At Home On Piety Hill

October 6, 2005
Theologians debate message of Katrina
By RICHARD N. OSTLING
Associated Press Writer

New York’s Union Theological Seminary began the academic year with an explosive speech by Bill Moyers, late of PBS and CBS television, who was introduced as ‘the most respected journalist in America.’

“Most respected journalist?” Says who? Dan Rather? Union Seminary sure has slipped since the golden days of Bonhoeffer, Barth and Tillich! And, what are they doing mixing religion with politics? Perhaps Mahatma Moyers will enlighten us.

‘The country is not yet a theocracy but the Republican Party is,’ Moyers charged.

“Etymology: Greek theokratia, from the- + -kratia -cracy
1 : government of a state by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided. ”

Wait just a minute… he must have the Republicans confused with that other party… the party that ran a failed seminary student for President… the party of the Reverend Al Sharpton and the Reverend Jesse Jackson. And, let’s not forget the Bible totin’ Senator and President Clinton. The former First Lady used to communicate with the departed spirit of Eleanor Roosevelt… would that qualify as divine guidance?

‘Democracy is in peril.’ He compared conservative Christian activists with Muslim terrorists who can cite ‘many verses in the Quran’ as grounds ‘for waging war for God’s sake.’ America’s ‘homegrown ayatollahs,’ he stated, are deceitful bullies whose ‘viral intolerance’ undergirds ‘an unprecedented sectarian crusade for state power’ and ‘political holy war financed by wealthy economic interests.’

Please allow me to translate Mr. Moyer’s bigoted, progressive patois: Tolerance is the only remaining virtue with one exception: there will be no tolerance for the Christian who doesn’t know his place… the closet. Those Christians who take their faith out into the neighborhood, the school, the court, the public forum, medicine, the arts and to skid row are intolerable.

Moyers cited the incredible devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina and linked this with the Genesis flood. He noted that millions of conservatives believe the biblical teaching that God brought the deluge to punish human sin and also accept ‘God-ordered genocide’ elsewhere in the Old Testament. His point: It’s dangerous to ‘read the Bible as literally true,’ and liberals must resist those holding that belief.

It sounds as if Mr. Moyers is the danger to democracy and the sad thing is that, he’s so deluded by years of fawning and veneration by his colleagues, he doesn’t even know how pathetic he sounds. He debased PBS and CBS; now he’s defiled Union Seminary!

By E&P Staff

Published: September 20, 2005 4:37 PM ET

NEW YORK The New York Times Co. announced a staggering staff reduction plan Tuesday that will likely mean some 500 job loses at the company’s many properties, including an expected 45 newsroom positions at The New York Times newspaper and 35 at The Boston Globe.

In a memo to staffers, company chairman Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr. and CEO Janet Robinson wrote: ‘We regret that we will see many of our colleagues leave the Company; it is a painful process for all of us. We have been tested many times in our 154-year history as we are being tested now.’ They promised this would not impact the quality of the paper’s journalism.

And, that’s what’s so sad about this story… they don’t realize that it is the “…quality of the paper’s journalism” that has plunged “Pinch” Sulzberger, Jr. and his CEO into this morass. I don’t pretend to know for certain what forces are behind the loss of circulation and advertising, but I have a hunch. Perhaps people are finally waking up to the fact that they can get plenty of opinion from The Nation or The American Spectator, which openly admit their bias. The disgraced New York Times has been utterly exposed over the past few years as opinion under the guise of objective journalism. Their days of prestige and dominance appear to be coming to an end and good riddance!

GULF COAST GRIMLY COUNTS ITS LOSSES / Officials fear thousands killed by Katrina / MISSISSIPPI: In shattered town, man and dog survive ride of a lifetime: “GULF COAST GRIMLY COUNTS ITS LOSSES Officials fear thousands killed by Katrina MISSISSIPPI: In shattered town, man and dog survive ride of a lifetime Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer Monday, September 5, 2005

Waveland, Miss. — Brian Mollere looked Hurricane Katrina right in the eye, thumbed his nose and lived to tell the tale. The 50-year-old marine construction worker was one of several residents of the Mississippi beachfront town of Waveland to ignore evacuation warnings and survive. He did it by swimming off the roof of his home as it collapsed in the storm surge. He then rode a torrent of water over the tops of trees 1,000 feet inland before he managed to grab onto a house. And all the while he was holding onto his beloved pet Chihuahua, Rocky… Mollere, who ignored pleas from his family and local police, said he decided to ride out the storm with Rocky inside the two-story storefront/home across the street from city hall that he shared with his mother.

He said he woke up at 6 a.m. that day to howling winds and flying debris. By 6:30 a.m., whitecaps were breaking down Coleman Avenue, the city’s main street. Shortly after 7 a.m., a downstairs wall blew out and water rushed in. Forced to the second floor, Mollere and his dog watched as the house filled with 12 feet of water. He climbed out onto the roof of the first floor after the stairway collapsed and the building started shaking.

As the building collapsed, he plunged into the water.

“I figured, well, maybe I’ll just ride it out,” he said, leaning back in a chair on the concrete slab that is the only thing left of his house and puffing on a cigarette. “I was in survival mode.” Holding Rocky with one hand, he maneuvered past debris and the tops of trees, losing a shoe and his shorts in the process. “I’d climb in, out and around trees. I was going over power lines and got tangled in some power lines once,” he said. “I was really afraid of getting electrocuted.”

The flow took him over the railroad tracks. At one point he heard someone shouting and looked up to see people waving from a rooftop. “I just kind of smiled and waved and pointed to indicate that I was going thisaway,” he said. “Finally I came to a big yellow house and grabbed onto the side and pulled myself up the back steps.” To his shock, a family opened the door, fed him and clothed him. “The first thing I said to them was, ‘Can I get some water for my dog?’ ” he said. “Then I just collapsed in their house.”

Mollere’s mother, Jane Mollere, 80, died in the hurricane. She had evacuated Waveland and went to stay with relatives in an inland town. But their house was flooded, and she couldn’t swim to safety.

As for his own salvation, he said, “I guess it wasn’t my time to go.”

Besides, he added, “my father, Charles Brewster Mollere, floated down the same street during Hurricane Camille in 1969 in a flower barrel. He swore that he saw a white horse swimming that day and followed it to safety. I guess it runs in the family.”

An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State
by Robert Tracinski
Sep 02, 2005

It has taken four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can’t blame them, because it has also taken me four long days to figure out what is going on there. The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster.

If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city’s infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.

Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists–myself included–did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.

But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.

The man-made disaster is not an inadequate or incompetent response by federal relief agencies, and it was not directly caused by Hurricane Katrina. This is where just about every newspaper and television channel has gotten the story wrong.

The man-made disaster we are now witnessing in New Orleans did not happen over the past four days. It happened over the past four decades. Hurricane Katrina merely exposed it to public view.

The man-made disaster is the welfare state.

This journalist goes on to put into words what many have expressed to me, in disjointed declarations and anecdotes, after days of reporting on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of New Orleans.

I, too, have seen this contrast personally as devastating fires and floods have ravaged our part of the state of Californina over the past twenty years. During the 49er Fire in September of 1988, friends and neighbors banded together to evacuate folks in the deadly path and housed displaced families. I can remember driving in a caravan of pickups to Rough and Ready, where we loaded a house of furniture, while flames were topping the nearest ridge. Everyone pulled together and Nevada County was strengthened. By the way, just weeks before the fire, I had given a ride to the hitchhiking transient, who started the fire by burning toilet paper at his camp on someone else’s property.

The flood of 1997 showed me a different side of the community, when someone threatened to “blow up” government property, because his food stamps were late coming up to communities in the foothills from Marysville. Later, I was explaining to someone that the food stamps were late, because county workers had been allowed to go home and evacuate their families from the rising flood waters in Linda. This “ward of the state” responded, “Don’t they know we live from check to check up here?” That was my epiphany; I realized that there was a mob of people who thought their receipt of a couple hundred bucks of county assistance takes priority over hard working people getting their loved ones, pets and family treasures out of the destructive path of the raging Yuba River.

I think this author is correct: no amount of institutional or government preparedness could have saved New Orleans from the man-made disaster, which built up over four decades of harmful, enabling government policy.

I was cheered to fing that Sadie’s irritated with this nonsense, as well… I’m glad so many folks are seeing right through this sort of childish, scripted… it’s just so tedious… it’s so 70’s.

No sooner than I get rolling again and a widely published poet, Mishegas Master, drops in with one of the most incoherent rants I’ve seen in a while. Of course, I’ve never claimed to “get” poetry, so maybe it’s time to get back to school, so I can decipher “opaque comments that would bug most people” (to quoet a poet I do “get”). Anyway, here’s the comment, with my responses interlaced with the rage :

you fascist

Hmmm. That’s original. Let me see… a fascist would advocate fascism; from the Italian fascismo, from fascio or “bundle:” a political philosophy, movement, or regime that advocates a centralized autocratic government, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.

That sounds a lot like modern liberalism and the institutions they control, such as the academy, social welfare and the arts. Econonic and social regimentation cannot occur in a free market society, where individual freedoms, such as property rights, are cherished. Rather, history has shown that fascism incubates and thrives in socialist states (Germany and Italy) or Shinto and Buddhist countries (Japan, Cambodia, China, etc.).

For example:

nazi

No, I am not now and never have been a National Socialist or Nazi. I lean to the right politically, so I think socialism is a dangerous system, which may actually be a form of incipient fascism.

jesus disciple pig!

Ah, now we get to the real issue. It’s Jesus… it always is. Here, the writer is obligated to condescend to me; “I don’t have a problem with Jesus, it’s his followers I hate.” That’s a pretty disingenuous argument… Jesus said that if people receive Him, they will receive His disciples. If they reject His disciples, the reject Him. Jesus doesn’t disown his followers, who are pigs like me:

We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.” Romans 15:1 - 3

And, Jesus welcomes non-Christian pigs, too!

how dare you criticize helen thomas, just because she doesn’t agree with your politics!

Now here’s a fine example of the fascist attitude… “How dare [I] criticize…” In this poet’s world, I have to “dare to criticize,” because I am not an enlightened progressive. The intelligentsia are untouchable… they are above criticism by someone like myself, from the lower castes.

If you will notice, however, I critiqued Helen’s boorish conduct… She acts like my kids did, when they were thirteen (and the way I did until I was about twenty). It’s pathetic to see a person, advanced in years with an illustrious past in journalism, regressing to the behavior of one of those teens at the mall wearing a “Porn Star” tee-shirt.

are you a former burnt out reporter that holds grudges simply because you couldn’t advance in your illustrious media career?

Huh? Do I look like a reporter?

your simple minded view of the world is typical of the way most of you republicans think.

Wrong again… I’m a Democrat. I suppose this poet lives in the black and white world where, if you critique someone who makes a fool of themselves attacking Bush, you must be a Republican.

if cheney were to run in 2008,

That was part of the joke… my bad. Cheney will not run in 2008 and I don’t know why Thomas doesn’t know that. The man’s heart is a ticking time-bomb and he’s made it clear, this is his last Civil Service job.

the only way he could win is if the party steals the election by rigging machines and paying off big-city crime bosses to count dead citizens like they did ohio in 2004!!!

I think this person confused the urban legends of voter fraud in Ohio in 2004 with the historical episode in Chicago, when JFK won the presidency with votes cast by dead people.

ps-you spell borscht this way, not the way you spelled it. if you’re going to represent the media online, at least learn how to spell words properly, you twit!!!

Okay, so I may be a twit. But, I checked my post and I spelled borscht, b-o-r-s-c-h-t. Unless I’m missing something, we used the identical spelling. Is there some inflection or emphasis a poet would add to this word, when spoken, that I should have indicated? Or, did the widely published poet read my post with such blinding anger and hatred for my ideological bent, that it rendered him/her dyslexic for one brief moment? This person may want to take up writing or some other therapeutic pursuit.

Well, it appears that BlogThis! is working again, now that I have the latest version of Firefox. I’ll have to try it with Safari. I even found an old blog post I had begun back in July, finished it and published it today. I hope Dan and Sadie like it.

No, what better way to innaugurate this feature than by reporting this tidbit of good news. It looks as if folks are finally starting to see that Newsweek and TIME are not news magazines, produced by journalists, but tabloids publishing editorials disquised as news.

Newsweek Drops Issue, Cites Poor Ad Sales @ Media Buyer Planner: “Newsweek Drops Issue, Cites Poor Ad Sales

Due to low ad pages during late summer, Newsweek is trimming the number of issues it publishes by one, opting for a double issue dated Aug. 29-Sept. 5, Mediaweek reports.

Through July 19, Newsweek’s ad pages have fallen 15.6 percent this year, to 970. It’s not alone. A lack of spending in the technology and automotive sectors has hurt the whole newsweekly category with ad pages falling 10.5 percent, to 6,332 through July 19.”

Well, it looks as if Helen Thomas’ off the cuff remarks set off a flurry of filings by Republican exploratory committees across the country, seeking to gauge what kind of support they might find for a Dick Cheney presidential bid in 2008.

Albert Eisele in a column he wrote for The Hill: The Newspaper for and about the U.S. Congress, quoted Thomas:

Calling him “the most powerful vice president in recent times, perhaps in U.S. history,” she said that Cheney “certainly could campaign on the theme that he has had experience in running the White House.”

“The day I say Dick Cheney is going to run for president, I’ll kill myself. All we need is one more liar.” She says I shouldn’t have quoted her “because we all say stuff we don’t want printed.”

Thomas has the reputation among the cloistered and incestuous Washington press as the dean of the White House press corps. The rest of us find her antics at White House press briefings irritating, sophomoric and rude. She and those other self-important windbags, Walter Cronkite and Daniel Schorr, should consider aging gracefully out of the public eye, rather than flailing around in a panic, as they watch their ideological achievements being systematically dismantled by a new, better informed generation of news consumers. The 6 O’clock News, broadcasting the same borscht over three networks, has lost its monopoly. Their glory days are over.

While I think it is an important feature of a civilized society to render respect to elderly ladies and gentlemen, cranky old coots, who continually inject themselves into the public discourse via the media, push news and opinion seekers beyond the breaking point and open themselves up to ridicule. After Thomas labeled Condoleeza Rice a “monster” and a “… g–damn liar,” Ann Coulter derisively referred to her as “that old Arab” and now thousands are hoping Helen will make good on her “campaign promise” in 2008.

I remember the day when older folks, like my grandmother, would correct angry teenagers and undisciplined children for that kind of talk or behavior. Now, it seems that the elderly among us are the sullen, foul-mouthed hotheads, seeking validation and significance.

It’s Time for a Blog Break
¿Que Paso Blondie?
Awareness Never Fed A Starving Child
Emma Spreads Her Wings

It’s Time for a Blog Break
Okay, so I’ve just about finished Mounce’s commentary on Revelation, got my notes ready for Tuesday and took a trip to Remnant Books to round out my studies: John Walvoord’s commentary from the dispensational perspective, James Ramsey’s postmillennial commentary from The Geneva Series and Three Views on the Millennium and Beyond, edited by Darrell Bock.

I also answered a bunch of eMail… Denise and I repaired our window… I got a haircut at the Gentlemen’s Quarters in Grass Valley.

I think the photo above captures the simple joy of blogging… it’s nearly bed time, the heavy lifting has been done, the Powerbook is behaving properly and a large home brewed decaf latte´awaits me.

¿Que Paso Blondie?
I’m listening to Beck’s Guero and it’s taking me back to my roots: a surfer growing up in barrio South Whittier. The title tune captures the sounds and vibe of Brooklyn Avenue in East Los Angeles, then effortlessly transitions into Girl, an electronica surf tune with Beach Boy vocals and a bottleneck guitar solo, which would certainly measure up to Brian Wilson’s discriminating standards. Camille’s favorite is the funky Heck Yes and it is definitely the most danceable tune. Hey, ese! I’m stoked!

Awareness Never Fed A Starving Child
“I don’t think the awareness thing is working,” said Sue Kim, a 22-year-old student, in Philadelphia. “There’s going to be a lot of drunk people and what are they going to remember?”

Truer words were never spoken, yet expect to hear a lot of caterwauling and calls for the Group of Eight to forgive third world debt. If you want to know what to do about Africa, I’m afraid you may have to take a trip and see how the folks there do things. The Live 8 is a nice sentiment, but I think Sue Kim nailed it.

Emma Spreads Her Wings

Well, in about a week, Emma will take off for North Carolina. She will be going there to establish residency at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, along with her miniature roommate, who shall remain anonymous. Here’s a photo of her diminutive pal:

They are a real pair. I say her roommate is miniature, because Emma is the smallest of our children by at least a half a foot and her roommate is a tad tinier. They remind me of a couple of elderly ladies and I told them that if they could just get some nylons to bunch up down at their ankles, they would look like fugitives from the convalescent home. They like the same “little ol’ lady” activities and seem to compliment each other quite well. They thought my observation was accurate, so they call themselves “the golden girls.”

It’s been kinda fun getting ready to send them off… we had supper to get to know “the in-laws.” Seriously, that’s what it was like and we really hit it off with them (I’ll keep them anonymous, as well). Denise will meet them all back in NC, where they will help the girls get settled in.

This week at my Post Office, my barn swallow babies were doing their Al Jolson routine… when mom and dad fly in to feed them, they all look up and open their mouths and it looks like a little Minstrel Show, with their little white beaks and dark heads. I call them my little “Al Jolsons.”

Well, Thursday the two older ones flew off and when I came in Friday morning, the last one was in the nest moving around nervously as mom stayed perched on the floodlight watching her. She would come up to the edge and flutter her little wings, lose her balance a little bit and then turn back around. This went on all day… I would check every half hour or so. Then, finally, she flew. She would land on the ground or the lower bushes and seemed a little uncertain about going higher. With each circle away from the nest, she went higher and higher, eventually landing on the telephone line or the tree across the street. But, she would always come back near the empty nest. I say “near,” because she would fly right up to it, then turn back away and land on something close by and look at the nest. It’s as if she wanted to return home, but knew it was time to go and be a grownup barn swallow.

I went out to watch her a number of times and talk to her (yes, I do talk to animals, even though they don’t understand a darn thing I’m saying). Then it struck me: This is a metaphor for Emma’s stage of life and our empty nest. The rest of the afternoon, I called the little barn swallow “Emma.” Later that day, she was on the wire outside with another swallow, chattering away just like our Emma does. Then, they would fly off in their little circular path and swoop down to puddles, drawn intuitively to the mud they will need to make their own nests. At the rate that little swallow is developing, I think she’ll figure out how to make a nest any day now: just like Emma and her miniature roommate will in North Carolina.

No Salt, No Light
Abe Lincoln Black Republican Caucus
China boom risk to nature
$$ Millions Wasted! Halliburton?
Fathers Day With My Girls

No Salt, No Light
What do Christians want from Hollywood? This article answers that question and more. I was reminded of the 1994 Presidential election and the announcement from pollsters that, for the first time in history, evangelical Christian voting patterns mirrored the culture at large.

Abe Lincoln Black Republican Caucus
“Enough is enough,” said Don Sneed, co-founder of the caucus and a Bush Presidential appointee. “Even Rev. Al Sharpton, in a rare moment of honesty, has conceded that Black peoples’ continued political subjugation by the ingrates of the Democratic Party is becoming a political tragedy of historical proportions. Personally, I call it political pimping.”
I had no idea such an organization existed, until I stumbled onto this quote. When the Log Cabin Republicans refused to support George Bush in 2004, their African American counterparts in the ALBRC stepped into the gap and threw their full support behind his re-election.

China boom risk to nature
This looked like a promising article, but I should have known that in the end, the United States, aka “importing country,” would end up the villain:
Dr Liu said: “When China produces something for export, they use natural resources and release pollutants to the environment. You leave the pollution behind. Thus, importing countries contribute to China’s ecological problems.”

$$ Millions Wasted! Halliburton?
$526.95 for one phone call, $1,180 for 20 gallons of Starbucks Coffee, $1,540 to rent 14 extension cords and $5.4 million claimed for nine months’ salary for the chief executive! Another case of Halliburton fleecing the government? No! It’s the newly formed TSA getting off to a flying start! Read it and weep (or, better yet, call your representative)!

Fathers Day With My Girls
My Fathers Day began with a stylish card from Denise and a Starbuck’s gift card from Camille.

We met Levi and Suzanne, neither of whom are my children, at the Nevada Museum of Art for a fantastic exhibit of the art of Maxfield Parrish. There were many more paintings and drawings than expected and we took our time soaking them in. I was particularly captivated by his use of oils and the transparent, watercolor appearance Mr. Parrish achieved. Many of his paintings looked like colorized period photographs, causing me to wonder if that was the effect he was looking for. His sunrises/sunsets definitely capture the alpenglow of the New England sky in winter.

Another highlight was relaxing in the abandoned bar on the roof of the museum with the Nunninks, Denise and the girls. It was a glass enclosure, which had the appearance of someone’s living room with some modern, Italian design furniture. I think we sat there discussing art and music for about an hour.

We spent the night in Reno and then left for Lake Tahoe on Sunday. I am always impressed by the raw beauty of Lake Tahoe and the weather made our stay on Sugarpine Point very enjoyable. Emma is moving to North Carolina soon, so this may be the last Fathers Day with the girls together for some time. I’m blessed!

To those serious Star Wars fans out there, please believe me when I say, I mean no disrespect and I admit up front that there are some days I just shouldn’t go see a film (like that ill fated, rainy evening I viewed The Thin Red Line, but that’s another blistering post). The problem is, I usually don’t recognize I’m in one of my “moods,” until about ten minutes into the movie and by then, it’s too late.

I’m sure the Revenge of the Sith is a fine film, but there were so many elements of the movie that I just found distracting or annoying and I couldn’t get past them. Let’s get it over with. Here’s what bugged me:

1. The first thing I noticed was this large aerial battle with about fifty million different craft and drones and space junk flying all over the place. It was just too much: an ostentatious show of what a pre-teen mind would produce if he could get his hands on the hardware at Industrial Light & Magic. This is a distraction, which would surface over and over again as the film played out.
2. That leads me to the next major distraction: since we were viewing the film long after its release, the Del Oro had moved it into one of the smaller, cheesier, side theaters. Admit it… when you go to see a Star Wars adventure, you arrive with certain expectations. The most important part of the experience will be visual special effects, then high quality sound, followed by lots of action, interesting story, then perhaps some decent characters and, finally, some fairly believable dialogue (actually, I never expect that last one, but it would be icing on the cake). Here’s the problem…the SOUND WAS DREADFUL! It was stereo, from the screen with maybe a little low end going on, but that’s it. No surround! What? Star Wars – no surround? Barbaric. I literally sat through the movie, hearing the rear speakers of the big auditorium on the other side of our screen reverberating with the state-of-the-art sound from the new Batman film. I was thinking to myself, “I wish we’d gone to see Batman instead.” Perhaps the Revenge of the Sith will be redeemed when viewed at home in Dolby surround, with volume up to 11.
3. Okay, so we’ve lost the sound… There’s still the special effects to salvage the movie. Wrong. As I mentioned, I was immediately struck by the sheer volume of “really cool” fighters and stuff flying around in the opening scenes. But, sooner or later they had to land and that would lead to another tedious nuisance. Every time they landed somewhere, droids would walk, fly or roll out to greet them or to unload things and then I noticed that they were all different. It’s like I was viewing some crazy advanced culture, where they could come up with expensive, ingenious prototypes of every kind of robot imaginable, but somehow couldn’t master the simple technologies involved in standardization or mass production. Maybe none of these droids were as successful as, say, the clones or R2D2 or the protocol droids and that’s why they were consigned to be set “extras” in a Lucas space flick. Or, the more likely explanation is that the adolescent special effects guys at IL&M couldn’t resist piling on one more magnificent droid creation.
4. Lest you think I’m off on this, check out the dizzying array of intergalactic species, who/which/what are piled into every crowd scene or greeting of the senate or whatever. The original bar scene, way back in the olden days, was an appropriate, light-hearted venue to show off the different kinds of extraterrestrials the guys on the story board or in the “special effects” department brainstormed. It was a bar, a watering hole, set to a “frontier motif.” It was great… once! We don’t need the “bar scene” trotted out multiple times in every episode. The Jedi council compounded the distraction and I found myself harboring some very intolerant and uncharitable thoughts towards the masters. Here’s one example.
5. When the guys in the Jedi council are discussing serious matters, I found myself cracking up as I scanned the “august body.” I completely lost it when the camera panned to the guy who looks like an elderly version of Beldar the Conehead from Saturday Night Live. I mean, really. He even carries himself like Dan Akroyd would, leading me to believe there’s something common to the conehead makeup or getup, that makes you walk stiffly and turn your whole body, when you have to look in another direction. And, this is the sad part. When Order 66 (or whatever it was) was issued and the normally hapless storm troopers with poor weapons skills, start effectively and methodically assassinating the Jedi masters (another story problem), I found myself anxiously anticipating Jedi Knight Beldar getting zapped and let out a muffled cheer, when he finally got whacked. For once, I found myself sympathizing with the storm troopers.
6. Speaking of Jedi gaffs and guffaws. Did anyone else find it just plain wrong to have a wise-cracking Obi-Wan Kenobi in the film? I mean, when Han Solo rolled his eyes and clowned around in the good old days, it was appropriate… he was playing a rebel, a galactic James Dean of sorts. But, Obi-Wan yucking it up with young Anakin, after crash landing half a space ship, burning from reentry, with firecraft squirting it with foam at roughly 200 MPH, taking out at least one control tower containing hundreds of expensive droids (all unique prototypes of course) and probably hundreds of computer generated beings, representing scores of species… then, to jump out of the ship cracking jokes? Perhaps the Emperor was doing the universe a favor when he dissolved the council.
7. Which leads me to Anakin’s move to the dark side. If I were tortured by the stilted, boring, pedantic lectures Anakin was subjected to by Obi-Wan and the Samuel Jackson Jedi character, I would have been driven to the dark side myself. There’s nothing worse than a robed, wisecracking, monkish Al Gore type, wagging his finger and droning moral lessons with a first grade vocabulary. My light saber would be out of its holster in a flash and I would be decapitating every one of those hooded, inter-galactic Mr. Rogers characters!
8. I was emotionally flat-lined through the entire film until the Emperor stooped to the lowest level any space scum could possible descend to. Yes, one scene brought me to life and filled me with a bit of righteous indignation. The final irritant in the movie I can only describe as Muppet abuse. When the Emperor started picking on poor Yoda, the little fella had my sympathy. I revived, leaned forward in my theater seat, brushed off the popcorn debris and my lower lip began trembling with emotion (you know, like Stimpy’s did whenever he experienced some passion). But, my indignation turned to quiet laughter as I watched the little Yoda puppet figure sail through the air, slam up against the wall, and fall limply to the floor, as I had seen so many Muppet figures tossed about on their television show, 25 years ago. You know the drill: the Chef or Beaker would blow something up and the Muppet puppeteers would throw their puppets, arms and legs flailing across the set. Yes, that was funny on the Muppet Show, but in a dramatic film? It didn’t work for me. I looked at Denise and said, “You know, Yoda needs a cane just to get around… how will he even be able to move after being catapaulted against that metal bulkhead with the full force of the Emperor?” Yet, miraculously… well, you know the rest and it’s just not believable.

Am I being a little too harsh on Mr. Lucas, the creative crew or the cast? I don’t think so. I made about a dozen wisecrack observations to Denise throughout the film and normally she would shsssssh me. During the Revenge of the Sith, she either responded in hushed verbal agreement or the matter-of-fact “Joe Friday” look.

I was scanning the AM radio the other day and heard what I thought was Lisa Douglas, of Green Acres fame, talking about a blog she was launching with the help of some of her Hollywood friends. After a few moments, waiting to hear how Lisa lined up so many luminaries to address such topics as “life in Hootersville,” “cosmeteticals” and “hotscakes,” the host of the AM radio show broke in to give out the URL to Arianna Huffington’s new blog, Arianna Online!

Boy, did I feel like a dope. I could have sworn it was Eva Gabor in character as Lisa. Well, I went on to listen to Arianna bubbling on about her vision for a progressive blog to rival Drudge (which I never thought of as a blog), featuring Walter Cronkite, Warren Beatty, Gwyneth Paltrow and other policy experts. I have visited her blog a couple of times now… It is nicely laid out, but as far as I can see, it is a collection of her old columns… perhaps the other voices are buried somewhere, but I can’t find them for the life of me.

Arianna Online has been roundly panned and I am left to wonder who concocted the idea of putting Arianna, Walter Cronkite or Gary Hart forward as the “new face” of progressive populism. I’m guessing it was the same saavy political strategist who came up with the idea of “getting out the youth vote” in 2004 by touring John Kerry around the country with the “big-hair 80’s” crooner Bon Jovi and fellow Jersey rocker Bruce Springsteen; hardly the kind of guys to appeal to twenty-something voters listening to drum-n-bass, hard trance, hip-hop or even the Killers.

Well, we’ll have to see how it pans out. For now, I’ll spend my time reading Sadico Junction for society and women’s issues, culturezoo for (what else) opinions on culture, average joe for business news and, of course, NC Media Watch for Russ’ wonderful in-depth examination of local politics.

New Survey Finds Huge Gap Between Press and Public on Many Issues
By Joe Strupp
Published: May 15, 2005 9:30 PM ET

NEW YORK A new survey to be released Monday reveals a wide gap on many media issues between a group of journalists and the general public.

I was surprised to learn that only…

Six in ten among the public feel the media show bias in reporting the news…

Those of us who are in recovery as members of VOICES (Victims Of Inferior California Education System) know that polls can be skewed by the way questions are asked, so we go to the hard statistics to find out just how biased journalists really are:

Asked who they voted for in the past election, the journalists reported picking Kerry over Bush by 68% to 25%. In this sample of 300 journalists, from both newspapers and TV, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 3 to 1–but about half claim to be Independent. As in previous polls, a majority (53%) called their political orientation “moderate,” versus 28% liberal and 10% conservative.”

These professional prevaricators can’t even admit they are Bush-loathing progressives.

The results of this major poll, conducted by the University of Connecticut Department of Public Policy, were released the same day that we learned that a sensational piece in the tabloid, Newsweek, was the cause of deadly riots in Afghanistan. I’ve got a new bumper-sticker designed for my truck. It’s not very original, I admit, but at least it’s closer to the facts than that other bumper-sticker we see around town on Subaru Outbacks, Volvos or vehicles manufactured by similarly altruistic, globally-conscious corporations, which place social/economic justice over profits.

Is it any wonder the public feels disconnected from the media? But, let’s get serious for a moment. It would be one thing if these poll numbers represented just another story about the hapless, closeted, archaic press and their certain demise. But, the data suggests that they are dragging the First Amendment into oblivion along with them, with their arrogant, irresponsible and incompetent betrayal of the public trust.

Look at these disturbing statistics from the same poll:

• 43% of the public says the press has too much freedom
• just 14% of the public can name “freedom of the press” as a guarantee in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
• 22% say the government should be allowed to censor the press
• half of the young people [high schoolers] said they thought newspapers should not be able to publish stories without government approval
• newspaper relevance in the average American’s news diet appears to have slipped, with 61% of non-journalists using television as their main new source, and only 20% citing newspapers

Perhaps the greatest indicator of the failure of the press to understand what’s happening to them, is the fact that:

8 in 10 journalists said they read blogs, while less than 1 in 10 others do so. Still, a majority of the news pros do not believe bloggers deserve to be called journalists…

And:

…even though 85% believe bloggers should enjoy First Amendment protections, 75% say bloggers are not real journalists because they don’t adhere to “commonly held ethical standards.”

Would those be the same “ethical standards” that the editors at Newsweek employed in their publication of the Q’uran desecration fable? And, does this mean that the 15% who don’t believe bloggers should “enjoy First Amendment protections” think bloggers should somehow be silenced? Oh, wait a minute… that extremist 15% must be made up of the 10% who identified themselves as “conservative” and the other 5% are probably libertarians, who lied and said they were “independents.” After all, we know progressives or liberals wouldn’t try to limit anyone’s speech.

Why do I blog? There are a number of reasons, I suppose.

I was updating my Quotable Christian site and came across a quote which answers that question and may give you some insight into why I do whatever I do:

Our calling is to enjoy God as well as glorify Him. Real fulfillment relates to the purpose for which we were made, to be in reference to God, to be in personal relationship with Him, to be fulfilled by Him, and thus to have an affirmation of life. Christianity should never give any onlooker the right to conclude that Christianity believes in the negation of life. Christianity is able to make a real affirmation because we affirm that it is possible to be in personal relationship to the personal God who is there and who is the final environment of all He created. All else but God is dependent, but being in the image of God, man can be in personal relationship to that which is ultimate and has always been. We can be fulfilled in the highest level of our personality and in all the parts and portions of life… There is nothing Platonic in Christianity… The whole man is to be fulfilled; there is to be an affirmation of life that is filled with joy.

Francis A. Schaeffer

Death in the City (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press: 1969) 26

I began my first in-depth study of The Apocalypse this week and I think I have some insights and revelations of my own, concerning the identity of the Antichrist and the Beast of Revelation 13.

First, let me say that Dan (the guy to the left of Macaulay Culkin) is not the Beast, nor is his friend, Michael Jackson, the Antichrist. Of that, I’m relatively certain. However, I’m not so sure about this character, King Juan Carlos of Spain:

You see, he’s been fingered as the Man of Lawlessness by a number of “prophecy experts,” most notably Chuck Missler and Jon Courson. As a supplement to my serious study in Revelation, I began listening to tapes by these erudite Bible teachers (so-called) in order to gain insight into the strategic trends, which are preparing the world to bow to the control of this spellbinding, power hungry, dynamic, world dictator.

I found a tape of Jon Courson’s Prophecy Update for 1993 and he made a number of predictions about the things to come. Among them:

• King Juan Carlos of Spain, King of Jerusalem, is probably the Antichrist
• The generation, which began with the settlement of Israel in the land, will see the second coming of Jesus to establish His millennial kingdom in September 1999 at the Feast of Trumpets — then the millennium begins in 2000.
• Of course, you have to back up seven years for the Great Tribulation, so that means that the Rapture will occur sometime in 1993.
• The ten nations of the European Union represent the ten horns spoken of in Daniel and Revelation, even though there were 13 members in 1993 (he was able to pare that number down with some impressive mathematics). By the way, there are 26 nations in the EU now and more on the way.
• The year 2000 is the beginning of the millennium, but we don’t have to rely only on the Bible for that fact, because all the new agers and rabbis from 300 AD onward said it would happen.
• Rabbi Schneerson (April 18, 1902 - June 12, 1994) was quoted by Courson as saying that he would live to see the establishment of Messiah’s kingdom, the millennium, with his own eyes in his lifetime.

These are but a few of the nuggets of gold Mr. Courson mined out of the Scriptures for the crowd. Is it any wonder that we Christians are looked upon as a bunch of gullible half-wits, when we tell someone that Jesus died for their sins on the cross and rose from the dead, so they can live forever? That’s the problem with “crying wolf” and serving up this kind of sensationalistic slop to God’s people year after year — It may be entertaining, but Biblically illiterate Christians aren’t the only ones listening! These kinds of fairy tales get out to the general population (many times because we have passed around a tape or CD or book promoting this nonsense) and the honest inquirer is left to separate the facts of the gospel from the chaff of speculative theories and prognostications by these hucksters.

There is a way to stop these people and their creepy, cultic fascination with events that haven’t happened yet (not to mention their amnesia, when it comes to the hundreds or thousands of failed predictions they’ve made). Just say “no” to their speculation and sensationalism!

2 Timothy 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires…

But refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they produce quarrels. 2 Timothy 2:23

2 Timothy 1:13 Retain the standard of sound words, which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.

I found this thought-provoking article about the… Just a moment, I have an email coming in that I’ve been waiting for. Okay, that was good, let’s start over. I found this thought-provoking article about the deleterious effect of too much…. Wait a second, I just heard the phone ring. I’ll be right back. Alright, so where was I. Oh, yes… the deleterious effect of all our modern communications… Excuse me, Denise is calling from the other room…

“What? Who? Tell them I’m busy blogging and I’ll call back in about a half hour. *Sigh*”

So, ummm, this article says that, uh… well, here… you read it yourself:

The Scotsman
Fri 22 Apr 2005
Scientists believe ‘infomania’ can hit our ability to concentrate and cause permanent loss of intelligence.
Key points
• Texting makes you less intelligent, it is revealed
• Brains suffer from information overload, apparently
• Solution is: switch off!
Key quote
‘The impairment only lasts for as long as the distraction. But you have to ask whether our current obsession with constant communication is causing long-term damage to concentration and mental ability.’ - Dr Glenn Wilson, psychologist at the University of London”

So, that’s it in a nutshell. I’m glad they condensed it down to a few key points, because I was having a hard time following it. Hope you enjoyed… hold on for one moment… I’m using Sp@m X to get rid of my junk email and it’s telling me that I have about 3000 abuse messages to go out.

Loving the Rapist’s Child
This amazing story has to be at the top of the list, but my comments would only detract from this testimony to the power of love… I’ll shut my yap and move on to more trivial news and tidbits…

PimpMySafari.com
If you are a card carrying cult of Macintosh member and Safari is your browser, then this collection of plugins and widgets is a must. I still find Firefox to be noticeably faster, but it lacks many of the features of Safari. If you are running Windows, Linux, OS/2 (all sixteen of you, residing in former soviet bloc nations) or Solaris (um… sure), check out Firefox and make Microsoft earn their keep.

Study: Half Of Sexually Active Young People Get STDs
I recently overheard a fifty-something progressive lament the rising interest in abstinence-based sex ed for our government learning mills, as well as the erosion of the cultural advances he and his fellow yert-dwellers pioneered in the 60’s. I beg to differ. Their legacy of free love and boundless sexual freedom will endure for decades to come through unsightly facial sores, Carposi’s sarcoma, genital warts and cervical cancer. I know, I know… as an eminent intellectual in town wrote, those darn kids are gonna do it anyway, so why even bother getting the word out? Dr. James Allen, president of the nonprofit group American Social Health Association, should be flogged for his alarmist and hate-filled research and findings.

‘Flesh-eating’ germs on the rise, doctors warn
Speaking of alarmist! The chances of suffering the flesh-eating bacteria are the same as being struck by lightning or winning the lottery. This is just another case of tabloid journalism! It’s never going to happen to any of us! Not to worry, though… Philip Tierno, director of clinical microbiology at NYU Medical Center, assures worry-warts and sissies that they can avoid these infections by “…washing their hands, using an antiseptic and a bandage on all cuts and scrapes, and avoiding the sharing of towels, razors, clothing and athletic equipment.”

Postal Service Seeks 2-Cent Stamp Increase
Now, here’s something I’m passionate about. Congress passes a law, making the Postal Service overfund their retirement system, in order to coverup Congress’ profligate spending. This becomes a hidden tax, but the customers don’t know that. So, they direct their anger at postal workers. However, Congress didn’t bargain for Postmaster General Jack Potter’s shrewd comeback…

Apparently, Mouse Pads are So 2004
Dan Cederholm is really on to something here.

Labs Selling DNA Assessments
Finally, a service for adolescents and teens suffering from gender confusion! Here in Nevada County, students can lay aside their studies and ideological indoctrination, head down the hall to the school nurse and be spirited away for a simple test to determine if they have the gay or straight gene (without the meddling of their pesky parents). Although exhaustive research by reputable scientists has proven beyond any doubt (to journalists, anyway) that a “gay gene” exists, some backward hicks remain skeptical. In a related story, interest and funding seems to be lagging for scientists who have been conducting research to determine how genetics influence the sexual orientation of individuals who prefer the company of other species, small children, people other than their spouse, siblings, other members of their immediate families and a host of other anachronistic social taboos.

Breaking The Da Vinci Code
Wonder what all the buzz is about? Here’s a good place to start. Then, check out the second installment.

Drug-resistant staph infecting more people
More on resistant organisms, but this one has some real good advice about how to avoid getting a staph infection and the proper use of antibiotics.

Inside Move: Fanatics laying it on the line –’Star Wars’ fans stew in queue

If a movie isn’t playing at a theater, will its fans still line up outside? For “Star Wars” fans, the answer is a befuddling yes.

Former Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne donned his Emperor Palpatine getup and joined 10 other diehard Star Wars fans outside Grauman’s Chinese Theater. There was just one small problem: 20th Century Fox plans to open the film at the ArcLight theater a few blocks away.

Okay, so it’s not really Ozzy, but you have to admit there’s a real resemblance. Anyway, on with the story… This simple truth did not deter the faithful wookies, droids and stormtroopers from observing their ritual outside Grauman’s . The revelation (that they had camped out at the wrong location) failed to dampen their enthusiasm and, in fact, made them even more resolute in the rightness of their position — that is, positioned in front of a theater to see a movie which will not be there! This comical situation provides some valuable insights into cultic thinking, which sometimes results when members of a committed band of devotees are confronted with information flatly contradicting their deeply held perception of reality.

As I read this article in Variety magazine, I sensed an allegory coming on. I was struck by the unique way each individual dealt with the mental discomfort experienced when confronted by “anti-Star Wars” naysayers. Beyond that, I recognized some of the same thought patterns I had followed as a cult member and still do as a Christian, when my faith is challenged! Let’s identify and label some of these faulty responses with actual quotes from the article.

Denial
“We’ve heard all this before,” said Sarah Sprague, one of the designated spokesmen for the group. In 1999 and 2002, there were plenty of rumors (ultimately false) that the previous two pics weren’t going to open at the Chinese… Fox and the ArcLight… say they expect “Revenge of the Sith” to play the ArcLight… And Sprague was adamant the line isn’t moving to the ArcLight. “This is still the epicenter for ‘Star Wars’ fans. For the big iconic pictures of the 1970s, people lining up were here. They weren’t at the Cinerama Dome.”

Cognitive dissonance, giving way to mental confusion, ending in nihilism
“Even if it’s not here, we’ll just go see it somewhere else. We’re not doing this just for the movie.”… “What’s the point of lining up at the ArcLight if someone is going to go online and get the best seat in the house?” But wouldn’t that still make more sense than spending a month outside a theater that isn’t playing the movie? “Lining up for anything, what part of that makes any sense?” she responded philosophically.

Pragmatism in the face of contradictory and incontrovertible facts
“The telling thing is — for me, at least — if the film is not playing at the Chinese … I have zero desire to see it at all,” a fan who calls himself Obi Geewhyen posted on the message board at Liningup.net. “I’m in it for the lineup only and don’t give a darn about the conclusion of this lackluster, so-called ‘Star Wars’ series.”

True believers acknowledging the problem, while overestimating their ability to manipulate fate
A media-savvy bunch, those waiting at the Chinese hope press interest in covering (and most likely mocking) them would persuade George Lucas and Fox to move the booking.

Acknowledging the obvious, yet holding on to any sliver of hope
After the last two “Star Wars” films, “We’re all a little beaten down,” she said. “But this one could be it!”

The Christian exercises faith in historical, time and space events… what Francis Schaefer calls “true truth.” If these events did not take place, then Paul tells us that we are more pitiful than the Star Wars crew out in front of Grauman’s.

And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. 1 Corinthians 15:14 - 19

If you or I shy away from uncomfortable facts or refuse to consider serious challenges to a cherished idea or worldview, there could be serious consequences. We can’t say “I didn’t know.” And, we cannot shirk our responsibility to know what we believe and why we believe it. “I was deceived” is not a valid excuse for ignorance. Jesus put it this way:

If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit. Matthew 15:14

Notice that both the follower and the leader end up in the same pit. You know, it really does matter what you believe and it if what you believe is “true truth.” Jesus claimed to embody truth:

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. John 14:6

That’s a claim worth looking into.

Back in the good old days, our local newspaper provided a valuable service to the community. The Union Opinion Page was a virtual village square, where lively discussion and debate was carried on before the eyes of an inquisitive and sophisticated readership. Our family moved to Maine and returned in 1996 to find that the tenor of the Letters to the Editor had changed for the worse.

Responding to writers by name was no longer allowed, nor was it deemed appropriate to answer issues raised in previous letters, point by point, and in a timely manner. I believe this was the editor’s attempt to cool things down a bit. However, it seems that it only exacerbated the problem and when letters were limited to 200 words with one submission per month, all Hades broke forth in a torrent of angry memos. Because writers were limited to one letter per month, they were forced to become less nuanced and more outrageous in making their point.

The editor solicited opinions on the new editorial rules and I responded, as best I could, with this drastically edited observation:

A friend asked why I rarely read or respond to Letters to the Editor anymore. Years ago, Readers Write was my favorite feature. Two writers would spar for weeks on an issue and I came away challenged and better informed. However, The Union found it necessary to firm up its guidelines, limiting the length and frequency of letters to the editor. These well-intentioned measures have resulted in a combative, unedifying opinion page, where cramped writers drop in to lob a few insults, toss out questionable (often unverifiable) “facts” and speed away.

Raging hippies, paranoid comic artists, crop circle experts and one hater, who satirically labels himself a “decent, white, heterosexual, God-fearing, patriotic, Christian conservative,” have hijacked the opinion page. These angry, bitter, drive-by literary thugs insult their readers and their hypocritical appeals for peace, tolerance and understanding leave me laughing, but not entertained.

Newspaper and corporate television news have squandered their respect and prestige as the nation’s “watchdog.” Frankly, I no longer bother with the tendentious AP wire stories in The Union. I think we are better served by good, long discussions between informed and polite locals. I vote for an entire Opinion Section under a bit freer editorial rein.

The editor chose to publish a snippet from my letter to include in his summation of various opinions, but he ignored or rejected my thesis, i.e., that his new editorial guidelines were not helpful and did, in fact, put an end to any remaining civility. Perhaps the editorial rules will loosen up and we can turn back the clock to a day when discussions took place virtually unfettered, where readers were informed or enlightened and writers could submit more than one timely, well-reasoned response each month. Until that day returns, I will blog…

A CU Prof Deserving of Sympathy

Lets face it… diversity and free inquiry are dead at the University of Colorado.
Yet, the contrast could not be clearer. In one case, it’s the traditional pandemonium we’ve come to expect in the legacy press and media: victimhood, sloganeering, awareness raising, people with “speech” taped over their mouths and a camera load of hysterics (by the way, did we export this annoying, ineffective strategy to “the Arab street” or is this another example of the west adopting another Islamic cultural advancement like mathematics, astronomy and the university?).

Meanwhile, in the refreshingly dignified case of Paul Mitchell at a quiet corner of the campus, no protests… no press conferences… just a blunt statement of fact:

“People say liberals run the university. I wish they did,” Mitchell says. “Most liberals understand the need for intellectual diversity. It’s the radical left that kills you.”

My favorite anecdote?

Mitchell taught at the Hallett Diversity Program for 24 straight semesters. That is, until he made the colossal error of actually presenting a (gasp!) diverse opinion, quoting respected conservative black intellectual Thomas Sowell in a discussion about affirmative action.

Sitting 5 feet from a pink triangle that read “Hate-Free Zone,” the progressive head of the department berated Mitchell, calling him a racist.

“That would have come as a surprise to my black children,” explains Mitchell, who has nine kids, as of last count, two of them adopted African-Americans.

There is a fellow in town, Ross Woodbury, who I have known for twenty-five years now. We used to have some serious, yet good-natured, jousts in the “Letter to the Editor” section of the local newspapers (yes, in the 80’s there were at least three papers in town)… Ross’ ability to craft a good, thought-provoking letter-to-the-editor has been suffering lately and yesterday landed - KERPLUNK! - at an all-time low. His bigoted screed reveals that poor Ross has been cloistered in his liberal ghetto far too long. He needs to get out a bit more, quit spending so much time at the co-op / used bookstores and see more of the world of today, 2005 AD. Ross needs some fresh insights, instead of the usual fare of Gonzo politics and Ridge Hippie hallucinations from too much time meditating in the ashram or at the hookah.

Of the three newspapers I mentioned before, Ross was once a columnist for The Mountain Messenger, which is still publishing in Downieville. Since his glory days with the Messenger, it seems Ross has been sliding steadily downhill. As I mentioned, I still consider him a friend. Although I have serious differences with him over his *regressive politics, I care deeply for him on a human level. Perhaps it’s time for an intervention. I mean, if the editor of the Union is just going to let Ross go out in public with his fly open and gravy on his tie (figuratively speaking), perhaps it is up to his friends, you and I, to love him enough to let him know he’s slipping. Do I have any takers?

* I use the term regressive, because I refuse to attach the label “progressive” to anyone espousing the same old, tired, failed philosophies and politics I’ve been fed through our nation’s institutions since I was about ten years old. Nowadays, most of the fresh ideas seem to be coming from “conservatives.” I guess it’s time to retool the language - current usage doesn’t seem to be cutting it any longer.