I have been wondering aloud with several friends the last day or two since Obama decided to go back on a promise he made to get rid of the Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell requirement, which forces gays in the military to bring their sexuality in line with biblical principles, what the hell is with this guy?
Given half the chance (are you listening, Home Security?) I’d run right over to the White House and kick the man in the shins.
Wouldn’t want to do any more harm than that, but I’d like to kick him in the shins.
I’m back to where I was when Obama invited that turd Rick Warren to the inauguration ceremony. I’m trying real hard not to get pissed at Obama, the man who reaches across the aisle. We used to have The Decider. Now we have The Compromiser. In principle, it all sounds so noble, so wise. So necessary.
Trouble is, down at street level, there’s so much about compromising important principles that really stinks. The Republicans aren’t giving anything in return for what he’s giving them. They’re too busy picketing CBS to get rid of Letterman. They're not compromising their principles.
And I’m less and less sure every day bailing out those thieving bankers was a good idea. But I’m trying hard to stay on Obama's side. I remind myself every day of the week how much better off we are since the last guy went back to Texas.
But here we are again. First Rick Warren. Now this. What is it with you, Mr. President? Are you really convinced selling out to the religious right will get us anywhere we want to go? Why do you cave in so easily?
My niece pointed out to me that in talking about abortion recently Obama mentioned this is an issue a woman should talk over with her pastor. Pastor? Why not her acupuncturist? Who says we have to talk about things with (protestant, by the way) pastors? Whatever happened to separation of church and state?
I know, I know. Leave the guy alone. He’s struggling with health care. Robert Reich was on Bill Moyers Journal Friday night telling the world that after health care Obama needs to deal with the meltdown. The bankers are not cooperating. The lobbyists are back to business as usual. The country is a basket case, and we can’t afford to be distracted by things like homophobia in the culture. You can see where Obama is getting pressured and why he might want to screw decency, promise-keeping, civil rights and keep his eye on the donut.
OK. How about this. How about we join hands and ask the right to go along with Obama on fixing the health care system in the U.S.? In turn, we can do a little Bible study. How about that? Joseph and his coat of many colors saves the family. Daniel survives in the lion’s den. Jephthah keeps his promise. Great stuff, those Bible stories.
What say? Don't know that last one?
Open, please, to Judges 11:29.
This guy Jephthah goes off to war for Israel and splatters the brains of every man, woman and child among the Ammonites after “the Spirit of the Lord” comes upon him. Jephthah makes a deal with YHWH. Give me victory and I’ll kill the first thing that comes out the door for you when I get back home, he says. The Bible doesn’t get YHWH’s exact words in response, but it makes it clear YHWH’s spirit was with Jephthah.
Well if you know your Bible, you know the first thing out the door when Jephthah got home was his daughter and apple of his eye. Remember Isaac, whom YHWH told Abraham to kill? Well this time YHWH did not stay Jephthah’s hand.
There’s an interesting twist to the story. The daughter, whose name is never mentioned, curiously, seeing her father is all broken up about this obligation to kill her and turn her into a burnt offering, assures her father he has to do what he promised YHWH he would do. Only please, daddy, could I take some girlfriends up to the mountain to bewail my virginity with?
I’m not kidding. “…and she departed, she and her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains. And at the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had made.”
Don't stop there. It’s in the next chapter where the word shibboleth comes. You know, that story linguists love because it’s all about slaying your enemies because of bad pronunciation. And the chapter after that has this Nazarite fellow who can’t cut his hair if he wants to beat the crap out of the Palestinians for Israel. So much to learn, so much to understand.
Stephen Prothero has a book out called Religious Literacy He claims we owe it to ourselves to know the Bible as a way of joining forces to support a common culture. He's got a point.
I mean think of it. If you saw a bumper sticker with things like "My son played Jephthah in his school play. (We really miss our granddaughter.)" And "Get rid of your virginity now before your father gets home," would you catch the reference?
Let's get back to the Bible.
Compromise is always possible. You just have to know where to look.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Pico Iyer on Money
Pico Iyer has an article in today’s New York Times on the simple life.
I'm not a great fan of Pico Iyer's. Have read some of his stuff. Did not leave a lasting impression.
This piece, in which he tells us he's found happiness in having less, not more, is a good example of why I have not found him particularly insightful. It's the kind of writing that allows those who agree with you to say "right on" and the very small number of people who don't agree with you to go their own way.
The life experience of others is frequently worth listening to. All of us are looking for others to show us the way. But other's experience has to be filtered through one’s own experience before it takes on any meaning. We share a great deal as individuals with the rest of humanity. But old men with advice are sometimes not all that different from vacuum cleaner or used car salesman. Useful as what they are selling might be, there are lots of ways to suck up dust and get from A to B.
Life, it seems to me, is way too complex for anyone to speak in general principles about how to live life. Not only are there the ages of man, where goals and reflections change according to one’s own level of maturity, but there are the seemingly infinite number of variations in the opportunities and constraints of time and place all controlling what you see and how you feel. It’s folly to attach formulas to the pursuit happiness, as far as I can tell. It seems far more likely to come to you while you’re working on other goals than when you’re plotting its acquisition. And I’m not sure that’s true for everybody, either.
One thing that always gets to me when I read that someone has concluded money isn’t everything is that if you take off the lid to see what’s in the pot, you’re almost certain to find they have been lucky financially to have lived above the threshold of poverty. It’s true you can live happily in poverty and many people do, but mostly when people like Pico Iyer speak of embracing the simple life they mean something like he does – that you don’t need to take four trips a year to New York. Three will do.
I’m old enough now too to think I can share my wisdom with the world. Give them little nudges, little suggestions. I'd start where the Greeks started, with “Know yourself." Know your strengths and weaknesses. To that I’d add be unscrupulously honest, even if it means hurting feelings. Select friends who are kind and trustworthy, not people who entertain you or get you to where today you want to go.
That's just the beginning of a long list. We could all makes lists of smart ideas, and I don’t want to suggest it’s a waste of time to do so. Beats robbing banks. And I know we can learn from our elders. But much of the time we think we are pursuing wisdom we're merely demonstrating loyalty to the tribe. Most of us believe what we want to believe and we want to believe what those around us want to believe. How often do we ask who the advice giver is and whether his or her truth is whole or partial?
Money advice is particularly iffy. A third generation member of a wealthy family is free to pursue Hittite linguistics or Renaissance music if he or she chooses. A kid in the ghetto is not, in almost all cases. Some people should be advised to marry for money. For some it's a great way to become generous and charitable and to cultivate a rich personality. Others would come to loathe themselves as whores.
What bothers me about Iyer’s advice is that it is only a partial truth and I’m not even sure he has the emphasis on the right part. “Though I knew that poverty certainly didn’t buy happiness, I wasn’t convinced that money did either,” he says. Fine. So what’s the conclusion? That we should stop the pursuit of money altogether? There’s a logical flaw in there of confusing sufficiency with necessity. Money may not be sufficient, but unless you’re the Dalai Lama or similarly constrained and supported, it is necessary. In celebrating the fact one has enough (for what else is Iyer really saying), one should not ignore the fact that poverty can lead to terrible unhappiness. Iyer is not giving universal advice; he’s giving bourgeois advice to the bourgeois.
“My heart goes out to those who have recently been condemned to a simplicity they never needed or wanted,” Iyer says, “But I’m not sure how much outward details or accomplishments ever really make us happy deep down.” Oh really? Not sure?
And how does he back this up? His next sentence is, “The millionaires I know seem desperate to become multimillionaires, and spend more time with their lawyers and their bankers than with their friends.”
He’s beating a dead horse here. Do people really need to hear repeated that money does not buy happiness? Do we really not understand the correlary – Nothing buys happiness, and money buys almost everything else?
I’m glad Iyer has found happiness in a simple life in Kyoto over a complex life in New York. I am never jealous of another's happiness because I don't for a minute believe it comes in limited quantities. But I also think you would not have to look too hard to find someone who has found a simple life in New York over a complex life in Kyoto. And any number of people who left a simple life behind for a much richer one elsewhere.
Some people like package deals. These people keep publishers of how-to books in business. Other people insist on endless exploration into the distinctiveness of their own lives and the lives of the interesting world around them. The former reach conclusions like “money isn’t everything.” The latter, I think, are more likely to say things like “I seem to know less and less every day. But I still can’t wait for the next day to begin so I can face the fascinating prospect of having to change all the conclusions I have come to thus far.”
I’ll take the second course, thank you.
I'm not a great fan of Pico Iyer's. Have read some of his stuff. Did not leave a lasting impression.
This piece, in which he tells us he's found happiness in having less, not more, is a good example of why I have not found him particularly insightful. It's the kind of writing that allows those who agree with you to say "right on" and the very small number of people who don't agree with you to go their own way.
The life experience of others is frequently worth listening to. All of us are looking for others to show us the way. But other's experience has to be filtered through one’s own experience before it takes on any meaning. We share a great deal as individuals with the rest of humanity. But old men with advice are sometimes not all that different from vacuum cleaner or used car salesman. Useful as what they are selling might be, there are lots of ways to suck up dust and get from A to B.
Life, it seems to me, is way too complex for anyone to speak in general principles about how to live life. Not only are there the ages of man, where goals and reflections change according to one’s own level of maturity, but there are the seemingly infinite number of variations in the opportunities and constraints of time and place all controlling what you see and how you feel. It’s folly to attach formulas to the pursuit happiness, as far as I can tell. It seems far more likely to come to you while you’re working on other goals than when you’re plotting its acquisition. And I’m not sure that’s true for everybody, either.
One thing that always gets to me when I read that someone has concluded money isn’t everything is that if you take off the lid to see what’s in the pot, you’re almost certain to find they have been lucky financially to have lived above the threshold of poverty. It’s true you can live happily in poverty and many people do, but mostly when people like Pico Iyer speak of embracing the simple life they mean something like he does – that you don’t need to take four trips a year to New York. Three will do.
I’m old enough now too to think I can share my wisdom with the world. Give them little nudges, little suggestions. I'd start where the Greeks started, with “Know yourself." Know your strengths and weaknesses. To that I’d add be unscrupulously honest, even if it means hurting feelings. Select friends who are kind and trustworthy, not people who entertain you or get you to where today you want to go.
That's just the beginning of a long list. We could all makes lists of smart ideas, and I don’t want to suggest it’s a waste of time to do so. Beats robbing banks. And I know we can learn from our elders. But much of the time we think we are pursuing wisdom we're merely demonstrating loyalty to the tribe. Most of us believe what we want to believe and we want to believe what those around us want to believe. How often do we ask who the advice giver is and whether his or her truth is whole or partial?
Money advice is particularly iffy. A third generation member of a wealthy family is free to pursue Hittite linguistics or Renaissance music if he or she chooses. A kid in the ghetto is not, in almost all cases. Some people should be advised to marry for money. For some it's a great way to become generous and charitable and to cultivate a rich personality. Others would come to loathe themselves as whores.
What bothers me about Iyer’s advice is that it is only a partial truth and I’m not even sure he has the emphasis on the right part. “Though I knew that poverty certainly didn’t buy happiness, I wasn’t convinced that money did either,” he says. Fine. So what’s the conclusion? That we should stop the pursuit of money altogether? There’s a logical flaw in there of confusing sufficiency with necessity. Money may not be sufficient, but unless you’re the Dalai Lama or similarly constrained and supported, it is necessary. In celebrating the fact one has enough (for what else is Iyer really saying), one should not ignore the fact that poverty can lead to terrible unhappiness. Iyer is not giving universal advice; he’s giving bourgeois advice to the bourgeois.
“My heart goes out to those who have recently been condemned to a simplicity they never needed or wanted,” Iyer says, “But I’m not sure how much outward details or accomplishments ever really make us happy deep down.” Oh really? Not sure?
And how does he back this up? His next sentence is, “The millionaires I know seem desperate to become multimillionaires, and spend more time with their lawyers and their bankers than with their friends.”
He’s beating a dead horse here. Do people really need to hear repeated that money does not buy happiness? Do we really not understand the correlary – Nothing buys happiness, and money buys almost everything else?
I’m glad Iyer has found happiness in a simple life in Kyoto over a complex life in New York. I am never jealous of another's happiness because I don't for a minute believe it comes in limited quantities. But I also think you would not have to look too hard to find someone who has found a simple life in New York over a complex life in Kyoto. And any number of people who left a simple life behind for a much richer one elsewhere.
Some people like package deals. These people keep publishers of how-to books in business. Other people insist on endless exploration into the distinctiveness of their own lives and the lives of the interesting world around them. The former reach conclusions like “money isn’t everything.” The latter, I think, are more likely to say things like “I seem to know less and less every day. But I still can’t wait for the next day to begin so I can face the fascinating prospect of having to change all the conclusions I have come to thus far.”
I’ll take the second course, thank you.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Love Thy Neighbor But Keep Thy Powder Dry
Proposition 8 passed because religious people in California acted out on their belief there is something wrong with homosexuality. Gay people were stunned by the loss of their rights. We have come so far. How could there still be such animus against us?
We were confident that our fellow Californians would not remove civil rights that our Supreme Court had declared were to be found in our state constitution. Early polls showed the referendum failing by a large margin.
But that was before the religious forces got organized, and we now know that concerted efforts from the pulpit to get religious folk to the polls the weekend before the election, along with gay lethargy, led to a 52 to 48 victory for Prop. 8. To rub salt in the wound, the same Supreme Court that once found freedom in the constitution now turned their backs on the gay minority, arguing that “the people” have the right to take away civil rights if they want to.
The Supreme Court are not the bad guys here. They will never again be seen as heroic defenders of minority rights, probably, but they were careful to point out that they felt OK coming to this conclusion because “only the word marriage” was involved – gay people had all the rights in domestic partnerships straights had in marriage. That’s sort of like saying Rosa Parks should not have won her case since, after all, one gets to one’s destination from the back of the bus as fast as one does from the front. But let’s keep the focus on homophobia, and not be distracted by one bad Supreme Court decision.
Homophobia is the right word. It is a phobia. A fear. You can see it in the eyes of religious people who tell you about the decay of Western Civilization, a fear that the world is changing too fast and all things sacred are being lost. The pope’s great enemy, if you have followed his speeches and writing, is “relativism.” The old certainties (like papal infallibility) are giving way to an attitude of “whatever.”
He’s wrong about that. It’s not “whatever” that’s the prevailing ethic. It’s a belief in fundamental human rights. Not the divine right of self-appointed leaders, but the right of human societies to act in their own self-interest.
But since the issue is fear, and not the agreement among reasonable people to differ reasonably, gay activists have changed tactics. They are going out into the heartland with personal stories, convinced that “if they just get to know us, they will love us.”
I’m not so sure. I’m a whole lot less sanguine about religious people.
I mentioned the case the other day of Fresno Baptist preacher Jim Franklin (http://hepzibahpyncheon.blogspot.com/ - May 22, 2009) who spoke of the “violence” of gay people in response to his political activity. The “violence” was throwing paint at a church office building.
Worse than this example by far is the case of former San Francisco Archbishop William Levada, who refused to allow catholic charities to place children for adoption with same-sex couples because doing so “would actually mean doing violence to these children.”
For this outrage, a statement absolutely contrary to the truth, Levada had to contend with a San Francisco city resolution condemning the policy. He chose to get out of the adoption business in San Francisco, as the church had done in Massachusetts earlier, rather than follow the guidelines against discrimination.
The church, incidently, took the city to court over this, but the court upheld the city’s right to protect its citizens against prejudice. A federal judge threw out the suit. The church appealed, and on Wednesday the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court’s decision.
Gays rejoiced when Levada was kicked upstairs (rejoiced that he left town, that is) to Rome to run what was once called the Holy Inquisition. As such, he is the highest ranking American in the church. But the joke was on the gays when the church gave us George Niederauer in his place. Niederauer, the former bishop of Salt Lake shmoozed some of his Mormon connections into joining him to launch Prop. 8 – and here we sit today in the mess that ensued. “To know us is to love us” may work for some people. But don’t bet the house on getting through to the church hierarchy.
Things are moving fast. Nevada just approved domestic partnerships, joining California, Colorado, D.C., Hawaii, Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington. Iowa, and now New Hampshire have raised the number of states recognizing same-sex marriage to six. No thanks to fundamentalist and authoritarian religious forces.
"We're very grateful for what God has done,” says Pastor Chris Clark of San Diego’s Southern Baptist Church, referring to the Supreme Court decision. Clark made no effort to explain why God made them decide gays should be allowed to marry before the people overturned that right. Or perhaps God chose not to step in that time. I can’t be sure whether he will see God’s hand in the overturning of Prop. 8 at the next referendum. Perhaps God will let the devil have the next one, just because it’s his turn.
I’m all for this person-to-person campaign. I think that’s the way to go.
But don’t let up on calling to task these alleged Christians who inflame with charges of violence when there is justified rage, however unjustified the vandalism. And who speak of violence where there is only love. And who see the hand of God in the removal of civil rights.
Love your enemy if you insist. Show them your family photos and give them a chance to love you back.
But know your enemy.
Don’t let him out of your sight for a minute.
We were confident that our fellow Californians would not remove civil rights that our Supreme Court had declared were to be found in our state constitution. Early polls showed the referendum failing by a large margin.
But that was before the religious forces got organized, and we now know that concerted efforts from the pulpit to get religious folk to the polls the weekend before the election, along with gay lethargy, led to a 52 to 48 victory for Prop. 8. To rub salt in the wound, the same Supreme Court that once found freedom in the constitution now turned their backs on the gay minority, arguing that “the people” have the right to take away civil rights if they want to.
The Supreme Court are not the bad guys here. They will never again be seen as heroic defenders of minority rights, probably, but they were careful to point out that they felt OK coming to this conclusion because “only the word marriage” was involved – gay people had all the rights in domestic partnerships straights had in marriage. That’s sort of like saying Rosa Parks should not have won her case since, after all, one gets to one’s destination from the back of the bus as fast as one does from the front. But let’s keep the focus on homophobia, and not be distracted by one bad Supreme Court decision.
Homophobia is the right word. It is a phobia. A fear. You can see it in the eyes of religious people who tell you about the decay of Western Civilization, a fear that the world is changing too fast and all things sacred are being lost. The pope’s great enemy, if you have followed his speeches and writing, is “relativism.” The old certainties (like papal infallibility) are giving way to an attitude of “whatever.”
He’s wrong about that. It’s not “whatever” that’s the prevailing ethic. It’s a belief in fundamental human rights. Not the divine right of self-appointed leaders, but the right of human societies to act in their own self-interest.
But since the issue is fear, and not the agreement among reasonable people to differ reasonably, gay activists have changed tactics. They are going out into the heartland with personal stories, convinced that “if they just get to know us, they will love us.”
I’m not so sure. I’m a whole lot less sanguine about religious people.
I mentioned the case the other day of Fresno Baptist preacher Jim Franklin (http://hepzibahpyncheon.blogspot.com/ - May 22, 2009) who spoke of the “violence” of gay people in response to his political activity. The “violence” was throwing paint at a church office building.
Worse than this example by far is the case of former San Francisco Archbishop William Levada, who refused to allow catholic charities to place children for adoption with same-sex couples because doing so “would actually mean doing violence to these children.”
For this outrage, a statement absolutely contrary to the truth, Levada had to contend with a San Francisco city resolution condemning the policy. He chose to get out of the adoption business in San Francisco, as the church had done in Massachusetts earlier, rather than follow the guidelines against discrimination.
The church, incidently, took the city to court over this, but the court upheld the city’s right to protect its citizens against prejudice. A federal judge threw out the suit. The church appealed, and on Wednesday the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court’s decision.
Gays rejoiced when Levada was kicked upstairs (rejoiced that he left town, that is) to Rome to run what was once called the Holy Inquisition. As such, he is the highest ranking American in the church. But the joke was on the gays when the church gave us George Niederauer in his place. Niederauer, the former bishop of Salt Lake shmoozed some of his Mormon connections into joining him to launch Prop. 8 – and here we sit today in the mess that ensued. “To know us is to love us” may work for some people. But don’t bet the house on getting through to the church hierarchy.
Things are moving fast. Nevada just approved domestic partnerships, joining California, Colorado, D.C., Hawaii, Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon and Washington. Iowa, and now New Hampshire have raised the number of states recognizing same-sex marriage to six. No thanks to fundamentalist and authoritarian religious forces.
"We're very grateful for what God has done,” says Pastor Chris Clark of San Diego’s Southern Baptist Church, referring to the Supreme Court decision. Clark made no effort to explain why God made them decide gays should be allowed to marry before the people overturned that right. Or perhaps God chose not to step in that time. I can’t be sure whether he will see God’s hand in the overturning of Prop. 8 at the next referendum. Perhaps God will let the devil have the next one, just because it’s his turn.
I’m all for this person-to-person campaign. I think that’s the way to go.
But don’t let up on calling to task these alleged Christians who inflame with charges of violence when there is justified rage, however unjustified the vandalism. And who speak of violence where there is only love. And who see the hand of God in the removal of civil rights.
Love your enemy if you insist. Show them your family photos and give them a chance to love you back.
But know your enemy.
Don’t let him out of your sight for a minute.
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