Musing's musings

Jesus wept. Yet again.

This is a discouraging start to the Easter season (which is supposed to be a time of joyful celebration of new life and new beginnings):

During Easter Mass in St Peter's Square, Cardinal Sodano expressed solidarity with the Pope, who has himself come under scrutiny for his role in handling past cases of abuse.

"Holy Father, the people of God are with you and will not let themselves be influenced by the petty gossip of the moment, by the trials that sometimes assail the community of believers," the cardinal said.

With all due respect to the dean of the Sacred College, no, the people of God are not with the pope--at least not as long as he continues to pretend that nothing is wrong in the Church, and allows people to speak in his name dismissing the current crisis as nothing more than "gossip" or a "smear campaign." Nor should the people of God be "with" the pope on this. The people of God should be (and many of us are) clamoring for a full and open investigation of this suppurating wound on the Body of Christ, thoroughgoing reforms with real substance behind them, and an institutional change of heart away from the "protect the hierarchy at all costs" model that has been in effect for at least the last two pontificates, and back toward something more closely approximating the approach of John XXIII of blessed memory.

We need more pastors in the Church, and far fewer lawyers and career clerics whose major concern is to keep their noses clean so they can land a plum assignment. The primary duty of the clergy is the cura animarum, the care of souls--and they have been falling down on the job in that respect for decades.

In fairness, I will say that many of the critics of the Church (and of its handling of this latest scandal) are not doing much to help. The level of ignorance of Church doctrine and canon law displayed by many critics (and virtually all media outlets) is simply stunning. The critics, particularly those who are not themselves Catholic, can perhaps be forgiven--but the media should know better, and do better research. (Then again, when has this not been the case for the last couple of decades? Journalism, it seems, is--if not already dead--moribund.)

Were it not that I have a fairly good idea of what he means by "deep change," I could find a tiny crumb of cold comfort in this part of the pope's Urbi et orbi message:

In our days too, humanity needs an "exodus," not just superficial adjustment, but a spiritual and moral conversion. It needs the salvation of the Gospel, so as to emerge from a profound crisis, one which requires deep change, beginning with consciences.

What the pope most likely means by "deep change" is, in my estimation, for more people to adopt the attitude toward the papacy exemplified by the bull Unam sanctam, promulgated in 1302 by his predecessor Boniface VIII ("...Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff."). The correct attitude for him to adopt, just as for anyone approaching the Sacrament of Reconciliation (which the pope should be for the way he has behaved since this latest round of allegations surfaced), is one of deep humility, sincere repentance, and a firm desire to turn away from the mistakes of the past. I have yet to see so much as a scintilla of evidence that such a disposition is present in the pope, or in anyone close to him who has thus far spoken on this matter.

Our Orthodox brethren chanted the Paschal troparion last night:

Χριστὸς ἀνέστη ἐκ νεκρῶν,
θανάτῳ θάνατον πατήσας,
καὶ τοῖς ἐν τοῖς μνήμασι,
ζωὴν χαρισάμενος.

Christ rose from the dead,
Trampling on death with death,
And gracing life
Upon those in the tombs.
(My translation from the original Greek)

It is difficult to see how the attitude displayed by the pope, by Cardinal Sodano, by the Vatican homilist (a Franciscan, no less!) the other day, or by virtually any other member of the hierarchy, constitutes a gracing of life upon those whose "tombs" include surviving abuse by members of the clergy whom they ought to have been able to trust. And therefore, I suspect, Jesus wept again today, for the σκάνδαλον (stumbling-block) placed in the way of τῶν μικρῶν ...τῶν πιστευόντων (the little ones who believe; Mark 9:42).

One of these things is not like the other

ἠκούσατε ὅτι ἐρρέθη τοῖς ἀρχαίοις· οὐ φονεύσεις· ὃς δ' ἂν φονεύσῃ, ἔνοχος ἔσται τῇ κρίσει. ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι πᾶς ὁ ὀργιζόμενος τῷ ἀδελφῷ αὐτοῦ ἔνοχος ἔσται τῇ κρίσει· ὅς δ' ἂν εἴπῃ τῷ ἀδελφῷ αὐτοῦ· ῥακά, ἔνοχος ἔσται τῷ συνεδρίῳ· ὃς δ' ἂν εἴπῃ· μωρέ, ἔνοχος ἔσται εἰς τὴν γέενναν τοῦ πυρός.

You have heard that it was said to those of old, "You shall not murder. Anyone who commits murder shall be liable to judgment." But I say to you that everyone who grows angry with a brother or a sister shall be liable to judgment. Whoever insults a brother or a sister shall be liable to the Sanhedrin. And whoever says "You fool" shall be liable to the fires of hell [literally, "the Gehenna of fire"].

ἠκούσατε ὅτι ἐρρέθη· ἀγαπήσεις τὸν πλησίον σου καὶ μισήσεις τὸν ἐχθρόν σου. ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν· ἀγαπᾶτε τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ὑμῶν καὶ προσεύχεσθε ὑπὲρ τῶν διωκόντων ὑμᾶς, ὅπως γένησθε υἱοὶ τοῦ πατρὸς ὑμῶν τοῦ ἐν οὐρανοῖς, ὅτι τὸν ἥλιον αὐτοῦ ἀνατέλλει ἐπὶ πονηροὺς καὶ ἀγαθοὺς καὶ βρέχει ἐπὶ δικαίους καὶ ἀδίκους.

You have heard that it was said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may become children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise upon the wicked and upon the good, and sends rain upon the just and the unjust alike."

ὁ λέγων ἐν τῷ φωτὶ εἶναι καὶ τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ μισῶν ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ ἐστὶν ἕως ἄρτι. ...ὁ δὲ μισῶν τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ ἐστὶν καὶ ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ περιπατεῖ καὶ οὐκ οἶδεν ποῦ ὑπάγει, ὅτι ἡ σκοτία ἐτύφλωσεν τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς αὐτοῦ.

Anyone claiming to be in the light and who nevertheless hates a brother or a sister is still in darkness. ...Anyone hating his or her brother or sister is in darkness, and walks in darkness, and does not know where he or she is going, because the darkness has blinded his or her eyes.

πᾶς ὁ μισῶν τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ ἀνθρωποκτόνος ἐστίν, καὶ οἴδατε ὅτι πᾶς ἀνθρωποκτόνος οὐκ ἔχει ζωὴν αἰώνιον ἐν αὐτῷ μένουσαν.

Everyone who hates his or her brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

ἀγαπητοί, ἀγαπῶμεν ἀλλήλους, ὅτι ἡ ἀγάπη ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐστιν, καὶ πᾶς ὁ ἀγαπῶν ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ γεγέννηται καὶ γινώσκει τὸν θεόν. ὁ μὴ ἀγαπῶν οὐκ ἔγνω τὸν θεόν, ὅτι ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

ἐάν τις εἴπῃ ὅτι ἀγαπῶ τὸν θεὸν καὶ τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ μισῇ, ψεύστης ἐστίν· ὁ γὰρ μὴ ἀγαπῶν τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ ὃν ἑώρακεν, τὸν θεὸν ὃν οὐχ ἑώρακεν οὐ δύναται ἀγαπᾶν.

If anyone should say "I love God" and yet hate his or her brother or sister, he or she is a liar. For anyone who does not love the brother or sister whom he or she has seen cannot love the God whom he or she has not seen."

--Matthew 5:21, 5:43-45; 1 John 2:9, 11, 3:15, 4:7-8, 4:20: my translation from the original Greek

If you're a homosexual, I hope you get brain cancer like Ted Kennedy.

MS: You want all gay people to be executed, correct?

SA: That is correct. It is what the Bible teaches.

--Steven L. Anderson, in an interview with Michelangelo Signorile

Mr. Anderson (I absolutely, categorically refuse to use the honorific "Reverend" in reference to this man, as I find in him nothing worthy of reverence) claims to be a minister and is one of the fundamentalist types who has begun praying and hoping for the president to die. This man may have a church, and claim to be preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but it's fairly obvious to me (and should be so to anyone who has ever actually read the Gospels) that he is a liar. Indeed, the words of the Beloved Disciple I quoted above convict Mr. Anderson of being a liar out of his own mouth, since he has stated elsewhere that he hates President Obama and everything he stands for.

As for Mr. Anderson, if that is the stance he's going to take about gay people (and he really should go back and re-read his Bible, since the prohibition he's referencing only speaks of men who have sex with other men--it never mentions lesbians), then here are a few of the other things he had better not have done himself, or for doing which he should be demanding that people be put to death:

• Eating pork, lobster, shrimp, clams, mussels, or crab (Leviticus 11:9-12; Deuteronomy 14:9-10)
• Eating meat rare (Leviticus 7:24, 17 passim)
• Wearing clothes made from blended fabrics (Leviticus 19:19)
• Shaving (Leviticus 19:27)

Marketing madness

So I'm sitting at home, debating about what to make for dinner and watching coverage of the first day of the U.S. Open, when a commercial comes on for a certain product. I like this product, and use it myself--but I'm shaking my head at the content of the commercial. Nor is this commercial the only place I've seen this kind of hyperbole: I regularly get surveys that feature it. And I don't get it--at all.

The line that got me thinking along these lines was "Your [product] completes my life," and was voiced by someone appearing to be a teen-age girl. First off, I rather doubt that's the kind of thing that the average teenager would say without being prompted. More to the point, I also doubt that this product (or any product, really) rates that highly. Yet, as I already noted, I see these kinds of tropes in marketing campaigns all the time. I regularly get asked, about this brand or that product, whether it makes me feel hip, or special, or cultured--and whole lists of other adjectives. Every time I get one of those surveys, I scratch my head and wonder what sort of people have such drab, nothing lives that using a particular product, eating a certain type of food, staying in a certain hotel, or flying on a certain airline, would make them feel other than who they were.

Don't get me wrong: I appreciate nice things, good food, and the like, just as much as the next person. But I don't define my life in terms of what I eat, where I sleep, or how I get to where I'm sleeping. What I want out of my food is that it be safe and nutritious, reasonably priced, and something that I like. Beyond that, I don't give it another thought. Same thing with wine and spirits, juices, teas, sodas, and all the rest of the universe of consumer goods with which we surround ourselves in these United States, and about which we are constantly bombarded with information trying to get us to prefer Brand X over Brand Y.

The things that complete my life, that make me feel special, are not the sorts of things that one can buy in stores. They are the friends and family members who enrich my life, the wonders of the world that I get to enjoy (and occasionally to photograph), the teachers who open up new intellectual horizons for me, that sort of thing. I have a few nice things, materially speaking, and I enjoy and appreciate them. But for most of them, what makes them special and enjoyable are the memories associated with them, the person(s) who gave them to me, the occasion(s) which they were intended to commemorate, or some other immaterial factor. I don't own a Rolex watch, but neither would I think of myself as somehow smarter, hipper, or more sophisticated if I did. It's a watch, for crying out loud--all I really care about is that it tells the time accurately and be readable.

I am reminded, in this context, of something John Shea wrote in his book Starlight. He was quoting someone else, whose name I can't remember, but who mused, as he was sitting at a shopping mall some years ago during the Christmas season, that people weren't shopping for things they wanted (or wanted to get), but rather came to the mall looking for something to want. And that's a problem. Scripture tells us that it is the love of money that is the root of all evil, but I'm inclined to think that the love of material things is, if not one and the same root, at least a closely related one.

This problem can only get worse in an economy where fewer and fewer people make things and build things, and more of them try to stay employed by selling people the things that others make. This is at least one of the reasons why our last president urged us, in the aftermath attacks on the World Trade Center and the useless series of wars he started thereafter, to go shopping--because if we don't, the economy gets even worse. Well, I'm sorry, but that's not an idea that works for me. I don't define myself by what I own, and I don't go shopping unless there's something I either need or want. I refuse to feel guilty about that, and I considered it crass (to say the least) when that was the appeal that Bush made to the American people. Not because I think that possessions are evil, or that people working in retail shouldn't make a good living--but because I don't want to live my life around what I own, how I come to own it, where I go to buy it, or anything so essentially trivial.

What he said

As far as I'm concerned, Dan Savage has said all that needs to be said about President Obama's shameful record on gay rights since winning election--and also about the "wait your turn, faggot" crowd that inevitably pops up every time anyone has the temerity to point out that the Dear Leader is naked. The Dear Leader really hasn't been all that dear as far as the gay community is concerned, and he sure as hell hasn't been a leader. Or even that good of a follower.

But then Obama was sworn in under Rick Warren’s porcine gaze and the "fierce urgency of now" quickly morphed, in Andrew Sullivan’s damning turn of phrase, into the "fierce urgency of whenever." Never mind that gay people are being turned away from their partners’ bedsides during medical emergencies now. Never mind that people are being kicked out of the military now. Never mind that Arkansas banned adoptions by same-sex couples on the very same day that Obama was elected. (Gosh, where’s that bully pulpit when you need it?) The man who wasn’t afraid to appeal directly to us for our votes as a candidate -- and certainly wasn’t shy about asking us for our dollars -- couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge the promises he had made to us and seemed to greatly resent being asked to actually honor them.

That paragraph says, eloquently and concisely, everything I've been struggling to say for the last seven months. In all likelihood, I will be turning to it again and again throughout the next three and a half years because, as Savage concludes his piece:

Last fall we, along with everyone else, got swept up in the momentousness of the campaign, in the symbolism and the history and the drama, and lost sight of something important: Obama is a politician -- and a Chicago politician at that. Nothing is ever given to you. You have to ask and tell and demand and do the work -- not passing the legislation ourselves or signing it ourselves (no coup gay’tat is in the offing), but in making sure our "friends" in the White House and Congress understand that we won’t take "wait" for an answer.

What do we want? What we were promised. When do we want it?

Now.

We're not going to go away. We're not going to sit back and let you shove us back into the closet, or put our issues on a back burner until the next time you feel like coming around and begging for our time, our talent, and our treasure to help you get (re-)elected. In fact, if we don't start seeing some action--and I mean concrete action, not just pretty words or a cocktail party for the A Gays or a proclamation that carries with it no actual substance--you can beg us all you want for our support, but you still won't get it. Come 2010, if we're still standing on the outside looking in, the Obama administration and the Democratic Party are going to find out what "I just can't seem to find the votes" really means.

Not to take the wind out of your sails, Republicans...

...But could you, for once in your miserable hate-filled and fear-driven lives, try arguing a position based on facts and using something bearing at least a casual resemblance to logic?

This health care thing is beyond crazy. I'm not wild about what President Obama is trying to get through Congress--not because I think it goes too far, but rather because I'm quite sure that it doesn't go far enough--like so many other things the president has tried in his first few months in office. But to hear the Republicans talking about it, any change to our manifestly broken and equally manifestly shitty health care system would be a disaster at least an order of magnitude greater than Armageddon. What's more, they're cackling to themselves with barely concealed glee, thinking that this is the president's Waterloo.

This debate may turn out to be a Waterloo moment for somebody. But I doubt it will be President Obama. But before I get to that, let's deconstruct a few things that people really ought to know about this health care thing. First and foremost, our system is not the greatest and bestest one on earth. How do I know that? Well, we could start with the fact that some 50 million people in this country (which prides itself on being the wealthiest in the world, although that is almost certainly not true either) don't even have health insurance, much less access to actual health care. Or we could notice that 28,000 children under the age of one year die in the United States, meaning that our infant mortality rate is higher than Cuba's, among 28 other countries. Or consider that the average life expectancy at birth in the U.S. is roughly 78 years--forty-fifth among 191 nations, and little more than a decade better than the worldwide average of roughly 66 years. Bosnia and Herzegovina does better than we do, as does Puerto Rico, Jordan, Macao, and virtually every country in western Europe except for Denmark, Ireland, and Portugal.

Another bugaboo the Republicans are trying to make hay out of is the spectre of "the government" controlling your access to doctors, controlling your choices, and making medical decisions instead of you. Oooooh, scary! Except, how is that different in any relevant way from the situation most of us are in right now, where our choices, our access to doctors, and our ability to make medical decisions for ourselves are all dependent upon, more or less, blind luck? For those of us lucky enough to have health insurance, it almost always comes with a whole host of restrictions--can only see in-network providers, procedures can't cost more than some set amount, this and that and the other thing aren't covered, and so on and so forth. This fiction that we're all free as birds to choose whatever doctors we want and to get whatever treatments we want is exactly that--fiction. Maybe if you're a member of Congress or fabulously wealthy--but for the average working stiff, not so much. You go where your insurer tells you you can go, and you take what your insurer tells you you can take, and you'll like it. (And chances are pretty good that your insurer will tell you something different next year--at the same time as it tells you that your premiums have just increased by 50%.)

The president is not proposing "socialized medicine"--or anything even close to it. I wish he were proposing something of the kind--because then I'd be considerably more vocal in my support for his health care agenda. I said it during the primaries when he announced this plan, and I'll say it again now: health insurance isn't the same thing as health care. I don't give a shit if people have health insurance. I insist that people have health care. And, frankly, the only system I can see that makes any kind of sense at all is a government-run single-payer model, similar to what you'll find in most of the developed world (including, as the Republicans are eager to point out, places like Canada and the United Kingdom).

Why does single-payer make sense? If for no other reason than something the Republicans are usually in favor of, to wit, economies of scale. When you buy flipping great wodges of something, you usually get quite a price break because you're buying so much. When you're buying prescription drugs for most of the people in America, you should be able to get them at pennies per dose--at least as long as the lobbyists for Big Pharma don't manage to stick a rider on this bill like the one they got inserted into the Medicare reform bill a few years ago--the one that precluded the federal government from doing what Big Pharma certainly does with the companies that supply them with raw materials--negotiate a reduced price on a high-volume contract.

Let me illustrate with some specifics. The State of Illinois sets fringe benefit costs for all of its employees every year. Since I work in grants administration, I have access to those numbers (which are part of the public record, so I'm not revealing any state secrets or violating confidentiality by disclosing this information). For an employee with a spouse (or a domestic partner) and a couple of dependents who wants something like a standard Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan, the state has to pay out roughly $21,000 per year, per employee. The university where I work employs around five thousand people who are eligible for benefits. Let's assume their average insurance cost per employee works out to something like $16,000 per year, since not all employees have dependents, and not all employees choose the most expensive insurance option available. Multiply $16,000 by 5,000 and you get $80 million. Eighty million dollars a year, just for employee health insurance--and that doesn't even take into account things like what the employees themselves contribute toward their benefits, or things like worker's compensation, and other forms of health care costs. If I remember correctly, that $80 million represents about a quarter of the annual operating budget for the university.

Now multiply that by all the businesses in the country. It's a standard assumption that salaries and fringe benefits are going to account for around 75% of the cost of operating any business. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the U.S.'s gross domestic product last year was on the order of $14 trillion in current dollars. One-quarter of that amount is still $3.5 trillion. That's roughly twice the Congressional Budget Office estimate of what one of the reform proposals currently floating around Capitol Hill would cost over its first decade. That $3.5 trillion, however, represents costs that businesses are already paying for employee health care premiums--each and every year. Hell, at $150 billion per year, Obama's plan would be cheap at twice the price--and still a huge savings (as in an order of magnitude) over current costs. Imagine what those businesses could do if they could use that 25% of their annual operating expenses as working capital. I think we could put a few more people to work, for starters--and maybe even manage to pay most of them a living wage and give them benefits.

Now, of course, there are rounding errors in my numbers, and factors that I didn't take into account. Still, they are likely to be trivial in comparison to the size of the numbers we're talking about. The basic point is that virtually anything we do to change the fucked-up mess that is the American health care system will represent an improvement. All the Republicans in the world can't change that fact--but that fact won't stop them from trying to make you think that they know what they're talking about.

Don't fall for the lies of the Party of No. And keep the pressure on the president not only to get his health care agenda passed, but to work for the next step in the process, which is actual health care for everyone in America--not just health insurance.

"How many years..."

"...can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?"

Bob Dylan penned those words the year before I was born, but they ring just as true today. But it's the next couplet from "Blowin' in the Wind" that's on my mind today:

Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn't see?

That's what I'd like you to tell me, President Obama. How many times are you going to keep turning your head and pretending that you don't see the signs telling you that your silence on gay rights has gone on far too long? How many times are you going to send insincere notes of condolence to soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines that you sat idly by and let be discharged from the military under a policy that you promised to end? How many times are you going to suck up to the forces of hatred and bigotry and division, in the misguided hope that you might be able to gain their support?

And how long, gay and lesbian and bisexual Americans, are we going to sit idly by and let him get away with this kind of crap? This man came to us, time and again, for money and for support during his two-year campaign for the presidency. And we showed up, time and again. He promised us that he would be a "fierce advocate" for our rights. Can we honestly say that he has even tried living up to that promise? No. For proof, I invite you to examine the White House web site. Can you find any page there, or even a bullet point, that speaks to a single gay rights issue? I've looked and looked, and I can't.

UPDATE: OK, taylormattd at Big Orange caught a boo-boo. There is actually some language on that page about gay rights issues. Not much, however, as he pointed out, and not that the president has actually gotten around to doing anything about any of the issues he listed there.

We have, yet again, been used and tossed aside by a politician who has cynically calculated that we will just swallow the outrage and come crawling back in two or four years when he will again ask for our time, our talent, and our treasure. In all likelihood, he will again cynically promise to do better on our issues this time. Many of us will believe him.

I, however, will not be among them. Because unless I see some concrete action on one or more of the following, Barack Obama will not even get my vote in 2012, much less any more concrete forms of my support:

Mr. President, I need your voice

The following is an e-mail I sent to the White House last night:

To quote your recent e-mail to me, Mr. President, I need your voice. You wanted me to speak up in favor of your health plan. Well, Mr. President, I want you to start speaking up on gay rights. You and your staff keep telling me how fierce an advocate you are on gay rights. When were you planning to start proving those repeated assertions? Vermont legalizes gay marriage--you say nothing. Iowa legalizes gay marriage--you say nothing. The Department of Defense fires an Arabic linguist because he's gay--a policy you promised to do away with--and you say nothing. The California Supreme Court twists itself (and the law) into a pretzel to uphold an amendment saying that only marriage between one man and one woman is valid, but the 18,000+ marriages that don't fit that definition and that took place before the amendment was enacted are still valid. And you say nothing.

Are you starting to see a pattern here? I sure am.

Now, I'm not surprised at the shape of that pattern. I was never under the impression that you were a liberal or a gay-rights supporter. But an awful lot of your supporters kept telling me that you were both, and that if I'd only wait a little while longer, you'd show me how wrong I was.

Well, Mr. President, I've been waiting for forty-five years thus far. Just how much longer do you think I'm going to have to wait? Because, as happy as it makes me to be able to rub the noses of those people who told me you'd be a great president for gay rights in your failure to live up to that promise, I would be far happier to have them rubbing my nose in my epic fail after you stepped up to the plate and proved me wrong.

A common excuse that's offered in your defense is that you've just started your term and there are plenty of huge problems on your plate to handle, so gay rights will just have to wait. My answer to those people is one I'm sure you're familiar with, because it's from Martin Luther King's famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail":

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have never yet engaged in a direct action movement that was "well timed," according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease .... For years now I have heard the words [sic] "Wait!" ...This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

I'm not waiting any longer, Mr. President. And if you expect to keep my vote in 2012, you won't, either. Show me some concrete progress on those issues you campaigned on, and we're OK. But keep putting me off with empty words and insincere promises, and I'll be looking for a better candidate to support in 2012.

I'm not expecting any reply, directly or indirectly. But I'd love to be proven wrong.

I won't be going to California any time soon

Yes, the outcome was what I anticipated it would be: upholding Proposition H8, but also upholding the 18,000 marriages that took place before it was approved. That still doesn't mean I'm inclined to do anything that supports the ignorant people who voted (albeit narrowly) in favor of that bigoted piece of misguided legislation.

I haven't had a chance to read all of the 186-page opinion (I managed to download a copy before the servers crashed), but I have to say I'm not thrilled by the Court's reasoning thus far. And I'd love to see how they managed to twist themselves into pretzels to come up with a ruling that (a) upholds the validity of the 18,000 existing same-gender marriages and (b) at the same time upholds the constitutional amendment that says, quite plainly, that only opposite-gender marriages will be considered valid in California.

The silver lining in this particular dark cloud is that the decision is likely to trigger an appeal to the federal courts, which could poke our allegedly "fierce advocate" of a president into taking some real action on getting rid of DOMA at the federal level so those 18,000 California marriages might mean something in the other 49 states even if they don't mean anything where they were performed. And I do think California voters will be voting on this question again in 2010, though hopefully this time those of us who recognize that separate most definitely is not equal will do a better job of presenting our case and pointing out just how many lies and half-truths the other side is putting out there.

But until this odious claptrap is removed from the California lawbooks, I won't voluntarily be setting foot in that state.

Sorry, NPR

It was recently the semi-annual begging week for our local NPR news station. (Though, to be accurate, it's more of a talk-and-occasional-news station anymore.) I always hate these times of year--both because they mess up my schedule and interfere with my ability to get the news I'm interested in, and also because after you've heard three or four of these things, the schtick really gets monotonous.

Truth in advertising: I used to be an NPR subscriber. I woke up to "Morning Edition" every morning and listened to it, either at home, on the way to work, or at work, until it ended. Then I switched over to the classical music station until it was time for "All Things Considered" to come on in the afternoon, which took me home. Mornings on the weekends meant at least some of the morning news shows, plus "Car Talk" and "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me." At least in my younger days, Saturday afternoons meant the Metropolitan Opera, in season.

Now, however, I listen to roughly an hour of "Morning Edition" on weekdays, between the time my alarm goes off at 10 to 6 and the time I leave the house. I still catch "Car Talk" most weekends, and I listen to "Wait, Wait" pretty regularly. But that's about it. I stopped giving money to my local station probably about 10 years ago, when it became apparent that they were sliding more and more into the conservative, Fox News style of "journalism," and away from actual journalism of the kind that NPR had been justifiably proud of and for which it had been famous for years. At around the same time, the classical music station began cutting back on local programming--and has now gone completely to a satellite rebroadcast format. I've seen nothing in the intervening decade to induce me to go back to being a subscriber.

We can start with the local coverage. For all intents and purposes, there isn't any. And when there is, it's almost exclusively about Rockford. If this station wants to be "my" public radio station, then it needs to do a much better job of covering "my" neighborhood.

Then there's the trend toward less and less actual news. I'll grant you that it's difficult to do an all-news format on the radio, but even during the "news" time, I'm hearing more and more promos for other shows, more and more sponsorship spots, and far more fluffy-feel-good stories than I like. I don't listen to NPR for sports news: and that's a good thing, because if I did, I'd have a hell of a time keeping up. And when they are broadcasting actual sports news, I usually don't want to hear it, since it involves sporting events that are on satellite delay or which I've recorded on my TiVo to watch later, and consequently I don't actually want to know who won or how they turned out until I have a chance to watch for myself."

I'd like to make a few suggestions...

...for additions to the "For Dummies" series of books. We can start with The Constitution for Republicans, since it does not appear that many of them have ever actually read it--or if they have, they've failed to retain any of the salient points. As evidence, I present the following, from the peroration to Rush Limbaugh's closing plenary address to the Conservative Political Action Public Asshattery Convention, last Saturday in Washington, D.C., in which he was attempting to argue that President Obama's policies represent a "bastardization" of the Constitution:

We love and revere our founding documents, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. [Applause] We believe that the preamble to the Constitution contains an inarguable truth that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life. [Applause] Liberty, Freedom. [Applause] And the pursuit of happiness. [Applause]

For the purposes of comparison, I herewith present the actual Preamble to the Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Sorry, Rush, but of the words you thought were in there, only "Liberty" actually appears--and not in the context you wanted. What you were looking for was the Declaration of Independence, which, of course, you also got wrong. Here's the pertinent passage in the original:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...

"Freedom" is not in there, guys. But note that "Government" is. Ooops. The Limboob, and all the boobettes who stood and mindlessly cheered his pompous pontifications at CPAC should all have to go back and retake high-school civics. Oh, and the leaders of the Republican Party might want to rethink all that groveling at his feet they're doing, lest they embarrass themselves even further than they already have.