Jim Snowden's Second Omnibus

TEA PARTY: The Documentary Film - Trailer

noreply@blogger.com (js) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:48:00 +0000

Like Yglesias, I thought this was a joke. It's not, but it's still a joke.

Dim Bulbs

noreply@blogger.com (js) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 17:48:00 +0000

I suppose it shouldn't shock me when evangelical Christians display a shocking ignorance of science, but I thought we were all on the same side when it came to the Moon's reflecting sunlight.

I guess not.

MMIP Readings From 8/17

noreply@blogger.com (js) — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:48:00 +0000

Alice Bridgforth and John Roberson did wonderful work at the McCroskey Memorial Internet Playhouse's reading series. Check it out below.

Miss Me?

noreply@blogger.com (js) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 23:10:00 +0000

Sorry I've been away so long. It's inexcusable of me not to check in every so often. But I've been doing a great deal of literary work--two screenplays, two short stories, adapting and producing a full length play. And I've been trying to keep food in the Frigidaire in the midst of this nasty economic slump. Put simply, I've been busy. Here are a few of the things I've been doing:

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And this.

And this.

Oh, we're doing another reading, hopefully the sound environment will be a bit better, on August 17th at 8pm at the Faire Gallery and Cafe in Seattle. Those readers, whoever they may be, in town for that date should check it out.

The GOP's Young Winger Fetish

noreply@blogger.com (js) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 21:00:00 +0000

Matt Yglesias struggles to understand why the modern conservative movement invests as much interest as they do in speakers like 14-year-old Jonathan Krohn. I don't have the answer, but it does remind me of something:

Rich People Of America, Have I Got A Deal For You

noreply@blogger.com (js) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 01:04:00 +0000

We've all heard the sad story of the dentist who plans to cut back her work hours so that her income will drop from $320,000 to $250,000, allowing her to avoid a 3% tax increase on the $70,000 difference. (Now I can't see the logic of dumping $70,000 in income just to avoid paying, at most, an extra $2,100 a year, but what do I know about money?) And I know how much it troubles her that she won't be able to do as much to serve her community as a result. So instead of cutting your hours back, Ms. Dentist, I've got a solution for you.

Give the money to me.

Not all your money, of course. Just the $70,000. Bring it to me in denominations of $10s and $20s. I won't give you a receipt so we can keep it off the books--no IRS fuss or anything. I'd stick it in a safe deposit box at the bank and dip into it as I needed it, and you could keep the $2,100 that would have gone to the evil Federal Government in your pocket. Do with it what you please. Buy yourself a 52 inch TV. Wouldn't that look good in your house right about now?

No. No. It's no trouble at all. I'd be sure to give that money a good home. Really, I'd thank you. Your patients would thank you. Your community would thank you. It's win-win-win!

Work, Work, Work, Work, Work

noreply@blogger.com (js) — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 09:57:00 +0000

I should probably apologize to whatever readers might be left of this blog for having failed to utter a peep on it since January. I sadly have the most prosaic explanation imaginable at the ready. I've been way too fucking busy!!! See? Even with three exclamation marks it's dull, which is a shame, because the work I've been up to has never wandered too far from being interesting and worthwhile.

Those of you who've been keeping up with the MMIP know that, back in February, I was holding auditions for Middleton and Dekker's The Roaring Girl. It worked out that I wasn't able to cast it from those auditions. It's a big play and requires more actors than I could assemble. So I moved up the production I wanted to to later in the year: Henrik Ibsen's Ghosts. Casting that has taken up whatever portion of my time that wasn't devoted to that other MMIP project: the short story podcast. I've spent the last two months sifting through submissions of short stories and poetry for items suitable for the inaugural podcast in late April or early May. Today, I settled on the three items I'm going to run. I'm thrilled for the writers of these three short stories, all gems in their way, and can't wait to find actors to give them voice.

All this means I've not only had a couple of busy months, but I'm soon to have another couple of busy ones, directing Ghosts for its May release, getting this spate of stories out the door, and searching for the stories and poems that'll comprise our Summer issue. And though I would like to keep the blog running and entertain you in my own inimitable fashion on it, it may well be that, in a couple of months, I'll be back with the same dull apology I've just issued.

Now that that's out of the way, I wanted to spend a few minutes scratching a couple of itches that have been bothering me in the course of my labors. In spite of the change that Barack Obama's election has brought to America--and believe me I'm grateful--there are signs that certain things have stuck with us, things America just seems compelled to burp up every few days to give us a burning, acidic aftertaste of the bygone and best forgotten. Yes, I'm talking about Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Kenneth Starr, and Ayn Rand.

While I'll spend the rest of my life grumbling about how much of my thirties I had to spend under George W. Bush's regime, I can identify one salubrious symptom of the era: Rush Limbaugh mattered less. The right, who now I guess hate to be reminded of it, gave their devotion to Bush, and Rush was reduced to yet another cheerleader among the cheerleaders. No longer newsworthy, Rush was safely remanded to his radio show, where only his dittoheads had to endure his voice. Now that Obama's is president, I hear from the sonofabitch daily. He's once again the person everyone on the right wants to suck up to, enjoying the kind of cringing devotion granted that other spherical, drug-addled tyrant, Kim Jong Il.

Newt Gingrich also seemed like a casualty of the Bush era. Oh, sure, he'd pop up on C-Span everyone once in a while to prattle on about "Rescuing American Civilization" or some other such high sounding flapdoodle. He'd offer up half-assed solutions to health care, or global warming, or homelessness at conferences for gathered pundits at think tanks. (You know what Gingrich thinks the homeless need? Three guesses. Give up? A laptop. I know, I would have said an apartment too, but that's only because we're not visionaries like Gingrich, who can not only see the homeless with laptops, but can also see how they'll operate the suckers when it's twenty below, and how they'll keep them from street punks who'd like to steal them and sell them for crack.) Next to the daily lunacies of the Bush administration, though, Newt's crackpot notions seemed harmless enough, especially since he'd been long out of power. But now he's back, and Republicans are listening to him. "It would be wise to listen to him." Senator John Thune said.

Now I understand that historical memory is becoming a joke in this country, that the noise of the present tends to drown out the echoes of the past, but surely you Republicans remember this guy. He was your leader just ten fucking years ago! Many of you were around at the time. Many of you elected him your leader in the first place, rebelling against him only after you discovered that, while he was helping you raise a stink about Bill Clinton's adulteries, he was getting some staff-sponsored fellatio action of his own. You remember how he shut down the government twice, helping your arch-enemy Bill Clinton look sensible and sober by comparison, and enabling him cruise to a second term. You remember all the weirdo shit he used to spout about how women shouldn't go into combat because men were better suited to hunting giraffe. And you still think it's "wise" to listen to him?!? He's yammering on about running for President again, for Christ's sake! Given that he's about as popular as a botulism germ infected with the AIDS virus, Gingrich's presidential ambitions are a sign of impending mental collapse. Why should anyone treat him seriously, or give him time on the news, when what he really needs is Ritalin and lithium? As for the illness that makes you right-wingers listen to him, birchers, heal thyselves.

Kenneth Starr's unfortunate reemergence is all about California's odious Proposition 8, a law whose existence suggests that the majority can, if it despises a minority enough, simply pass a law to take that minority's rights away. Ken Starr is, predictably, defending this proposition, secure in the knowledge that, as a white male American Protestant bluenosed zealot, nobody will ever do such a thing to him. His position grants him the smugness to argue to before the court that "[Prop 8] does not erode any of the bundle of rights that this state has very generously provided...[but merely] restores the traditional definition of marriage." Yes, gay people, the state of California has been nice enough to you, allowing you to live there, pay taxes, sit in traffic jams, cohabit, and even partake of a separate legal regime that's kinda like marriage unless you want to get on your civil servant spouse's health insurance or need to live for any significant period of time in separate residences. Why all this insistence on being treated equally before the law? Get used to your separate status, just as black people should have gotten used to those separate but equal goodies they got after Plessy v. Ferguson. You know what your trouble is? You're ungrateful.

If you think I'm exaggerating the connection between Ken Starr's line of reasoning an that of recent right-wing thinking on Plessy v. Ferguson, check out this gem from former Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rhenquist (quoted from an article by Cass Susstein):

Rehnquist's memo unambiguously stated that "Plessy vs. Ferguson was right and should be reaffirmed." It acknowledged that this "is an unpopular and unhumanitarian position for which I have been excoriated by 'liberal' colleagues." But in its key passage, it insisted that "one hundred and fifty years of attempts on the part of this court to protect minority rights of any kind -- whether those of business, slaveholders, or Jehovah's Witnesses -- have all met the same fate. One by one the cases establishing such rights have been sloughed off, and crept silently to rest. If the present court is unable to profit by this example, it must be prepared to see its work fade in time, too, as embodying only the sentiments of a transient majority of nine men."

Rehnquist went on: "To the argument ... that a majority may not deprive a minority of its constitutional right, the answer must be made that while this is sound in theory, in the long run it is the majority who will determine what the constitutional rights of the minority are."

Rehnquist's memo concluded that the court should uphold segregation and refuse to protect "special claims" merely "because its members individually are 'liberals' and dislike segregation."

Susstein adds that Rhenquist claimed during his confirmation hearings in 1971 that the memo was meant to reflect Justice Jackson's views rather than his own. Rhenquist was Jackson's clerk at the time. But most historians don't believe him. Too much of his own legal reasoning from his arrival on the court to his death reflected these views, and his influence echoes there still, in the current court majority, and in current conservative legal thinking.

No doubt, had Starr refused for whatever reason to take the Prop 8 case, the initiative's supporters would have found some other Federalist Society mouthpiece to sell their arguments to the courts. Still, having Starr back as a sexual scold brings back too many sad memories.

From the sad to the silly, we come at last to Ayn Rand, the crank who launched a million cranks. Even though one of her most prominent former adherents, former Federal Reserve Chairman Allen Greenspan, has expressed some regret on his role in pushing for the kinds of deregulation of capital markets that flung us into the economic shithole, others seem determined to rush toward the old bat's collection of love letters to arrogant, socially dysfunctional plutocrats in hopes of finding a guide to future success and sexual fulfillment. Members of Congress pass out Atlas Shrugged to departing interns, or thumb through it as if it were the libertarian version of the Book of Revelations, hoping that their commitment to capitalism and crushing the leeches will be enough to afford them a ticket to the Rapture. Michelle Malkin tells us that conservatives are preparing to "go Galt" (stop doing productive work) in order to prevent Barack Obama from taking money from the beleagured rich to give to the undeserving poor.

Has Michelle Malkin ever done any productive work? If she stopped would we miss her? If the CEOs of Goldman Sachs, Citi, or Bank of America chucked it in and took the last train for Galt's Gulch, would the world be any worse off for it? Surely there are other business school mediocrities that we can groom to take their places. They'll need jobs when they graduate, after all. And they won't mind their sudden advancement to the top. The one thing they're good at is convincing themselves that they've earned their place in the world. In the meantime, with the right voluntarily sequestered in their Capitalist Shangri-La, the rest of us can make sure that their replacements' worst impulses can no longer screw the poor or ruin the Earth as a habitat for humanity. (And yes, conservatives, that includes you, whether you like it or not.)

So maybe this boomlet in Rand interest can be worked to our collective benefit, much as the old witch would hate the idea. Still, this "everything discredited is credited again" approach the American right is taking tires me. Barack Obama isn't perfect. He'll need people who'll make sensible criticisms of his ideas and policy choices, just to keep him honest. I guess it'll be up to the Left to provide him with that, because, based on their current choice of role models, it's clear that the Right still has a long way to go before it finds its mind.

I hope that'll keep you until I make my next apology.

Your Pal,

Jim

Al Qaeda is Not Composed of Super-Villains

noreply@blogger.com (js) — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 20:12:00 +0000

I've mostly avoided politics on this blog for some time. (Yeah, yeah, I drew a comparison between Dick Cheney and Darth Sidious, but I hardly consider that a controversial link.) But apparently President Obama's decision to shut down Gitmo as a prison/torture palace has rankled some of my more deranged neighbors, and so I thought it time to call them over for a little chat.

Matt Yglesias accurately sums up the reason why Bush and company chose to house prisoners in Cuba:

[T]he appeal of the location was its ambiguous legal status. Guantanamo Bay is in Cuba, not the United States of America. But since the Cuban Revolution of 1958, we’ve had no Status of Forces Agreement with Cuba authorizing the presence of an American military base. Consequently, argued the Bush administration, neither Cuban nor American law applied there. This was somewhat daft if you ask me, albeit clever, but whatever you think of the merits of the argument that is why the prisoners were sent there. The Bush team never felt it was unsafe to send prisoners to Fort Leavenworth or to the supermax prison in Colorado, they just didn’t want to be in a position where they had to follow the law.

Still, there are people on this planet who argue, with apparent seriousness, that keeping the prisoners currently in Cuba in a modern U.S. Federal Prison is so dangerous that we must, instead, house these uniquely terrifying prisoners on an island far away and beyond the law. These people have fallen into the trap of thinking that, because a group of criminals manage to pull of a spectacular crime, they must be spectacularly brilliant criminals. But mobsters, terrorists, and free lance killers didn't get into the business they're in because astrophysics, brain surgery, and law school didn't appeal to them. A small percentage of them actually have brains, but most of them don't, just like the rest of us.

The 9/11 attackers weren't geniuses. They had a workable idea, the element of surprise, a decent command of English, the ability to keep their mouths shut, and a willingness to die for the cause. This puts them far ahead of the idiot who tried to detonate his shoe, or the nimrods who thought they could mix explosives in an airplane bathroom. Still, it doesn't make the 9/11 terrorists into the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, and it doesn't make Osama into Magneto. They, and their brethren in the cause, are ordinary guys, with ordinary competencies and defects. We should be no more frightened of them than we are of drug dealers, mobsters, or our own domestic terrorists, for whom maximum security federal prisons are home. If we can trust the Supermax in Colorado to hold the Unabomber, the remaining Oklahoma City bomber, the first World Trade Center bombers, and Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, I think we can fell safe about its handling whoever we pick up in Afghanistan.

Cardinals Going To the Superbowl

noreply@blogger.com (js) — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 23:21:00 +0000

Dogs and cats are now living together.

Less Standard Christmas Movie Fare

noreply@blogger.com (js) — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 11:13:00 +0000

Unlike the last post, I'm not going to bother with Youtube stuff. I just wanted to steer you to some pictures involving or set during Christmas that might interest you if you're burned out on Christmas Carol, A Christmas Story, or The Greatest Story Ever Told.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service: Over the yule tide holiday, James Bond tries to prevent Blofeld's deadly gifts from poisoning the world's food supply. He also meets the one and only woman he'd ever want to marry, and since she was played by Diana Rigg, everyone can understand why.

Eyes Wide Shut: Stanley Kubrick's final film follows a naive doctor (Tom Cruise) on a strange, dreamlike journey set on a night before Christmas.

Lethal Weapon: Because nothing says the holiday season like Riggs and Murtaugh interrupting their plans for suicide and Christmas dinner to hunt down a gang of ex-CIA drug dealers.

The Godfather: No, it's not all set during the holidays, but the scenes from Don Corleone's first meeting with Sollozzo to Michael's first murder in the Italian restaurant take place over Christmas. Sure, Santa can bring you a bicycle, but if you've slept with the studio boss's favorite young starlet and still want work in the movies, there's only one guy who can deliver that Christmas present.

Wrong Star Wars Character

noreply@blogger.com (js) — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 09:34:00 +0000

Dick Cheney's recent interviews have led people to compare him once again to Darth Vader. I hate to get geeky about it, but if you want to compare Cheney, a man who spent a lifetime scheming and plotting in hopes of one day acquiring absolute power, to any Star Wars character, there is only one appropriate analog:

My Way of Saying Thanks

noreply@blogger.com (js) — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 02:56:00 +0000

Lindsay Erika Crain, or Anna, as she's known in Diary of A Superfluous Man was kind enough to talk up the play on her weblog. It would be wrong of me not to reciprocate in the only way a penniless sod like me can, by linking to her blog.

Buy some of her photographs. Now.

Movies For a Snowy Afternoon

noreply@blogger.com (js) — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 21:23:00 +0000

I'll include a list for those who love to wallow in snow, as well as for those who want nothing more than to get away.

For Wallowers:

The Shining (1980): For the person who loves snow, what could be better than being snowbound at home, watching a movie about a snowbound family whose patriarch is going mad? There is no time of year when The Shining isn't a favorite film of mine, but today seems like an appropriate day to watch Jack Nicholson get cabin fever.

Misery (1990): Snow seems to agree with Stephen King, or at least with those who adapt his work. This picture, done before Rob Reiner foolishly decided to stop shooting William Goldman scripts, made a star of Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes, the world's most psychopathic obsessed fan, (and that's up against some stiff competition).

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1968): Yes, you'll have to endure some sun kissed beaches in the South of France, but don't worry. You'll soon be in the Alps, watching 007 perform some of his best ski moves as he tries to stop Blofeld's plan to unleash a biological weapon on the world.

Downhill Racer (1969): It's not my favorite of Robert Redford's films about competition--that would be The Candidate but if you like ski action, this is your film. (Sorry, no video)

The Empire Strikes Back (1980): The ice planet of Hoth. Need I say more.

For Would-be Escapees:

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981): There is a brief sequence in snowy Nepal, but the rest of it is in the South American jungle, Egypt, and the Mediterranean. See? You're warmer already.

Lawrence of Arabia (1962): Vast stretches of desert, shot in 70mm splendor, serve as backdrop for one of the greatest movies ever made.

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977): This one could be thought of as a present for both sides. It opens with the most spectacular ski stunt ever performed in a Bond film before moving on to beautiful, balmy locations in Egypt and Sardinia.

Duel 1971: When you need to warm up, Steven Spielberg really is your pal. He loves desert landscapes, and this one is about as deserty as you can get. You will, however, learn to treat truck drivers with greater reverence and respect when this movie ends.

The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) Clint Eastwood's most deeply felt western--with the arguable exception of Unforgiven--takes place, for the most part, in the deserts of Texas and Mexico. Exciting and thoughtful, The Outlaw Josey Wales is a worthy way to warm yourself up when the weather outside trends frightful.

Diary of A Superfluous Man Enters the World

noreply@blogger.com (js) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 20:06:00 +0000

Diary of a A Superfluous Man is out. Some very fine actors put up with me for way too long to get this made, so download it today from here or here.

The Day the Earth Stood Still Beamed Into Space

noreply@blogger.com (js) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 19:32:00 +0000

When a huge starfleet of pissed off aliens comes to Earth to carry on cranky, we'll know it's because 20th Century Fox sent them the remake instead of the original.

Who could blame them, really?

Speaking Your Peace

noreply@blogger.com (js) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 12:55:00 +0000

One of the disadvantages of podcast theater is that it offers few places for listeners to chat amongst themselves about what they've just heard. While I'm afraid I can't announce that the MMIP has purchased an enormous room where listeners around the world can gather, drink and kibbitz, I can offer a few options that will do both you and the MMIP a service.

1. You can leave a comment at our website.

2. Those of you who plant to be "Diary of a Superfluous Man" listeners can hop on over to The Stranger, Seattle's only functional alternative weekly, and leave a review of our upcoming show (or pick fights with the pinheaded lunatics who demonstrated their bad taste and bad breath by disagreeing with you).

3. Or you can visit the MMIP's location at the iTunes Music Store by typing "McCroskey" into iTunes's search field while the browser is pointed at the store. (Needlessly pedantic? Good.) There you can do much the same thing that you would at the Stranger, but play to an international audience of people who, rest assured, are desperate to know what you think about an obscure audio play.

Because I want to beat as many possible drums for our upcoming show "Diary of A Superfluous Man", I want to urge you towards methods 2 and 3 of expressing your opinions. Your posts, if placed in those locations, could help drive traffic to us and will, regardless of what you say, guarantee you infinite supplies of chocolate and leather bondage equipment in the afterlife.* So, after you've heard "Diary of A Superfluous Man", stop by those locations to let the world know what you thought.

*Existence of afterlife not guaranteed. Offer void in Tennessee.

An Endorsement (Insert Fanfare Here)

noreply@blogger.com (js) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 21:16:00 +0000

I've spent much more time than I'm ordinarily comfortable with promoting my work, and while I'm afraid I'm going to have to do a good deal more of that between now and the 12th, I do want to pause for just a moment from hawking my wares and wearing my hawks to pass on my endorsement, for the spectacularly miniscule amount that it's worth, of The New Adventures of Mr. Stephen Fry. I've been an enormous fan of Mr. Fry's since I saw his work in Blackadder II, many thousands of years ago, and through the centuries since, my appreciation for his wit and verbal dexterity has never waned. Go to his website. Listen to his podgrams. Read his blessays. Hope in sweet vain that you can someday nestle securely between his thighs. Live him. Love him. Be him. Stephen Fry.

What? Not fulsome enough? Fuck off.

Brief Review: Quantum of Solace

noreply@blogger.com (js) — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 10:53:00 +0000

I enjoyed the movie and thought Roger Ebert was too harsh in giving it the two stars of death. I do think that, for all of Casino Royale's flaws, it is the superior of Daniel Craig's two outings. QOS's action sequences are too messily edited, at times bordering on incoherent. Michael Bay's long and awful shadow falls over them. Aside from Judi Dench's M, I found the female characters in QOS to be too sketchily written. And I'm beginning to wonder whether it's advisable, in a series that's based primarily on wish fulfillment fantasies about the wild life of "00" agents, to turn James Bond into yet another moody adventurer bent on avenging himself upon an unfair world. It's not Daniel Craig's fault. His Bond clearly does want to have a good time and enjoy some luxury; it's just that QOS never takes time to allow the character to savor the more fun aspects of the 007 life.

That said, I did enjoy Craig's work as 007 and Judi Dench's work as M. I thought the dialog was frequently close to witty, and that the villain, while not in the first rank of Bondian adversaries, brought enough menace to the role to keep me interested. All in all I had a good time with Quantum of Solace. It's in the middle of the Bond pack, fun to watch but not outstanding. Think Thunderball or Octopussy.

Oh, two final quibbles. I hated, hated, hated, hated, hated the title sequence, which stands as the most pedestrian one since License To Kill, and loathed the meandering, pointless title song. I also question the decision to save the gun barrel sequence for end. I missed it at the beginning, and I really want them to put it back. It just doesn't feel like a Bond movie without it.

Atlas Shrugged II: Electric Boogaloo

noreply@blogger.com (js) — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 06:47:00 +0000

I've never been able to take anyone who takes Atlas Shrugged seriously seriously, at least where politics, economics, or aesthetics are concerned. And no, I haven't read more than a few pages of this literary cement overshoe, mainly because, after ten pages or so, I kind of figured a) that the novel's odds of improvement were long and b) that the siren call of thousands of more interesting diversions, including doing the dishes and cleaning my computer screen, easily lured me from Ayn Rand's cardboard characters and turgid prose. Besides, I'm not a book reviewer by trade, so nobody's ever offered to pay me to endure 1,100 pages of Rand's nonsense, the gist of which I had already absorbed from a political science class in the form of Rand's equally silly but mercifully shorter essay collection The Virtue of Selfishness.

Still, it is gratifying to see that one of the charming someones at McSweeney's spent enough time with Atlas Shrugged to write this brilliant, timely parody.

Diary of A Superfluous Man

noreply@blogger.com (js) — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 05:58:00 +0000

I just thought I'd mention, since it's been consuming my life for the last three months, that Diary of A Superfluous Man will premiere on the MMIP website and at the iTunes Music Store as a free podcast Dec. 12th. It's exciting to finally have the play realized, if only electronically. The production process improved the script markedly, and, as with Let Us Sit Upon the Ground, I was damned lucky in casting. I've seldom had trouble finding talented actors to devote vast swathes of time to my projects, in spite of inability to pay. (Hopefully the MMIP's move to nonprofit status, and the generous support of listeners...hint...hint...will deliver us from this penury.)

You can listen to a sample scene here.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

noreply@blogger.com (js) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 04:51:00 +0000

Every year, the War on Christmas comes earlier and earlier.

Where does the time go? My meeting with the Northwestern Division Atheistical Sanhedrin (NORWESDAS, for short)--at which Julia Sweeney (looking quite fetching in a Prada-made black cape and cowl), me, Henry Rollins, and the Mythbusters set fire to a ceremonial Christmas Tree while singing the A side of the fifth Black Sabbath album and popping man-sized balloons inflated in the shape of TV Pundit William Bennett--seems like it happened just yesterday. I remember how we plotted all night to place ourselves, by means both insidious and foul, in key positions to rename the Christmas decorations slated to hang in the town square of Chitting Switch, Montana "holiday decorations". I remember cackling "WHERE WILL THEIR PRECIOUS GOD BE THEN! MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

After the orgy (a bacchanalia of absinthe and Vietnamese spin-fuck chairs), we said goodbye to each other with the traditional NORWESDAS salute, and melted away in the night mist.

Now it's time to buy the onyx candles and heroin again. I swear, if it keeps up, we'll be starting the War on Christmas on Labor Day.

We Done Treated Him Bad

noreply@blogger.com (js) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 02:37:00 +0000

Because I am relieved that Barack Obama is now the President-Elect, I laugh a little louder at arguments like this one from the Wall Street Journal's Jeffrey Scott Shapiro:

The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace. The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous, proving to the world what little character and resolve we have. The president is not to blame for all these problems. He never lost faith in America or her people, and has tried his hardest to continue leading our nation during a very difficult time.

Our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It has shown to the world how disloyal we can be when our president needed loyalty -- a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House.

Just a few weeks ago, I'd have used this argument as a chance to launch into another jeremiad about why people like Jeffrey Scott Shapiro make me ashamed of my connection to the human race. Now, I smile, as I did whenever Archie Bunker whined about the treatment of his beloved "Richard E. Nixon".

One argument deserves a response though. Shapiro says that one day people will recognize Bush's leadership in difficult times and accord him a higher degree of respect. Even though Bush's administration was a political, financial, and moral disaster of world-historical proportions, Shapiro may be on to something. Among Russians, Josef Stalin's reputation, which suffered greatly in the Khrushchev and Gorbachev eras, has rebounded. His approval rating among Russians (47%) is nearly double Bush's current rating with us. So, yes, Mr. Shapiro, Bush can take comfort. Any country sufficiently motivated to ignore the facts of its own history can rehabilitate even its most hideous leaders.

If this ever happens, then I'll have something to blame the people for.

The Unbearable Lightness of Palin

noreply@blogger.com (js) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 18:26:00 +0000

I've been consumed with both paying work and my labors on the next MMIP production. (Diary of A Superfluous Man coming to the internet in November). Consequently, and perhaps mercifully, I've been unable to follow the adventures of Sarah Palin all that closely. I did catch a segment of the debate last night, though, and I watched her interview with Couric on Youtube.

Palin is an ignoramus: a hustling, bullshitting featherhead completely out of her depth. But that's not the worst bit. Such creatures are legion in the world, and life is generally kind to them. What troubles me more is that a sizable percentage of the American public doesn't mind that she's running for Vice President as a hustling, bullshitting featherhead completely out of her depth. Indeed, they try to sell her glib ignorance and sad unwillingness to look facts in the face as evidence that she's a Real American, an authentic, two fisted, meat eating, faith holding exemplar of the Good, True, the Red-White-and-Blue. I would have thought that the farce of the last eight years would have sated all but the most stupidity-hungry voters, but no. Tens of millions of people actually look upon Sarah Palin, smile warm smiles, and say "She's so me!".

I remember, years ago, sitting in my friend Neil's apartment and watching evangelical TV. We did it for a laugh. Anyone who can tune in to Jack Van Impe or Paul Crouch and not laugh at the combination of piety, syrup, bombast, hairspray, eye shadow, and gold-painted particle board can never hope to laugh at anything. But even as we chuckled we knew that most of the people watching and giving money to these clowns weren't laughing. They believe in this gilded tripe. When Jack Van Impe claims that UFOs are the angels foretold in Revelations, or when Pat Robertson claims that feminists are witches, their congregations, millions strong, not only swallow their stories, but they also write checks to sponsor the spread of these important messages. Sarah Palin would have gotten nowhere in life if these same people weren't willing to stuff envelopes and knock on doors to spread the word for her.

Of course, every nation can boast its resident population of boobs, and they often wield substantial political power. But it's always been strange to me that the U.S., a country with magnificent cities, great universities, and more than its share of great thinkers in every field of human endeavor, would choose the benighted clodhopper as the symbol of its national identity, and judge politicians on the basis of how closely they match that image. You'd think that George W. Bush would have spoiled this symbol for good and all, but no. It lives and appears immortal. Hence, Sarah Palin.

The rest of the world might want to start interviewing for the next last best hope of humanity.

Irrationality Among Secular People

noreply@blogger.com (js) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:55:00 +0000

Yglesias picked this up from Douthat, who picked it up from the Wall Street Journal. Apparently Baylor University commissioned Gallup to conduct a poll that showed that secular people credit non-religious superstitions more readily than traditional Christians. Yglesias isn't surprised, and neither am I, I suppose, but I do have some questions and observations to toss out as well.

I wasn't able to see the poll's sub-data, but the article suggested that the big dividing line between secular and religious voters is the difference in frequency of religious observance. That's okay as far as it goes, but how far does it go? My father is a believer, but isn't a churchgoer. There are lots of people out there who describe themselves as "spiritual but not religious" who eschew services but believe in a everything from astrology to Zoroastrianism. And there are lots of people who are "Christmas/Easter" Christians. Are they lumped in with people like me, or does the poll separate the "secular" with the same rigor that it sifts the "traditionally religious"? The article doesn't say.

The reluctance of traditional Christians to go in for tarot cards or communication with the dead doesn't shock me either. Traditional Christianity frowns on such practices, not so much because they are irrational, but rather because they're ostensibly Satanic. That's why some of the more Ned Flandersey Christians become such pains in the ass about Harry Potter and Halloween. They think that depictions of magical practices or of ghouls and goblins, even when done in fun, will lead them and their children to hell. Christian superstitions proscribe other kinds of superstition. That's all.

And in the end it should be said that everyone is, to some degree or other, susceptible to irrational beliefs, particularly when the belief touches on an area where the victim either has limited expertise or feels certain the belief can grant their long-held wishes. Bill Maher's rejection of conventional medicine and Frank Tipler's Omega Point are examples of both impulses. We're all of us capable of being conned, or of conning ourselves. And we all look a little crazy to each other. Here's Mark Twain to explain:

Let us consider that we are all partially insane. It will explain us to each other; it will unriddle many riddles; it will make clear and simple many things which are involved in haunting and harassing difficulties and obscurities now.
Those of us who are not in the asylum, and not demonstrably due there, are nevertheless, no doubt, insane in one or two particulars. I think we must admit this; but I think that we are otherwise healthy-minded. I think that when we all see one thing alike, it is evidence that, as regards that one thing, our minds are perfectly sound. Now there are really several things which we do all see alike; things which we all accept, and about which we do not dispute. For instance, we who are outside of the asylum all agree that water seeks its level; that the sun gives light and heat; that fire consumes; that fog is damp; that six times six are thirty-six, that two from ten leaves eight; that eight and seven are fifteen. These are, perhaps, the only things we are agreed about; but, although they are so few, they are of inestimable value, because they make an infallible standard of sanity. Whosoever accepts them him we know to be substantially sane; sufficiently sane; in the working essentials, sane. Whoever disputes a single one of them him we know to be wholly insane, and qualified for the asylum.

Very well, the man who disputes none of them we concede to be entitled to go at large. But that is concession enough. We cannot go any further than that; for we know that in all matters of mere opinion that same man is insane--just as insane as we are; just as insane as Shakespeare was. We know exactly where to put our finger upon his insanity: it is where his opinion differs from ours.

That is a simple rule, and easy to remember. When I, a thoughtful and unblessed Presbyterian, examine the Koran, I know that beyond any question every Mohammedan is insane; not in all things, but in religious matters. When a thoughtful and unblessed Mohammedan examines the Westminster Catechism, he knows that beyond any question I am spiritually insane. I cannot prove to him that he is insane, because you never can prove anything to a lunatic--for that is a part of his insanity and the evidence of it. He cannot prove to me that I am insane, for my mind has the same defect that afflicts his. All Democrats are insane, but not one of them knows it; none but the Republicans and Mugwumps know it. All the Republicans are insane, but only the Democrats and Mugwumps can perceive it. The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.

When I look around me, I am often troubled to see how many people are mad. To mention only a few:
The Atheist, The Theosophists, The Infidel, The Swedenborgians, The Agnostic, The Shakers, The Baptist, The Millerites, The Methodist, The Mormons, The Christian Scientist, The Laurence Oliphant Harrisites, The Catholic, and the 115 Christian sects, the Presbyterian excepted, The Grand Lama's people, The Monarchists, The Imperialists, The 72 Mohammedan sects, The Democrats, The Republicans (but not the Mugwumps), The Buddhist, The Blavatsky-Buddhist, The Mind-Curists, The Faith-Curists, The Nationalist, The Mental Scientists, The Confucian, The Spiritualist, The Allopaths, The 2000 East Indian sects, The Homeopaths, The Electropaths, The Peculiar People, The----

But there's no end to the list; there are millions of them! And all insane; each in his own way; insane as to his pet fad or opinion, but otherwise sane and rational. This should move us to be charitable towards one another's lunacies. I recognize that in his special belief the Christian Scientist is insane, because he does not believe as I do; but I hail him as my mate and fellow, because I am as insane as he insane from his point of view, and his point of view is as authoritative as mine and worth as much. That is to say, worth a brass farthing. Upon a great religious or political question, the opinion of the dullest head in the world is worth the same as the opinion of the brightest head in the world--a brass farthing. How do we arrive at this? It is simple. The affirmative opinion of a stupid man is neutralized by the negative opinion of his stupid neighbor no decision is reached; the affirmative opinion of the intellectual giant Gladstone is neutralized by the negative opinion of the intellectual giant Newman--no decision is reached. Opinions that prove nothing are, of course, without value any but a dead person knows that much. This obliges us to admit the truth of the unpalatable proposition just mentioned above--that, in disputed matters political and religious, one man's opinion is worth no more than his peer's, and hence it followers that no man's opinion possesses any real value. It is a humbling thought, but there is no way to get around it: all opinions upon these great subjects are brass-farthing opinions.

It is a mere plain, simple fact--as clear and as certain as that eight and seven make fifteen. And by it we recognize that we are all insane, as concerns those matters. If we were sane, we should all see a political or religious doctrine alike; there would be no dispute: it would be a case of eight and seven--just as it is in heaven, where all are sane and none insane. There there is but one religion, one belief; the harmony is perfect; there is never a discordant note.

You can listen to this part of Twain's Christian Science, and more besides, here. Where I'm concerned, I try to hew close to what I take to be objective reality, cognizant of the limitations of my grey cells and my senses, and aware at all times that I could be wrong. It seems to me the safest, most civilized course, and it frees my Sundays for football.

The Seinfeld Microsoft Ad

noreply@blogger.com (js) — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 18:54:00 +0000

I suppose I'm joining a general consensus here, which makes me itchy. But I just watched the first Jerry Seinfeld commercial for Microsoft, and I think I know what it demonstrates about Microsoft. It's abundantly clear that they still have enough money to hire top talent and put it in the service of mediocre material.

Jerry, I hope you took Bill for a bundle.