the defeatists!

Reinvention -- Everyone is either making love or else expecting rain...

I'm not sure what prompted me to look for this one, but the arrangement is different and yet the same....

Crank up the volume, the recording is soft and he was singing this evening in that weedy tenor that requires attention. Needed more bottom on the vocal, I think. Still, pretty cool for a geezer. And, it was a while back...

Dickus errecutus

See, Benny the Rat really has nothing to worry about. On the other hand, having had several of these things, I suspect that the man will come around as do those of us who do not wrap the sportscar with the blonde and rolex around a tree...

Is al Queida a bigger threat than Hitler?

Umm, no. Which makes this really important.  Do good people make evil things happen in the heat of battle -- hell, yes. Battle is essentially an ugly proposition. Should good people make evil things happen after battle in the name of truth, justice and the American way?  Only if we want to make the American way synonymous with evil. Which makes this especially poignant.

"Back then, they and their commanders wrestled with the morality of bugging prisoners' cells with listening devices. They felt bad about censoring letters. They took prisoners out for steak dinners to soften them up. They played games with them.

"We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or pingpong than they do today, with their torture," said Henry Kolm, 90, an MIT physicist who had been assigned to play chess in Germany with one of Hitler's commanders, Rudolph Hess.

"Nearly 4,000 prisoners of war, most of them German scientists and submariners, were brought in for questioning for days, even weeks, before their presence was reported to the Red Cross, which didn't comply with the Geneva Conventions. Many of the interrogators were refugees from the Third Reich.
"We did it with a certain amount of respect and justice," said John Gunther Dean, 81, who became a career Foreign Service officer and ambassador to Denmark. The interrogators had standards that remain a source of pride and honor. "During the many interrogations, I never laid hands on anyone," said George Frenkel, 87, of Kensington. "We extracted information in a battle of the wits. I'm proud to say I never compromised my humanity."

I love soldiers. I have enormous respect  for people like Chuck Hagel and John McCain and Wes Clark and Barry McCaffrey and Bob Kerry. I've yet to hear a credible combat Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine endorse torture as a way of getting quality intelligence. Frankly, I have real problems with the idea that torture could stop an immediate threat anyway. Hey, I've enjoyed parts of 24...I just don't confuse it with reality. For decades, most American soldiers bought into the Republican-Reactionary cant because it was effective. The big lie and all that. However, there were always folks who saw a bit more, and now like Kipling's Tommy Atkins , they are beginning to see...

Some people are inherently credible. Some people are not...Rush Limbaugh et al come to mind, but hey, it's a big crowd of evildoers who are willing to hide their twisted, sadistic psycho-sexual fantasies behind the courage and sacrifice of folks like Brian McGough and Brandon Friedman. I'll let Brandon  have the next to last words, first from his book and then from his post...

"Lying on my cot, I came to the point that many people reach in a situation where they stop what they’re doing and say, "Wait a second. This is bullshit.  This isn’t right."  Two guys in our battalion were dead, two families ruined.  And try as I might, I couldn’t figure out what the purpose of that was.

"Things that had been welling up inside me all summer suddenly exploded in my head like a dozen Roman candles.  I hated the president for his ignorance.  I hated Donald Rumsfeld for his appalling arrogance and his lack of judgment.  I hated their agenda.  I hated Colin Powell for abandoning the Army—for not taking care of his soldiers—when he could have done something to stop these people.  I hated them because the Army had seen this insurgency coming.  I hated them because they didn’t listen to the people who told them this was a bad plan.  I hated them because now, it meant that my guys could be next.  It meant that I could be next.  And I didn’t want to die like this—not in a confusing mishmash of ideologies, purposes, and bullets.

"I felt like we had been taken advantage of.  We were professionals sent on a wild goose chase using a half-baked plan for political reasons.  Lying there restlessly, I was reminded of a Schwarzenegger line in one of his movies—when, after being used and lied to, his muscle-bound character had expressed perfectly what was now on my mind: My men are not expendable.  And I don’t do this kind of work..."

"If we’ve been used by anyone, clearly, it’s the Republicans who’ve done the using.  They’re such hypocrites.  And it didn’t stop there.  Thursday, Rush was at it again, referring to Brian McGough as "this poor guy Brian McGough." Poor, helpless, ignorant Brian McGough.  The same Brian McGough who was awarded a Bronze Star in Afghanistan after 9/11 for his actions during Operation Anaconda, during which time Rush Limbaugh’s fat ass was hiding behind a microphone in Florida, cowering in fear of terrorists. It never stops.  This is a game to these people.  They have no understanding of real-life suicide bombers.  Of real-life shrapnel.  Of real, honest to god fear. This is why they must be removed from power."

And Tommy Atkins...

I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
    O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
    But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play,
    The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
    O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play.
 
I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!
    For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
    But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide,
    The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
    O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.
 
Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
    Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
    But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
    The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
    O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.
 
We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
    While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",
    But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind,
    There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
    O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind.
 
You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
    For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
    But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
    An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
    An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!

 

 

And John Randall Cash gets the last the one..."It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks..."

Cthulhu shrugged...

The news that Ann Rand's Atlas Shrugged influenced generations of business leaders doesn't come as a surprise. That it really influenced Alan Greenspan doesn't come as a surprise. What really amazes is me is that she got picked up by Cecil  B. DeMile  as a groupie on the set of the original King of Kings.

"Rand’s free-market philosophy was hard won. She was born in 1905 in Russia. Her life changed overnight when the Bolsheviks broke into her father’s pharmacy and declared his livelihood the property of the state. She fled the Soviet Union in 1926 and arrived later that year in Hollywood, where she peered through a gate at the set where the director Cecil B. DeMille was filming a silent movie, “King of Kings.”He offered her a ride to the set, then a job as an extra on the film and later a position as a junior screenwriter."

Wiki summarizes the plot as follows...

"The film opens as Mary Magdalene prances about her home to the delight of the many men around her. Upon learning that Judas is with a carpenter she rides out on her chariot drawn by zebras to get him back. Peter is introduced as the Giant apostle, and we see the gospel writer Mark as a child who is healed by Jesus. Our first sight of Jesus is through the eyesight of a little girl, whom he has healed. He is surrounded by a halo. Mary arrives afterwards and talks to Judas, who reveals that he is only staying with Jesus in hopes of being made a king after Jesus becomes the king of kings, and the seven deadly sins are cast out of her in a multiple exposure sequence. Jesus is also shown resurrecting Lazarus and healing the little children. At the very end of the film Jesus is shown ascending inside a house, which then changes into the tops of modern skyscrapers. "I am with you always" appears on the screen. Nearly all of the film's intertitles are quotes (or paraphrases) from scripture."

There are some fun aspects of this. The best quote I could find was a line for Mary Magdalene, who learns that her boyfriend Judas has run off with this carpenter, stops the 32AD version of Britney that she was doing to a crowd of sleazy assholes, and commands, "Harness my Zebras!" The gal who played Mary went on to be a leading light in the John Birch Society. Hosanna. Then there's this real gem with a later soundtrack added, although the one on the theatrical release seems to have combined shlock and awe, including what appears to have been some Cathedral Choir moonlighting singing lame 19th century hymns in the background. This Christian New Wave accompaniment is equally silly. So, we owe the greed and self-centeredness of the Republican Right and the business world to a kind gesture by a grandiose vulgarian probably looking for a quick feel. I'm sure that this nonsense -- turgid prose, half-baked illusions, self-centered solipsism, and banality -- is the true bible of these guys. Joshua Ben Joseph gets it in the neck again...at least, I'm pretty sure the Twitshit didn't read it in college or grad school, although I guess he could have gobbled down the Cliff Notes. There are some positive things that come out of this nonsense. I love Open-Book companies, where there are no secrets and hidden agendas and every one knows what their contribution is and what their reward is. But, I don't think that's so much Ann Rand as it is an intelligent understanding of human dynamics.

Precious...

Prison is a time of hell. However, the idea of religious conversion in prison has been part of Christianity since the beginning. The good thief converted on the cross; Paul did a fair amount of preaching during his stints in the hole; Pastor Neimuller and Dietrich Bonhoffer are examples of the potential of salvation behind bars. So, Crusader AXE is endlessly amused by this one. We have the faith based junta, I mean, err, administration that does everything it can to promote religion (Fuck the constitution, pass out the bibles) but then does...this. "Behind the walls of federal prisons nationwide, chaplains have been quietly carrying out a systematic purge of religious books and materials that were once available to prisoners in chapel libraries."  I find this just wonderful, like the time 35 years ago I was in a theatre at college (Holy Cross) when it was still all men, and we were watching Christopher Lee as Dracula writhe in pain and horror when impaled on a silver cross; 500 guys screaming "Go Cross Go!" Well, we'd had a really lousy football season, and the basketball team was looking flakey too...so, this was about all we had to yell about.

Of course, I suspect the problem is not Martin Buber's Ich und Du or John Knox's History of the Church in Scotland. It's possible that the poetry of Daniel Berrigan or Martin Luther King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail are included, but I suspect we're talking about the Koran. We'll see how this plays out over time. However, I seem to recall language that says something about establishing religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Bill of something...there's also the 14th Amendment, promising equal protection. Born again Christian programs make it incumbent to allow access to Muslims as well.

As a Tiffanist, of course, I don't have a dog in this parade. However, I wouldn't have found Tiffany as my understanding of the singularity that started this mess we call existence without Buber, and Knox and King and Berrigan...so, since I believe that the theft of anyone's constitutional rights is a theft of mine, this amuses at the same time it angers me. As it should you...

Idiocracy -- Bush's world?

The news that the Isreali police have busted a hard core Neo-Nazi gang in Isreal kind of defines the old Defeatist WOPF/WTF view of the world in ways that I could only dream of articulating. We have the Dave Chappelle-black blind white supremacist here in a great way. However, it made me think a lot more than I wanted to...and it made me think of devolution and idiocracy. Idiocracy is a fairly interesting example of devolution -- the Wilson bros are the stoner-surfer version of the Baldwins, of course. The film is kind of like the Burton version of 1984 only filmed by drunken midget terrorists. Think dystopia -- a combination of 1984, The Big Lebowski and Scarey Movie and Candide. It's actually not a bad way to wile away the time waiting for Countdown.

AGI's sudden conversion to Islam -- which probably won't take, the lad has ADD issues combined with a bright intelligence that has only been mildly warped by being a OC type -- would be an example of cultural devolution. Potato puffs are the devolution of the potato; the current crop of Kennedys is an example of devolution. The Bushes don't count -- they are more an example of an evolutionary dead end, what happens when WASPs keep inbreeding. Hopefully, Laura's infusion of genetic material might make a difference down the road, rising them to the intellectual capacity of hillbilly sharecroppers from Incest Springs. The fact that FOX has shows like Family Guy and The Simpsons is an example of devolution. The entire history of Christianity is one of devolution...when ultimately, the most Christian of Christians no longer believes in God, you got a great case of devolution.

The current state of Pop music is totally devolved. Anyway, Idiocracy has some nice touches -- the average Joe kibifle and a hooker are put into suspended animation and awaken in a world ruled by Gatorade, Karl's Junior and COSTCO. The average IQ has devolved to somewhere around mouldy Velveeta's; there is famine in the world, largely because crops are being watered by the Gatorade company. The president is a WWF/Mr. T type. Everybody has a bar code on their wrist. The world is one big landfill...

Well, that's where we are headed. Prevention might be to go read something, but I am not sanguine about that -- the local library smells of stale feet, and the local bookstore is Walmart. I went down to San Bernanrdino yesterday, and California is beginning in the crowed areas -- which is everything but the deserts -- to look a lot like the set of Streets of Fire. They had planted cypress along side the roadway between the expressway and the railroad tracks at one point; yesterday, they were cutting them down.

The sub-prime mortgage market is an example of devolution. The hard-top convertible is an example of devolution. The Suuuurrrrggggeeee is an example of devolution. Rummy and Wolfie are examples of devolution, from MacNamara and Rostow to Cheech and Chong. Colin Powell is an example of devolution, from George Marshall to "Look at me, I'll never lie to you..." Hell, you could contend with some degree of success is that George W Bush is an example of multiple levels of devolution. He makes Bill Clinton look like Franklin Roosevelt, and his dad look like Ike. Bennie the Rat is an example of accelerated devolution.

The sadness of eternity without joy, or love...

>Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth -- Blaise Paschal

The great IOZ has a piece discussing the problem of Mother Teresa. Despite the somewhat arch "How do you solve a problem like Teresa?" (anyone who grew up in a home with a gay kid brother who fell in love with the Trapp Family and lived and breathed Sound of Music, or is married to a woman who did the same, will understand the archness), IOZ does a good job of discussing the problem of the soul and the relationship to the divine from a sort of theistic point of view. I chose to wade in with my own views, in brief. Here are my thoughts...with elaboration in black.

"In a past incarnation, I was briefly Emperor of a large, faith-based non-profit serving the poor of the Greater Seattle area. I came to believe that one thing Christ said is definitely true --"The poor are always with us." I also came to believe that St Vincent de Paul was absolutely correct in saying, "The poor are difficult masters."  Poor people are absolutely awful. They smell, they are irrational, they don't respond the way you expect them to, and they really aren't all that grateful for your spare change and your old shoes. Trust me...if they were wonderful, it would be a lot easier. They're not -- they have problems, pscyho-socio-sexual-metaphysical-physical and for all I know, other dimensional as well. Sick and dying poor people are worse.

In the mega-sense, Teresa's care for the poor was useless, of course. However, that is the geopolitical thinking that gets you into messes. Not worrying about individuals get masses killed. I know a parish priest in Texas who used to spend his summer vacations working in Calcutta with Mother Teresa. He told a story of a journalist he heard ask her, "What's the point? You can't win?" She smiled, and responded, "It's not about winning." And, it wasn't about her...

John of the Cross entitled his greatest work, "The Long Dark Night of the Soul" and William James discusses this loss in "The Varieties of Religious Experience"; and there is a tradition in Catholic theology and philosophy that makes Teresa very main stream. Thomas the Apostle, after all, doubted until Christ revealed himself...and, tradition has it, went to India where he was martyred.  Worrying about outcomes, including your own rewards, is actually the opposite of what Ignatius de Loyola described for the ideal Jesuit. You do what you are doing, what you are given to do, as well as you can and focus on that. What happens is out of your control. Joan of Arc despaired; I suspect that lots of missionaries of all faiths have despaired. Very few of us, regardless of faith, go to death with the complete serenity of a Thomas More. Hell, Christ despaired.

I would rank her as a Christian stoic -- abiding by the principles and ultimately not expecting any reward. As such, I see her doing what Marcus Aurelius advised, loosely translated..."Things are incredibly fucked up. Anything you do, no matter how minor, is a good thing."  To argue that her actions were meaningless because they were so small in comparison to the extent of the horror is similar to saying, don't waste your time voting. It is because they are so small in the face of the problem that you need to step up and do something...anything.

Of course, I write this as a practicing anti-theist, who advocates the cult of Tiffany the Singularity where God is antropromorphized as a hormonal, not so smart, vacuous teenage girl who's into dildoes and Justin Timberlake, if that is not redundant. So, what the hell do I know... I wish I still believed at times. For a guy who spent 16 years in Catholic confinement as Jimmy Buffet calls it,  I miss the reassurance. I wish I could want anything as much as Mother Teresa wanted Jesus. She kept looking.

In Hoc Signo, Vince!"  ( It's pronounced VIn-KAY, not Vince, and means "conquer"...I know our folks reading this looking for a discussion of Britney's Vulva would want to know how to pronounce the Latin...)Christopher Hitchens has his take on Mother Teresa, and he has said that he liked her, he just thought she was a hypocrite and wasn't sure she believed in God. Well, ok. I enjoy Hitchens although the apologist role for the Iraq thing is kind of sad...Still, I think that hypocrisy is something different. If you profess something and do something else, well, you're a hypocrite. If you profess something, and do the same thing, you are consistent. If you profess something, do it and question yourself constantly and question the meaninglessness of what you're doing, well, you are fully human. Only those with the blissful ignorance of a Dubya, the fanaticism of a Cheney or the sheer hubris of a Pat Robertson can do large things and not question themselves.

Nope. In the best of all possible worlds, there would be more Mother Teresa's. Not unlike Orestes in Sarte's The Flies, she's a true existential hero. Not all that different than the Luther created by John Osborne, she could do nothing else. We used to think a lot about making our own meaning, anchoring ourselves in history and doing what we could to make the world better. A Phillip Berrigan could hug his brother and Abbie Hoffman at the same time. Now, we demand sincerity. Consistency is a hell of a lot better; consistency in the face of adversity.


I commend to the Jansenist heretic, Blaise Paschal. He summed it up in his Pensees...
"Atheism shows strength of mind, but only to a certain degree.

>Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.

>"Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world.

<"Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?

"Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them.

"Continuous eloquence wearies. Grandeur must be abandoned to be appreciated. Continuity in everything is unpleasant. Cold is agreeable, that we may get warm. "
 

Smart people got no reason to live...except annoying others

Some days, it really helps to have spent some time thinking about stuff. Lots of stuff.  At a certain level, intellect is not a survival trait. So:

Hi, My name is Crusader AXE and I’m a...sob...recovering MENSAN.

Chorus: Hi, Crusader AXE.

“I got into MENSA because a mentor of mine in the Army was one. We were both smarter than the average bears around us, and he was a Sergeant Major and I was a Sergeant First Class, so I figured out that he knew what he was doing by being a member. I was never around any MENSANS until I was stationed near a major university. I went to one meeting, and quit, never to return. But still, the craving haunts me. I just don’t know what the craving is for…” I ultimately discovered, it was to beat up the members and take their lunch money...

While there is no 12 Step Program for these guys, there should be. Yeah, I joined and yeah, I felt really silly.  Guys with big necks and broad shoulders have issues surrounded by pencil necked geeks who are making anagrams out of their name and blood type for fun. The primary conversation seemed to be about how smart we all were and how we should rule the world. Anyone who believes that they are qualified to rule the world should be disqualified from doing so.

                                          Not a MENSAN

OK, being dumb, ignorant and arrogant is probably worse than being smart, well-educated and  ignorant, but if those are the only two choices, the AXE is taking his money and going home. The problem that a lot of these guys and gals have is a lack of anything like street smarts and situational awareness. You don’t get street smarts by listening to rap records or reading Harry Potter in Latin. You don’t get situational awareness by spinning in circles around some screwed up intellectual point. You don’t get things done.

I spent a lot of the last week interacting with people who, if not in MENSA, should be giving lessons. Granted, they were bright. They weren’t charming, sparkling conversationalists, and good company. They were smart. They were also members of the same family, Mom and daughter who both work for us, and Dad who is disabled after a serious accident. Mom is trying to get us to pay to send her and daughter to MIT for their Six Sigma Black Belt. She is one of our Quality Auditors and spent most of the conversation running her daughter’s “rival” for a key position and her daughter’s direct boss into the dirt for things she knows piss me off. It was about as subtle as a volcano.

Daughter and her 2^nd line boss shanghaied me into an adventure going to

Guitar

Center

to pick out an acoustic guitar for her. Doesn’t know how to play but wants to. She has two vintage Electric Guitars that would probably pay her way through

Grad

School

. One is a ’62 Telecaster (AGI is now drooling, Fender being his weapon of choice) and a ’57 Les Paul. The Les Paul needs a little work, but all the Fender needs is strings. (Although the

Guitar

Center

weasel who sold her the strings I told him  not to sell her said that we should save the old strings because that would add value. Yeah, nothing like old Black Diamonds to make you wanna jump right in and buy that thing.) Again, very bright, but she was going to pay someone to re-string the Fender. She’s got a cello maker fixing the Les Paul. I said that I would re-string the damn thing for her, and then she said that her Dad was a guitarist. So, I said that he can string the damn thing. We spent hours in the car going to and coming from the closest Guitar Center, and on the way back, she started figuring out how to play the guitar, using a modeling Line 6 I had tried to trade in. You see, she used to play cello. RAARRRGHHHH…three hours of “oh, I feel like I need to put this between my knees and get a bow…”

OK, this morning I had a meeting with Daddy. Daddy is very bright – PHD in Human Development who wandered into the quality movement. Was trained by John Juran which is a big deal in that stuff. We were at the local community college, trying to get a Six Sigma program off the ground. What a disaster this turned into…the guy had called me on last Thursday wanting all sorts of stuff that we don’t have; wanting us to spend a fortune on a Six Sigma Reference Library; wanting us to provide him with software. Jesus wept…Anyway, today he was trying to get us to go along with a 16 week Six Sigma certification program. From

Barstow

Community College

. That could at some point maybe get junior college credit…he kept trying to reel me in, but the nice thing about being situationally aware is that you know what could work. Some idiot savant (actually, I think he’s a idiot-idiot) told him that he could charge the college $5K a week to do this. No. He can’t. And, if they’d pay that much, we wouldn’t. We fix HUMMVs and stock military warehouses and pump fuel…we don’t build space shuttles. But, he doesn’t get that there is an intrinsic difference. I set up a meeting with the other industry rep and we’ll tell them in writing what we want, a generic two week program.

I’m not opposed to smart people. However, I am not opposed to lawyers and accountants either. I am opposed to letting them run amok…after I got done with this guy, my boss asked me how it went. “I need a $100K and don’t ask any questions – he’s smarter than we are.” When they are smarter than you are, and you’re pretty smart, be extra careful…or as our alien-lusting 40^th President said in one of his lucid moment, “Trust, but verify.” Trust that they’re smart; verify that they are firmly anchored. And, don’t spend hours locked in a car with one.

Fact, theory or fantasy -- Iraq as the rebirth of Christianity

Here we see Laura walking Barney while supporting the Iraq policy; or, perhaps the Whore of Babylon with her beast. It's confusing...Or, the same thing!

Ok, this is probably a stretch, although I do not think so.  But Michael Ignatieff's article in Sunday's NY Times Magazine is worth considering from several points of view. Ignatieff left academe where he was kind of a neo-conservative at Harvard, pushing the Iraq war as the answer, as an Iraqi exile put it to him:
"hat it was the only chance the members of his generation would have to live in freedom in their own country. How distant a dream that now seems." Well, if one thinks of liberty as Hobbes thought of liberty, I guess you're right. Othewise, not so much... Iggy cites Isiah Berlin who was a philosopher of the pithy thought, as saying the the trouble with academics and commentators is that they care more about wheter Ideas are interesting as opposed to  whether they are true. Assume motion is a state equivalent to rest, and you have the start of Newtonian physics...which is becoming as overtaken by reality as the Ptolemic universe. You can have fun with what ifs and outright silliness if no one is going to die because of it. In politics, Iggy points out that " n political life, false ideas can ruin the lives of millions and useless ones can waste precious resources. An intellectual’s responsibility for his ideas is to follow their consequences wherever they may lead. A politician’s responsibility is to master those consequences and prevent them from doing harm."  He goes on to cite Berlin again, as follows:
"The attribute that underpins good judgment in politicians is a sense of reality. “What is called wisdom in statesmen,” Berlin wrote, referring to figures like Roosevelt and Churchill, “is understanding rather than knowledge — some kind of acquaintance with relevant facts of such a kind that it enables those who have it to tell what fits with what; what can be done in given circumstances and what cannot, what means will work in what situations and how far, without necessarily being able to explain how they know this or even what they know.” Politicians cannot afford to cocoon themselves in the inner world of their own imaginings. They must not confuse the world as it is with the world as they wish it to be. They must see Iraq — or anywhere else — as it is."   Later in the article, he cites Kant, preferred philosopher of the Great IOZ,  after bitch-slapping Edmund Burke. "Fixed principle matters. There are some goods that cannot be traded, some lines that cannot be crossed, some people who must never be betrayed. But fixed ideas of a dogmatic kind are usually the enemy of good judgment. It is an obstacle to clear thinking to believe that America’s foreign policy serves God’s plan to expand human freedom. Ideological thinking of this sort bends what Kant called “the crooked timber of humanity” to fit an abstract illusion. Politicians with good judgment bend the policy to fit the human timber. Not all good things, after all, can be had together, whether in life or in politics."

His conclusion is worth citing as a whole. So, I'll skip to through to the best parts...

Good judgment in politics, it turns out, depends on being a critical judge of yourself. It was not merely that the president did not take the care to understand Iraq. He also did not take the care to understand himself. The sense of reality that might have saved him from catastrophe would have taken the form of some warning bell sounding inside, alerting him that he did not know what he was doing. But then, it is doubtful that warning bells had ever sounded in him before. He had led a charmed life, and in charmed lives warning bells do not sound...Prudent leaders force themselves to listen equally to advocates and opponents of the course of action they are thinking of pursuing. They do not suppose that their own good intentions will guarantee good results. They do not suppose they know all they need to know. If power corrupts, it corrupts this sixth sense of personal limitation on which prudence relies. A prudent leader will save democracies from the worst, but prudent leaders will not inspire a democracy to give its best... Daring leaders can be trusted as long as they give some inkling of knowing what it is to fail. They must be men of sorrow acquainted with grief, as the prophet Isaiah says, men and women who have not led charmed lives, who understand us as we really are, who have never given up hope and who know they are in politics to make their country better. (Italics added, because I can...)

Ok, AXE, Iggy writes good stuff but what the hell does this have to do with Christianity. Well, I just started "The closing of the Western Mind " by Charles Freeman, with some trepidation I must admit. Laundry lists of heresies -- Arians, Donatists, Dualpnaturists, phelobomists, philatelists and so on with a discussion of the obscure nonsense that led to the whole mess and the ultimate result which was usually murder by imperial or ecclesiastical fiat can get boring, frustrating and ultimately as illuminating as the Boise White Pages. However, his thesis is that the way Christianity developed starting in the Fourth Century buried the Greco-Roman intellectual traditions of empiricism and rational idealism. In the introduction, he cites Pythagoras who  had quite a bit more to say than "Τακτοποιημένη συν το β που τακτοποιείται είναι ίση με το γ που τακτοποιείται." (Thank you, Babelfish!) Pythagoras contends, according to Freeman, that nothing of certainty can be said about the Gods because "the problem is too complex and life is too short." Rather than running out of steam, Freeman contends that the Greek tradition of rational inquiry using both deductive and inductive reasoning was subverted by Christianity thanks to the authoritarian power of the late Roman empire. Constantine didn't want any Marcus Aurelius springing up. Julian the Apostate got hosed; the temples got closed; the books got burned; and Tertullian became their  Leo Strauss. Thus, the parallel between Bush-thought, the blithering idiot-imperator decreeing and the masses stumbling along behind, waving palm fronds... Thus, one can wave flags and hold up banners about cutting and running and show PowerPoint slides with slogans and claim rational discourse. I've read some interesting discussions of the way the early church councils went down, and a session of Hannity and Colmes resembles Nicea to a great extent as the true believer (who morphs into Santa Claus, go figure....) boxes Arius' ears. And then colludes with Athanasius and Constantine to have him smothered in the public latrines . Ah, good times...still to come.

Deconstructing Reality -- Kierkegaard stalks the elusive Toll House Cookie while dreaming of Regina, and Christ

Old age realizes the dreams of youth: look at Dean Swift; in his youth he built an asylum for the insane, in his old age he was himself an inmate.
Soren Kierkegaard

At first, I thought it was about us. Well, maybe it is, oddly. We certainly like good coffee, and I've got the Roman - US fixation. Still, for erudite commentary few things beat the preacher from the City on the Hill, Gethsemene: USA. I'm interpreting that as Boston, of course; I picture a Kierkegaardian figure, strolling through Harvard Square, breakfasting at the Coop and then heading over to the Widener to read Schilling. It would be nice. But, even if he's a biker tatoo artist and meth cooker in Des Moines, the guy writes well and has a rapier for a mind...

There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.
Soren Kierkegaard

Speaking of rapiers, I just finished a new history of Rome. If you are curious about the place, people and times but do not have a great feel for it, and like being beaten to death by academic writing, buy it. Anyway, it clarifies a lot of things while confusing others. My favorite confusion revolves around Hadrian's Wall. The author, a Canadian classicist and historian, says that modern scholarship is not sure why Hadrian built the thing. Ahh, yeah...actually, I think it's pretty clear. Keep the bad guys out, keep the bad guys in...walls serve no other purposes. Even Sting figured that out. "I had to stop in my tracks/for fear of steping on the mines I laid."

What is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music.
Soren Kierkegaard

WhoisOZ cites Kant and Hume, but he is a philosopher of a different timbre. Granted, true existentialism is hard to find these days -- Hussel's phenomonology blended with Kierkegaard doesn't save it from lots of really bad decisions. (It's 1933, and I want to be authentic, so I'm gonna be the Nazi chancellor of my university and bitch about Jews -- Martin Heidigger.) (I think I can make this curve -- Albert Camus.) (I think I'm going to go to Pakistan and figure out who killed Daniel Pearl -- Bernard Henri-Levi...opps, that was a great decision. Ok how about, I'm going to go on The Daily Show? No, that went well, too) (I'm going to fall in love with this toad look-a-like, cheap whiskey-swilling, gauloise smelling creep in complete denial of my thought and writings -- Simone de Beauvoir). (To maintain my authenticity and solidarity with the workers of the world, I'm going to stop bathing, become incontinent and write incomprehensible gibberish about Flaubert while trying to screw coeds from the Sorbonne but still depending on Simone for the necessities of life-- Jean Paul Sartre.)

Kierkegaard was the philosopher of Irony. He found the smugness of Hegelian philosophy that purported to know all and explain all irritating, yet he was the consummate Hegelian. He used the dialectic to subvert it. OZ's voice is ironic, clinically so at times and passionately so at others. I wonder what OZ writes in his sermons, since he identifies himself as a clergyman. Kierkegaard wrote deeply religious stuff  at the same time he was writing brilliant criticism of Religion. I suspect that the AA concept of spirituality vice religion applies to both OZ and K.

Trouble is the common denominator of living. It is the great equalizer.
Soren Kierkegaard

Well, I'm going to go all authentic and existential, take care of a friend's cats and go to the gym and then to Starbucks for some iced decaf and a brie and ham sandwich. Appropriate I think to close with some more Kierkegaardian stuff...

Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
Soren Kierkegaard

At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference.
Soren Kierkegaard

Be that self which one truly is.
Soren Kierkegaard

Because of its tremendous solemnity death is the light in which great passions, both good and bad, become transparent, no longer limited by outward appearences.
Soren Kierkegaard

Boredom is the root of all evil - the despairing refusal to be oneself.
Soren Kierkegaard