Books and Covers....

The Chicago Police held a community meeting last night to discuss the murder that took place last weekend. The person who was killed was indeed a targeted gang member who lived in a different neighborhood and was murdered by someone involved in La Familia. That's what it looked like to me from the beginning.

I suppose I've become desensitized to people who throw their lives away. I can't care about you more than you care about you. In fact I only care about someone wasting their life to the extent to which their choices impede or threaten other people who are making something of themselves.

A Guy Was Murdered In My Neighborhood Pt. 2

There is a story about a renowned Russian statistics professor who refused to go into the bomb shelters during the raids of WW ll. "There are 7 million people in Moscow and the odds I will die are miniscule", he would say. One night however he shows up in a bomb shelter and his neighbors demand an explanation. "There are 7 million people in Moscow and one elephant at the zoo, and last night they bombed the elephant".

This is how we process danger, or more precisely the appearance of danger. We reach and overreach to form a narrative that supports its existence rather than entertain the possibility that danger appears in ways that can be purely random. That impulse is going to understandably be on display in my neighborhood in the next few days as a result of a murder at Central and Irving Park.

Towards the end of this news clip a neighborhood guy demonstrates pretty well how an event like this gets shaped into a larger story whether there is any evidence to support that story or not. The notion that we seemed to be wired to accept is that everything is getting progressively worse and that event spikes like this crime are the empirical evidence of that decline. But in reality that is exactly wrong.

In 2009 there were 453 murders in Chicago which was down from 509 in 2008 and while that may not be cause for rejoicing it is a vast improvement over 1992 when there were 943 murders in the city. Clearly the trend represents an almost unimaginable improvement in not only the number of murders but all crime statistics, yet people do not feel proportionally safer.

Indeed they feel progressively less safe.

One can understand an evolutionary advantage in over valuing negative information but it also

has a downside in that sometimes we do an exceedingly poor job of responding to things as they actually are. I think the case of McDonald v. Chicago currently before the Supreme Court is an example of exactly that. This is the case concerning the Chicago handgun ban and while Im not interested in discussing the 2nd amendment particulars here, which I agree with in principle, I am interested in trying to understand why a city with a crime rate that drops like a stone is populated by people who feel that instead crime is out of control and their only hope for survival is to own a gun. It can only be the entirely mistaken notion that the streets are out of control that feeds this and I think we arrive at that notion by placing entirely too much emphasis on the one spectacular event while completely de-valuing the overwhelming number of days where nothing happens at all.

A Guy Was Murdered In My Neighborhood Last Night Pt. 1

Early last night someone walked into a barber shop in my neighborhood and clearly, with purpose, shot and killed a young man sitting in a chair. As I came home from the show last night the police had the street blocked off and crime scene tape was stretched around the storefront. I had heard nothing about it as of yet but to see it was to know that someone had died there that night.

My thoughts and feelings about this are complicated, diffuse, and don't make a lot of sense but here they are:

"Barber Shop"? Nawww This place is a hangout for young guys who don't give the impression that they think much about their hair. Lots of smoking out front, spinning rims, and dudes who are consumed with the relative degree of their flex. Feels out of place in this neighborhood and while I've never had the least problem with anybody walking past it, as I've done many many times, Im not at all surprised something like this happened there. It has always seemed like a front for something other than guys looking to touch up their fades.

Honestly I can't say that I feel badly for the person shot or the waste who killed him. Events may prove me wrong and make me look like an asshole but at this point the circumstances of the murder strongly suggest to me that this was an event involving people who have aggressively chosen to live a life that any reasonable person could conclude involved this kind of risk. When the stupid choices of your life finally catch up to you it really isn't my tragedy. I am sympathetic to the families left behind but again I'd guess that to one degree or another this has been enabled by people close to the participants.

But Im also thinking of how, just steps away from the murder scene is the entrance to Portage Park where my son has played football for years. Youth sports make an easy target. Overzealous coaches and parents are a reality and they can be a nightmarish experience for some kids. But in this case I think of the men and women who volunteer an enormous amount of time to provide positive examples and direction to kids who might otherwise not be aware of the choices they have. These are boys and girls often from single family homes that frequently don't have an overabundance of positive male role models in their lives and who are clearly starving for a man's attention and a sense of belonging. You can scoff all you like but I've seen kids grow and mature well beyond what they thought possible ,and this only happens because good people have chosen to put positive energy into the community.

Im not saying that if only the men involved in this incident had played football at Portage Park this wouldn't have happened, but I am saying that there was another potential life path availabe for these men just steps away from where both of their lives ended essentially and the people who work to make that potential available deserve a bigger thank you than they get. Lots of people will look at this and think the neighborhood has gotten more dangerous or they should perhaps move, ( more on that later ) but right now Im looking at this and thinking the neighborhood is lucky that people like Ebony and Dexter , Coach Flipper, Lupe, Omar, Charlie, and a host of other people feel moved to work towards making this kind of senselessness even less common than it is.

How Responsible Are Religious Moderates?

If the Catholic church were a private business or indeed anything other than a church it would be viewed as one of the most sinister conspiracies in history. As more information comes out globally about child abuse it is clear that the knowledge of that abuse and the concerted effort to cover it up reaches all the way to the papacy.

And yet today the church down the street is full of people giving their time and money to an organization that hides, enables, and protects pedophiles.

I know a good many of the people who attend the church down the street. They're good and decent people who would never support a secular organization with the same record but attend church because it appeals to a sense of moral nostalgia or to "give the kids a moral foundation".

Fine. But at some point these same people have to take some responsibility for their support. Their tithe, however small in real numbers, goes to pay the insurance premiums that pay off victims of Catholic pedophilia and supports the work of the countless Christian bureaucrats who have hidden these criminals from discovery. It isn't okay because its a church

For Better And Worse And Everything In Between.

Ran into a friend the other day who was going thru a parenting related crisis of self confidence that I easily related to.

Seems that for whatever reason we can lose ourselves in our work or whatever else we may be passionate about to the extent that we are defined entirely by our level of interest and people hate to see us coming because it means there'll be another long goddamn self absorbed discussion about our thing. But it doesn't reveal itself in the same way it does when we become so wrapped up in the raising of our children that it seems like that's all we are. That is easy to see in the mirror.

Before we had kids I had a lot of anxiety about how it would change my life and what those changes would cost. I was absolutely right about almost all of them and the ones I got wrong were underestimates. But I don't care in the same way. Life eventually comes back to you in a way that is different but far better.

Gettin' my geek on..

I've been reading Wealth Of Nations by Adam Smith for what is unfortunately the first time and it has set me to pondering how and why advances in technology have not lowered the bar for easier distribution in the making of films. Other creative endeavors; books, magazines, music, have obviously experienced a serious demonetizing due to vastly lower costs of production and distribution. Not so with film and in fact Im wondering if it'll ever happen.

Technological advances in film making have tended to increase the overall costs of production rather than lower them. So while Smith argues that a greater increase in the division of labor within an industry tends to make that industry more efficient and thus produce cheaper products the reverse would be true here. It seems that increased specialization in film production is leading to increased costs and is substantially raising the bar for entry into the market. Evidently advances in technology are not blurring the line between small and large budget films but in fact are making the distinctions all the more clear, to such an extent that its almost as if they are two separate genres.

Can we infer that what applies to the production of widgets does not apply to the business of creativity? Im sure Im not smart enough to know but it strikes me that this is exactly the opposite of what economists would predict.

3rd Party Nonsense

From Bull Moose to Ross Perot to Teabaggers the allure of a third party in America is an easy sell to some. The idea goes that the two party system encourages government to bog down in partisan trenches and accomplish nothing but a third party would break the deadlock and force politicians to become more responsive to "the people"

Its bullshit.

From where does one get the idea that a politician elected with oh say... a 36% plurality will be able to govern effectively with an opposition of %64? Further balkanizing our political process will not interject more efficiency into the system. Things wont get better, they'll get substantially worse.

Its an idea whose main appeal frankly is to the yahoos who would get some charge out of seeing someone in office who thinks and talks exactly as they do. Only problem is that person would get absolutely nothing done.

Defending Pat Robertson

Why isn't he right? I've been having this conversation with several Christians this week and its been very interesting. The bible is full of examples of God using natural events to pass judgement on our earthly actions and of course as Christians believe God is the Ultimate Watchmaker He either causes or refuses to prevent catastrophes like the Haitian earthquake, so it is hardly insane to assume then that He would choose to cause or allow events that were in accordance with His plan. But where's the love for Grandpa Robertson?

Dispensationalist Christians will tell you that since the crucifixion we're in a separate state of grace and God does not express His will in the same way He did in the Old Testament so that's why we should not interpret these natural events as expressions of God's Will and I find it kind of surprising that this tends to be a fundamentalists' view. However they seem not to also consider that even if God has been toning down the thunderbolts of late He clearly used to smite folks left and right so this kind of thing is very much part of His nature and should sound more old fashioned than crazy.

Well okay...but if disasters are not expressions of God's judgement then neither can good fortune be a sign of His favor or blessing. Right? Well not exactly. Insofar as I can tell ALL Christians believe that God blesses us on earth even if He isn't passing out disfavor. In fact I'd go so far as to say that fundamentalist dispensationalists are especially inclined to see God's favor expressed explicitly. This is finally what American Exceptionalism is all about, but it really can't run both ways AND be serious.

But even non dispensationalists, like Catholics, do not see the hand of God at work here even though they tend to be more comfortable with the idea of God's judgement in our time. All of which brings us back to Robertson's bat shit crazy comments.

I find that believers in general struggle mightily with the notion that their active God might behave in a way that offends their sympathy. For instance I think most Christians are somewhat comfortable with the idea that AIDS is God's judgement on gays. Ostracizing gays is part of their socio-political agenda but watching children suffer the consequences of a natural disaster is not and I don't think it is an accident then that almost no Christians see the hand of God in Haitian suffering.

Why Don't Conservatives Make Blockbuster Movies?

I think the conservative critics of Avatar are dead on correct. Even Jonah Golderberg, and while I don't anticipate his making another cogent point this decade he is spot on to observe that if the redemptive entity in the movie had been Jesus Christ rather than some pantheistic organic mainframe computer Avatar absolutely would not be raking in The Big Money. It is clearly an "apologia for pantheism" and a disappointingly simple minded one at that, and I say that as someone who generally agrees that corporations tend to fuck over the world and that our values are out of whack with our natural selves. Im just not entertained by watching severely dumbed down versions of ideas I agree with.

So score one for the other side in this culture war dust up.

But it has me thinking. Why aren't there more major blockbuster releases with conservative themes? Part of it is cultural sure, Hollywood is a liberal bastion populated with fewer conservatives, but why should that be so? On some level big business is big business so why wouldn't Big Hollywood attract conservatives in the same way Big Oil does? And why is it then that with all the complaining conservatives do ( often correctly) that our pop culture is deeply skewed with a liberal bias that conservatives are not able to offer popular alternatives that advance their biases? I mean if conservatives believe markets in all things, then its fair to ask why aren't people buying their product in the cultural marketplace.

Im thinking that perhaps it has to do with something intrinsic in the creative impulse.

Liberalism as a world view lends itself to spectacle and fantasy and I think packs a bigger creative punch than conservatism and is just more likely to produce a big fat popcorn movie hit. Furthermore I think almost any sort of creative endeavor that calls people to entertain the possibility of uplifting change on a grand scale is more likely to organize itself along liberal principles as change on a grand scale isn't generally a conservative theme except when associated with religious constrictions.

None of which is to say conservatives can't create very good movies. Say what you will but in my opinion The Passion Of The Christ is a masterpiece but having seen it once I can't imagine feeling the need to see it again. But I think there is something to the suggestion that the range of stories that are both conservative and likely to connect with a wide audience is severely limited.

The Wisdom of Bumper Stickers

In her column today Maureen Dowd fairly asks if we can't catch a Nigerian whose own father contacted the CIA with concerns about his increasingly bat-shit crazy son then who can we catch? I suspect we're doing a better job catching crazies than this incident might suggest but the huff and puff about whether or not the system worked or failed in this case misses the larger point I think we're losing.

The government's job is to protect the security of the nation, that's not the same thing as being responsible for ensuring that no harm befall each of us individually. The bad guys are going to get some of us, guaranteed. Things that are feasibly preventable will happen and lots of people who shouldn't will die and suffer. This is not a defense of shoddy security or poor forethought, its just reality. Its why no one needs to have the "Shit Happens" bumper sticker explained to them.

The responsibility for our safety lies with us and when people like Jasper Schuringa stop taking primary responsibility for their own well being and expect government to do all the heavy lifting of survival then we're screwed well beyond the point that any terrorist threat can muster.

I know it when I see it and I saw it in The Wrestler

Finally got around to watching The Wrestler over the holidays and of course I loved it as I love anything that's honest enough to acknowledge that our dreams are slowly killing us at least as much as our faults are. Also loved the casting throughout but was at first a little surprised to see Marisa Tomei doing a turn as the frequently topless stripper, I guess Im still naive enough to believe that an Oscar, even a questionable one, automatically insulates you from pandering nudity.

While that may or may not be true there is no denying that no matter how big your career in Hollywood if you're playing a stripper/hooker you will have a heart of gold beating just underneath your ta-tas. And with this movie in particular you have to call bullshit.

Rourke's character, while immensely compelling, struck me as really something of a pornographic figure. He portrays a man who will endure almost limitless physical humiliation and pain for money, he sells his body for the fleeting pleasure of strangers. Im thinking particularly of the scene with the staple gun and the aftermath as medics pull embedded staples out of his flesh in a makeshift locker room, but just about any scene will do. Now perhaps that isn't prurient in an erotic sense but that kind of entertainment hardly appeals to our better natures and has in common with pornography a physical and spiritual debasement. So what do we want to call it instead?

Now one could hardly be blamed for seeing the parallel between Tomei the stripper and Rourke the wrestler as the fact that they essentially have the same job is just one of the many reasons they were meant to be together forever, except that the movie goes to a lot of trouble to make certain we know that one of them doesn't really have their soul in their work. Wanna guess which one?

"Im not a stripper" Tomei is obliged to announce. Hell, she's got a kid, a life, maybe a glimmer of a better future funded by tips from back room lap dances, so its not that she likes being naked for strangers there's a laudable reason for it, and like magic we have her tits without judgment. Rourke on the other hand offers no such excuse for his equally debauched employment. He likes it, a lot, and that's why we find the story so compelling but the upshot is Tomei has to apologize for her boobs but Rourke isn't troubled to explain why he is drawn to slowly killing himself and yet there is no judgment there either. And maybe there should be. Does a person like that really deserve our sympathy? That character isn't a victim yet I experienced him as one in the story and whose fault is that?

Who is letting who off the hook here, us or the movie? Men can be physically defiled AND heroic, women cannot. Im not smart enough to know why that is but I can't help but think that nobody is particularly well served by it.

The Cost Of Doubling Down, Or Why Im Not A Conservative.

This article in TNR is a kind of greatest hits for errors in conservative judgement, begrudging women the vote, supporting child labor... that kind of thing. Its an easy lampoon of course but it gets to the core of why Im a liberal and how time erodes the impact of fear and turns it into foolishness.

My conservative friends would state the case for their beliefs on a point we'd both agree with; given that human understanding is limited it is not possible for us to address every inequity in society. We immediately part company however in how we value the attempt to address the inequities we can and what the costs of doing nothing are. For conservatives disparate social outcomes are an ipso facto affirmation of what they believe to be the best possible scenario in an imperfect world. It has always struck me as a circular kind of logic that justifies our supposed inability to address social ills based merely on their existence. Conservatives move forward in the belief that what can be known about humankind is known and life is essentially the business of balancing our competing interests in a way that benefits the most people possible. Those things that fall thru the cracks are evidence of human imperfection and the ultimate reality lies in accepting our inability to engineer social fixes on a large scale.

I think history tells us something entirely different. I think the world clearly spins forward and in time we always come to treat one another with more fairness and humanity and the only way we come to that new understanding is in the attempt to make sweeping change. The worst possible justification for refusing to remediate a social inbalance is to appeal to a long history of not having done so previously. In the short term we will fail in some things and even make matters worse in the attempt, but long term we fail much more miserably by refusing to make the effort. We expose our values as situational and fleeting if we do not challenge ourselves to extend them to everyone. Everyone. In every circumstance.

Either we hold certain truths to be self evident or we do not. There isn't a middle ground.

Which Is It?

After watching and listening to many fellow liberals criticize the health bill I can't help but wonder if many of them don't have more passion for smacking down insurance companies and big-pharma than they do helping people.

They make the same bargain with the devil that conservatives do in that they are willing to let people suffer because they don't think the benefits the bill provides outweigh its shortcomings.

Its far less than I'd like to see, far less, but its also entirely reflective of reality and if we want to live in a world ( and I would like to) where medicine is socialized entirely and insurance is largely de-profitized then we'll have to change a great deal about the culture of the entire country and can't expect that to happen in a bill, even one of this scope.

When Democracy Sucks... And You Have To Like It

Healthcare reform went to a place I could not have imagined when goddamn fucking Joe Lieberman sunk the the Medicare Buy-In and the public option in one fell swoop. Its like your girlfriend leaving you for the biggest douche bag you know. A scant three months ago Lieberman was touting the very sort of buy-in he now opposes and it appears that his opposition comes from the worst, most craven, and spiteful place you can imagine. This is an awful awful human being.

As much as I believe anything I believe that free markets cannot deliver equitable healthcare and to oppose reform is to favor profits over people. It is undeniable that people will die needlessly because some in our country cannot think outside of their dogmatic boxes and they're perfectly content to have that happen rather than expand their notion of what is possible. Now is when I have to be careful not become one of them....

There are any number of good reasons to dig in and oppose the Senate bill. It doesn't go nearly far enough, it is full of loopholes that will line the pockets of mutherfucking insurance companies who profit from misery, Obama didn't do enough, Reid didn't do enough, it sells out progressives who gave Obama his initial grass roots support, it empowers cocks like Lieberman, it wont cover everyone.... what have I left out?

But Im going to support it anyway. As per usual Ezra Klein makes a much better case for supporting the bill than I can but it comes down finally to values. What is more important, that my sense of social equity be indulged or 30 million people who couldn't previously afford insurance can? Imperfections and all this is a significant improvement and to oppose it solely on ideological grounds is a kind of immaturity I think.

If this bill dies we wont get a better one, AND we wont get cap and trade, finance reform, or a more progressive president any time soon. Those sort zero sum ideological litmus tests are the stuff of the right wing and we should carefully take note of where its gotten them. If we want to lead we have to be willing to accept less than everything we want and not think it a sign of weakness.

NY, Maine, Prop 8, And The Long Arc of Justice....

In the midst of these not too happy days I think its worth remembering how far the issue of gay rights has come in the span of relatively little time. My personal flashpoint on this entire issue was in 1986 when the Supreme Court released its decision in Bower v. Hardwick which concerned an anti sodomy statute in Georgia that two men had been imprisoned under.

Not only did the Supreme Court uphold the law but I really think you should read this bit of the opinion and wrap your mind around the fact that within our lifetimes this was a perfectly acceptable intellectual position...

In the majority opinion Justice White wrote." a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy...to claim that right to engage in such conduct is implicit in the concept of ordered liberty... is FACETIOUS AT BEST" Fuckin' what? Couldn't believe it then and I still can't now.

That wasn't written in 1874, though it could've been. A scant 23 years ago society was perfectly comfortable with a sitting justice spouting the notion that it was facetious AT BEST for gays to assert that what they chose to do in the privacy of their homes was in fact private. Roughly 17 years later the Supreme Court explicitly overturned Bower in the Lawrence v. Summer which involved an anti sodomy statute in Texas.... why are all of these cases from the south... in which even Clarence Thomas called the Texas statute silly.

It may be cold comfort but that is undeniable progress. In a little over a generation we've gone from the notion that gays have no legal right to their sexuality to losing votes over gay marriage by competitive margins. Don't pretend like you saw that coming 23 years ago because you didn't. I had hoped we were further along. We aren't and its frustrating, but there is no denying the direction this thing is running in and I suspect that 23 years hence our children will have no idea why this was an issue in the first place.

To Broadway or not to Broadway....

Maybe not the question exactly at this point but a very real consideration and one that has elicited some surprising feelings on my part. There is not an actor in this world who at some point would not drink all of your blood and step over their mother for the opportunity to open a big hot show on Broadway, me included, but Im not so sure that's the point Im at in my life right now. As I type this there are no offers out to anyone so its a bit of an abstraction but they'll be coming soon and one can't help but think about how it all might play out.

If I were in the producer's meetings I think I'd be lobbying for a couple of different scenarios. My first option would be to offer my role to a star. Who? No idea. I have no feeling for that kind of thing but I'd put a casting director on that tout suite. A name sufficiently large would of course be a draw in and of itself but it would also insulate the show from some nagging unevenness that likely wont escape critical New York eyes and perhaps sell enough tickets to offset the potential of less than raving reviews. As major script changes don't seem to be in the offing I'd be pushing this option hard.

But lets assume nobody else wants to dig down and start cutting weekly checks to a star or risk upsetting the balance of music and story we've arrived at.

In that case I'd hire a local NY actor and pocket the per diem and housing that would be part and parcel of offering the role to....well...me. Now, Im not poor mouthing myself here. I think I do one helluva good job and I don't think I flatter myself unduly in feeling that the work I've done has gone a long way towards helping shore this thing up as a viable Broadway commodity. I think Im a real asset to the production but even so there is no way around the fact that Im saying that if my own money were at risk here I would strongly consider not offering myself the role.

What. The. Fuck. Is up with that?

Its a strange place to say the least. Its like Im at the intersection of Contentment and Sour Grapes and to be honest Im not entirely certain I know which road Im on but I guess its the perfect illustration of how things change with age.

If I'd been in this spot ten years ago and were not offered this part in New York I would have been crushed. Well fuck, beyond crushed, there is no word for that kind of rejection. It would have been one of those devastating kicks to the scrotum that this business doles out every so often and would have sent me shivering under the covers for an unknowable period of time. But ten years hence I see the larger picture somewhat and more importantly don't feel that my personal worth is nearly as bound up with my career to the same extent I used to. Which is not to say that I care less but is to say I don't care as much. Can't explain it any better than that.

In fairness this isn't strictly pass/fail. Regardless Im likely to continue to stay with the production in Chicago as long as I care to and it suits the producer's needs so its not like Im out on the street. If the fall back position is that I get to stay regularly employed in a show that I genuinely love to do, pays well, AND get to wake up next to my wife and take my kids to school everyday that's a better gig than lots of actors have so any disappointment I'd feel would be a tad unseemly.

I've likely jumped the rambling shark by now but this is a little like walking on the moon. Acting is premised on a completely unhealthy level of self absorption, don't let anybody bullshit you otherwise. Perspective is rare in this business and I'll probably lose it at some point, but its nice to have worn it around for awhile.

Welcome Gentlemen...

Ordinary or otherwise.....

How does everyone else afford universal health care?

Because we subsidize most of the world's military. Now this paints with a broad brush but there is no small measure of truth in it. Western Europe and much of Asia has lived under the umbrella of our military strength since WW II with countries like Germany and Japan notably growing their economies in that time without having to seriously consider the costs of defending themselves which has freed them to spend lavishly on butter without having to also bear the cost of guns.

If the right wing has a viable opportunity to rebrand itself it is here. There is little political will to bear the costs of our military over extension and while the American Exceptionalism of the neo con right is largely responsible for the our projection of power abroad there is a growing movement in the hard populist right wing to just stay home. Currently the problem is that this point of view is most often associated with the more unfortunate element of the right like Ron Paul and Patrick Buchanan but there is an argument here for the right to make and return to their non interventionist roots.

So Im a big stinkin' atheist. Why am I such a nice guy?

So.... yeah... don't believe in God. Now, I have to say that I've come by my apostasy honestly, I spent the first 20 odd years of my life deeply immersed in the Southern Baptist church. If the church was open we were generally there and I took my time there seriously. Im no casual disbeliever but disbelieve I do..

The reasons for my disbelief are many but one of the first things that made me start thinking about the status of my supposed salvation was the notion of morality and evil writ large.

Christians will tell you that without their God there is no possibility for morality but I aint buyin' it and frankly never have. First of all to say as much is to essentially announce that you're a psychopath on a short leash which of course they are not but it goes beyond that.

The fundamental problem for those who conflate God and morality is that civilizations with vastly different conceptions of God, or scarcely any perception of God at all, have very similar moral codes and behaviors as believers. Its a small point and an easy observation but its a significant issue for anyone who insists that the Bible or other book is the source of all morality in the world. Wildly different inputs should not have observably similar outcomes, but they do all the time.

But lets get personal. As I observe the lives of the many Christians I know I can perceive no difference in the choices they make for themselves and the choices I make for me. In fact I would say that you would not be able to point to any facet of my moral life and infer my atheism from my behavior or choices. Now Im no better than them but Im certainly no worse and that shouldn't be. I don't believe in heaven or providential judgement of any kind, so why aren't I killing, lying, cheating, and coveting more than the religious folks? I should be....

For me the answer is readily apparent. Morality is a human conception, I'll even call it an evolved trait. What do we want? Well excluding the sociopaths and nutjobs its fair to say that most homosapien types want to live in relative peace and comfort. Now is continued violence against ones fellows the best way to achieve that end? Sometimes it is ( in which case we handily enlist God on the side of our violence ) but most often bashing the heads of your neighbors against a wall because you covet their ass isn't going to make your life less complicated and will invite pain and violence which doesn't serve the interests of our existence over the long term.

Out on the savannah I think we learned very quickly that codifying fundamental respect for one another made the wheels of our nascent civilization turn much more easily for its members and thus was morality "invented".

Now here comes the ironic part....

While its abundantly clear that one God is in no way necessary to the formation of morality it is also clear that myth, symbolism, and belief in the idea of A god are entirely necessary to the CONTINUED existence of morality in a pluralistic world. We are meaning makers. We have an endless capacity to organize ourselves around stories and I think that's a terribly important point in our survival but to acknowledge the equal power of our stories costs us much of their specific organizational impact and that's where it gets dicey. God does not exist. We continually invent him. But we cannot acknowledge as much without radically reorganizing our societal structures and that just aint going to happen quickly. If ever.

This is why Im not an angry atheist.... well I am angry but just not about this. Usually. I don't know if we have the capacity to move toward complete rationality or if that would even be a good thing but I do know through observation that we have the capacity to move away from singular conceptions of the transcendent without an injurious affect on society or individuals and the more we move away from spiritual tribalism the better. How far? I wouldn't pretend to know, just don't start teaching your goddamn creationism to my kids.....

Tell me again what we're sending people to die for?

In the grand scheme of things this KSM trial dust up makes me more sad than angry but either way its yet another point of conservatism that I truly cannot process.

The talking points are basically covered here in Krauthammer's latest column. The underlying assumptions are two: that the court system is unable/unlikely/unwilling to handle the job and to avail KSM access to this shoddy unworkable system then conveys rights to him that he otherwise wouldn't have and in fact shouldn't have....

*sigh*

Let me take the last one first. This notion that the American government has the capacity to bequeath rights to individuals is one helluva statement for someone like Krauthammer to make, because unless Im mistaken the American Ideal is expressed in the belief that "We hold these truths be self evident, that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights...". Including the Bad Guys.

To my mind this is the great achievement of America. Its why it exists, and its why its not just a lump of land we happen to have been born in but a noble and uplifting concept worth asking people to sacrifice their lives for, and to reassert that belief when faced with the worst of the worst, as this man undeniably is, strikes me as the strongest possible statement of confidence in our beliefs and the institutions we've built to embody those beliefs. To lack that confidence to this extent invites the question what do these people think America is.

But it is not terribly surprising that the conservative populists would be so disrespectful of our courts because they generally do not find them to be legitimate. In what is irony so deep that it makes me dizzy the one institution that exist EXPLICITLY to ensure that the government respects our "unalienable rights" is the very same institution conservatives disdain most. "Activist judges". "Discovered rights". These are smears leveled by people who actually don't believe in natural rights but in majoritarianism. So if you accept the notion, as conservatives do, that the courts are inherently at odds with the will of the people and that will is the final arbiter of all things then of course a criminal court is the wrong place to do this. Its just that this is a terribly unfortunate belief for an American to hold because in that respect it wastes his birthright.

Now this would just be another in an endless string of political arguments were it not for the fact that we have people fighting and dying right now to protect the freedoms that some among us do not have the courage to trust in times of hardship. But they are... and given that I think its fair to ask conservatives if they believe our soldiers are dying for America the plot of land or America the idea?