That first sunrise of remembrance, you have those first inchoate visions,
Your nascent eyes lead you to believe you’re the horizon,
But slide outside the womb and I’m agoraphobic
And full of doubt and every morning I’m aphasic
Without my cuppa, full of doubt
Like Milton’s famous dreamawhile Eve.
Did she have that last noble and prelapsarian infirmity? Was she sick
Before she speechless swooned? Speech. Speaking again. Do we have to talk?
But talk is all we have – it’s our only tool. Speech the only analgesic. Narcotic words.
And yet descriptive power. How can you build a massive tower and bridge
Without good words? Inevitably, ineluctably the silent knight with lance will come
With arms and fire to sack the citadel and storm hallowed environs, laying waste beyond
And leaving hollow dunes. An ossuary and bony mausoleum. So Eve’s body is a temple. She sacrifices every child, she bears them up to death. There’s a bunch of nothing down in her no-matter and some panting. Mum and dad fuck you up awake. Already we are born out of the deep and lunched upon another. Lunging. We are launched without permission. Christened, godspeed, no matter what we think of christ. But Eve was made to fall. She’s the offered evve. You. Born, bearing, buried. You. Slay and slaughtered. Yes, she was made to fall. God the father slipped a satanic fancy In her sleeping ear. She did have Adam to talk to but he was just another babe in the woods. Will I be just like God? A god? How is that possible? There was silence and a bunch of nothing. Nothing and the rest was dead silence. Before I was there was nothing. But nothing comes from nothing. Am I already God and this is my creation? Is this only in my
Much deluded head? This dream is real, though. Things change here and stay that way. A fallen tree doesn’t right itself. These phrases don’t form themselves. But do I form them?
She wanted to know. All she seemed to know was like looking into a glinting pool. I’d make A very poor kind of God – waiting under weight for God only knows what. But how can he
Know? If he does know, is this the world he wants? He wants this dim confusion? If I were God, what would I say about this place and all the work of my creation? I’d have to say something, wouldn’t I? I mean, I’d be having thoughts about my thoughts so I’d have
To say something about something here since here is everything and I know all about it.
But what? I wouldn’t know where to begin. Did I see the beginning? This world was here
Before me, this world all before me, greater than me. So all I would say would be nothing,
really. No matter -- burp -- no mater -- no matter how many countless untrammeled attempts to tongue it out, all it would ever be is – north to south – some meaningless terms mouthed by a parrot. There are the parental patterns of repetition. I think I'm going to be sick. They start with me and that man but in reality they must start with God. I didn’t just come up with all of this on my own. God put them in our heads. So the kids will be repeatedly repeating. Just like cattle make cattle make mooing cattle. Old wood never becomes a tree. So all these reiterations to the point of idiotic imbecilic entropy ad infinitum. Ad nauseum. Odd. Eating and regurgitating. Burp. I’m choking on the serpent’s ruminated words. I’ll die of bellyache. Or hunger. Pass that apple. I’m talking God with you, snake. Ralph. I’m speaking of your God. Ralph. Ralph. Belch. Gurgle. Ralph. Gott.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Gay Reason?
Obama promised us the moon and other heavenly bodies. Then he started lowering his sites. He picked Biden (!) for Veep. Then he found all he wanted in H. Clinton for Secretary of State, a job which apparently anyone with no foreign affairs experience or training can do. (What exactly were Warren Christopher's credentials? He's dead now, right?) Then he picked Rick Warren for the convocation.
Pass the buck and give me the Change! Will all of Obama's nickles be made of lead?
Here's the thing with The Gays. If we can't be reasonable about Gay Marriage, what exactly can we be reasonable about? Or another way of putting it, how hard is Obama going to fight for the change he promised? Not too hard by the looks of it. That doof John Kerry seems to have him beat on The Gay Thing. This is what is surprising. Now that he is behind the big desk, it would really take so very little for Obama to get a big win on this issue. For starters he can avoid the Clinton mistake of 92 with The Gays in the military by not being Bill Clinton in 92. He doesn't need to come out of the oval closet and tell us he's all for gay marriage. All he has to do is not invite Rick Warren to Washington. Or any other gay hater.
He doesn't need to come out and say that he's for gay marriage at this time. A few winks will work. He can just use some code about ALL Americans deserving certain basic rights. Let's be reasonable, he could say. Where there is no harm, there should be legal recourse. Where is there harm with consenting adults to live in loving relationships? Should the government sign off on your straight marriage? Why should it be asked special permission to sanction your gay marriage? Obama should say, Those who mean us and do us no harm cannot be reasonably considered our enemies. Didn't Jesus say something like that to his disciples?
Gay marriage is not just an issue for gays. It is an issue for all reasonable people in a free society. Those who don't want us to take the counsel of our own consciences on gay marriage also fear our powers of reasoning in sundry other areas. These people want to call every human embryo a "baby." Every heartbeat is the sine qua non of life. This is the counsel of fearful people, people like James Dobson and Rick Warren. The world to them either makes sense to them or is the cruelest joke. Either conception is when we get our souls or Jesus is a liar and life meaningless. This is to the fundamentalist more fearful than an asteroid on collision course for Earth.
But are these fears reasonable?
Pass the buck and give me the Change! Will all of Obama's nickles be made of lead?
Here's the thing with The Gays. If we can't be reasonable about Gay Marriage, what exactly can we be reasonable about? Or another way of putting it, how hard is Obama going to fight for the change he promised? Not too hard by the looks of it. That doof John Kerry seems to have him beat on The Gay Thing. This is what is surprising. Now that he is behind the big desk, it would really take so very little for Obama to get a big win on this issue. For starters he can avoid the Clinton mistake of 92 with The Gays in the military by not being Bill Clinton in 92. He doesn't need to come out of the oval closet and tell us he's all for gay marriage. All he has to do is not invite Rick Warren to Washington. Or any other gay hater.
He doesn't need to come out and say that he's for gay marriage at this time. A few winks will work. He can just use some code about ALL Americans deserving certain basic rights. Let's be reasonable, he could say. Where there is no harm, there should be legal recourse. Where is there harm with consenting adults to live in loving relationships? Should the government sign off on your straight marriage? Why should it be asked special permission to sanction your gay marriage? Obama should say, Those who mean us and do us no harm cannot be reasonably considered our enemies. Didn't Jesus say something like that to his disciples?
Gay marriage is not just an issue for gays. It is an issue for all reasonable people in a free society. Those who don't want us to take the counsel of our own consciences on gay marriage also fear our powers of reasoning in sundry other areas. These people want to call every human embryo a "baby." Every heartbeat is the sine qua non of life. This is the counsel of fearful people, people like James Dobson and Rick Warren. The world to them either makes sense to them or is the cruelest joke. Either conception is when we get our souls or Jesus is a liar and life meaningless. This is to the fundamentalist more fearful than an asteroid on collision course for Earth.
But are these fears reasonable?
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Why Obama Won't Matter
It's all about the platform. I voted for Obama because I thought his platform of intervention and regulation in business, of not denying the desperate problem of global warming, of being pro-choice, of being less than arrogant toward neutral foreign powers, of progress in general rather than maintaining the status quo was in fact the better platform.
I never thought Obama could deliver on all he aimed to achieve. One's attempted reach should exceed one's actual grasp.
Obama will likely fail. What president has faced such difficulty? Lincoln and FDR had tougher jobs, certainly. Lyndon Johnson didn't do as badly as people thought but he sure seemed to. Nixon was not the monster that James Reston Jr. is convinced he was. Is.
The fact of the matter is that there are far worse things than Vietnam and Watergate. The are rather piddly when we forget about days at Berkeley or Columbia. The revolution was only on TV. In reality there are things like the auto industry that physically made all of this possible. There would be no Vietnam without Henry Ford's obsession. Nor would their be much in the way of a Berkeley or a Columbia to protest it. There were very few hippies protesting the Spanish American war. Today the hippies are every third woman or man. The hippies have cut so deep they are all of us except for Fox News and James Dobson.
So history rolls on despite which fads kick and scream the most. If Obama wants to get into the real gearworks of current history he is going to have to stop appointing people like Hillary Clinton or leaving Robert Gates at the Pentagon. It is not because these people are terrible. Far from it. But bringing in friends of your enemies or leaving the old guard in place is a sign that you don't want too many fights. That's politics. You can't pick your battles. You have to win them all. It is exhausting and stupid but that's the game. If you want to come out healthy at the other side of eight years you shouldn't play at all. It will chew you up and spit you out -- if there is anything left. My examples of Lincoln and FDR left their administrations in boxes both.
In a sense Obama himself doesn't matter because the culture war has been put on hiatus with his election and because history will get made no matter what. Yet, it he fails to win a second term he will become more important than he can possibly imagine. Why is that? Because of who will replace him. Huckabee/Palin looks scary to me. They would throw us back into the thick of a culture war. They would try to return to Reagan Era deregulation. They would not give a shit about the environment -- and we are running out of time to mitigate the effects of polar melt.
If Obama fails it will be because he is too conciliatory, to reluctant to fight. Limbaugh and other rightwing idiots tried to make Obama out to be this far left zealot. Far from it. He is too smart, too academic to think that real socialism could work in America right now. We aren't Denmark -- and for a host of reasons. Obama was never fool enough to want the impossible. But even so, he may want too little.
Part of Obama's desire to talk to Iran or North Korea may have been because he believes that giving people a break is the first real step toward reconciliation and healing. I would not be against talking to Iran or North Korea myself but I would never be under the illusion that talking could achieve much of anything there. Sure, Reagan talked to Gorby but we had some cards that really meant something to the Soviets. Iran and North Korea are not the Soviets. Their plain nuts. Obama's cabinetmaking seems to suggest that he believes forgiveness can heal political differences. I hope I'm wrong because that would mean Obama is the political naif many took him for.
twL
I never thought Obama could deliver on all he aimed to achieve. One's attempted reach should exceed one's actual grasp.
Obama will likely fail. What president has faced such difficulty? Lincoln and FDR had tougher jobs, certainly. Lyndon Johnson didn't do as badly as people thought but he sure seemed to. Nixon was not the monster that James Reston Jr. is convinced he was. Is.
The fact of the matter is that there are far worse things than Vietnam and Watergate. The are rather piddly when we forget about days at Berkeley or Columbia. The revolution was only on TV. In reality there are things like the auto industry that physically made all of this possible. There would be no Vietnam without Henry Ford's obsession. Nor would their be much in the way of a Berkeley or a Columbia to protest it. There were very few hippies protesting the Spanish American war. Today the hippies are every third woman or man. The hippies have cut so deep they are all of us except for Fox News and James Dobson.
So history rolls on despite which fads kick and scream the most. If Obama wants to get into the real gearworks of current history he is going to have to stop appointing people like Hillary Clinton or leaving Robert Gates at the Pentagon. It is not because these people are terrible. Far from it. But bringing in friends of your enemies or leaving the old guard in place is a sign that you don't want too many fights. That's politics. You can't pick your battles. You have to win them all. It is exhausting and stupid but that's the game. If you want to come out healthy at the other side of eight years you shouldn't play at all. It will chew you up and spit you out -- if there is anything left. My examples of Lincoln and FDR left their administrations in boxes both.
In a sense Obama himself doesn't matter because the culture war has been put on hiatus with his election and because history will get made no matter what. Yet, it he fails to win a second term he will become more important than he can possibly imagine. Why is that? Because of who will replace him. Huckabee/Palin looks scary to me. They would throw us back into the thick of a culture war. They would try to return to Reagan Era deregulation. They would not give a shit about the environment -- and we are running out of time to mitigate the effects of polar melt.
If Obama fails it will be because he is too conciliatory, to reluctant to fight. Limbaugh and other rightwing idiots tried to make Obama out to be this far left zealot. Far from it. He is too smart, too academic to think that real socialism could work in America right now. We aren't Denmark -- and for a host of reasons. Obama was never fool enough to want the impossible. But even so, he may want too little.
Part of Obama's desire to talk to Iran or North Korea may have been because he believes that giving people a break is the first real step toward reconciliation and healing. I would not be against talking to Iran or North Korea myself but I would never be under the illusion that talking could achieve much of anything there. Sure, Reagan talked to Gorby but we had some cards that really meant something to the Soviets. Iran and North Korea are not the Soviets. Their plain nuts. Obama's cabinetmaking seems to suggest that he believes forgiveness can heal political differences. I hope I'm wrong because that would mean Obama is the political naif many took him for.
twL
Friday, November 14, 2008
The Shakespearean Spirit
It is interesting that Rousseau was convinced we are free and that the world can be fixed if only we will it. I came up with an aphorism that I gave to my fictive hero Tyler Parker. It goes:
There are only two kinds of fools in this world: Those that think we can't change anything, and those that think we can change whatever we want.
If Rousseau had been a deep Shakespearean, a Fierce Bardolater, he would have realized that all of Shakespeares greatest villains feel themselves free in the universe to do as they please. Hamlet believes in fate. There are solid objects in the world and there are hard walls that we come up against. Mere thinking doesn't make anything so -- doesn't get rid of it either. Who can add a cubit to his height by thinking, Jesus asks. There is something essentially conservative about this -- at least at the philosophical level. We may want to change things -- and we should -- but there are some things that will never change and that are forever beyond our capacity. These things work to shape us. Limits define us. Finis means an end. This is the paradox of Hamlet, both the play and the character. We could scarcely ever end mining either. Certainly the play has a limit that puts the character through a tragic plot. His death is not as horrifying as the death of Cordelia, yet no death would be fitting for the vital prince. He shows us both the evil and the necessity of death for each individual because he is more alive than most of, who, paradoxically, have actual lives. To be human means to live under threat of death, and then to die. The rest is silence -- and no amount of will can change that. We all have to die, but how shall we live?
That is the question.
twL
There are only two kinds of fools in this world: Those that think we can't change anything, and those that think we can change whatever we want.
If Rousseau had been a deep Shakespearean, a Fierce Bardolater, he would have realized that all of Shakespeares greatest villains feel themselves free in the universe to do as they please. Hamlet believes in fate. There are solid objects in the world and there are hard walls that we come up against. Mere thinking doesn't make anything so -- doesn't get rid of it either. Who can add a cubit to his height by thinking, Jesus asks. There is something essentially conservative about this -- at least at the philosophical level. We may want to change things -- and we should -- but there are some things that will never change and that are forever beyond our capacity. These things work to shape us. Limits define us. Finis means an end. This is the paradox of Hamlet, both the play and the character. We could scarcely ever end mining either. Certainly the play has a limit that puts the character through a tragic plot. His death is not as horrifying as the death of Cordelia, yet no death would be fitting for the vital prince. He shows us both the evil and the necessity of death for each individual because he is more alive than most of, who, paradoxically, have actual lives. To be human means to live under threat of death, and then to die. The rest is silence -- and no amount of will can change that. We all have to die, but how shall we live?
That is the question.
twL
Abortion: The Short Version
If we are under moral obligations to protect every human embryo, then we are under similar obligations to very elderly and severely brain damaged individuals. This would mean that all of us ought to be rushed onto life support at the end of our lives, if we can expect any end. Therefore, the Terri Schiavo predicament is not a dilemma our families will face but the destiny of us all. We can imagine an argument suggesting that it would be morally reprehensible to ever opt to die rather than opting for a new organ regenerated in a petri dish -- this is the future of medical technology.
Let's agree that early-term abortion is murder. This would make it some sort of misdemeanor manslaughter even if we agreed that an embryo is a full human being. But if we were to "go after" the doctors who perform early-term abortions we can expect one day to file murder charges against doctors who refuse to give a 90-yr-old a heart transplant grown from the patient's own cells.
twL
Let's agree that early-term abortion is murder. This would make it some sort of misdemeanor manslaughter even if we agreed that an embryo is a full human being. But if we were to "go after" the doctors who perform early-term abortions we can expect one day to file murder charges against doctors who refuse to give a 90-yr-old a heart transplant grown from the patient's own cells.
twL
Thursday, November 13, 2008
When My Grandma Died
My Grandma was 82 when she died of non-Hodgkins lymphoma. After her initial regimen of chemo failed to put the cancer in remission, the doctors all but refused to further her treatment. There was little point in doing anything more agressive to stop the cancer. The type of chemo she received was considered cutting edge medicine but it failed to work for her. My granmother understood that this was a bad kind of cancer to get and that her old body wasn't in much of a position to fight with anything experimental. The reasoning was that it would have only marred her final days. One has to ask, What is preferrable, dying from the disease or its treatment, which may not work very well anyway?
The logic of those who claim that life begins at conception are missing the fact that, were this true, my grandmother's death would have been a suicide. Her doctors would have been guilty of malpractice, or worse -- murder perhaps. What language is out of bounds in this war of words? My grandma didn't die of cancer. She didn't die of the treatment. She starved to death, wasted away. This is a much better way to go than one could imagine. It turns out that we waste away pretty quietly. It takes weeks. And she didn't refuse to eat. She just couldn't eat enough to keep her strength up. After a while she couldn't eat at all. The only thing going in was water and morphine. For her this was as close as she could get to mercy. Cancer is a pretty merciless thing. Clearly though, we could imagine technology intervening in circumstances like what my grandma faced as she lay dying. We can imagine hooking people up to all sorts of machines that keep life in some sort of technical sense present in the body. But who would that serve.
To the way we normally think about what life is and what dignity is, talk about a few brainwaves and a microscopic cluster of cells -- this is not talk that makes a lot of sense. Why are we under so many obligations to embryos that we are apparently not to convicted felons? Why is war not problematic but an early abortion such a great evil?
I think the real problem for the religious right is that they can't live without knowing there is a soul. When does the soul get hooked up with the body? Well, it must happen at conception. The soul has to start with an event. They have no imagination for a soul that is an effect of the brain. This is so troubling to them that they have to insist everyone agree that conception is the divine moment when God fuses flesh and spirit.
If the abortion battle was not really about this great fear, this great imaginative crisis that the far right refuse to acknowledge, then it makes little sense why they insist on a law. Why not simply protest the action? Why not satisfy themselves with reducing the number of abortions? Why not compromise and start out demanding an end to the late-term abortions only? There is no room for compromise becuase compromise does not defend their dogma. The dogma that life begins at conception protects them from the fear that there may be no soul. Maybe all we are is a mass of cells. This is an idea they can't live with. It is so horrifying that many are willing to kill those that suggest it.
This is so far from the essence of Christianity exemplified in the life of Jesus as to be not only unrecognizable but a deep insult to anyone who takes Jesus seriously. Jesus pretty clearly distanced himself from all violence and certainly all retaliation. So why the hate-speech if it isn't out of fear that they and their savior are wrong and after death is an abyss of nothing?
This is pretty heady anthropological stuff, but this is the current American moment. We live with a group of religious people who live without faith. The insist on religious facts. If you deny these "facts" they are ready to curse you. And maybe ready to kill you.
I can't help how at odds the spirit of the times is with the quiet death of my peaceful Christian grandmother.
twL
The logic of those who claim that life begins at conception are missing the fact that, were this true, my grandmother's death would have been a suicide. Her doctors would have been guilty of malpractice, or worse -- murder perhaps. What language is out of bounds in this war of words? My grandma didn't die of cancer. She didn't die of the treatment. She starved to death, wasted away. This is a much better way to go than one could imagine. It turns out that we waste away pretty quietly. It takes weeks. And she didn't refuse to eat. She just couldn't eat enough to keep her strength up. After a while she couldn't eat at all. The only thing going in was water and morphine. For her this was as close as she could get to mercy. Cancer is a pretty merciless thing. Clearly though, we could imagine technology intervening in circumstances like what my grandma faced as she lay dying. We can imagine hooking people up to all sorts of machines that keep life in some sort of technical sense present in the body. But who would that serve.
To the way we normally think about what life is and what dignity is, talk about a few brainwaves and a microscopic cluster of cells -- this is not talk that makes a lot of sense. Why are we under so many obligations to embryos that we are apparently not to convicted felons? Why is war not problematic but an early abortion such a great evil?
I think the real problem for the religious right is that they can't live without knowing there is a soul. When does the soul get hooked up with the body? Well, it must happen at conception. The soul has to start with an event. They have no imagination for a soul that is an effect of the brain. This is so troubling to them that they have to insist everyone agree that conception is the divine moment when God fuses flesh and spirit.
If the abortion battle was not really about this great fear, this great imaginative crisis that the far right refuse to acknowledge, then it makes little sense why they insist on a law. Why not simply protest the action? Why not satisfy themselves with reducing the number of abortions? Why not compromise and start out demanding an end to the late-term abortions only? There is no room for compromise becuase compromise does not defend their dogma. The dogma that life begins at conception protects them from the fear that there may be no soul. Maybe all we are is a mass of cells. This is an idea they can't live with. It is so horrifying that many are willing to kill those that suggest it.
This is so far from the essence of Christianity exemplified in the life of Jesus as to be not only unrecognizable but a deep insult to anyone who takes Jesus seriously. Jesus pretty clearly distanced himself from all violence and certainly all retaliation. So why the hate-speech if it isn't out of fear that they and their savior are wrong and after death is an abyss of nothing?
This is pretty heady anthropological stuff, but this is the current American moment. We live with a group of religious people who live without faith. The insist on religious facts. If you deny these "facts" they are ready to curse you. And maybe ready to kill you.
I can't help how at odds the spirit of the times is with the quiet death of my peaceful Christian grandmother.
twL
Song from *Yeshua Crucified*
Some are never made to bleed
And yet they still succeed.
A thousand more answers
Than there are dancers.
But the dance unfurled,
Rejected by the world.
In secret you exult,
Bearing the hardest thing,
Knowing what’s most difficult:
An unappreciated song you sing.
To stony caves you run away,
Alone in failure there you play
On harp or drum
Immortal tunes through night and day.
twL
And yet they still succeed.
A thousand more answers
Than there are dancers.
But the dance unfurled,
Rejected by the world.
In secret you exult,
Bearing the hardest thing,
Knowing what’s most difficult:
An unappreciated song you sing.
To stony caves you run away,
Alone in failure there you play
On harp or drum
Immortal tunes through night and day.
twL
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