SmokeSound

How do we think we know what is right? As children, our parents usually do that job:  father figures and mother figures, we call such people.  For many of us, we never stop looking for authority figures; parental types, "strong leaders", gurus, philosophers, religious leaders, God. That is to say, on e of the ways of dealing with hard questions is to turn to an authority, somewhere, for the answers. It was in the late 1700s, in Europe and here, that we turned a corner.  It was called the Enlightenment.  It was the realization that people had brains, and could figure things out.  How old is the earth?  Not 6,000 years or so, as we had been told by religious authorities, but incredibly old.  We figured out that life itself is part of an evolution of the whole universe. To put it plainly, we began to trust human reason.  We have brains!  We began to trust our own intelligence.  We established secular schools and universities, and tr...

It is very difficult to set aside our religious beliefs and agree to live in a pluralistic society because we don't think our beliefs are about our beliefs:  we think they are about God, and what God believes.  If you think you have learned what God believes, you had damned well better get with the program! That is why it is scary to hear people talking about what God says, and what God wants, and what God has told them.  It isn't like learning that your neighbor hates Jews or loves BMWs.  Hating Jews is just hate.  Loving BMWs is Bavarian.  What God wants isn't just an option.  It is something absolute. If, for instance, the Archbishop and the Priest said that it was their profound faith and fervent hope that nobody would ever have sex except when they intended to make babies, we could tell them they were silly fools.  But if they think it is God's will that priests never marry, or that abortion be damned, even if the mother dies, otherwise, ...

Let us imagine a place that has three groups of citizens:  Christians, Muslims, and secular.  Let us assume that the time has come to form a nation.  What kind of a nation might they form? If the Christians were Roman Catholic, you might reasonably expect them to want a nation that resembled other places that have Catholic majorities.  What does the Catholic religion focus on?  Male leadership?  Male priesthoods?  Male dominated families? We should expect the Muslim population to look like other Muslim places.  At least as male-dominant at the Catholics.  Maybe no pork chops.  Maybe polygamy. And the secular population.  They obviously would not be trying to establish an official religion.  No talk of a Christian or a Muslim nation.  Maybe democratic.  Maybe not.  Probably lots of science education.  Not likely any laws about not marrying outside your own faith.  Families, just like everybody, eve...

That Al Gore is "a man-like object". "The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found." “Even today, well-brought-up English girls are taught by their mothers to boil all veggies for at least a month and a half, just in case one of the dinner guests turns up without his teeth.” "As far as I'm concerned, 'whom' is a word that was invented to make everyone sound like a butler."

We don't have people here in the Upper Midwest:  we have folks. Our legislature says it want to protect the good folks of Minnesota.  Here is how they propose to do it (by a margin of two-to-one):  They propose to allow the good folks of Minnesota to use deadly force, anywhere they are, to protect themselves.  Let us be plain about this!  They propose that if you are armed, and you feel threatened, you can shoot the S.O.B.  At the Sunday School picnic.  From your boat.  At the park.  At your quilting bee. How is that for Minnesota Nice?  Don't roll down your car window and shout!  Make sure all of your fingers are pointing downward, in unison!  "We just want the good folks of Minnesota to be able to protect themselves!" the advocates of the bill say.  It might be shrewd, though, to know that some of the good folks of Minnesota are armed, and insecure.  Feel threatened, even. That is a license to kill! The good...

I know where I began to go wrong!  It was dirt. After high school in Eatonville, Washington--where I did nothing to enhance the value of education--I did what lucky kids got to do:  I got a job doing what my Dad did.  I went halibut fishing in Alaska. I was a kid from nowhere, on a boat going somewhere:  to Alaska!  Seattle, Prince Rupert, B.C., Petersburg, Ketchikan, Juneau, Sitka, Cordova, Kodiak! We came into those harbors, those first years, and I climbed the ladders and stood on the docks, and looked for dirt.  I wanted to know that I had touched, not just planks and paving, but the real earth in those places. I wanted to say that I had been in British Columbia, and Alaska; that I had stood on those places on earth; that I had actually been there! Much later--a generation later--in our family, we often remember when Daniel, on our walks up to Phelps Park, suddenly tamed down and became quiet as we neared First Lutheran church, and carefully av...

In the opening chapter of the book of Job, God sees that Satan has shown up, and asks him where he has been.  "I have been going to and fro on the earth," Satan said, "and walking up and down in it." I don't know, with certainty, that the people who first told that story literally believed that Satan had been walking up and down in it, but I should not be surprised.  What does surprise me is that there still are people who believe that Satan is an evil being, going to and fro on the earth; that is to say, people who do not mean that Satan is a metaphor for evil, or wickedness.  They mean that a very evil being is prowling in the garden of politics. Satan is part of an ancient worldview.  God was up in heaven, with angels and gospel choirs.  Satan, a very clever fallen angel, or something, was the master of a lower realm, under the earth, with his own entourage of evil critters:  imps and minor-league devils.  We humans lived on earth, apparently bo...

Is Rick Santorum out of his mind? Is he just a simple-minded believer? Are we supposed to take him seriously? He says he is running for the Presidency, but he talks as if he wants to be a prophet. "This is a spiritual war, and the father of lies has his sights on what you would think the father of lies, Satan, would have his sights on: A good, decent, powerful, influential country - the United States of America. If you were Satan, who would you attack in this day and age? There is no one else to go after other than the United States." It is absurd enough that he thinks there are no countries other than our own that are good, decent, powerful, and influential.  Has he never lived outside the United States; not even while in school?  Has he no friends in other countries, even after having served in both the House and the Senate?   But worse than that, he thinks that our political process is about a war between Satan and God's last, best, great Christian hope on ...

Credit:  Dokey-Hokey Joel is right! Santorum is not electable. His face is too long.

In the book of Genesis, God is said to have created human beings in his own image, male and female.  Then God told them to mess around, and multiply, and subdue everything on earth, including the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, and even creepy things. Rick Santorum likes that story.  He is big into subjugation of the earth.  And home schooling. Rick is not so happy about the notion that human beings should protect the earth.  He says that is all backwards.  The authors of Genesis and Rick Santorum agree:  earth is to be subjugated by human life.  Fish are made to be eaten.  Cows are to give milk.  Quail hunting season is a good thing.  Eat the meat.  Make baseballs from horsehides.  Don't swallow the lead shot. Actually, there are two creation stories in Genesis.  In one of them, human beings were the last to be created, and in the other, they were the first.  Picky, picky!  Neither of them has an...

From Anton van den Berg Nobody wants to admit it, because it scares the hell out of us, but there is no objective right or wrong.  You don't have to be an academic genius to see that.  All you have to do is to look around at the world around.  What is assumed to be divine truth here is foolishness somewhere else.  What is the only acceptable marriage in Indiana is not so obvious in Afghanistan or Sri Lanka.  What we eat is unclean to other people. Not only that, but a little honesty will demonstrate that what we hold to be good and true and beautiful today is not what we have always thought.  We change, over time.  If we did not change, it would mean we had never learned anything.  That may, here and there, be the case.  There is a grand religious hymn that has the line, "Time makes ancient good uncouth." Robert Bellah has a book titled, "Habits of the Heart".  The argument there is that if there is no objective guarantor of right...

Bert hadn't worn out his welcome, but pretty much everything else was failing.  He was 89.  At the hospital, they gave him a choice.  He chose to go home and die.   But then he looked out at the lake, and decided not to be hasty.   "All right!", Myrtle said, "but I'm going to need help!"  Myrtle was 85.  Home hospice care.  Round-the-clock nurses.  And the kids had to take turns helping her until Bert changed his mind.   It was Suzanne's turn to help.  Bert was getting better, so it was just the two of them for a while:  Myrtle, and Suzanne.  And Bert, of course.   But then Bert kind of shrank down into himself, and his head sagged.  "Oh, Bert!", Myrtle said. Suzanne said, "Oh, Dad!"  Bert didn't say anything.  He didn't move. Myrtle, on one side of the Lazy Boy, held Bert's hand, and put her head down on his leg, saying goodbye.  Holding his other hand, Suzanne started to cry. ...

"Did you see Robert Reich on TV last night?" That  is a coffee shop!   Not, "Isn't this some weather we are having?", but, "Who do you think will benefit most if Gingrich drops out?", or "Why do women stay in the Catholic Church?" The espresso machine shrieks.  The light bulb overhead has been out since Pluto was a planet.  The morning sun shines directly into our eyes.  It doesn't matter.  Much.  We talk to each other.    Tom reports about the wild turkey who strolls through the intersection over by Fat Lorenzo's.  Joel says he will be tied up all day:  it is too busy to work.  Mari has a meeting.  Jeff is almost late for a conference call.  He is on Western European time.  John leaves early to count money.  He is an actuary, tapering off from a lifetime of statistics of impending death by singing in a choir and counting the Sunday offering.  His Old Guy coffee group at the church is down...

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." That is Article 1 of the Bill of Rights in our Constitution.  Congress may not establish any religion, nor prohibit people from practicing religion.  We are guaranteed free speech, freedom of the press, the right to assemble peaceably,  and to howl at the government, if we want to.   That is what the guarantee of freedom of religion means in the United State.  The government may not establish any religion as an official religion.  Government may not deny us the right to practice our religion.   We are not a Christian nation.  We are not a Jewish nation, nor a Buddhist nation, or a Greek Orthodox nation.  We are a nation defined by our Constitution, and our Constitutio...

I have been trying to understand why religions are so obsessed with sex, and not just sex, but regulating women's sexual lives.   And maybe it isn't most religions, but it obviously is true of the Judeo/Christian/Islamic religious traditions; those cranky cousins suing each other over the inheritance from Moses. Suppose that Goddess were a female, instead, and that almost all of the prophets of the Old Testament were women.  Suppose that God sent her daughter to save womenkind, and the spouses of womenkind, and that she chose a nice, quiet, dark-haired guy from Tel-Aviv, who still has not had sex with anyone, to be the father of her daughter.  I guess you could think of it as a kind of honorary erection.   All of the disciples, of course, would be female.  Maybe they wouldn't call themselves, "disciples"; probably "The Lady's Aid Society".  And just as "Of course!" , all of the Priestesses would be female!  Instead of modest, little,...

Mari is right. If our medical plans not only refused to pay for Viagra, but added a penalty charge just for asking your doctor if Viagra is right for you, most of our problems with women's health care provisions would go away. And most Sunday sermons would be kinder, too; less aggressive, less Just-War theory and all that, and shorter.  Everything would be shorter. All of us would save some money.   Callista could wipe that blank stare from her face. The whole Muslim world would limit men to one wife, and matching pairs of cast-iron bathtubs  would go on sale.   One might call it, "thinking of something besides the box".                                                       And what is _his?                                 ...

So you want a Christian nation, do you?   What brand of Christianity do you have in mind?  Catholicism?  Southern Baptist?  Lutheran, maybe?  Missouri or Wisconsin Synod Lutheranism?  Maybe Episcopalian, or Pentacostal?  The people ringing our doorbell had something closer to the War of the Worlds in mind. It does make a difference.  You might, or might not, have access to birth control, or a cocktail.  You might not be allowed to marry someone of another race, or another religion.  You might be back in the good, old days, when our daughters and sisters went away for several months and came home looking tired and sad.   We could make a long and interesting list of what women could or could not do if this religion, or that one, could write the laws for the rest of us.  There is a lingering odor of testosterone about most religions.   If you are a Presbyterian, and you think Presbyterians would be in charge, you...

On Sunday mornings--almost always--Mari and I stay home, make a pot of really good coffee (just coffee:  no sugar, no cream) and read three newspapers.  Annic Cat strolls by when whis is not lying where she can see us.  She is family, too! On most other days, we meet friends at the Nokomis Beach Coffee Cafe.  On most days, there are up to a half-dozen of us at a couple of tables nudged together, as we nudge together.   We are not really alone.  All around, we reliably expect to see other regulars who stop on their way to work; paid or unpaid work.  We call across the room.   Saturdays are special.  On Saturdays, when the demands for work schedules are easier, we sometimes pull still another table up, and make it more of a party; more of a neighborhood.   But it is the everyday stuff that holds us together.  Everydays, we expect to be expected as we come through the door, sometimes with an honest cheer, and sometimes with ...

When, a couple of years ago, I traded our old pickup in for a slightly used, later mode l, it still had glue from duct tape on the dashboard.  It came from the time when we moved from Tucson to Minneapolis.  I had created a duct to carry cool air to our cats, in a compartment in the back of the pickup and, at the same time, to keep Mari's violets from cooking.   I think of that every time I read about Mitt Romney putting his dog, Seamus, in a dog carrier, up on top of the family car, and driving twelve hours to vacation.  Mitt says the carrier was air-tight, but he cannot really mean that; not if the dog survived the trip.  "Anyway," Mitt should have said, and probably did--he has a genius for such things--"the dog suffered less than he did, inside the car, with his kids and wife. " Even with air conditioning, one of the cats did not live.  She died, ten years later, at sixteen.   I suspect I will have my own Mitt Romney moment, when Mari read...

He is not sure how he did it, but Mitt Romney, who is worth  about a quarter of a billion dollars, has become the poster candidate for the 1% who own half our wealth. That is an uncomfortable identification, but yesterday Mitt trumped himself. He allowed Donald Trump to anoint him. Whether The Donald actually has an obscene amount of money, or just manipulates a lot of money obscenely,  it does not seem shrewd of The Mitt to seem anxious to identify with even more money. There is, after all, a huge anger in the country about who has enough money, and who doesn't.   Mitt seems uneasy about his money. The Donald boasts about his.   It is worse than that.  Donald Trump is a birther: that is, he says Barack Obama was apparently born in Kenya, and illegitimately holds office.   Donald isn't just a birther.   He is a conspiracy theorist.   Mitt isn't a birther conspirator, but he does have a tin ear. He cannot hear w...

Choose between Newt or Mitt? That is like being asked to choose between holding your nose or to stop thinking.   Opening the window  doesn't make Newt smell better: it makes the whole house smell like Newt. No matter what you say Mitt agrees with you, but not with himself. I will bet that Mitt will win in Florida tonight, and probably win the nomination. I will also bet that most Republicans wish they had a different choice. Not Santorum:  he is a religious zealot. Not Ron Paul:  he isn't even a Republican.  He is a libertarian zealot. What is missing is a believable and responsible Republican alternative. What we have is a dog fight. The Tea Party Irregulars hate government, and now they want to run it.   You know how that works. They would rather shut government down than pay the bills they ran up.   The primaries remind me of a proposal for a national defense system made in the early seventies: huge medieval catapu...