Putting the Coal in Coalition

Pretty soon, I plan on getting bored with reposting news bites from The Chronicle of Philanthropy, I swear. Until then, here's another beaut from late November:

New Head of Christian Coalition Resigns

Citing a conflict over the future direction of the organization, the Christian Coalition's president-elect has resigned from his position, reports National Public Radio.

The Rev. Joel Hunter, senior pastor of a large church in Orlando, Fla., said he had wanted to focus on issues like poverty and the environment as a way to expand the organization's agenda beyond opposition to abortion and gay marriage. But he said he now believes the group is unwilling to move in that direction.

"At first it seemed like they were open to that," Mr. Hunter told NPR's All Things Considered. "But when it came down to it, they just couldn't quite go there. The phrase that was used was, 'Those are fine issues, but it's just not us, that's not our base.'"

Neither Christian Coalition board members nor other officials commented in the story.

Really? No comment, fellas? Here's one you might want to start getting used to then: "I never knew you."


I'm suddenly very interested in reading Hunter's book, Right Wing, Wrong Bird. Maybe Santa will have an elf POD one for me.

Breath of Fresh Air

Philanthropy Today continues to be far more interesting than other news outlets in my life such as Google News, NPR, or co-workers:

British Charity Takes New Approach to Stemming Pollution

A British charity trust has announced plans to buy carbon-emission credits and sit on them, hoping that the law of supply and demand will make it prohibitively expensive for companies to pollute, reports Edie News.

Pure, the trust, will purchase credits in the "carbon market," where companies trade "shares" that determine how much carbon dioxide they may legally emit. Each company is allotted so many shares and can sell them or buy more from other companies, depending on whether it pollutes more or less than its allotment.

But Pure says it will refuse to sell its shares, reducing the overall supply. In theory, that will increase the demand for, and price of, the remaining shares.

"It might be financially better for companies to reduce emissions than to buy credits. And that's what we're aiming to do," said a trustee of Pure.

This is hilarious and devious and perhaps good for humanity ALL AT ONCE.

It's not new for polluter companies to treat carbon credits as some crazy alternate currency -- it's as if dollar bills were carcinogenic, and corporate entities traded the amount of killing you they were allowed to do. Some get to kill you more, but only if others trade away or sell their ability to kill you. Of course, at any time a company can buy some Temporary Killing Dollars by paying real dollars to whatever government watchdog might or might not be looking.

It's safer, see? It protects you, the consumer.

And by "consumer" I mean "goods and services purchaser," not "air consumer." Because if you consume air, it doesn't protect you really all that well.

Anyway, the hilarious new twist is the wacky-neighbor nonprofit getting in on the action. This tactic looks more gimmicky than effective, since businesses will probably find it more economical to convince legislators to fabricate new credits rather than reduce emissions, rendering the jiggered scarcity for naught.

In the meantime though, Pure made some noise relevant to their mission, and took some Killing Dollars out of the economy for a while, at least. (I guess they're technically Killing Pounds.)

The Best Policy

I always feel uncomfortable when someone starts a sentence with "Let me be honest with you..."

Because, were you lying before now?

Strange Maps

Strange maps is a cool blog-thing and the title is self-explanatory so I won't explanator it.

Of particular interest:

• the map of the Planet Mongo
• a Maine map placing Stephen King's fictional locales

Also, other maps of general interest.

Mice Get All The Cool Stuff

These days, every couple of months some lab coat issues a press release about how his or her team has used stem cells to replace livers or arms or something. This month, it's eyes. OMG I would totally marry stem cells if I wasn't already engaged.

The other day I was thinking about the maladies that accompany mortality, and I felt pretty capable of learning to accept cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, etc. But I get a case of the heebie-jeebies thinking that some day I could go blind.

So I'm glad they're developing the technology for seeing-eye mice when my vitreous humor dries up in about 20 years.

The Sound of One Mind Boggling

Political uncertainty seems to have returned to us the Bush of old, the Bush who ate feet in front of the press. From the Washington Post, commenting on the electorate's apparent view of his view of Iraq:

"Somehow it seeped in their conscious [sic] that my attitude was just simply 'stay the course,'" he complained.

Where did we get that ide--? Oh, I remember. When you said it over and over and over and over and over and over. That's how it got in my conscious.

Electorate Hector

I was going to say something about how, despite all the "throw the bums out" rhetoric we've been subjected to this election season, we still basically voted in Kodos over Kang.

But you know, Rumsfeld getting the boot, that's almost kind of serious. I mean, it's still politics. The Bush administration sacrificed a big piece to show their seriousness, but at this point in the game, Rumsfeld is thoroughly expendable. Enjoy defense consultation, Rummy!

Still, that sacrifice is a real signal that the Bush admin plans to play ball in its remaining two years lest their many sins haunt them sooner rather than later.

Of course, your life won't be any different. See the Onion article for the truth of the matter.

Good Neighbors

This fence thing, wow. Is it stupid in here, or is it just me? I mean, I'm basically okay with pork bills, as long as they're non-egregiously idiotic.

But gee, 700 miles of fence... I hope nobody in Mexico has a ladder or anything. Or bolt cutters. Or crosses somewhere along the 1300 miles NOT covered by a fence. Or maybe comes into the country on a legitimate visitor's visa and then doesn't go home.

WHOOPS I'M GIVING AWAY ALL THE SECRETS.

Luckily it won't ever get built because they built in some extra stupid by not funding it and running it across a reservation. Whew.

Oh wait, that means both the legislative and executive branches of my federal government have wasted gobs of time on a boondoggle, perhaps as an attempt to distract voters from genuine issues. That's not lucky at all. That's um... whaddyacallit... horribly dispiriting.

I Miss My Girlfriend

Today I was talking about the word "fiancee" and how precious it sounds. Never trust a polysyllabic word with more vowels than consonants. Samuel Johnson once knifed a Hawaiian king for that, calling him "bruitish and uncivillized." (I read that on Wikipedia.)

"Fiancee" is dangerously easy to overuse. You don't sound like you're trying to prove anything if you talk about your girlfriend or your wife over and over. But no one is a fiancee for very long, so there are special connotations with the word. It's a reinforcement of how married you're about to be. If you say fiancee three times in one conversation, it's like you're saying, "I'm getting MARRIED soon. Because my fiancee and I are getting MARRIED soon. Did I mention I have a fiancee? Who is someone you get MARRIED to? Soon?"

Other problems:

• If you say it a bunch of times and get lazy about the word, it starts to rhyme with "Chauncey."
• When I type fast and misspell it, the word becomes "financee." Evil feminists are troublesome enough without easy puns to make their lives simpler. Like I'm just floating this chick until we get married, and then she pays interest for the rest of her life.
  
• The masculine version of the word, "fiance," is useless. Either make it look and sound masculine*, or make the word completely unisex. This missing "e" thing is too foo-foo. Freaking French.

*I suggest "Brawnmonster."

Hey, did I tell you?

Did you know I'm getting married?

Did I tell you yet?

Did -- yes... no, you didn't know because of the look on your face. I meant to tell you! I thought I told you. Sorry. I totally thought I told you by now.

Yeah, I know. It's sort of a surprise for us too, yeah, pretty fast. It feels really good though. I've never been happier for me.

No, well, you've probably seen her post a lot. Yeah. She posts a lot in the comments. I know, her blog is nearly dead. She never posts there any more. I asked her about it, but I think it's one of those things. Some people just blog for a while and then quit. I don't know. This is like, my third attempt at keeping a blog, so maybe you just have to try a few times before it sticks. I know, it's not like I post all the time either.

Well, thanks. It's... yeah. She's really great. She's everything I ever thought to look for, and some things I didn't know I could look for. She's great. I think it will be great.

Of course you're invited! Of course! We want your gift! No, I'm kidding. (I'm not really kidding.) JK! We're getting married in Dallas, in April, so that's kind of soon, and kind of far away from you, I know. Of course it'll be totally cool if you can't make it. I'd love for you to meet her, but I understand. No, but... we'd love to have you is what I'm saying.

Thanks. Yeah, thanks. It's great. Well, I'm happy for you too. I know, It's about time.

Hey, let's catch up some time. Next week maybe? Are you free next week? Okay, well soon then. See you next post!

Hugger Mugger

Last week some guy with a gun was really desperate to have my cell phone, and I didn't feel like I could say no. I also gave him $11. I would have given him more, but it was all I had.

Fortunately, a life spent playing role-playing games prepared me to deal with it.

Not because I invented an improbable heroic conclusion and then labored past good sense to enact it, but because long ago I did the thinking about this situation, so when it happened I was like, "Oh yeah, I've got a mental model for this. I'll just follow the script." I wasn't scared at any time. Mostly, I felt annoyed.

That rehearsal really shone when he demanded my wallet. I took out my waller, removed the cash, and held it out to him. He tried to argue, but the cash was closer to him than the wallet, and he already had his hands full with a cell phone and a gun, and what are you going to do? A mugger's only got two hands, man!

So he took the cash and ran, but on his way out he dropped a lighter and a some change out of his pocket. Poor planning! They'll let just anyone be an armed robber these days, I guess.

The harrowing part was that my girlfriend was on the other end of the phone at the time, and it's real horror movie stuff to have to hear that all go down and be so helpless. She said she would have been really mad at God if I had gotten killed.

I guess I would have had some questions for him too.

Sneeze Guard

I am allergic to everything in the animal kingdom except goats and rabbits. I encourage you to live with the mystery of that statement.

If for some crazy reason I ever want to add cats to my potential pet shortlist, now I can. For just under $4,000.

Allerca Inc., California, USA, says it has managed to breed the world's first hypoallergenic cats. People who are allergic to cats and buy one of these will not experience sneezing, red and itchy eyes or asthma - except in very acute cases.

The company says that as soon as the news got out people rushed to place orders and now there is a waiting list.

The company tested thousands of cats, looking for those tiny few that do not have glycoprotein Fel d1. Glycoprotein Fel d1 is what triggers allergic reactions in humans - it can be found in the fur, pelt, saliva, serum, urine, mucous, salivary glands, and hair roots of the cat. On finding a decent number of cats that did not carry glycoprotein Fel d1, the scientists selectively bred them.

The company wants to stress that their cats are not the result of genetic engineering, but selective breeding. Yeah, uh, that's just low-tech genetic engineering, dude.

Give Till It Hurts Politically

So what I did a few weeks ago was I went and got myself a job as a grantwriter. Now at work I get a daily update of headlines from the Chronicle of Philanthropy. (Something funny about the url "philanthropy.com")

There's a world of nonprofits that you never hear about, and I don't know why. It's just as interesting as for-profit business, and there are even more colorful characters.

Here's a news story that fell into my work mailbox today. It contains several fascinating observations in a compact space.

Federal Aid Reaches Few Black Churches, Report Says

Fewer than 3 percent of black churches have received federal funds under the Bush administration's effort to help religious charities, reports The Washington Post.

A survey by the Joint Center for Political Empowerment and Economic Studies concluded that because black churches have a limited ability to run social programs, very little of the estimated $2-billion in federal money available for philanthropic work each year ends up in their hands. One quarter of the 750 black churches surveyed have annual revenue of less than $250,000, the study found.

The survey also examined the political affiliation of religious organizations that received federal grants. Liberal churches tended to view President Bush's attempts to help churches with skepticism, but they were also more likely to apply for and receive money, the report said.

On the other hand, far fewer conservative churches, despite supporting President Bush politically, have sought federal aid.

The Bush administration might inadvertently have done some Democrat-style work while appealing to a Republican Christian constituency. I'm glad someone's doing it.

Cripes

Thanks to Sarah, I have been turned on to Geez magazine, an Adbusters for the curious and faithful and maybe the self-loathing.

The magazine is full of the Adbusters brand (oh, it’s a brand all right) of intellectual self-flagellation that starts with a genuine, admirable desire to know and improve thyself, and proceeds from inquiry to recrimination to eventual numbness.

It pulls like a tide, and then an undertow, page after page of earnest, “Doesn't modernity kind of suck? Are you doing enough? Didn’t you know you’re kind of not good enough?”

The answer is yes, I’m well aware that I’m not good enough. Now get off my fucking case.

But, it’s good bathroom reading, and I do enjoy the navel-gazing. I also like people attempting to answer the questions they bring up, and these Geez kids don't always seem on that bandwagon.

I can’t figure out if I like Geez yet. I think maybe I don't. But I have a subscription. And I like getting it in the mail.

If you’re getting mixed messages, it’s because I’m sending them.

Hot Enough For You?

I spent last weekend in Dallas. It was hot outside. I have known hot. I have sweltered. I grew up in Tennessee, went to college in Alabama, pulled a summer gig in Arizona where they tell you it's the heat, not the humidity, but they LIE because it is both, and you break into a back-drenching sweat when you wiggle your eyebrows violently outdoors.

One hundred degree temperatures and I -- we are not close, but we have history.

This heat in Dallas though was qualitatively different. I have been burned, pierced, and baked by heat, but I don't ever recall it weighing on me. This heat was a presence. It was heavy, trying to force you to the ground for the crime of breaking daylight curfew. This heat was angry. It personally disliked you and gave you the silent treatment so you couldn't even ask what you'd done that it thought was so wrong. It was as though all the greenhouse gases threw a party over Dallas and no one wanted to be the first chlorofluorocarbon to leave.

And I'm going back this weekend.

T-rex plays the role of "me."

Today is a good day I think for linking to Dinosaur Comics.

Exquisite Corpse Flower

For years and years I would hear about things going on in New York City, and they would sound great and fascinating, just as you imagine a fairy hootenanny sounds like a great time in the fantasy world of Zordenlandia. But you don't know exactly what that is, and you'll never find out.

These days, I still feel giddy when I remember that I am -- tops -- a three-hour train ride from NYC, where strange and wonderful things happen with alarming regularity.

Here is the latest, which I hope to visit later this week: the blooming of the corpse flower at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden.

The titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum) is one of the world's most remarkable plants. Native to tropical forests in Sumatra, it produces a monstrous four- to nine-foot-tall flower head, which releases a monstrous stench of putrefaction at peak bloom (another name for the plant is the corpse flower!). The species rarely flowers in cultivation—the last time one bloomed in New York was 1939. However, Brooklyn Botanic Garden's ten-year-old specimen recently began to flower. It's in peak bloom right now!

It's so monstrous, they used the word twice!

Sadly, all my New York friends simultaneously moved to other states, so I don't have free places to stay overnight anymore. But clearly, the opportunity to smell a putrefied Audrey II is worth a day trip if I can swing it.

August Linkdump

More stuff I found lately.

Scientists study using ketamine to lift depression
Down at the club, this is known as a "recreational drug." Here's another one for you, science dudes: Bourbon might be an excellent sedative!

Billy Graham facing mortality
Newsweek rides the Christian bandwagon again.

Also, I think I found out why Newsweek is so Jesusy. The managing editor, John Meachum, is a flagrant Christian, if you can even believe, who wrote this here book.

Churches that give you what you want, not what you need
Nothing new, but certainly nothing wrong here. Plus, they have big headshots of C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton in their banner, and I am just the target demographic to be suckered by that.

Why is Google paying MySpace to be their search provider?
I don't have a MySpace page, and I own no stake in Google. Following this seems like a nerdy version of caring what Brittney Spears and Kevin Federline do. But still, I do so desperately care.

My Election Year Rant

See, what happened is, Jan, with big innocent doe eyes, unwittingly asked me to deliver one of my favorite politics rants here.

I usually wait for presidential election years to pull this out, because that's when it's most likely to come up in casual conversation, and people will be most tolerant of my crackpot ideas, and I can deliver the 30-second soundbite version to my close friends. Sometimes repeatedly. To their delight.

But since Jan asked so nicely, it has become clear that impending mid-term elections are as good a time as any to inflict this upon you share.


You, the discerning reader, know that democracy is broken in the United States.

You also know why: The electorate does not care to make well-informed choices, candidates prefer obfuscation to clarity, and people with a lot of money hold great sway over the decision-makers, and thus, their decisions.

I would be more dismayed if I thought this was different from the early years of the American experiment. Instead, I am just regular-style dismayed.

However, democracy in a less-broken form means that anyone can run for an office, provided he or she meets some established criteria. (Like, you have to be 35 years old to be POTUS. That sort of thing.)

This will sound eerily similar to my economic theory: We make the government. (Unlike my economic theory, I think the government DOES make us back, however.) Any time a number of us decide to act differently, the government will act differently.

We intrinsically have the power to vote for the most qualified candidate, because anybody we want to vote for is running. Furthermore, it is a citizen's duty to lead if elected by the populace. If everybody think you're the shit, you'd better get up there and be The Shit.

If I lived in Dallas, and I thought Jan would be a great mayor of Dallas, I could vote for her as a write-in candidate (assuming she met local established criteria, of course). I don't even need to get the petition signatures to get her on the ballot. I could just write her name and walk out of the polling booth feeling unconflicted about my choice. Wouldn't that be awesome?

And if there's, oh, I don't know, say, a majority us who think the same way, whether or not Jan thinks she'd be a good mayor, it's her responsibility to try anyway, because it's what we all want. Because that's how democracy works, see.

Given this truth, the idea of a lesser of two evils becomes looo-dicrous. It's really our job to choose a LEAST of all available evils to vote for.

But even trying to figure out which one of two basically indistinguishable faces to vote for in an election can be taxing. How do you search every citizen for the best choice?

Well you don't. You've got better thnigs to be doing. But as an intermediate step, I recommend spending about 10 minutes googling third parties in your district/state/nation and looking around.

Especially for presidential elections, there are a dozen fairly serious political parties to consider. You won't have to consider many of them long -- the Prohibition Party does not have a popular enough platform for you to spend time on.

But what if you like non-intrusive government, but don't care for the Republicans' devotion to the drug war? Then you might look at the Libertarian Party.

What if you've recently reread the Constitution and noticed how far the current federal government has drifted? What if you like a Biblical foundation for law, but don't agree with the current administration's particular take? You might want to read up on the Constitution Party.

What if you like the idea of science playing a larger role in government? Consider the Natural Law Party.

I haven't even bothered mentioning the Green Party, The Reform Party, or the dark horse Socialist Workers Party.

This is real. There are millions of people in the United States working and thinking on how we can make the government, and those millions of people are not locked into "Democrat" or "Republican" mindsets.

Though they don't have the resources to make competitive stabs at the Presidential elections, they run pretty competitive state and local races. Which is good, because more local races are coming up in a few months. Currently, there is one independent senator: Sen Jeffords (I), VT. But there's no reason why we can't choose more of them in November.

Assuming that you're thinking about voting in the next available election, do just a little homework in Wikipedia or Google about third parties. You might find someone you actually WANT to vote for instead of the latest models of Brand X and Brand Y. And if enough people do that, we might find ourselves with leaders we WANT to follow.

The Real Ruling Party

A friend recently accused me of not being conservative.

Me? Not conservative? WTF? I'm in favor of small government and fiscal accountability and such.

He was unswayed. To prove his point, he asked me, "Which do you prefer, people taking responsibility for themselves or handouts to poor people?"

And I was all like, "Why can't I be in favor of both?" He assured me I couldn't be.


When I lived in Birmingham, Alabama and attended a Christian university, people called me a liberal. When I worked for a game company in Seattle, Washington, people called me conservative.

You know what I call it when extremes label you the opposition? The elusive "moderate" position. But moderation doesn't eschew either end of a spectrum. It consists of both. I mean, duh.

But this current executive branch is neither conservative nor liberal. It is authoritarian.

John W. Dean expounds in a useful article in the Boston Globe saying things I wish were said louder and sooner:

Today's Republican policies are antithetical to bedrock conservative fundamentals. There is nothing conservative about preemptive wars or disregarding international law by condoning torture. Abandoning fiscal responsibility is now standard operating procedure. Bible-thumping, finger-pointing, tongue-lashing attacks on homosexuals are not found in Russell Krik's classic conservative canons, nor in James Burham's guides to conservative governing. Conservatives in the tradition of former senator Barry Goldwater and President Ronald Reagan believed in "conserving" this planet, not relaxing environmental laws to make life easier for big business. And neither man would have considered employing Christian evangelical criteria in federal programs, ranging from restricting stem cell research to fighting AIDs through abstinence.

I'm not ready to go with him on Reagan's disbelief in relaxing environmental laws to make life easier for big business. His eco-sins are carefully listed in a commentary at grist.org.

But the rest of the article has some useful points for the plaintive American moderate.

America is depending on me, Mr. President. And by America, I mean the World.

This is the pilot episode of The Amazing Screw-On Head at the Sci-Fi channel Web site.

According to the flashing light on my monitor, it is Condition: Awesome.

The animation is a little rough, but if you're even partly nerdy, it's worth the 23 absurd minutes you'll spend watching. If you're not nerdy, then, you know, watch sports or something.

Covenant Member

I covenanted with (i.e. seriously joined) my church tonight. A covenanter is expected to say a few words about how he or she got here, and why he or she is covenanting.

Most people ad lib their way through it, and everybody's basically on your side, so it's about as big a deal as you want to make it. I wanted to make it a sufficiently large deal. This wasn't a silly formality to join a club for me. I read and considered and chose to covenant -- to commit, to promise -- to be with a group of people. There were things I wanted to be sure I said, and I wanted to do it well.

Here's the transcript:

I came here two years ago, to Philadelphia, to Circle of Hope, pursuing a relationship. Unfortunately, the relationship has not turned out the way I wanted it to. But note that I’m still pursuing it. This is a useful metaphor. I’ll come back to it.

I have called myself feral, and preferred to stay out in the dark rather than come into the light by the house. Because in the light you have to look at the people who are beating you up, people who you thought were your friends, bloodying your lip, sometimes in the name of Christ.

People who seem to take “You hurt the ones you love” as a command rather than a rueful observation. At least out in the dark it’s not a betrayal when you get hurt.

I tend to wander. I started wandering out of curiosity, out of joy, but somewhere wandering also turned into flight from things that aren’t joyful. I still love wandering, but after a lot of it, I’m ready to rest. I’m ready to come in out of the dark.

I know I’m screwed up. I want to come home. So I’m leaving the dark and the feralness, and I’m going to come into the house and put on clothes and sit by the fire.

Some of you may still beat me up, some of you might still be mean to me, and the relationships I pursue may stay out of my reach. But I want to stay in the house this time because I am loved and wanted. I’ve learned that coming inside and pursuing relationships is better than wandering away from them.

In addition to the feel-goods, I also want to challenge you. Now that I’m coming into the house, now that I’m committing to you, I hope you will take as seriously your commitment to me. Do not be mean to me. Do not ignore me. And for the love of God, if I start to wander again, do not let me disappear.

Thanks for your love and friendship. I look forward to being in the house with you.

Loose Truth

There was a girl in college with whom I was stupidly in love. I mean skipping class, ignoring friends, staying up all night in love. She named her cat Buechner after Fredrick Buechner, the theologian.

I read some of Buechner’s stuff in college because of her, and it threatened my religion. I knew that was a dance with heresy, and I was neither sure-footed enough in my orthodoxy nor carefree or desperate enough in my rebellion to step on that floor.

The girl was a deeper, more troubled person than I was, and she meant to use her dance card. She read Buechner and wondered and wandered and eventually became a missionary in Russia. The Baptists didn't think she was ready to be one of their missionaries, so she raised money and went her own damn self.

I remained safe, which has its own rewards, but I've learned that precariousness in the name of Christ is so much more worthwhile. Now I'm digging like fuck, trying to remember where I buried that talent.

So maybe I'm deep and troubled enough now. This all comes up because I read Buechner recently, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairytale, and that guy blew through the back of my head. I would be a slightly better man if I had read more of him earlier.

He points to John 18:38. Right after Jesus says, “Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” And Pilate says, “What is truth?”

I don’t know why I keep being surprised that the Bible keeps surprising me. I had Bible drilled into my marrow as a kid. But bits of that thing keep surprising me, things I did not know were there.

Jesus says something sublime, which those of my religious ilk have taken down and stuffed into our own mouths and repeat with the comprehension of parrots.

This is not a boast, what Jesus says. This is a metaphysical fact. If you align with truth, then you’re listening to Jesus. Jesus followers tend to invert this, and think that because they listen to Jesus they are on the side of truth... which is true, but not how Jesus puts it. You don’t choose Jesus and get truth as a side order. When you choose to side with truth, you are inescapably listening to Jesus.

Whether you know Jesus, whether you like Jesus, you are listening to him. This association makes truth and Jesus nearly indistinguishable. When I think about him that way, I slough layers of dead religious tradition. In addition to being the Way and the Life, he is, notably the Truth.

And then Pilate comes back with existentialism modern as toasters, yet apparently, old as carnivores. “What is truth?”

Cynicism or questing? Can’t it be both? I guess that Pilate wasn’t seriously asking the question, because if he had, maybe he would have had a shot at seeing Truth damn near incarnate.

The Bible doesn’t say that Jesus answered that question. But he stood there, being the answer.

This is all stuff Buechner brings up. And there’s more.

Drunk Think Tank

A couple of weeks ago for the first time in my life, I went out on Friday night with intent to get drunk.

A friend remarked, on hearing this story, that I was still responsible enough to hand my keys over to let someone else drive. Which is true. But I didn’t want to get drunk and stupid. I wanted to get drunk and obliterated.

I’ve been drunk before, of course, but always accidentally, at parties, never as a mission. However, a series of events which I will not relate here drove me to think that I would like to not be me for a while.

I have the alcohol tolerance of a spider monkey, so it’s not a long trip from sober to blotto. About 30 ounces of beer later (on a completely empty stomach) and I was weaving to the bathroom.

I had a girlfriend who I loved in Seattle, and who I guess I still love a little, who spent her 20s getting smashed with impunity. When I knew her, I had no mental frame for this behavior. I’ve been plenty miserable in life, but I never medicated.

I asked the Seattle girlfriend one time, “Why do people do this? Why get drunk when it doesn’t make things better, and it really only hurts you in the long run?”

Seattle girlfriend was beautiful and smart, but not a verbal person, so explanations came hard to her. She said, “You can just not be yourself for a while.”

When explains jack to someone looking in from the outside. Now that I’ve been inside though, I ken it. It is beautiful. I was raised to fear alcohol. Now I know better.

A couple of weeks ago I went out to not have to be myself for a while. For a few hours rejection and aimlessness -- companions so close I should carry wallet photos -- took a walk. I didn’t feel good, but I didn’t feel bad. For a night, I call it a win. And the next day, I put away some childish things. That I call a victory.

Frustrated Mess

About 10 years ago I told a therapist I was depressed. He wanted to know why.

"It's genetic," I said. "There doesn't have to be a why."

"Well, we don't know that depression is genetic," he said, "We know it runs in families."

That was a useful distinction to keep me from thinking like a victim.

But lo, scientists in modern-day Canadia deliver up new news: Depression has a genetic component after all.

"The actual gene, known as P2RX7, is found in humans and animals and is responsible for depression. It has taken many years to find," said Barden.

The mood disorder has often been associated with the serotonin system in the brain, because serotonin-boosting drugs are effective anti-depressants. "What is particularly exciting is that P2RX7 has nothing to do with serotonin," said Barden.

P2RX7 plays an important role in the brain's response to inflammation, which is known to be part of many neuropsychiatric disorders. The activity of the gene is also affected by stress hormones, suggesting a relationship between depression and severe stress.

You don't need professional scientists to tell you that stress and depression have each other on speed dial. I just got off a six month bender of it that started with two strong shots of stress.

However, I don't take anti-depressants. I'm not opposed to the idea; it's just that current methods of anti-depressant prescription appear to involve a roulette wheel and squinting. Then once you've been prescribed a particular medicine, it takes several weeks to kick in, brings an entourage of side effects, and oh, by the way, might not work. Ha ha! You rock, big pharm!

I don't need an all-new way to be a victim, and since nobody knows what they're doing anyway, I can be miserable, blind, and hopeful on my own, thanks.

But if these Canadanians have their science on straight, the current dartboard methodology of anti-depressant prescriptions might be explained because... they're aiming at the wrong thing. The article goes on to say that animal testing also demonstrates immediate, effective anti-depressant action.

Anti-depressants that work... too bad Jimi didn't live to see it.

Populism Always Wins

A big list of Non-Errors in English grammar and usage. Things that some people think are important, but really? Not so much.

Fresh out of college, I was an editor for a start-up children's magazine that you've never heard of and doesn't still exist. We were at a trade show or something, and a large-ish promotional piece said something about "raising children." I had written those words, since I was the staff copywriter. (I was the staff everythingwriter.)

During a lull, a smugly smarmy gentleman selling children's dictionaries crossed the aisle to inform me that the proper phrase was "rearing children."

"Yeah, but nobody talks that way," I said. It's a legitimate rebuttal, but secretly I felt chastised.

The pang of that public shame combined with my fondness for the mongrel nature of English has led me, as a professional, to loathe language snobbery.

I tend to practice the "correct" version of many of these non-errors even though I'm usually the only person in the room who knows or cares what they are. But if someone bundled them into a sack and dropped them down a well, I'd hold the bucket out of the way.

Never Worth Fightin' Over

I was scrolling through my variegated pictures folder today looking for an authorial headshot for Seek, the o-fish-l magazine for Brethren in Christ, which I seem to be one of these days. So the next issue will feature a little ditty by me, for the completists among you.

The Point: Whipping through the folder, I discovered a picture I loved so much that I saved it in case the internet breaks. I want to share it.

If ever you browse my links, you'll note one to Scarygoround, a web comic I pretty much adore. Scarygoround is a M-F comic about people in England who live in a town where supernatural and mildly horrific things happen a lot. I love the writing, I love the art, and John Allison draws fetching young women -- always lovely, but never cheesecake.

Here's the setup. The guy in this comic, Ryan, a career slacker, has decided to venture to the land of the dead to visit his deceased ex-girlfriend. He has just arrived.

Normally, an SGR comic ends with a quirky turn of phrase that sets up the next day's offering. This day was different. This day was suddenly, unexpectedly poignant. It makes you want to call someone you love. If I had a refrigerator I would put this on it. I wanted to share it with you, whoever you are.

The Mind Killer

I hear in the performance biz, that it’s good to feel a little scared before stepping onto stage, that if you don’t feel a little scared, you’re doing it wrong. I don’t think that’s true. I think people generally find fear an effective motive, and never find anything else to be motivated by, so they just use that one every time they’re about to take the stage – metaphor or not.

I hate this idea. I'm exhausted by fear. I'm annoyed by fear. I'm burdened by it way more than goaded. Like kudzu of the heart, despite scorched-earth efforts to kill it, I still have plenty. Every time I discover a new crop, I throw up my hands and scream. On the inside, I mean.

This is probably not a healthy way to look at it. I know the psychology line for this one: Fear is an emotion. Emotions aren't good or bad. They're just you. When you fight, you're just fighting yourself. When you accept the thing is when it begins to take its rightful place in your mind and heart.

Which is both true and oversimplified. But see, I don't want to sit still and practice breathing and find my center. I just want to be fearless.

There's more in time and space to motivate you. And way better.

Electric Mayhem Solo Album

Dude, we can totally grow new teeth now. Available to the public in two years. Reasonably affordable in maybe five to ten years.

Can You Picture That?

Groovy's New Tats

My car's name is Groovy. Very slowly -- like, glacier slow -- I've been painting designs on Groovy over the last few months. I have no overarcing plan. I wish I did, but the throes of this particular idea brooked no waiting.

Here are some pictures.





This is the roof. My main aesthetic is: circles. I like the happy accident of the house reflected. I am less fond of the bird crap I didn't bother to wipe off before taking the picture.

I've actually done more since I took this picture, adding a rectangle of all the scandalous things.





I think this is going to be ghosts in a rock band on a trippy yellow stage. However, it was going to be three other things before that, so caveat custodes. Here's a closer shot.




The paint I used for the ghosts was on sale. When I opened it, I found out why: The stuff was more putty than liquid. It congealed on my brush as I worked, so eventually I just started finger painting with it. For once watching paint dry wasn't boring -- it was a race against time.

Several minutes later, when it dried, it looked like I'd gobbed Play-Doh onto the side of my car. Yesterday, I sanded some of the thickness (and my fingerprints) off. The fullness of drying (not pictured here) has caused the paint to crack, so my ghosts have the yellow background peeking through cracks in their green bodies. I can't tell whether I like this yet.

Free Buffett!

I've been a Warren Buffett fan for a long time, as have all right-thinking people. It's refreshing to see heaping schooners of cash fail to create a monster. Gives me hope for the rest of us trying to coax camels through needles.

He says he's not ill, but mortality has clearly found Warren's home phone number and is calling at dinner time, because he's cashing out.

A lot of his $44 billion estate will be flowing out of the United States, since he's giving it to Bill and Melinda Gates. An AP news story reports that $20 billion dollars was sent to Mexico from the U.S. in 2005. People already complain about how that sucks money out of our economy. I'm just spitballing, but between Buffett and Gates, a couple of 2005s worth of money will be going to India and parts of Africa in the next few years.

Why are Americans okay with rich-people philanthropy, but not poor-people philanthropy?

I'm just sorry this didn't get done sooner. Buffett says in the interview that he wanted to keep the wealth in his high-compounding hands as long as possible, rather than spend it too soon and squander earnings potential. I guess so, but I wonder what pounds of cure would have been rendered unnecessary by earlier ounces of prevention.

My Favorite Deadly Sin

I’ve been reading productivity web sites in the last few months. Most recently, I’ve been reading www.stevepavlina.com, and for a while I left the page about how to become an early riser open in my browser.

I don’t write here in praise of sloth, nor is this confession. It’s just admission. I am slothful.

I like the first definition of sloth best: a “disinclination to work.” I don’t consider myself lazy, or other synonyms for sloth. I’m just disinclined.

However, I am beginning to tire of sloth. If that sounds funny, good.

I have a couple of barriers to becoming less slothful. First, I must alter habits and mindsets that dispose me to do nothing rather than something. Second, and more insidiously, I don’t like productive people. They variously seem brusque, boring, materialistic, self-centered, and while perhaps not unfriendly, they don’t seem to want to hang out, to take time, to enjoy people and being where they are. Whatever they’re doing is more important than the people they’re with.

The first thing I feel confident I can overcome with time and application. Once I want it (and I am coming around to want it), I’ll pick it up.

The second thing I need to find some peace with. I don’t want to be a person for whom love is subsidiary to agenda. I don’t want something besides being where I am to take precedence. But being "productive" seems at odds with that mindset. I don't know how to reconcile them yet.

Lunchtime

Craigslist does not make as much money as it could. Like, $475M less than it could, sez the Wall Street Journal.

This article is from a couple of weeks ago, but it took me some time to put together what I had to say.

In Mr. Buckmaster's view, newspapers would be better off being a little more Craigslist-like: Go private, eschew Wall Street's demands for continually "goosing profitability" and give your readers what they want. Much trouble in the world comes, in Mr. Buckmaster's view, from losing sight of that essential goal.

After we've retired back to the living room for coffee, Mr. Buckmaster allows that the world is perhaps not quite that simple. When asked whether there's a Craigslist model that other companies could emulate, the unflappable Mr. Buckmaster, his eyes once more fixed firmly on the horizon out the window, waxes lyrical for a moment: "It's unrealistic to say, but -- imagine our entire U.S. workforce deployed in units of 20. Each unit of 20 is running a business that tens of millions of people are getting enormous amounts of value out of each month. What kind of world would that be?"

Before I have time to object, Mr. Buckmaster comes back to our world. "Now, there's something wrong in the reasoning there," he admits. "You can't run a steel company in the same way that you run an Internet company" -- more points for understatement. "But still, it's a nice kind of fantasy that there are more and more businesses where huge amounts of value can flow to the user for free. I like the idea, just as an end-user, of there being as many businesses like that as possible." As an end-user, I suppose I do, too. But there are no free lunches, even if Craigslist -- and the meal Mr. Buckmaster and Ms. Best provided for me -- sometimes seem to come close.

The article says Craigslist employs about 21 people, and makes $25M a year. It's safe to assume that money isn't split evenly among all the employees, but I bet nobody's doing badly either.

The idea that you look to be helpful, and make plenty of money (the Buckmasters live in a nice house, after all) but not as much as you could, is very like what I was talking about when I said we make the economy, the economy does not make us.

You don't take money just because you can. You take a generous amount and leave the rest, because there's just no good reason to have more.

Here's the new scheme: Rather than concentrate the money in a vicious oligarchy, a business takes a fair amount and leaves the rest for other businesses who are also taking a fair amount and leaving the rest. This increases the overall pool of viable businesses, which generates more work for more people, and lower costs on the goods and services that already exist (due both to suppliers taking less than they could, and increased demand).

It wouldn't even be communism. Capitalism would thrive because there would be less punishment for failure. You could recover from a business failure in a fraction of the time it takes currently. It seems counter-intuitive to capitalism as we know it that this would work, but it easily could.

The reason it won't is that a significant number of us won't buy into it. We don't even ALL have to buy into it. Some miserable number of us can still be greedy bastards. Maybe even a miserable majority can continue. As long as a significant minority are willing to run this way, we'll see the rewards.

There might not be any free lunches. But expensive lunches are entirely optional.

Misery Loves An Audience

I was listening to a They Might Be Giants podcast on the way home yesterday and it contained a song that is catchy, and at the same time, a little awful. If you are a fan of TMBG, you will know this is not uncommon.

Aside: People whose opinions I respect have subtly poo-pooed TMBG for years, declaring them “only OK.” I used to think, “There must be something I’m not seeing that makes them less than great, because I think they're great. But maybe they’re not.”

Then on the train I thought, "Hey, you know what people whose opinions I respect? Screw you! I don’t know what your problem is, but this is great stuff. It speaks to me, and it’s inventive, fun, and thought-provoking, which is just about the most I want from art.”

Return: In this song, Renew My Subscription, John Linnell sings a song about (among other things) taking medication for psychosis. Many first-person TMBG songs are not necessarily autobiographical. But as I listened to the lyrics I realized: If this is not rooted in something personal, then the guy has done hella research. And really, it’s probably just personal.

They go:

I saw the thing about the heartsick shut-in
thought that I should cut in
and tell you ‘bout how
it woke me from a lifelong daydream
while I’ve been aging
you wrote it all down
though I recognized the words when I read them
I know I never said them
to people out loud

One, this is about aging. Two, this is about self-recognition and expression. Three, I didn’t write down the psychosis part of this song. Download the podcast through iTunes to hear for yourself, or you can follow the somewhat complicated procedure through their site at TMBG.com. Or you could buy their Venue Songs album; the song is there too.

I started thinking about TMBG’s catalog, and realized that a lot of their songs, a whole lot of their songs, are about being alienated, confused, or mentally unwell. Even when they’re obviously talking about someone else (Meet James Ensor, Metal Detector) that person is still not your role model. Regardless of subject, their interest is in unwell people.

The music is fun. The lyrics are clever. And these guys did a children’s album, and they’ve got great senses of humor, and amid all of this, you can easily get caught in a life size smoke screen around the melancholy and disconnection.

TMBG’s first couple of albums were more nakedly unsettled, but it seems like they lived some life, and went through a period of trying different things. I recently heard on another podcast that they were returning to playing older songs on tours, songs they hadn’t played live in 10 years. Renew My Subscription reminds me that they may be returning to the cleverly crafted expressions of alienation and perhaps songs about genuine insanity from their early days.

Furthermore: I began to put that together with some other artists/writers/musicians whose work I’ve recently plumbed deeply enough to realize that even though their output is fun, they’ve got a layer of sorrow/anxiety/unrest behind it.

I’ve always worked hard at concealing my misery in creative ventures -– including this blog. No one wants to hear about how depressed I’ve been, I think. That shit’s depressing. And even the people who want to be kind instead of disparaging or noncommittal, few are helpful when they try. Some people’s help just hurts more. So keep that away from the light, right? Deal with it solo and just give them what they want to see.

But listening to my favorite band on the train I discovered: The art needs to be miserable if you’re miserable. If misery is the truth you feel, then you have to put that in there. Trying to avoid it makes bad art. More often, avoiding it means you don’t do anything at all.

Pest Control

originally written 5/20/06

Last night I bagged my second Volkswagen-sized cockroach of the season in my bedroom. It would be more accurate to say I “cupped” it, scooping it up in a big 32-ounce plastic cup. Then I filled the thing a third full of water, put it in the bathroom and went to bed.

I did this because this is how I used to kill scorpions. When I lived in Georgia, about every nine weeks (average) a tiny scorpion would get into my apartment and hang out. I didn’t even know Georgia had scorpions. Damn immigrants.

Unlike other bugs*, these scorpions did not care to hide under things. I arrived home from work, opened the door, and the scorpion had apparently done the complex geometry to discern the most open spot in the room. Even when I came in they never tried to hide, like they were too damn cool to scurry. They were pleasantly easy to catch that way.

I tried a variety of indirect scorpion-killing methods such as crushing and asphyxiation. Scorpions are tough bastards though. They don’t fall for the classics. Then I tried drowning.

Remember that hoary scorpion and toad story, where the scorpion cons the toad into carrying him across the river and promises he won’t sting him because that would doom them both? Then he does it anyway because that’s his nature? It’s true. Not the nature part. That’s a stupid moral. No, the truth is scorpions can’t swim.

Every scorpion I dropped in water sank like rocks. A few hours later, I’d toss the drowned corpse into the woods outside my apartment. That’s the circle of life.

Cockroaches, on the other hand, are swimmy little dudes. The one last night started freestyling as soon as he went in the drink, and kept it up for several minutes as I watched him. Then I went to bed. Today I got up and checked on him –- still going. There was tiny roach poop in the bottom of the cup, and his antennae were droopy, but still kicking like he’s on a Tony Little Gazelle.

Those must have been death throes, because a little while later he was in his personal Davy Jones’s Locker. According to scientific measurement, he swam for 13 hours. Then I flushed him down the toilet.

I would have thrown him out into the woods, but I want cockroaches out of the damn circle of life.

*The entomologically inclined among you will note that scorpions aren’t bugs. Keen observers will note I don’t care.

Taking the Brain Out of Brainwork

I started a new job yesterday. It’s a lot of things I want in a job. It's downtown so I can take the train to work. The dress is casual so I don't have to wonder if my tie matches. Most of all, the work is easy enough that I don't have to care much.

When I got home today, I had a freelance assignment due by COB on the west coast. So I spent a couple of hours, finished it, sent it. Then I had a rare feeling: the feeling of done. Not wondering what's due tomorrow, or what I forgot to do today. I'm free for the evening to do whatever seems like a good idea. And I'll feel that way tomorrow too. And then Thursday.

This loose liberty preceded my last burst of creativity a couple of years ago when I had the blissfully no-mind job of cell phone repairman. The less my brain thinks about work, the more it gets to think about art and comics and girls and... whatever seems like a good idea.

I've been trying to wander my way back toward that work ever since I left it to move to Philadelphia. It's too early to know whether this is that. But it's the closest I've been since I stopped soldering for a living.

June Linkdump

I've been holding on to these links as if I were going to comment meaningfully, but it's not gonna happen.

Algebra and Its Enemies
What with my B.A. in English, I'm supposed to moan about how terribly difficult math is. Well, your liberal arts paradigm is about to be rocked: I like math. Logically rigorous thinking is hard for me, but where is the petulant "real life" where I don't use math? As a game designer, I damn well used math. I don't use much from the works of James Thurber either, but I've sure read plenty.

Paean to William Tyndale
Why he belongs in the same category as Shakespeare.

Post-Mastectomy Reconstruction
As both a compassionate human and a standard-issue male, I declare this WIN-WIN.

the show with zefrank
This is my new favorite daily internet time waster.

Can Rock Stars Change the World?
Bono says yes and no.

Emerald City Facets

I spent the weekend in Seattle visiting old friends, who do not strike me as old friends, but our relationships are 10 years old, and I'm only 34. That's a significant fraction of my lifespan. They're old, dear friends now.

I'm happy enough in Philadelphia that I'm not leaving soon (knock on laminate). But I've missed Seattle since I left, and three days' exposure cemented it. I'm not gilding anything. I miss it.

Of course there's nostaliga for the great times I had, but I miss things that are still there, not just my life when I lived there. Things such as:

• Drizzly rain that doesn't really get you wet, so you don't need an umbrella.
  
• Overwhelming political liberality.
  
• Friendliness toward weirdness.
  
• Neighborhoods: Alkai. Capitol Hill. The U District. Queen Anne. Ballard. Fremont.
  
• The fish ladder and the locks.
  
• Convenient mountains for hiking, water for boating.
  
• People who actually take their SUVs off road.
  
• The walking path that follows Cedar River through Boeing property to Lake Washington.
  
• Gleefully observing Microsoft's grip on the city.
  
• Restaurants: Cedar River Barbecue. Ivar's. Fatburger. Chang's. More teriyaki places that I ever thought the economy could support.
  
• The most beautiful summers I've known, when the clouds take four months off, the sky is blue every day, high of 72 with no humidity, and the sun sets at 10:00 p.m.
  
• The PNW vibe.
  

Seattle was my first girlfriend of cities. I'll love again, but I'll never love like that again.

American Masters

You know I know Dan Brown's literary stylings are wrought with gorilla mitts. No offense if you like Dan Brown, it's just that he's bad.

I thought I'd have to not care my way through another pop culture phenomenon, as I do with American Idol, most professional sports, and metrosexualism. But how could I have forgotten the best part of popular culture? Parody!

The Norman Rockwell Code

This Just In

Lately, I've been getting spam that uses ledes from news web sites as subject lines, filling the body with big chunks of the story. Then there's a link to whatever they're selling.

My brain tingled when I realized I actually wanted to read spam to catch up on current events. I'm spinning between poles of intrigue and disgust.

Could this be the bizarro, back-door future of news delivery? (No.)

Frownout

Once or twice a year I get depressed and go away for a while. I just got back two weeks ago, in fact. Can't recommend it.

Sucky as it is, I'm no fan of medication. First, I don't like taking pharmaceuticals for things I can solve other ways. Second, depression is so poorly understood that drugs are a well-meaning crapshoot. Some mix might work, or make things worse, or be ineffectual. It'll definitely have side effects, though! Third, a surprisingly large number of studies have shown antidepressants to be no more effective than placebos.

I'll take my misery straight, thanks.

However, I am intrigued by news of a study on Botox as an antidepressant.

School's In: Botulin toxin is a neurotoxin, commercially available as "Botox." It is infrequently used in chemical warfare, but common as a cosmetic treatment. While oh-so bad in your stomach, in your face it prevents muscles from contracting for four to six months, eliminating unsightly lines, somehow combining popularity and creepiness.

This statistically insignificent study used Botox on people who were depressed, but not looking for cosmetic effect. From le article:

The pilot study of 10 patients is the first to provide empirical support for what a number of clinicians say they have noticed anecdotally: People who get their furrowed brows eliminated with Botox (botulinum toxin A) often report an improvement in mood.

Basically, an inability to furrow your brow stunts emotions related to brow-furrowing.

I have read hypotheses about body-mind connection say expressions affect mood just as mood affects expressions. For instance, smiling makes you feel better, and sitting up straight makes you more alert. This is the first time I've seen somebody brandish some science about it though. (Although Dr. Finzi is rightfully circumspect about suggesting such a thing.)

The Revealer

I found somebody doing the thinking about religion and journalism. His name is Jeff Sharlet. He co-founded a site called Killing the Buddha, which I have known about for years, and sort of drifts in and out of my awareness.

He also helps run a site called The Revealer, which is miles ahead of the kind of article collection I'm doing here.

From the About Us section:

The Revealer is a daily review of religion in the news and the news about religion. We're not so much nonpartisan as polypartisan -- interested in all sides, disdainful of dualistic arguments, and enamored of free speech as a first principle.... We begin with three basic premises: 1. Belief matters, whether or not you believe. Politics, pop culture, high art, NASCAR -- everything in this world is infused with concerns about the next. As journalists, as scholars, and as ordinary folks, we cannot afford to ignore the role of religious belief in shaping our lives. 2. The press all too frequently fails to acknowledge religion, categorizing it as either innocuous spirituality or dangerous fanaticism, when more often it's both and inbetween and just plain other. 3. We deserve and need better coverage of religion. Sharper thinking. Deeper history. Thicker description. Basic theology. Real storytelling.

This is an observatory already set up in the direction I'm just squinting in. Quasi-journalists unafraid of religion in news media, but not prostrate before sectarian interests. Give it the old eyeball whydoncha.

My Adult Life Is A Story Of Unclenching

Da Wince-y

I read The DaVinci Code a couple of years ago. As a recreational conspiracy fan, I already knew about the "secret" heresy. There's nothing in it that real-world theologians haven't already dealt with, even at the Vatican.

I have a mouthy critique of the whole thing, but the short version is: not very good. Apparently I'm quicker on the draw than a Harvard professor and an Interpol agent, both experts on codes and symbols, who are surprised at every turn by information you could find on the Internet without looking very hard. It's like a marine biologist being shocked by what's really a mammal. "Gasp! Dolphins too?"

I try not to be curmudgeonly and patronizing. Barring that, I try not to do it in public. I understand many otherwise reasonable people enjoy the book. Further, some Christians feel challenged by issues the book brings up, and you know, crisis of faith, that's not cheap.

So somehow, this below-average adventure thriller book-made-movie has become, like, the Anti-Passion of the Christ.

The best article I've found around the hoopla is Some Christians Shun, Others Co-Opt DaVinci in the San Francisco Chronicle, which talks about various theological types trying to deal with this month's media phenomenon. Bits worth comment:

Many evangelical Christian leaders are embracing the discourse and breaking with tactics they've used other times when they've felt under attack. They are questioning and refashioning how they react to pop culture and asking whether it's appropriate to profit off of what they see as heresy.

It seems some pastors (and Filipino bishops) feel attacked, and need to "counter-attack." How Christlike!

I'm reminded of how I used to discuss D&D with religious types. The thing (game, movie, whatever) is like a candle. You can use a candle to worship Jesus in your Christmas Eve service, light your house when the power's off, or summon a demon. But sacred, secular, or profane, the candle is not the issue. God doesn't care about candles. God cares about people.

Controlling candles does nothing for the soul in front of you. Loving your neighbor is the job, not batting down opposing ideologies.


My favorite part is at the end, where we see the continued dance of entertainment marketers do-si-do with the Christian demographic:

Just as evangelical Christians have learned to adapt to what they see as a cultural threat posed by "The Da Vinci Code," the studios have had to learn new strategies as well, said Robert K. Johnston, an evangelical Christian who is the author of "Reel Spirituality: Theology and Film in Dialogue."

Movie marketing never used to mention criticism of a film, said Johnston, also a professor at Fuller. But the novel had spawned so much criticism that ignoring it was not possible, Johnston said.

"Sony is gambling that even negative discussion by the religious community will bring more bodies into the theater to see the movie," said Johnston....

Lookit! They're changing color in front of us! But here's the thing: Whatever they look like, they still basically just want money. I'm not pointing this out to be cynical. I'm pointing it out to say, since we know their bottom line, and they're fumbling around for ours, how can we use this advantage to love them better?

Talent: Overrated

is the gist of this article in the New York Times about people who are experts in their field.

Among topics psychologist Anders Ericsson has studied is writing -- of special interest to me since I fancy myself in the business of writing, crippling psychological blocks aside.

I don't feign being an expert writer, but I've been told I have talent. When I procrastinate rather than write (i.e., most of the time) I lie on my stomach, peer under the bed, and tell my thunderstruck psyche, "I know it's hard, but you've got talent." This pleasant placebo never coaxes me out, but it calms the whimpering.

Mr. Ericsson, meanwhile, shows up with harder medicine: empiricism. Whatever little push natural aptitude provides is inconsequential next to practicing every day with a method that gives you immediate feedback and goal-setting.

A noteworthy pullquote:

Ericsson's research suggests a third cliché as well: when it comes to choosing a life path, you should do what you love — because if you don't love it, you are unlikely to work hard enough to get very good. Most people naturally don't like to do things they aren't "good" at. So they often give up, telling themselves they simply don't possess the talent for math or skiing or the violin. But what they really lack is the desire to be good and to undertake the deliberate practice that would make them better.

Read the whole article, because its entirety is more encouraging than my neurotic presentation.

Pinch Me, I'm Awake

Last night I dreamed I had met this amazing girl and asked her out and she said yes. Then I forgot about her somehow.

Some time later it suddenly came back to me, but I had a hard time remembering... it all seemed faint, like I might have dreamed it.

So in the dream I went to my gmail account and searched the archive for her name and a phrase I remembered writing to her, and it came up, and I was all "Woo-hoo!" because I had her contact info, and I didn't just dream it.

I said to myself, "Okay, we verified this, so when you wake up, go search for her name in your archive for real and get in touch with her."

Then I woke up and realized I really did dream the whole thing.

Welcome To The Demographic

I'm reminded of my Dad, who worked for the Baptist Sunday School Board in my early childhood. He traveled around and sold audio-visual systems to churches, back in the day when AV meant film, slide, and overhead projectors. He was fired after an argument with his boss when he wouldn't try to upsell more AV equipment than he thought a church needed.

I'm reminded of my Dad because of this snappy article at CNET: Is Jesus The Next Killer App?

The title is meaningless, but as I've noted, saying "Jesus" gets people's attention. Some choice quotes:

"There's not one major electronics manufacturer who isn't trying to target this space," said Dan Stark, who operates Stark Raving Solutions, a company that specializes in outfitting churches with the latest in audio and video technology.

And:

"Let's face it, we've all experienced the occasional sleeper on Sunday morning," says an Internet advertisement from Audio Visual Mart, an online media tools store. "But it doesn't have to be that way. Technology can inspire your congregation in new ways."

Mercifully, these Baalful proclamations come from manufacturers and retailers, not the churches. The writer seems to have spent more time talking to marketing flacks than their customers. Curious. My first thought is to tie this to my idea of journalists being uncomfortable with religion, but it could also just be laziness. Or something more innocent, I suppose.

I don't know where I'm going with collecting these beasts, but I hope you enjoy my growing zoo of them.

O Sole Mio

There's no indie cred for this kind of thing, but I've been an alternate energy goob since the '70s, when we really could have started working on alternate energy and had it make a difference by now. NOT THAT I'M BITTER. Solar energy in particular has always been a big deal to me. It's also always been too expensive.

I'm going to take the scenic route through my economic theory before we get back to solar power.

I've always found Mr. Smith's invisible hand of capitalism suspect, the idea that people acting in a consistently self-interested manner creates a suitable economic equilibrium. This is a pretty idea from 10,000 feet. On the ground, there's a hella lot of misery before equilibrium makes the scene.

In general, economists and mathematicians seem to treat economics as some great, mysterious ocean where we bob like tubs. That's bogus. The economy is what we all do. We can make the economy do whatever we want it to. There is no invisible hand. There is predictable consequence for our choices.

This is not a top 1% thing. This is everybody. Do we want to create more jobs? Then those of us who own businesses can choose to forgo some profit and hire more people. Do we want to slow down inflation? Then we all agree to charge each other less for our services.

This is simplistic, but not very. We just need a common vision and our decisions from there will cause everything else to fall into place. It's happening now. Right now, our common vision is that each person optimally amasses resources for him or herself. This is called "enlightened self-interest" and assumes that we'll all choose to be greedy.

However, we can also choose not to be greedy. We can decide to amass fewer resources as individuals, and give more to other individuals or community purposes. I'm not talking about charity, I'm talking about mutually finding another base assumption besides, "Everyone will be greedy because that's how people are."

Many people would cheat and act greedy anyway, sure, but many people also steal. We can have common behavioral standards which many people break, and retain a functional society.

Yet a number of people draw a weird, crooked line that says, "We believe theft is bad, even though many people steal anyway; however, we won't believe greed is bad, because everybody's greedy, right? Right?"

I'm not making an airtight argument, I know, but stay with me. My point is that we make the economy every day; the economy does not make us. To think differently is to allow yourself to be controlled.

Okay: solar power.

To run your house on solar energy currently costs about 2-5 times as much as buying electricity through your local utility (solarbuzz.com). The argument has been that photovoltaic (PV) cells are too expensive, and it requires open, unclouded sky, and you pay all the infrastructure costs yourself, and a bunch of other reasons. Therefore, common sense economics tell us that solar is nice, but no one will do it because it's too expensive.

If you slogged through my opinion on economics, you can tell I think this is horsefeces. Not because I think we can all magically decide to charge less for solar. Rather, because we've put 250 years and unknown trillions of R&D dollars into making fossil fuels work, whereas we've been working on solar energy seriously for maybe 20 years, funded mainly by government grants. We decided to make fossil fuels more important.

Solar power is not inherently more expensive. Solar power is more expensive because our common vision has valued fossil fuels over solar power. We choose to make solar power more expensive.

Just in this decade though, a small number of us (mostly science-types and venture capitalists) are choosing to find ways to not make solar power more expensive. Newly discovered technology is showing up that makes the whole deal cheaper. Two examples:

• Prism Solar Technologies is making holographic solar collectors to feed PV cell. No big mirror banks, just a rainbow array of holographs that steers light into PV cells. Non-technical explanation here.
• Spheral Solar makes "denim-power," flexible solar cells that look like denim, and use recycled silicon -- silicon shortages become irrelevant.

As more people decide to care about solar power, it will become cheaper. In the next 10 years, solar could replace fossil fuel energy. It won't. We're in for mixed use for a long time. But if we found a common vision, we could be green by 2015. I know that's crazy fast, but it rhymes. Sounded like a nice slogan for somebody, maybe. "Green by 2015!"

It would be very, very hard to do, but not impossible. It's just that we're going to choose to not do it.

The Sum Of Things

An article about the very last ninja:

The teachings of Grand Master Masaaki Hatsumi echo through my head as he entreats me to attack a blackbelted disciple with a practice sword. "Always be able to kill your students," he says.

...As he nimbly glides across the padded floor, Hatsumi showers students with cryptic proverbs straight out of Confucian scrolls, such as "anything can be used as a weapon" or "ninjutsu is the sum of things in the universe."

Listen, I don't know much about ninjas. But if I was a grand warrior master of stealth, I would totally want you to believe there was only one of us. And I would find some other guy, give him a headful of mystical phrases, and send him around to say things like, "I'm the last, best ninja!"

Because then you'd be watching him, and not me and my 50 ninja buddies who are sneaking into your home to kill you with poisoned nunchuks.

Killing the Buddha

I found somebody doing the thinking about religion and journalism. His name is Jeff Sharlet. He co-founded a site called Killing the Buddha, which I have known about for years, and sort of drifts in and out of my awareness.

KtB publishes articles and essays about people grappling with religion, any religion. I've found it interesting, but I've never been able to really feel it for a couple of reasons. Often at KtB, they're speaking not just a different language but an idiolect: trying to communicate something so personal and pre-verbal that it just doesn't come across.

But also because I have always operated under the assumption that I'm missing something when it comes to religion. I'm frequently dissatisfied with my religion and the intersection of religions, and bewildered by faith (including why I have it at all). But I've concluded I believe in a God who is fundamentally bigger than me and acting my best interests.

It isn't that I don't question or doubt; it is that when I question or doubt, the first place I look is inside. What am I missing? If I'm operating under the premise that God is omnipotent and loving, then I must assume his shit is together. The wild card is my reason and perception.

Intellectually, I've been down the road where God doesn't match that premise, and that road leads to heat death. So I don't spend a lot of time there. As far as I can tell, either Jesus is as advertised, or existence is meaningless. I know! So absolute! But there it is.

So reading a bunch of essays about how confusing religions are, I mean, I feel you brother, but you know, order up some fear and trembling and get to work on that.

Anyway, KtB is worth looking at. And Jeff Sharlet's other site, The Revealer, is the whole reason I'm writing this post. From the About Us section:

The Revealer is a daily review of religion in the news and the news about religion. We're not so much nonpartisan as polypartisan -- interested in all sides, disdainful of dualistic arguments, and enamored of free speech as a first principle.... We begin with three basic premises: 1. Belief matters, whether or not you believe. Politics, pop culture, high art, NASCAR -- everything in this world is infused with concerns about the next. As journalists, as scholars, and as ordinary folks, we cannot afford to ignore the role of religious belief in shaping our lives. 2. The press all too frequently fails to acknowledge religion, categorizing it as either innocuous spirituality or dangerous fanaticism, when more often it's both and inbetween and just plain other. 3. We deserve and need better coverage of religion. Sharper thinking. Deeper history. Thicker description. Basic theology. Real storytelling.

This is a big step in the direction I'm looking. Not afraid of religion in news media, but not prostrate before sectarian interests.

Mammon's Got A New Thing

More on noticing that Christians are part of the culture, not refugees from it.

Nothing new about news media, but I found an article in the March issue of Fast Company about an... entrepreneur, we’ll call him, one of the flock, who has figured out that Christians are a wildly marketable demographic.*

It’s short, but here’s a pullquote anyway:

To get pastors to steer their flocks to the multiplex, Bock woos the Christian press to meet with filmmakers, organizes screenings, and creates Bible study guides. All of which, analysts say, can sell $50 million in extra tickets and millions more copies of a DVD. "To not recognize [churchgoers] as a massive demographic is just bad business," Bock says. "It would be like not tracking men."

Hooray!

Or is it a hooray? I've argued it makes good business sense too. But since when do I give a flying rat’s ass about business?

Clearly, Christians are a fat, unexploited market. “Christian” media in the last 50 years have been, even in these empowered DIY times, 3 to 5 years behind the culture at large. Which is weird, because Christians are part of the culture at large. We produce and consume behind-the-curve media even as we help create up-to-the-minute culture. I have a feeling that has to do with a stilted expectation of what God finds appropriate, based on what our parents find appropriate. That’s just spitballing though.

The point is, we’re ripe for up-to-the-minute cultural participation. And someone, probably multiple someones, in positions to do something about it, are now paying attention.

But look, here’s an important word of warning, American Christians: Do not fall for this.

I have no reason to doubt Mr. Bock’s sincerity or religion. He could be following a genuine calling. But identification as a marketable demographic is the bottom of a mountain for us, not the top.

One reason it has taken so long for mainstream media to find us is that traditionally we have had all-different priorities. We were interested in hard-to-market ideas like patience, purity, self-control, holiness, goodness, and of course, Jesus. Not that mainstream media don’t value these as well, but their central value is WHAT SELLS. And since their main thing isn’t even on our list, we didn’t have a lot to talk about at parties, yo? Besides, they were already getting our money through other demographics (a/s/l).

I used to work at a game company. Around 1999, one of our business people talked to some Christians on staff about prospects for a licensed Left Behind game. We discussed it a bit, and she eventually dropped the idea. Not because the Christians she consulted were against the idea (though we agreed the books were awful) but I think, because the only way to sell it to the Christian market required a sincerity and faith – dare I say, a commitment – she didn’t possess.

I think she was a few years ahead of her time, and frankly, too moral to try to commit herself to milking a cash cow she didn’t believe in. I don’t think this recent wave, fronted by Christian beards like John Bock, have the same compunctions. They’re not against us. They’re just not for our God. We must keep this distinction in front of us. Like, phylactery in front of us.

It’s good to do business with nonbelievers. It’s very bad to get in bed with nonbelievers. We are experiencing a new recognition and it’s our job to use this recognition well, to advance the Kingdom, not to lean back and feel safe that someone recognized that our money is as green as the heathens’. Because as we meet this new opportunity, it is the very opposite of safe. It doesn't matter whether the movie comes with a Bible study guide. It matters where your heart is.

I feel like I have not found the creamy nougat center of what I want to say, but I’ve been trying to write this for a week, and I want to post something. More as I think and research.

*There is a similar NPR report I will link to when I find it.

Where God Lives

These maps, taken from data collected by the Glenmary Research Center, graphically identify the distribution of several large religious groups in the U.S. I didn’t find any surprises, except for an odd concentration of Quakers in north Alaska. (Percentages on parade, I suspect.) But it's still kind of neat.

Search Query: Where Will I Be Next Thursday Around Threeish?

Google introduces an online calendar program. It's getting good buzz in various other blogs that I won't bother linking to here. The lead to the linked USA Today article reads:

Hoping to beef up the underperforming online calendar market, Internet search giant Google late Wednesday introduced a calendar service notable for easy-access sharing among friends and family.

Do... do what? There's an online calendar market? According to the article Yahoo, AOL, and MSN already offer this service. I guess I knew this, in the same sense that I know these companies will also track stocks for me, and that I have no desire for them to ever do this.

Google hosts my blog and my email; I'm already giving them plenty of free information, thanks. We'll let my daily whereabouts be a tantilizing mystery.

Ka-Zing!

Iran is enriching uranium, and I'm frankly surprised the current administration is so unhappy about it. Isn't enrichment at other countries' expense an American pasttime?

Open A Window

Man, is it just me, or has it been all Jesusy around here lately? Time to talk about something else.

Like bladders! I am nerdily excited by the prospect of growing replacement organs. I've got reservations about stem cell harvesting for all the reasons people have reservations about that sort of thing. But this story is about using your own damn cells to grow your own damn organs and I'm so! happy! it's already happening in real life.

Also, very small cars! Suck it, Cooper Mini.

'60s Batman onomatopoeia screen caps! The gallery lacks my favorite ever (Brom) but contains other beauties, including "Ouch-eth."

Finally, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, the musical! You can even download the songs, which range from decent to actually pretty good. If you don't think this is awesome, you are dead to me.

Religion In The News

This was a longish footnote to the previous post, but I decided to promote it.

Le Review: I had been reading Newsweek articles and ruminating on whether they had a dedicated religion person. So I went digging.

Good thing too, because the electronic masthead for MSNBC was buried. (Newsweek's online presence is hosted on MSNBC's site.) Once I found it, I discovered they have a correspondent dedicated to "ethics and values in American society." I wonder if that aerogel umbrella is supposed to cover religion and faith.

They also have a correspondent whose beat includes "Asian-American relations." According to the 2000 U.S. census, 4.2% of the population identifes itself somehow with the word "Asian." Nearly twice as many people self-identify as Methodist in the United States (Wikipedia). Dubbaya-tee-eff, mainstream news media?

I'm not complaining here. As Stephen Colbert says, Christians in the U.S. are "a long-oppressed majority." Boo-hoo for us.

No, I'm actually confused. Why doesn't thoughtful Christian representation fly in mainstream news media? (I'm also curious in a larger religious sense, but I'll just discuss Christianity here, since that's what I'm familiar with, and I don't want to have to think about how to write this so it includes Buddhism.)

If you can write a news story aimed at the American public, you can certainly write to a significant, though fractious subset of Americans. It's not hard to write to sports fans, a notably cantakerous lot. It's not hard to write an editorial page, a newspaper section practically designed to foment division.

Someone must be thinking about this. There's too much at stake for no one to be working on this, or at least for there not to be a good reason for its absence. Am I missing something big and obvious? Can it be as stupidly simple as a gross underrepresentation of Christians inside media? I read something to that effect once, that a majority of reporters aren't terribly religious, and shy away from the topic personally, allowing their blindside bias to affect their reporting. I wish I had the reference for that. I've also read conflicting reports.

But there's so freaking much money to be made from American Christendom. Even if you think God is an illucid fairy tale, we're a rich, loyal demographic. Mel Gibson has proven this. Tim LaHaye has proven this. Why do news media approach us from the side, through politics and social issues, instead of where we really are?

I'm figuring this out, talking before having done significant research. More later. Possibly.

P.S. 4/1/06
This entry is changing as I think about it more. Tonight I found the website of Frederica Matthewes-Green, who I wish I'd known about sooner. She has this marginally related thing to say about being a Christian in a hostile culture, which might not be very hostile. Or maybe it is. Or maybe hostility isn't the point. It's longish (for the Web) but worth the time you'll spend on it.

God, Satan, and Katrina

A short interview with Billy Graham from Newsweek. This is the second religion-prone article I've wandered across from there in the past few months. I wonder if Newsweek secretly has a dedicated religion editor.

As expected, Graham has basic things to say. He's too public a figure not to have soundbites. However, here's an excerpt I particularly like:

What do you tell people who ask how a loving God could let something like this happen?
Well, I spoke yesterday to the clergy and I asked myself why, and I told them don’t know why. There is no way I can know. I think of Job, who suf­fered the loss of everything.... He couldn’t help but ask why, but he didn’t find the answer immediately, and he really never had the answer at the end. God came back and restored to him all these things, but the cause of the thing in his life was not God, it was the Devil. I didn’t mention that yesterday, because I don’t think this is the place to talk about Satan and the Devil, because I don’t know. The Devil might have had nothing to do with this; I don’t know. But God has al­lowed it, and there is a purpose that we won’t know maybe for years to come.

Admit you don't know. Admit that God and Satan are in play, but you don't know how or why. Assume that God is sovereign and look ahead. It probably took Graham a long time to figure out how to be this humble.