. But I can't seem to manage. Now, as our economy slips into the full depths of the Bush Depression, I'm so fearful for these kids. In years past I worried because they incorrectly expected that they could achieve their parents' lifestyle with only their parents' level of education. Now it's going to be so much worse for them. I don't know how to convey that to them. And if I despair because of my ambition toward a fantasy, am I fit to push them to dream?

And now the next stage of a confession: The guilt. What right do I have to feel depressed? My marriage is happy, my son is wonderful, I have a roof over my head, my belly is full... How presumptuous to even allow myself these feelings. On an intellectual level, I know one doesn't earn the right to an irrational state. Paige, who is getting her masters in counseling, assures me there's no reason to feel guilty about feeling depressed. Still, just as I developed a neurotic sense that publishing would make me feel fulfilled, I also learned that one should not complain of hunger when children are starving in Africa, and, by extension, that one shouldn't complain of depression when the world seems to be going to hell in a hand basket.

Of course, I'm not catholic, so I wasn't taught to keep it in the confessional booth, and my parents weren't Nostradamus, so I wasn't taught not to blog about it. So I have the guilt, but I still broadcast the confession.

And Paige is right about this, too; it does feel good to get it out.

Nine days left of the Bush administration. Maybe my depression will lift soon.

Don't blame "Religion"

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I haven't blogged in a bit because I've been sick. I didn't realize how sick, but it turns out I have pneumonia. It is unpleasant.

I thought about complaining about my condition, but considering what's going on in the world, my pneumonia seems a bit paltry.

Then I received an email today from someone on one of the various Obama list-serves I got onto during the election, claiming that the situation was intractable, but simple to understand. Muslims, Christians, and Jews all want to live in Isreal and won't move away, so they will fight about it forever because, this person claimed, religion causes all the wars in the world. Moreover, without religion this person said there would be no war.

That, I felt, demanded a response.

I'm sorry, but that's just one of the most patently ridiculous things I've ever heard. Without religion there would be no war? Really? You know, Stalin was an atheist. Hitler specifically wrote that his issues with Jews did not have to do with their religion but with what he considered to be something deficient in them as detected by the rational science of his day. I'm not going to defend all world religions, or any of them, for that matter. Many are expressly violent, and many others are used as a pretext by powerful people to motivate followers to carry out violence. But people find lots of reasons to fight; scarcity of land, of water, of goods, old-fashioned human rage. It's insulting when religious people condescend to non-religious people, judging their behavior based on religious schema the non-religious person does not hold. But it's also insulting when non-religious people condescend to religious people, treating them all as ignorant yahoos or worse, responsible for all the wars in the world. So let's avoid both kinds of ignorant rhetoric, if possible.

The situation between Palestine and Israel is incredibly complex. The countries aren't religiously homogeneous. The people of both countries do not have universal feelings about their governments' actions. These Muslims, Christians, and Jews the writer mentioned already all do live in Israel, and already all do live in Palestine. This is not a clear-cut religious war. The internal political realities inside both Israel and Palestine should not be ignored by our media, who like to talk about the conflict as though it's a two-sided sports match. There are wheels within wheels here. One interesting example: I heard a tidbit that the rockets Hamas has been launching were nearing the range to hit Israel's nuclear reactor where they have been making their nukes (unofficially) for decades. To what degree is the defense of civilians a pretext to defend a military instillation against future attack should those rockets gain greater range and accuracy? We'll never know, nor will the parents of the people who die on both sides of the conflict. So if the war is so complicated the Israelis and Palestinians don't fully know why they are fighting, we shouldn't try to dismiss the whole explanation with a single word: "Religion."

We oversimplify at our own expense.

Snowed out of Church, Part II

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We sang many of the right songs, but it wasn't right. We missed our pastor, our choir, our music director, etc. The people were very nice. They left Paige alone, but talked to me. We're already mourning the fact that we're going to have find a church closer to home, and this just drove the point home. Still, a holy night. Now for our pagan pajama fairy. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Snowed out of Church

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Today we looked at the roads in our town and thought, Those are totally drive-able. So we piled into the car and headed north toward our church, which is about an hour away. Halfway there, and surprisingly suddenly, the roads turned into a terrifying tundra of ice, snow, flying chips of frozen road, and clearly incapable drivers. We eventually gave-in, bought Noah another Christmas gift (don't tell), and came home. We couldn't even eat at the Jack and the Box we hit the last two years on the way to our church's candle light service (our own special Gorman tradition, abolished so quickly) so we hit the Burgerville in our own town when we got back.

Once home, Paige called somebody and found the time for a worship service at a nearby church, the one that houses Noah's preschool, and tonight we'll head over there. At this point in my life I can miss a single Sunday without losing much sleep, but a Christmas Eve without a church service... just the thought of it bums me out. Now we'll try to mitigate that with another church's service. I know what my mom is thinking: Same God. And she's right. But these people might just sing the wrong songs, and I'll have to deal with that. Also, they don't know how challenging we are to welcome to a church; Paige doesn't like talking to strangers, so they can't come up and greet her without making her uncomfortable. I do like talking to, well, everybody, so if they don't talk to me I'll feel dissed. Plus, they have to be willing to tolerate some wiggles from Noah if he has a tough time, but we'd like them to acknowledge it if he's wonderfully behaved in church (which he often is. It's a toss-up). How can these poor people possibly win? Well, Mary had to go through labor in a cave behind a small-town Motel 6, so I guess we don't have much to complain about.

No matter what, we can come home to another family tradition my parents invented: The Pajama Fairy. We get new PJs every Christmas Eve, and we found some pretty awesome ones for Noah, so no matter what, we'll all settle down for a cozy, fleecy, toasty long-winter's nap.

I hope all of you get to celebrate as you see fit, and I hope you get to sing that one song you're really hoping for this Christmas.

Comic book geek, meet NBA geek

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Wow, this piece at Slate may have been written just for me. Literally. Just me. Are there any other folks out there who are both comic book geeks and NBA fans? I would guess we're a small demographic.

My NBA fantasy team drafts tomorrow, but unfortunately Marvel Comics superheroes can't be drafted. Wolverine on the Knicks? He's the best there is at what he does, but what he does ain't basketball. Me, I'd like to see Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic) on the Celtics. Or any team, for that matter. He could play offense and defense. At the same time. Rogue could make any team a contender (not the movie version, but the comic book version), plus she's smokin' hot and would help break down the gender barrier between the WNBA and the NBA. Iron Man would be cool, and the Robert Downey Jr. version of Tony Stark would be fun at press conferences.

Hulk? NFL.