When Waking Is Bad Poetry (A Blog Can Be Too,...)

I'm having a hard time blogging this morning, which is really unlike me. I mean, Pastor Rick Warren's son killed himself "after an evening spent with his parents". 

The jokes write themselves. 

And yet, instead, I'm still feeling all unsettled and angst-y. 

I'm writing a post to try and shake it off.

I'm really getting into this music producer named King Britt after listening to his album Adventures In Lo-Fi. He's got a good ear, and then there's this:

"Inspired loosely by John Sayles 'Brother From Another Planet', Adventures in Lo-Fi asks its listeners to look around their immediate community critically and to do the same musically."

A guy could risk being labeled "no fun" for that shit. 

From what I've seen, especially when it concerns women, "critically" is practically a fighting word. 

My impression is few ever look at anything "critically," and I suspect it's because the cultists have convinced them "critically" is a bad word. The late Pasha P183 didn't think so, though:

"Put simply, I want to teach people in this country to tell lies from the truth and to tell bad from good. This is what our people still cannot do."

 Pretty fucking simple, that one. Too bad he's dead.

Unbeknownst to me, we had a little seeing-eye-to-eye action going there.

He was talking about Russians, not Americans, but now it's the human condition, I guess. People getting pushed around so much (the bullies call it "nudging") they barely know what to think about anything:

Last summer, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration instituted a new set of guidelines for city hospitals, which were aimed at encouraging women to breastfeed.   

If Bloomberg’s policy wonks expected warm, fuzzy accolades for their efforts, they were wrong. What they got was white-hot rage from women fed up with hearing that their decision to feed their babies with infant formula was ‘second best’. 

The interesting point here is not the relentless obnoxiousness of the Bloomberg administration in its quest to transform New Yorkers from their sassy food-loving selves into svelte, cycling locavores. No, it’s the reaction to a policy intended to promote breastfeeding,… 

It,...created a great deal of righteous indignation among women, both because they had been treated like failures by healthcare workers, other mothers and even nosey strangers simply because they decided to formula feed, and because - this is where the rage became visceral – most had bought into it themselves. They had blamed themselves and felt frightened for their children and often gone through a sort of living hell, for essentially no real reason at all.

"Gone through," yes, but also creating a living hell - for everybody else. 

"For essentially no real reason at all." 

That's what our society's partially based on now - massive misinformation and the unseen tragedies that result from it. It's pretty hard for me to see much else. 

I know too much now.

Part of that is knowing life never really had to be this way - but it was - and it shows.

I'm comforted only because it's horrors unfold in waves,...

 

The Game: We All Need (To Bullshit) Each Other

"My correspondence with Warren was brief and followed a relatively critical 2005 article about him that I published in The Nation (which some of his detractors considered excessively kind). I described his best-selling religious self-help book, The Purpose Driven Life (which he pointedly described as ‘the bestselling book in the world for the last three years’) as childish and platitudinous and questioned his commitment to religious pluralism and civil liberty for all.

A few months later, on the occasion of Yom Kippur (which I do not observe), I received an email from Warren assuring me of his personal love and friendship, and seeking my forgiveness ‘for any ways that I may have ever unknowingly hurt you. Your article showed a lot of hurt by, and fearfulness of, what you think I represent … I want you to know that I would like to be your friend. I thank God for you, for your talent at writing, and I ask you, on this sacred day, to forgive me.’

Warren even took it upon himself to ask forgiveness for ‘all the hurt’ he assumed had been inflicted on me by anti-Semitic ‘so-called Christians’. He did not tell me that he and his wife had recently dined at the home of a Jewish couple, but he did note that he was ‘recently invited to speak at the University of Judaism to a gathering of US Rabbis’. He concluded by assuring me that I was in his prayers and his heart: ‘I respect you, thank God for you, and I am praying for God to bless you this new year. With love in my heart for you.’

Warren didn’t know me; we had met briefly at a conference sponsored by the Pew Forum and disagreed politely. Because I am a mere human being, I have no love in my heart for him, or other people I have briefly or never met. But Warren, it seems, is more like a benevolent deity, who doesn’t simply harbour indifferent goodwill towards others but loves them - loves us all, despite our sins and failings. In fact, Warren’s email to me was apparently a variation of a Yom Kippur form letter that he sent to Jewish journalists."

-- Wendy Kaminer, on Pastor Rick Warren - the President-Elect's newest spiritual buddy - for Spiked!.

You'll Always Feel Bad After Watching A Porno

"Vote for my change, and I promise you more of Bob Gates at Defense, my rival Hillary Rodham Clinton (with help from Bill) at State, Gen. James Jones as national security adviser, Clinton pros John Podesta and Rahm Emanuel running my transition - and the evangelical pastor Rick Warren conducting my inaugural invocation. And what I am saying now about wiretaps, NAFTA, the Patriot Act, campaign financing, Iran, Iraq, missile defense, coal and nuclear power and taxes will have to be changed when I'm elected."

-- Victor Davis Hanson, on the ground-level reality behind (what many found to be) Barack Obama's souring words - which no one would've voted for, built a cult around, or had a reason to "believe" in - if they'd been carefully vetted by The San Francisco Chronicle.

Gays, Their Man-God, And The Hippie Church

John McCain: More Human Than Mr. "Hope"

"Made a more emphatic electoral appeal than Obama did, offering himself up as a leader who understands the economic challenges facing American families and using many of his longer answers to talk about current issues such as energy and Russia. Not as optimistic as Obama, but cracked his share of jokes, which the audience ate up, even the ancient ones. At other times, visibly moved the crowd telling two stories from his Vietnamese POW days: his refusal to be set free by his captors ahead of others who were taken prisoner before him (since it would have violated the U.S. code of conduct), and the time one of his jailers drew a cross in the dirt to share a Christmas moment. Was unusually passionate and articulate when talking about education choice and competition, as well as Islamic terrorists, Russia, and Georgia. Gave a more fluid answer than Obama did to the classic “why do you want to be president?” question."

-- Mark Halperin (who isn't a bad journalist) judging John McCain's performance at the Rick Warren gabfest, for TIME Magazine