Give Me Taxes Or Give Me Death, Part II / 9-14-10

Well well, look who's not really serious about the deficit after all.

Republicans screaming "Save the tax cuts for the rich," that's who.

Summary: Bush tax cuts for everyone are set to expire at the end of the year. President Obama wants them to expire - for those individuals or families making more than $250k, but not for the middle class. He's fine with extending that portion of the tax cut. Republicans say they'll fight that course of action if congressional Democrats try it. The tax cuts will expire for everyone and tax rates will return to 1999 levels if no agreement is reached.

It is that simple. All other commentary is helpful, but not crucial. It comes down to, whose side are you on? And most the D's are, yet again, as almost always, on the side of 98 percent of the population, and all the R's are, yet again, as almost always, on the side of 2 percent of the population. (Follow the link. Do it.)

Looking at pure numbers, the President shouldn't have a terrible time selling his preference to Americans, except that his White House couldn't make itself look good if it invented cold fusion and brokered permanent peace in the Middle East while solving world hunger on the side.

All BHO has to say is something like this, right?

"We were a more prosperous, more responsible nation while President Clinton was in office. I believe the tax rates that were reasonable in the nineties remain reasonable now for our wealthiest citizens. George Bush's tax cuts were reckless and unnecessary, and should they survive, they would grow the deficit to an even more dangerous level. You can't have it both ways, my conservative friends. You can't spend the last two years harping on the deficit your party's presidents created, then decline to raise revenue when the opportunity presents itself in the natural way it has. Either you're for deficit reduction or against it. Time to choose. I've chosen my route, and I am proud of it, and I trust the American people to support a more responsible course of action than the one they've grown accustomed to seeing from their leaders.

"Therefore, you will join me in letting the tax cuts expire for only the wealthiest Americans. Or you will show yourselves to be the deficit enablers you have been for the past 30 years."

Instead, we got:

"But we’re still in this wrestling match with John Boehner and Mitch McConnell about the last 2 to 3 percent, where, on average, we’d be giving them $100,000 for people making a million dollars or more — which in and of itself would be OK, except to do it, we’d have to borrow $700 billion over the course of 10 years. And we just can’t afford it."

It's a start. But we're not in a wrestling match, Mr. President. A power struggle you should be winning, but aren't. Yet. Partly because there are five numbers in that sentence. And while I followed what you were saying, most people tuned you out after $100,000, before you got to the important part: the "we just can't afford it" part. That's the lead. People understand "we can't afford it." Nowadays, it rings true and urgent. Start there, mix in a jab about how Republicans only care about the deficit when it gives them an excuse to block legislation aimed to help the middle class, then give numbers for support.

(I sound arrogant, but mostly I'm just annoyed with how the facts and public opinion are on the D's side and yet the fight goes on.)

Here are some more encouraging responses from Democrats, all from Massachusetts.

Rep. Michael Capuano: “We either have to give Republicans everything they want or they’ll take their ball and go home? Well, go home then."

Rep. Jim McGovern: “I would be happy to listen to any ideas that my Republican friends have that won’t explode the deficit and which would actually help create jobs — like tax credits for small businesses and incentives for manufacturing.’’

Rep. Richard Neal, a key member of the House Ways and Means Committee: “If there’s a compromise that we can live with that protects the middle class, I’m open to it,’’ adding he wants to dedicate revenue from expiring tax cuts to begin to pay down Iraq war debt.

Let's see if THAT message gets out.

Two and Two / 9-10-10

Realistically, that's about what we can expect out of the Seattle Seahawks this season. Two wins, and two losses. Mmmm? What's that you say? And as for the other dozen games? Bpthfffff. Who knows?

I'm somewhat knowledgeable about sports, somewhat able to tell when a team is going to suck and when it's going to unsuck. Most the time.

This Hawks squad leaves me perplexed. Pergoogleplexed. (There are lots and lots of English-speaking people in the world, and lots of them say goofy things, so I'm going to conclude that very, very VERY sadly, there is a thirtysomething dad out there who has also invented that exact same word. He's a dork and a loser, whereas I am supercool.)

Who's to say how this season will be any different than the last, when they went 5-11 and looked exactly as bad as their record?

I'm to say that things are different.

The defense that looked like it was playing 8-on-11 last year will be better organized, more healthy and better in pass defense this season.

The reliable QB who got hurt and missed half the season will play more games this season.

The offensive line that lost 14 left tackles to injury last year (I joke, but the Hawks did use their fifth-string guy for a while) will perform better, with the development of new blood and improved coaching.

If those three improvements hold, and the division gets even weaker with Arizona's perceived step back (they have no quarterback or receivers left), then I could see Seattle picking up two or three more wins than last year.

But at the same time, there's the stunning turnover from '09 that weighs on my mind, and I find myself wondering, with half the 53-man roster gone, including important contributors like T.J. and Josh Wilson, will there be any semblance of continuity? And if, Tao forbid, anyone important gets re-hurt, could this team be two or three wins WORSE than last year?

And then, there are these 3,256 other questions left to be answered:

(I'll pick just 10.)

315. Will left tackle Russell Okung ever see the field this year?

666. Why the h*ll did our offensive line coach, widely regarded as the best in the business, quit a week before the opener?

777. What if everyone stays healthy? Is 10-6 out of the question?

1,002. Is Golden Tate for real?

1,003. Is Aaron Curry for real? Will he ever be?

1,974. Who exactly will be rushing the passer?

1,976. Who exactly will be rushing the football?

2,011. What if Whitehurst takes more snaps than Hasselbeck?

2,987. Is 8-8 enough to win the division?

3,256. You know, Jim Mora was a pretty good college coach too.

That's all I've got. Go Hawks!

EDIT after Sunday's season opener: The O-line looked decent, the receivers were better than good, we created a pass rush, Hasselbeck made only one mistake all day, lots of guys carried the ball in acceptable fashion, and the rest of the division looks awful. Carroll completely outcoached Singletary, and now I have to aggressively remind myself: IT'S JUST ONE GAME dude.

Give Me Taxes Or Give Me Death / 9-5-10

There are only three options left.

Either we:

1. Raise taxes to pay for our social programs;
2. Reduce entitlement benefits drastically for all citizens, beginning now;
3. Install some combination of 1. and 2.

All other paths, including our elected officials' perennial favorite, 4. Stay The Course, lead to financial ruin and the end of the nation as we know it.

I'm sick and tired of 4.

I want 1.

I want more taxes, and I want them yesterday. I want the rich to pay more than the non-rich, because the reverse is cruel and ineffective. And I want the media to expose relentlessly how lower taxes are only possible if we aggressively slash Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security and every other bit of spending the government undertakes.

There exists no option 5., called "Cut taxes and pretend we can save money in the great 'elsewhere' of the federal budget. Like foreign aid. Or 'waste.' Or earmarks. Or pork." That plan's not viable, not possible, and it's high time its predetermined failure was properly publicized. We can't have social programs and low taxes. And anyone who claims otherwise should be ridiculed as an untrustworthy power-hungry liar. There is no room in the budget for that reckless financial fantasy.

Anyone who claims we can trim government revenues without touching the social safety net's benefits is unfit to lead the country.

I have numbers.

Medicare/Medicaid costs 779 billion annually.
Social Security costs 694 billion.
National defense and wars set us back 680 billion.
Federal pensions: 195 billion.
Foreign aid checks in between 20 and 25 billion.
Earmarks? 17 billion.

(These stats can be found all over the Internet at all sorts of nonpartisan places. You can dislike them, but you can't quibble with them.)

If every earmark and all bits of foreign aid were eliminated from the budget every year, we'd make a hole in the overall debt of less than one-third of percent, which would be instantly gobbled up the following year by the interest on our new debt anyway. That's assuming we kept tax rates stable.

The government (federal and state) receives about $3.34 trillion annually in taxes. The debt has grown by at least $500 billion annually since 2003.

We need to pay more taxes, or we need to tell our seniors and our poor to forget half their entitlements.

Or we could not go to war, ever. Or defend ourselves against anyone, ever. Or provide any basic services, ever.

Only a combination of higher taxes and lower benefits, or simply higher taxes, will save the nation from insolvency, followed by skyrocketing interest rates, followed by partition of the United States of America.

I like America. I love America. I don't wish her death. I'd like my grandkids to be Americans, not Pacificans.

Either way, if we want the country we have, we're going to get higher taxes. And if that's going to happen, I'd just as soon we were the kind of people who support their citizens appropriately in their infirmity and old age.

I am completely, unapologetically requesting to have my taxes raised as soon as possible. Well, not just mine. Everyone's. Mine don't stand much of a chance in a cage match with a $20 trillion, $30 trillion, $60 trillion national debt. (We're at 13.4 trillion and counting.)

I'm not poor. I won't win some sort of personal mini-lottery from a system that ensures survival of the safety net.

I'm also not rich. I can't afford a lot more in taxes. I can barely afford the ones I have to pay right now.

I'm also not at all bothered by the prospect of system fraud. I believe we should catch welfare cheats and Social Security scammers, make them perform loads of community service and fine them heftily, because I'm willing to let the police chase down the guy who does 55 mph in my residential neighborhood rather than petitioning to have the speed limits revoked.

I am bothered, now to the point of seething anger, by the notion that our present borrowing levels and deficits are OK.

I am bothered tenfold by the notion that REDUCING the government's revenue is somehow the answer. Especially when a politician says -- lies -- that we can trim the fat from a bloated budget while cutting taxes. Unless that politician specifically calls for steep cuts in our entitlements programs alongside those irresponsible tax cuts (and I mean steep cuts, on the order of 30 or 40 percent), then you can assume said politician is misleading you.

It is critical that persons with megaphones call out those who would lead America to the financial precipice. And that we call out the media for not doing its job in this arena. Its job, in this case? Forcing politicians to address the issue, but not in generalities. Asking the questions that expose empty promises and unrealistic so-called solutions.

Is my anger visible enough?

Anyway. When my debt reaches dangerous levels, and it has done so at times because my career path has been... voluptuous, those are the times I curtail my spending, rework the terms of the debt if I can, and find ways to make more money. If I don't end up doing at least one of those things quite well (and probably two at a time are necessary), I run the risk of losing my house, my cars, then being forced to skip two meals a day, and even then, I might still be crushed under the consequences if I'm not careful.

While I realize personal finance guidelines don't always apply on a national scale, the moral from the previous paragraph is that there is a limit to how much debt you can handle without it crippling you. If one individual finds that tipping point, trips over it carelessly and is broken by the circumstances, that's a tragedy. If that were to happen to a whole country, we'd need a new word to describe such an inconceivable event.

Why would we even want to come close to that point?

I will enthusiastically support an influential politician who realizes I can handle the truth, then tells me something like this:

"The days of easy entitlements are over. Financial realities dictate that we must cut benefits and raise taxes, or risk our very sovereignty. Prudence dictates that we start down that road sooner rather than later.

"I wish it were not so, but wishing won't make the facts go away. I am no longer willing to pretend that a crisis does not loom on the horizon. Please join me in an era of sacrifice that will strengthen the long-term financial prospects of the Unites States of America while preserving the principles for which she stands.

"If you want to be mad at me for telling it like it is, go ahead. But I'm going to be part of the solution, not the problem, and the solution incorporates, without a doubt, higher taxes for all Americans. My hope is that you, whether you consider yourself liberal or conservative or in between or neither, that you will journey with me down the road that saves our very nation. Thank you."

Of course, I'm not holding my breath.

So I wrote this little novel / 9-4-10

Those of you who speak with me on a semi-consistent basis know I finished my first novel last summer and have been resting on my laurels ever since. Kidding aside, I'm proud of that accomplishment. The book is short, only about 20,000 words, which makes it really just a novella or a long short story, but no apologies; it feels quite good to finish a project of any length. (And any quality.)

So I thought I'd post a chapter here. By clicking on that there link, you're sent to writerscafe.org, a website designed to be a community of creative minds. The chapter you'll read there is the second one, in which our protagonist experiences an event that shapes his outlook on life.

Later on, in subsequent super-secret double-dog-dare chapters, he interacts with girls, both two- and three-dimensional. (They say you should write about what you know. To which I clearly say, "Yeah right.")

In any case, the story, overall, it's about a guy. He's doing his best to act normal in every situation. Every situation. It comes easy sometimes... and sometimes it doesn't. His life story, from age seven all the way up to his imminent death, is told with the aid of his personal guardian angel. Duh.

The book is titled

"Uncommonly Normal

or

Extra Ordinary."

Sometime soon, I'll self-publish it and/or make it available for downloading. Once I finish tweaking the second half of it to death.

That's all for now. Back to our regularly scheduled programming. (Blogramming?) A long-promised post on the spiritual value of music is near completion and will soon be subject to your usual mockery.

I Knew I Picked the Right Guy / 9-1-10

I haven't posted on the Depressors, I mean, the Mariners, in a while.

But this upcoming chart I got from one of my favorite sites, ussmariner, and I have to brazenly steal it and bring it to you, my fellow sufferers.

The next time I hear someone complain that Ichiro, of all people, is bringing the team down, I swear I will plead temporary insanity at the resulting trial.

See what I mean:

(Each line includes the batter's spot in the lineup, then how that Mariner has performed, then how the league has performed on average, and the difference.)

Batting average

1. / .308 / .269 / +.039

2. / .240 / .265 / -.025

3. / .221 / .275 / -.054

4. / .244 / .276 / -.032

5. / .210 / .269 / -.059

6. / .244 / .255 / -.011

7. / .206 / .250 / -.044

8. / .212 / .242 / -.030

9. / .222 / .244 / -.022

On-Base Percentage

1. / .360 / .332 / +.028

2. / .328 / .335 / -.007

3. / .303 / .355 / -.052

4. / .293 / .349 / -.056

5. / .262 / .339 / -.077

6. / .311 / .318 / -.007

7. / .284 / .315 / -.031

8. / .283 / .305 / -.022

9. / .271 / .302 / -.031

Slugging Percentage

1. / .391 / .366 / +.025

2. / .285 / .402 / -.117

3. / .374 / .441 / -.067

4. / .384 / .476 / -.092

5. / .302 / .450 / -.148

6. / .376 / .415 / -.039

7. / .281 / .399 / -.118

8. / .345 / .379 / -.034

9. / .318 / .353 / -.035

I could comment further on the historically stinkacious abhorrency of some of these stats, but the pluses and minuses kind of speak for themselves, no?

Abort, Retry, Fail? Your Choice / 9-1-10

Those old PC's from the turn of the decade -- no, not that decade... or that one... yes, THAT one -- had a tendency to, um, crash from time to time. (That's been fixed in the last 20 years, right? Right?) When a person (we'll call him "Me") would ask the computer, nicely, to execute an illegal order, the computer (we'll call it "Satan") would respond with a deceptively unpleasant multiple-choice conundrum:

"Abort, Retry, Fail?"

Never, "OK, Great, Jawohl!" No. Just three bad options.

Abort: Give up. Kill the operation before it even has a chance to flourish.

Retry: Yeah right, that'll work.

Fail: Basically computer language for "I win, you lose. Again." What next, "Master"?

Boy, nerdy computer jokes from the 80's sure do make a perfect lead-in for a subject as lighthearted and airy as abortion, don't they?

According to polls spanning 35 years, 47 percent of Americans currently describe themselves as "pro-life." 45 percent, meanwhile describe themselves as pro-choice. (I think maybe the other 8 percent call themselves either "Stupid-from-the-T-shirt-I'm-with-Stupid" or "swing-voters" or "pro-indecision" or "pro-go-f*ck-yourself.") Not only that, but the trend seems to unmistakably indicate a steady movement toward the pro-life position over the course of the last 15 years.

So yeah, here's the thing: I dispute the facts contained within the polling. (Maybe I even wreckon they aren't true.)

I would like, instead, to submit the completely unverifiable opinion that 95 percent of American parents are pro-choice. If the question is asked the right way.

Maybe if it were phrased a little like this:

"Do you support or oppose the opportunity for your 14-year-old daughter to end a pregnancy resulting from rape committed by a family member?"

Go ahead. Oppose that one. Try.

Try harder, maybe?

No? You'd like her to make up her own mind here? You think the molested kid ought to have a say in the outcome? Maybe you believe she should make the decision as to whether the fetus is brought to term? What's that, you say? You'd like her to "choose" whether to keep the baby?

Yeah, I thought so. It will not only take a special type of person not only to suggest that your daughter give birth in that situation, but then to MANDATE it... that's cold and harsh. That's not even tough love. That's, what, just tough, I guess.

You can call me on my extremism, and say that I'm using the most far-fetched example to support my case. I freely admit I am. You pose the question, "Should rich snotty promiscuous women living in Manhattan be entitled to the right to casually murder their viable unborn children, up to thirty seconds before delivery, and celebrate with martinis afterward?" and you're probably going to get something less than 95 percent support. Do they even allow negative numbers in polls?

But you make it personal -- your kid is the one seeking deliverance from an impossible situation -- and I confidently assert that almost every parent suddenly (miraculously) converts to the pro-choice camp.

Not because abortion is SO COOL. But because there comes a point where ideology fails, and you have to resort to unconditional compassion for your living flesh and blood, over whatever ideals you might subscribe to in your ivory towers. And because you can't really make this decision for her. And if you can't make it for her, you necessarily support her right to make it for herself. Hey: You've just earned your pro-choice merit badge.

You can call abortion "murder" or "the easy way out" or "a coward's choice" all you want, until it's your kid facing that dilemma.

Even my friend "Donald" (not his real name), who claims he and his wife have agreed in advance to not abort a child resulting from her being raped, has to consider whether he'd really tell his teenage daughter that she's not permitted to choose in that case.

(That's a real conversation I've had recently. "Don" sticks to his pro-life guns -- my word, there's an exquisite phrase -- even when his wife is hypothetically victimized. This is laudable. If abortion is murder, it's murder no matter the circumstances, and murder cannot be condoned. I respect and almost admire Don's ethical consistency. He's a good guy, deep down, even if like all of us political animals, he suffers from a lack of perspective at times.)

Anyway. Other people have made this exact same point before, no doubt. Some probably more eloquently than me, and some probably even more sarcastically than me. (No, I think that's possible. Barely. But it can be done, with Hulkulean effort.) But this is the first time I've gone down this road, so thanks for bearing with me.

If it's you or your kid, do you support the right to choose abortion? In any case? In some cases? And if you think you wouldn't go the abortion route in the end, do you support other women having the same choice? Or do you believe that life begins at or near conception every time, in which case your pregnant daughter's out of luck... or even then, do you allow her the chance to see things differently?

Parting thought, then: Instead of viewing abortions as expensive birth control for the callous and the careless, how about we spend some time thinking of them as painful choices for our daughters and sons?

(Maybe I should have been a preacher after all.)

Buggers, v. 1.0 / 8-24-10

Things that happen in everyday life sometimes get my goat. They can keep it. The goat, that is. In return, I will continue to produce mini-posts like this one, called "Buggers." Because who really wants to pet a peeve these days? And who doesn't like to say "buggers," with just a trace of a British accent? Yeah, that's right.

[[Parental Advisory: Explicit Theological Sarcasm Ahead]]

Church readerboards are great, because they never mislead, confuse, or err in any way whatsoever. They're exactly like the pope!

Driving along recently, I chanced to gobble up this tasty tidbit, delivered to commuters by one Kirkland congregation: "The Lord delights in those who fear him."

So that's a Bible verse, I'm guessing. Sounds familiar. I'll look it up. Hey, it's Psalm 147, verse 11. (I'm not exaggerating when I say 20 seconds passed between the word "up" and this one right "here." I do so love the Googley Webbamajingy.) Incidentally, the second part of that verse -- the useful stuff -- was left off, the part where it adds, "who put their hope in his unfailing love." But now I'm way ahead of myself. Bad habit.

Yeah, so it's practically impossible to get the wrong idea from the first part of that verse. You'd have to do the unthinkable: read it literally, using commonly accepted definitions of widely understood terms. And who wants to do that?

"delights in those who": You too, can gain God's favor with your behavior! Which is good, because most of us, for as long as civilization has existed, have decided to live by a variant of this rule: "Don't piss the deity off."

"fear": Usually, the term "fear" is used to mean "fear." Yeah, but in this case, it doesn't have anything to do with being frightened of God, as biblical scholars have explained ad nauseam. (Literally, I'm sure.) It's a combination of reverence, awe and respect.

I know this. Seminary students know this. The clergy know this. (Mostly.) People who've spent a decade or two in Sunday School know this. Nine-year-old preacher's kids know this. Pretty soon, once we throw a couple more population groups in there, we'll reach four percent of the people driving by who know this. The other 96 percent are going to tend to substitute, in their minds, for the word "fear," the synonym "fear." By which they will mean something close to "being frightened of that scary thing which makes me feel afraid." That sensation is known as, wait for it, "fear." People ascribe the word "fear" to describe it. So fear God, people! Even if that's not what the author meant!

"him": I realize I'm fighting another uphill battle here, but God isn't actually a him, last I checked, and any verse that calls God a him is only marginally useful, as it is built on a myopic image of God. And if there were verses calling God a her (besides the one that turns God into a giant chicken), those would be equally insufficient. "It" isn't that great of a pronoun for God either. I like to use the gender neutral term "God" when trying to put God in a neat little box. Try it sometime!

Now I understand that the Psalmist, who was not attempting to produce a piece of scripture at the time, but was doing a bit of sacred songwriting instead, and not even directly aimed at the east side of Lake Washington at that, that this writer probably meant that to respect God is pleasing to God and leads to a better life. It's a great point.

A little obvious, maybe, but certainly a point worth making. Or worth ruining on a readerboard, that's OK too.

The Flat Birthers / 8-18-10

Quick, which one of these statements contains the most wrong?

18 percent of Americans Americans believe President Obama is secretly a Muslim.

40 percent of Americans doubt Obama was born in the U.S.

61 percent of Americans believe Muslims have the right to build a mosque in lower Manhattan.

All three statements are accurate -- well, that is to say, they are all true results of actual polling done by actual people, of actual people. I made none of those stats up, is what I'm struggling to say here.

(None is exactly as flashy as the typical "EDUKATION KRISIS: 135 percent of Mississippi High school graduates can't find Chile on a world map" or "77 percent of Oklahoma students can't name the first President of the United States." Both of those statements are false, although one was published as truth as part of a commissioned study last year. Pardon the usual digression.)

But yeah, it's that third figure that irks me the most. Its flipside, really, is the problem.

39 percent of Americans either don't give a hoot about religious freedom, don't give a hoot about Muslims' religious freedom, don't know squat (12 squats = 1 hoot; 1 hoot = 6 goshdarns) about the Bill of Rites, or don't want to answer.

Breaking it down, it's actually 34 percent who claim the mosque would be illegal. The no opinion/don't know crowd is 5 percent. More on this in a minute, after a short detour.

And then there's the fake controversy over Barack Obama's birth certificate. As you might have noticed, many individuals slog through the day, less than enchanted with the prospect of BHO as our 44th President. So before he was even nominated in '08, they began circulating a theory that he is not a "natural born" citizen. Instead of calling them "morons," how dare you suggest that, bite your tongue, we should term them "Flat Birthers," in honor of these splendid citizens.

The problem with Flat Birthers is that their beliefs stretch the boundary of reasonable doubt. To hold on to their beliefs, they have to actively ignore verifiable facts. So I call b.s. -- not on their beliefs, but that we use the excellent term "belief" at all in this instance. Consider, first, some fact-type-items.

Like this. Or even this.

Plus all this.

And the third paragraph of this.

Nobody disproves these facts. Even if you subscribe to the theory that Young Barack gave up his citizenship or accepted dual citizenship at some point, renouncing his American passport in the process, you still are left with the verifiable truth that Obama was born on U.S. soil from an American mother. That's your starting point.

Even if you reject that fact and instead subscribe to the theory that Obama's mom delivered him in Kenya then flew across the globe with a newborn to convince authorities to help fake his birth on U.S. soil -- and this is precisely where you ought to question, "where's the motive?" -- then you're still left with the indisputable fact that Ann Dunham was an American citizen herself. Hence her child is a natural-born citizen (i.e., my brother, born in Paris, France to an American mother), as opposed to a naturalized one (i.e., Arnold Schwarzenegger, who became an U.S. citizen at age 36 after immigrating and applying and waiting and passing a test.)

So yeah, I think I sprained my left brainkle on one of those logical leaps. And when Glenn Beck is calling you out on his show for being crazy, well, that should tell you SOMETHING.

But my point isn't actually to point out that Flat Birthers are wrong. People have been doing that for two solid years now. (It's fun, but it's not my goal.)

No, my aim here is to alter the semantics involved. I'm tired of the cheapening of the word "belief." A belief needs to be beyond proving AND disproving. When we say the Birthers "believe" Obama to be ineligible for the presidency, we're abusing a perfectly good word, employing the wrong one altogether, really. You can believe in God, Lucifer, angels, Fate, karma -- all unprovable and undisprovable. The facts of everyday existence don't directly contradict an underlying karmic power at play.

What we need is a whole new word for what it is the FB'ers have convinced themselves of.

"Blindly persuaded" ... too clunky

"BeLIEve" ... too clever

"Deaflieve" ... better already

"Beleave?" "Faithgnore?" "Manifest Density?" "Wreckon" ...

"Misspeculate" ... too kind

"Speculame" ... too lame

"Except" ... but only if misused in place of "accept"

"Lalalalalalalalaican'thearyou" ... already taken

I do like "wreckon." It fits, as in: "I wreckon I can buy lots more ammo at Walmart with forty bucks, rather than fifty." Not to pick on Walmart shoppers. Go here for that. (Laughing and crying happens to that site's visitors.)

When 34 percent of Americans say they "believe" Muslims have no right to build a mosque in lower Manhattan, what they're really saying is they've chosen to disregard the Bill of Rights in this instance. Yeah, that's not belief. That's something else altogether.

That's: "I wreckon they can build mosks anywhere they want. Accept right next to Ground Zero. That's not OK."

So give me my word back!

I Slam Islam / 8-16-10

Religious puns are the best.

As you'd imagine, I don't personally have any problem with Islam. I mean, no more problem than with every other organized religion. All self-perpetuating institutions screw up every so often, go off the deep end, do some seriously f'ed-up stuff in obvious complete opposition to the purported teachings of their faith. It doesn't take a whole lotta research to find some pretty massive screw-ups by powerful people claiming to act in a religion's best interest. (As if that were even possible. If you have truth, it will win out, with or without your "help," such as it may be.)

But slamming Islam has become something of a national sport, and it's driving me absolutely crazy. People with megaphones are going out of their way to trample the Bill of Rights in a way that should shame them -- but instead, they're proud of their actions.

Case in point: the media-driven furor over the right of Muslims living in Manhattan to build a mosque two blocks from Ground Zero. City planners in Manhattan approved the project, which consists of a mosque and community center designed to improve relations between Muslims and non-Muslims. (Please provide your own ironic comment here.) Obviously, their plans didn't please EVERYONE.

"In my opinion, the prospect of a mosque right near this site of reverence and respect for lost loved ones from the attack shows a serious lack of sensitivity.In fact, the majority of the country is strongly opposed to building a mosque at the site of the most tragic terrorist attack on America." That's from Senator David Vitter of Louisiana. I chose his words because they were less inflammatory than the average politician's. (I could have quoted the usual blowhards here -- you know who you are -- but I wanted to save that for later. And Vitter's right about the "majority of the country," but we'll get to that in due course as well. Like, after about 5,000 words of snarkventarrhea. What? Is too a word.)

As I was saying. Not everyone so happy-happy joy-joy about this turn of events. So when President Obama stated that Muslims are entitled, as per the basic rules of our country, to build places of worship near their places of residence, his pronouncement was national news. THIS JUST IN: Obama Supports Freedom Of Assembly! BREAKING NEWS: Obama Consults Constitution In Crafting Opinion!

Excuse me, but Duh.

Only somehow, Not Duh.

Newt Gingrich, this past Sunday, on Fox: "Nazis don’t have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington. We would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor. There’s no reason for us to accept a mosque next to the World Trade Center."

GOP congressional candidate Elliott Maynard (W. Va.): "Do you think the Muslims would allow a Jewish temple or Christian church to be built in Mecca?"

I could point out that Gingrich just equated attending a religious service with genocide, and that Maynard thinks that we should exchange constitutions with Saudi Arabia, but I have faith that their words fail on their own, without my help. (Oops.)

Important data on its way. Aaaaaaaaaaand... go:

61 percent of Americans: "Muslims have the right to build a mosque near Ground Zero."

64 percent of Americans: "Muslims should not build a mosque near Ground Zero."

(Those figures come from a Fox News poll. That's all I'm going to say about that. Actually, their polling is not the worst in the business, as long as you)

Sarah Palin read the poll results and chimed in. (I like her. But maybe not in the way you think.) On her twitter page recently, which I really really won't link to: "We all know that they have the right to do it, but should they? This is not above your pay grade. " Sarah is awesome. She manages to say, like millions of others before and since, that freedom is fine as a CONCEPT. Just don't try and exercise it. Well, not you guys at least.

As for Democrats who deserve a flogging, I give you Senate Majority "Leader" Harry Reid, who opposes, for stupid reasons, the building of the mosque at that location. "The First Amendment protects freedom of religion," wrote Jim Manley, a spokesman for Reid. "Sen. Reid respects that but thinks that the mosque should be built someplace else."

(Like maybe in Harlem? Or Brooklyn? How far is far enough, people? What degree of inconvenience do we need to impose on Muslims to make ourselves feel better about... well, whatever it is we need to feel better about at the time?)

Now Reid I can forgive. Sort of. He's in a tight re-election race, he needs to move to the center by taking some positions to his right, to move beyond his base. Those kind of tactics are covered in Intro to Beginners' Basic Elementary Campaigning, Level Zero. I bet Reid doesn't even believe the statement his camp published. He's a Mormon, for crying out loud. He knows about religious intolerance. At least in theory.

But how is it even possible, in the first place, that party lines are drawn over this issue? How is it possible that Reid pissing all over the Bill of Rights is a "move to the center?" I so do want to write "What have we come to as a nation," but I permit myself only x+1 cliches per post.

Unless... unless... the right wing is the side that stopped believing in freedom of religion. Which would be an interesting stance for the party which depends on fundamentalist Christian votes to survive.

RNC Chair Mike Steele: "Mosques are a luxury. We Christians will decide where they may be built, if we allow them at all."

Fundamentalist Stooges: "OK."

Steele: "We'll do the same for the synagogues."

Stooges: "Well, all right."

Steele: "And no more parishes. Until I say so."

Stooges: "Er."

Steele: "Oh, and Rush says no wards outside of Utah."

Stooges: "Uh-"

Steele: "Also, let's say, no-"

Stooges: "Later guys. Let's go make our OWN party."

(Wet dream ends.)

Does it occur to nobody that if the situation were reversed, that the Christian fundies would howl -- and rightfully so -- that their rights were being denied by an oppressive Islamic majority? (It occurs to me. I've thought about it, and I'm only six or seven times more intelligent than your average cable news host or candidate for office, so you'd think some of them would have caught on by now. Or decided that they've been pretending too long to not catch on.)

(Holy punctuation overload, Batman. If this keeps up, my parentheses keys are going to fall off.)

Other Western countries are playing the I Slam Islam game, too. France's congress banned the burqa last month. Canada isn't donating to disaster relief in Pakistan at nearly the rate it gave to Haiti. For a disaster affecting 14 million people in Pakistan, Canadians have cobbled together $200,000 dollars in the first week. Haiti received 17 times more -- $3.5 million in the first seven days. Even more stats: Haiti's TOTAL population is 70 percent of Pakistan's 14 million flood-displaced humans. Phood4thot.

However this ends up playing out, I believe Obama can make some serious hay here. I earnestly -- if naively -- believe that if he were to spend the next few days emphatically driving home the point that people of all faiths are welcome to build houses of worship near their houses of sleepship, and that this is what religious freedom is all about, that he could convince a vast majority of Americans that he is right. Not because he says it's right, but because the guys who wrote the Constitution said so. But he has to be clear, forceful and he has to call out the opposition for putting themselves above the Founding Fathers. (I'm not hopeful here: he's already gone back once on his opening statement, to add that "I was not commenting, and I will not comment, on the wisdom of making a decision to put a mosque there. I was commenting very specifically on the right that people have that dates back to our founding.")

Even so, forget for a moment that he'd be constitutionally correct in defending religious freedom. (God, do I REALLY have to write that sentence??) Consider instead that the number of non-Christian believers in this country is holding steady or increasing while the number of Christians is dropping precipitously. (Here are the numbers and the pretty charts: visit infoplease.com and religioustolerance.org.)

If he can establish that non-Christians and non-Christian believers have no home in the GOP, and let the demographics work in his favor, he and his party can reap the electoral benefits for years to come.

Although it's probably OK, in the short run, to do the right thing because it's the right thing. That's acceptable too.

Or if desperate measure are called for, Obama could always buck up and quote his predecessor, who, somehow, once said this: "Al Qaeda's cause is not Islam. It is a gross distortion of Islam."

If Bush were president today, and my brain just died a little from typing that, I'd like to think we'd hear him spout something similar. Something like: "Well, um, if Al Qaeda wants to build a mosque dedificated to worshipping terrism, and they want to, uh, build it two blocks from Ground Zero, then I say, Nuh-uh, No Way Hossein. Now them Musslems, theyk'n build whever they wanna. That's Merica. Land of the brave, home of the free, and all that, y'know."

That's probably enough for now.

(Although, honestly, there are so many other angles to take on this issue.

A) Why should peaceful Muslims pay for the sins of hateful terrorists who desecrate the name of Allah with their actions?

B) What's next to be politicized and debated? Trial by jury?

C) What is the significance of Ground Zero, and how are the various political forces using to their benefit? And is this OK?

D) Scapegoats are forever.

E) How is it possible that the party that defecated all over habeas corpus and now freedom of religion continues to be viable?

F) That's it for me. I'm moving to New Zealand and becoming a Hobbit.

Discuss amongst yourselves.)

8 Feet Under / 8-5-10

Prop 8 died yesterday. Let's all have a moment of silen - nah, screw it. Instead? Celebration!

I can scarcely contain my glee. Not only does the invalidation of Prop 8 open up the door for hot steamy girl-on-girl action to legally become "not tonight Greta, I have a headache," but it also sticks it to the fundamentalist crowd, and that's wholly satisfying. (Get it? Get it?)

There's a point on the horizon, and we're aiming for it. This may be the scenic route, but keep in mind I'm going somewhere here. Just not quickly.

I'm gratified by this result. Prop 8 was the public's attempt to bypass the courts and mete out civil rights by majority vote, and that's a good idea, oh, never.

But why am I, and by extension, bunches of other Straight-Americans (oh yes, we liberal PC watchdogs can hyphenate ANYTHING), so pumped up that same-sex marriage rebecame legal in California? Most of us are not going to ditch our families this weekend, road-trip it down to San Francisco, and marry the first person on the street who matches our gender.

I/We are excited that America is living up to its ideals. Like equal protection under the law. Like the same civil rights applying to all non-felonious citizens. Like allowing two adults who love each other to express their love. (So OK, the third one isn't expressly mentioned in the Constitution or Declaration of F-U-Great-Britain, and I freely admit it's a controversial statement, but the pursuit of happiness is an ideal, whereas the "pursuit-of-all-happiness-EXCEPT-romantic-love" is somewhat less of an ideal.)

In case you're wondering, I'm going to gloss over the fact that SSM has not yet been re-instated in California, as the courts would prefer to see some closure on this issue from the Supreme Court (which may not even take the case) before granting marriage licenses to homosexuals again, and as the judge presiding in the case issued a stay keeping Prop 8 in effect for an undetermined period of time. Hey, I'll take the victories where I can get them.

Anyway, the point tonight is, why should a hetero guy care whether or not a bunch of gays can marry? I've actually been asked that question. And I usually answer with some variant of the paragraph up there earlier, the one about ideals.

But just as importantly, I'm really growing weary of all the hate. All the exact same arguments that people made for denying marriage to interracial couples have resurfaced in the fight for SSM. All the ugly views of gays as a subhuman species bubble up to the surface, and they make me angry. I've had gay friends, gay co-workers, gay bosses, and the fact that a large group of people wants them to be unhappy for reasons of sexual orientation... that boils my blood, and I will fight that crowd whenever the opportunity presents itself.

It's the right thing to allow an adult to love the adult of his or her choice. It's an ideal worth taking a stand for. We already fought the slavery battles, the race-related civil rights battles, the women's suffrage battles. Those are done and won. But this one remains. I'd just as soon be on the side of the good guys this time around.

P.S. The judge who ruled Prop 8 must go? He's a conservative, appointed by Reagan. He is.