Rick Pitino needs to shut up

I've avoided commenting on the Rick Pitino situation, because I just don't care. However, yesterday Pitino got a bit angry, and I think I need to tell him to just shut up. So: Shut up, Rick Pitino.

Pitino, in case you don't know, is the head basketball coach at the University of Louisville. A few weeks ago, it came out that he had fucked a woman in a restaurant six years ago and then paid her to have an abortion. The news came out because the woman, after six years, claimed rape and tried to extort money from him. The police brought no charges against Pitino and the woman is under investigation for the extortion charge. Despite committing adultery and paying for an abortion, the very Catholic Pitino kept his job. I mean, he knows how to coach, right?

I was disgusted by both parties involved in this sordid tale, as Karen Sypher, the woman whom Pitino nailed, seems like a bit of a nut case. However, yesterday Pitino responded to the release of her police interview, which he says is a "total fabrication."

Listen, Rick, you need to shut up. It's obvious this woman is unhinged, and nobody believes her when she says you raped her and all the other charges she's levying against you. But when you respond by holding a press conference and ranting like you do, everyone starts to wonder whether you're a bit unhinged, too. It began when Pitino inexplicably referenced 9/11 in his initial press conference (he wasn't comparing what he was going through to the victims of 9/11, so that's a plus, but he did bring it up for seemingly no reason), and now, Pitino wishes it would all go away because he's worried about the effect the news coverage is having on his family.

Um, yeah. Maybe you should have thought of the effect fucking a woman who wasn't your wife and then paying for her abortion would have on your family, Rick. This is a news story, mainly because you're a high-profile employee in a high-profile job and you did something that, according to the teachings you profess to follow, makes you a hypocrite. Pitino also goes a bit off-topic again, this time whining that people should focus on the economy (says the man who makes millions coaching basketball), bitching that it came out on the day Ted Kennedy died (another odd allusion), and saying that we need to get on with "crucial" things in life, "like basketball."

This last statement is why he really, really needs to shut up. Reminding people that you're a freakin' basketball coach (and yes, coaches often help shape the lives of young men who don't have father figures, I get it, but if Pitino really believes that, he should man up and resign, because men take responsibility for their indiscretions) might not be the best way to go. So please shut up, Rick Pitino. When Karen Sypher makes some idiotic statement, stop reminding people that it takes two scumbags to tango on a restaurant floor.

Moral relativism and torture

I read an interesting opinion piece in the newspaper this week about torture. It was written by Grumpy Old Man Charles Krauthammer (and yes, that's his official title, hence the capital letters), who I often (almost always) disagree with, but who's still interesting to read.

Krauthammer begins by explaining that he wrote a column about the two exceptions to the no-torture rule. The first is the ticking-time-bomb scenario, the second is a less extreme variant, "in which a high-value terrorist refuses to divulge crucial information that could save innocent lives." He then writes that the column elicited spirited protestations. One response that he calls "stupid" came from a writer who claimed the "ticking-time-bomb scenario only exists in two places: On TV and in the dark fantasies of power-crazed and morally deficient authoritarians." Krauthammer, of course, has a real-life example to counter this, and follows up with:

One therefore has to think about what kind of transgressive interrogation might be permissible in the less pristine circumstance of the high-value terrorist who knows about less imminent attacks.

Of course, that's the crux of it. Krauthammer goes on to point out the "contemptible" hypocrisy of Nancy Pelosi. His critics, he says, reply that "her behavior does not change the truth about torture." "But it does," Krauthammer claims:

Our jurisprudence has the "reasonable man" standard. A jury is asked to consider what a reasonable man would do under urgent circumstances.

On the morality of waterboarding and other "torture," Pelosi and senior and expert members of Congress represented colleagues, and indeed the entire American people, in rendering the reasonable-person verdict.

And what did they do? They gave tacit approval. In fact, according to [then-House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter] Goss, they offered encouragement. Given the existing circumstances, they clearly deemed the interrogations warranted.

Krauthammer points out that the "circle of approval" was wider than even Congress. Even liberals believed torture was warranted in the aftermath of September 11th. He writes:

The reason Pelosi raised no objection to waterboarding at that time, the reason the American people (who by 2004 knew what was going on) strongly re-elected [52% of the vote is "strongly"? Krauthammer is engaging in some revisionist history, methinks] the man who ordered these interrogations, is not because she and the rest of the American people suffered from a years-long moral psychosis from which they have just now awoken.

It is because at that time they were aware of the existing conditions - our blindness to al-Qaida's plans, the urgency of the threat, the magnitude of the suffering that might be caused by a second 9/11, the likelihood that interrogation would extract intelligence that President Barack Obama's own director of national intelligence now tells us was indeed "high-value information" - and concluded that on balance it was a reasonable response to a terrible threat.

They were right.

Krauthammer concludes:

[Y]ou can believe that their personalities and moral compasses have remained steady throughout the years, but changes in circumstances (threat, knowledge, imminence) alter the moral calculus attached to any interrogation technique.

On the one hand, Krauthammer raises some interesting points. The idea of torture, in whatever form, is repellent to civilized human beings (or ought to be) until it becomes the only way to save someone you love. There's also the question of what constitutes torture. According to some reports, three people were waterboarded, and very few were psychologically traumatized by the various methods we used. I have no idea about the absolute numbers, but it doesn't really matter. The question remains: What is moral, and is torture ever okay?

Krauthammer obviously thinks it's okay sometimes, and he claims that the American people think so too, because they re-elected the man who sanctioned it. Well, I would argue that most people in 2004 still didn't know what we were doing, and if people like Nancy Pelosi knew and didn't object, I blame her as well for not making more of a big deal about it. We heard rumors, of course, but when the president of the United States stands in front of the press and says emphatically that we do not torture, we tend to believe him. So Krauthammer's argument there is dumb, but the question of whether or not torture might be okay in some circumstances is a difficult one. We would like to say that it's never okay, but what if my daughter is kidnapped and she's going to be raped or killed soon and the only way to find her is by torturing a suspect? That's the moral conundrum Krauthammer brings up, and it's a tough one. Of course I would say, "Torture away!" Then it comes back to - how could I ever teach her to have moral principles if I betray my own? But I'm sure she would say that I couldn't teach her anything if she was dead. That's why we don't like to be put in those situations.

I have argued this point with Mia's PT, who's quite a bit more conservative than I am. He accuses Barack Obama of wanting to be "nice," meaning speaking to regimes like Iran rather than pre-emptively striking them, and he disagrees with this. He's also a Christian, and this is where the moral question becomes sticky. I have no idea if Charles Krauthammer claims to be a Christian, but considering something like 90% of Americans consider themselves to be, I'll go out on a limb and say Krauthammer does as well. Even if he's not, plenty of "good Christians" are on board with torture. I've written about how hard it is to be a "real Christian" - as in strictly following the words of Jesus as represented in the Bible - because it's practically impossible in today's world, but it would seem to me that a Christian wouldn't condone torture no matter what the circumstances, even to save a loved one. After all, if you're a true Christian, this world means nothing - you're focused on the next one. I'm not about to accuse Mia's PT of being a bad Christian, because he's a wonderful therapist and a very nice man, but unfortunately, I don't feel like I'm a close enough friend to him to ask him how he reconciles these two somewhat opposing viewpoints. I can't imagine someone being a Christian and condoning anyone who tortures. But maybe I'm just being naïve.

If we continue in this vein, I like how some self-professed Christians have come out in favor of torture "in extreme circumstances," meaning morality is relative to the situation. Yet these same people (usually) consider something like gay marriage the death knell of all civilization and claim that there's no gray area when it comes to homosexual unions or, say, abortion. Moral absolutism rules there, it seems, but when it comes to defending the fatherland (yes, I'm using that word very deliberately), nothing is too horrible. This is why I try to avoid using moral absolutist terms, because it will always come back to bite you in the ass. And yes, that includes torture.

I'm certainly against the concept of torture, but again, how would I feel if it was necessary to rescue someone I loved? The biggest problem I have with the Bush Administration using torture is that they always took the moral high ground and claimed that we didn't do it and that the United States remains a shining beacon of how things ought to be done. It's bullshit, but it's fancy-sounding bullshit, and Americans love to believe that we're better than everyone else. I honestly think that "torture" might have been more effective if Bush and his cronies had come out and said they were doing it. If Bush had come out and told the terrorists that they had forfeited any rights to be treated as humans and therefore we were going to do anything to extract information, not only would the American people have been on board (especially right after 11 September) and therefore these days we wouldn't have all this moral hand-wringing, but maybe potential terrorists might have thought twice about attacking us. Even if that didn't happen, at least we the people would have known where we stood. Another columnist I read today claims that we're already complicit, as we could have figured things out in 2004. Well, that's one of the reasons I didn't vote for Bush in 2004 - I was repulsed by what he was doing, and that included locking people up for no reason other than they looked funny. Had Bush been more forthright, he might have had to deal with a brief shitstorm, but according to him, he never cared what people thought of him, so why would he have cared then?

The fact that we tortured people, even if it was just three people, depresses me. Not because we did it, but because this is what the world has come to. However, it always makes me laugh a bit bitterly when the same people who refuse to compromise to allow two men or two women to get married twist themselves into knots to justify torture. The irony, I would imagine, is lost on them.

Yeah, okay, I'm a slacker

Yes, it's been over a week. And what do I do? Link to two odd news stories!

Pentagon reports no longer quote Bible.

The Pentagon said Monday it no longer includes a Bible quote on the cover page of daily intelligence briefings it sends to the White House as was practice during the Bush administration.

...


The Bible quotes apparently aimed to support Bush at a time when soldiers' deaths in Iraq were on the rise, according to the June issue of GQ magazine. But they offended at least one Muslim analyst at the Pentagon and worried other employees that the passages were inappropriate.

On Thursday, April 10, 2003, for example, the report quoted the book of Psalms - "Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him ... To deliver their soul from death" - and featured pictures of the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down and celebrating crowds in Baghdad.

"Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand," read the cover quote two weeks earlier, on March 31, above a picture of a U. S. tank driving through the desert, according to the magazine, which obtained copies of the documents.

Sheesh. Good to know we have separation of Church and State. Especially when we're talking about a supposedly Christian president sending people to kill and die.

Here's something a bit more fun:

Man calls 911 over 28-year-old son's messy bedroom.

An Ohio man who argued with his grown son over a messy bedroom said he overreacted when he called 911. Andrew Mizsak called authorities Thursday after his 28-year-old son - who's a school board member in the Cleveland suburb of Bedford - threw a plate of food across the kitchen table and made a fist at him when told to clean his room.

The son, also named Andrew, lives in a room in his parents' basement.

The father declined to press charges and told police he doesn't want to ruin his son's political career.

The son, who also works as a political consultant, said he's lucky to be living in the house rent free. He also promises to keep his room clean.

So ... many ... jokes ... to ... mention ...

Maybe the father should tell his TWENTY-EIGHT-YEAR-OLD SON to move the fuck out!!!!!

Maybe the son's political career will be ruined when his future opponents bring up that he was living in his parents' basement when he was twenty-eight years old! That might work.

Better content soon, I promise!

Legislation I can't get behind!

It's not American legislation, thankfully. It still turns my stomach.

A new Afghan law makes it legal for me to rape their wives. Yes, you read that right.

The law - which some lawmakers say was never debated in parliament - is intended to regulate family life inside Afghanistan's Shiite community, which makes up about 20 percent of this country of 30 million people. The law does not affect Afghan Sunnis.

Well, that's nice. I guess Sunnis have no desire to rape their wives. Or maybe it's already legal for them to do so!

One of the most controversial articles stipulates the wife "is bound to preen for her husband as and when he desires."

"As long as the husband is not traveling, he has the right to have sexual intercourse with his wife every fourth night," Article 132 of the law says. "Unless the wife is ill or has any kind of illness that intercourse could aggravate, the wife is bound to give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband."

That seems fair, right?

Sayed Hossain Alemi Balkhi, a Shiite lawmaker involved in drafting it, defended the legislation saying it gives more rights to women than even Britain or the United States does. He said the law makes women safer and ensures the husband is obliged to provide for her.

Really?

Egads, this is just sad. I know that there are cultures like this, but it just upsets me whenever I think about it. I know that the U. S. can't necessarily throw stones too much, but legislating rape is just disgusting. And even the lawmaker who was involved in drafting it just doesn't get it. He sounds like the kind of guy who, in this country 150 years ago, would have said that the slave laws "ensure the owner is obliged to protect his property."

I very much doubt if any of this will change in my lifetime. But we can hope, right?

What I've been reading

Sacrament by Clive Barker. 1996, 447 pages, HarperCollins.

I just learned that this book is out of print. The link at the title takes you to Powell's, where they have one copy. You know, in a world where a lot of shit stays in print forever, it's kind of weird that this is no longer in print. At least I think it's weird.

Anyway, prior to this, I had only read two Clive Barker books: Imajica, which I loved, and a collection of short stories, which weren't bad. What I like about a lot of Barker creations is that he's good at pure horror, but I'm not a huge fan of horror, so the fact that he's good at blending horror into more fantastical and even real-life scenarios is neat. Sacrament is more a fantasy book than a horror book, but Barker does bring in some elements of horror, even though they're more disturbing than truly horrific. It's a pretty good mix.

The book centers on Will Rabjohns, a nature photographer whose specialty is capturing endangered animals on film. At the beginning of the novel, he visits a strange recluse in Canada (on his way to photographing polar bears) who once knew two people Will knew, Jacob Steep and Rosa McGee. We get a sense that Steep and McGee are somehow very strange, but before we learn anything more, Will is attacked by a wounded bear and lapses into a deep coma. While he's out, he revisits a time thirty years earlier in Yorkshire, where he grew up, and his first and only meeting with Steep and McGee. They are obviously mystical beings in some way, and Steep, especially, leaves a lasting impression on Will. His centuries-old mission is to kill the last of any species, and he tries to indoctrinate Will into this quest. Before he can, though, many horrible things occur, and Will is left alone without Steep. He spends the next three decades looking for him.

The theme of extinction is present throughout the book. Will is gay, and Barker takes him to San Francisco, where he experiences the AIDS epidemic first hand. He's haunted by the plague and by Steep's desire to slaughter species, and when he has to return to England, it all comes back to him. Steep is drawn to him just as he is drawn to Steep, and as he learns more about Steep and McGee's true nature, he has to enter a magnificent and dangerous place, the Domus Mundi, to understand everything. Barker does a nice job, for the most part, with these themes: Will's anxiety about his friends becoming "extinct," the reason Steep feels driven to do what he does, and why Steep and McGee are so tied to each other but can't really stand each other. It's a disturbing book in many ways, mostly because Barker shows how wonderful yet painful raw emotions can be. Steep and McGee's relationship is bad for both of them, but they can't get away from each other. Will has similar - if less intense - relationships, and one in particular puts him beyond even a marginalized culture like that of the homosexuals among whom he lives.

Will's quest to find Steep and find out why the man has such a hold over him is intense reading. When he and another victim of Steep and McGee's violence find the Domus Mundi, the book becomes even more fantastical, but Barker does a nice job keeping the story grounded. However, the ending is a bit weak. Barker wants to have it both ways with regard to Will's fate, and it somewhat cheapens his experience. I won't give it away, but Barker explicitly sets up some ground rules and then breaks them. It makes a strangely unsatisfying ending, especially because he did the same thing with regard to Will's relationship with Steep, introducing an element late in the book that seemed to be important, but isn't really, in the final analysis. It's disappointing because Barker has done such a good job building to the climax. Even though what actually happens at the end of the book is fine in terms of exciting reading, the fact that Barker appears to cop out is vaguely annoying.

Despite this, Sacrament is an impressive book about extinction, emotion, obsession, and what it means to worship. If the ending falters, much of what Barker brings up before that is powerful and devastatingly honest. It's not quite as good as a novel like Imajica, but it's still quite a good book. If, you know, you can find a copy.

Let's skim through the news!

Items that have caught my eye recently:

The city of Birmingham (England) has decided to drop apostrophes from all its street signs.

Sigh. Just another assault on correct grammar, this time sanctioned by the government. Look, I'm a grammar and spelling enthusiast. I hate listening to people on the television and radio using poor grammar, because as much as I try not to judge, I always think they sound stupid. I'm also aware that grammar and spelling are largely fluid things, changing throughout the centuries. I get it. The reason this sucks, however, is that people are just giving up trying to learn things. Grammar and spelling aren't that difficult to learn, yet people just want to give up, and now it's gone up to the city council. It's part of the entire "dumbing-down" of life in general. Some choice quotes from the article:

Councilor Martin Mullaney, who heads the city's transport scrutiny committee, said he decided to act after yet another interminable debate into whether "Kings Heath," a Birmingham suburb, should be rewritten with an apostrophe.

"I had to make a final decision on this," he said Friday. "We keep debating apostrophes in meetings and we have other things to do."

It's not a debate. It's a rule. Yes, there needs to be an apostrophe. End of debate.

Mullaney hopes to stop public campaigns to restore the apostrophe that would tell passers-by that "Kings Heath" was once owned by the monarchy.

"Apostrophes denote possessions that are no longer accurate, and are not needed," he said. "More importantly, they confuse people. If I want to go to a restaurant, I don't want to have an A-level (high school diploma) in English to find it."

See? Idiots rule. "Waaah, waaah, I don't know how to find things because I'm so stupid!"

Mullaney claimed apostrophes confuse GPS units, including those used by emergency services. But Jenny Hodge, a spokeswoman for satellite navigation equipment manufacturer TomTom, said most users of their systems navigate through Britain's sometime confusing streets by entering a postal code rather than a street address.

She said that if someone preferred to use a street name - with or without an apostrophe - punctuation wouldn't be an issue. By the time the first few letters of the street were entered, a list of matching choices would pop up and the user would choose the destination.

A test by The Associated Press backed this up. In a search for London street St. Mary's Road, the name popped up before the apostrophe had to be entered.

British grammarians have railed for decades against storekeepers' signs advertising the sale of "apple's and pear's," or pubs offering "chip's and pea's."

I always like how people who want to get rid of apostrophes use them incorrectly all the time. If you never use them, fine. But to use them incorrectly and then bitch when people want to use them correctly? Shut up.

Okay, let's move on, staying on that side of the pond!

Britain's Royal Opera plans a show based on the life of Anna Nicole Smith.

Oh dear. Of course, there's been an opera about Jerry Springer, so why not Anna Nicole Smith? She started as a stripper, posed for Playboy, was the Playmate of the Year, married an octogenarian oil tycoon for his money, got embroiled in a law suit when he died and his family contested her portion, had a screwed-up later life, endured her son's death, and then died of a drug overdose. It's classic opera stuff! And no, I'm not being sarcastic. Come on, just because some operas are 100-200 years old doesn't mean they're not pretty lurid. Good on you, Royal Opera!


Anna Nicole Smith: Too buxom to live!

More news from England: He's 13. He scarcely looks 10. And according to a British tabloid, he's a father. Baby-faced and only 4 feet tall, the boy, Alfie, was just 12 when he impregnated Chantelle, now 15, The Sun reported Friday.

Oh dear. Oh my dear Lord.

Asked what he would do to support the child financially, Alfie asks in a small, high-pitched voice, "What's financially?"

Oh Jesus.

The Sun did not say whether any tests were conducted to prove the boy's paternity. The paper did not offer any immediate comment when asked whether it had paid the family for the story.

Police and child services in Eastbourne, in southeast England, said in a statement that they were "aware of a 14-year-old girl that had become pregnant as the result of a relationship with a 12-year-old boy," adding that they were offering support to both young people.

"Support." With our tax dollars! Or, I guess, pounds.

Alfie's front page picture has sparked renewed debate about teen pregnancy in Britain. The country has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in Europe, and government figures show that about 39,000 girls under age 18 became pregnant in 2006. More than 7,000 of those girls were younger than 16.

That's sad. Not as bad as the U.S., though!

Britain had 27 births per 1,000 women aged 15-19 between 2000 and 2005, according to a report published by Population Action International. Comparable figures are 10 per 1,000 for Spain, 8 in 1,000 for France, and 5 in 1,000 for The Netherlands.

Britain's teen pregnancy rate, however, is still far below that of the United States, which registers 44 births per 1,000 women aged 15-19 and are more line with English-speaking countries such as Australia and New Zealand, which respectively have 17 and 27 births per 1,000 women between 15 and 19, according to the report.

U! S! A!

In a move last year to tackle the high teen pregnancy rate, British education officials announced they would start introducing sex education earlier in English schools. Beginning next year, children as in grades as low as kindergarten will be given basic sex education.

Tony Kerridge, of the sexual health group Marie Stopes International, praised the move, but local lawmaker Nigel Waterson said the pregnancy raised "huge questions" about whether British children were being educated about sex - at the expense of learning about healthy relationships.

Like the one between a 12-year-old and a 14-year-old? Yeah, those kind.

Chantelle and Alfie have reportedly pledged to raise the child as best they can.

"We know we made a mistake but I wouldn't change it now," Chantelle was quoted by The Sun as saying.

Alfie's father, Dennis - who reportedly has nine children - said his son told him it was the first time he had sex. He was reportedly allowed to sleep over at the girl's house.

At least we can't blame the parents!

"I will talk to him again and it will be the birds and bees talk," he said. "Some may say it's too late but he needs to understand so there is not another baby."

Yeah, good luck with that, Pops.

All right, let's move on to the United States! Things do happen here, you know!

Churches are beginning to accept evolution.

After a lifetime in the church, the Rev. William L. Rhines Jr. lately has started to question one of the Bible's fundamental teachings, that God created man. It's an especially touchy topic in his Wilmington, Del., congregation, where generations of black worshippers have leaned on faith to endure the indignities of racism.

But as the world marks the 200th birthday of evolution theorist Charles Darwin on Thursday, Rhines figures its time for even the most conservative congregations to come to terms with science.

Welcome to the 21st century, everyone!

"We're becoming more middle class, upper middle class, so we have more free time ... to ponder these eternal issues," said Rhines, who will encourage a discussion at Ezion-Mt. Carmel United Methodist Church.

I like that the implication is that low-class people are too dim to concern themselves with philosophical problems!

Participants say they're not abandoning the Bible's story of Adam and Eve. Rather, they want to blend theories in a way that helps today's faithful reconcile their modern world with Biblical teachings.

"We have to give God a lot more credit than we give him now - we need to give him the benefit of the doubt that his word includes evolution," said Mike Ghouse, president of the World Muslim Congress, a Dallas-based union of 3,000 Muslims that hosted its first ever Evolution Weekend discussion Friday.

God sure does deserve some credit, right?

Zimmerman argues the faithful can accept parts of creationism - the notion that a higher being created man whole - and evolution.

"Faith is related to one's belief system ... science, on the other hand, is in a different domain," said the Rev. Gerald Kersey, who planned a Sunday school lesson and discussion of Darwin's theories at Avondale Estates First Baptist Church in suburban Atlanta.

He blamed religious intolerance for causing many faithful to feel they must choose between science and the Bible.

"I'm presenting the idea that science or evolution is compatible with faith," he said.

The religious are never intolerant, are they?

Still, many Americans believe that God created man. A 2006 survey by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion and Public Life found 63 percent of Americans believed humans and other animals have either always existed in their present form or have evolved over time under the guidance of a supreme being.

That percentage is especially high among the nation's black churchgoers, who have been taught for generations to cope with everything from slavery to Jim Crow by using the Bible's teachings, Rhines said.

"We don't want to tamper with what grandma taught us - we've come this far by faith," Rhines said.

At one of the nation's oldest black churches, the First African Baptist Church in Savannah, Ga., the Rev. Thurmond Tillman doesn't oppose evolution.

But he argued black Americans have other social issues to address, and the faithful should focus on uniting mankind - not dividing his origins.

Well, that's a relief!

So, what else in the news? Nothing too important, I'm sure.

What I've been reading

Shadowplay: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare by Clare Asquith. 2005, 348 pages, Public Affairs Books.

This fascinating book stems from a premise that, whether you accept it or not, will color your appreciation of it: William Shakespeare was a Catholic, and encoded Catholic political protests against the Elizabethan and Jacobin regimes into his plays. Asquith certainly makes her case well, but there's one problem: She never actually proves that Shakespeare was Catholic. She finds some evidence of it, but by failing to adequately convince the reader of that one fact, she calls into question the entire book. That's a shame, because it's a very readable, extremely interesting book, one that explains a lot about Shakespeare's more difficult plays and why he retired at the peak of his powers.

Asquith looks at the plays in chronological order and how they might have been informed by the politics of the day. She begins by pointing out that Elizabeth's England, far from being the Golden Age many historians painted it as, was actually a police state, with the dominant Protestants suppressing any and all dissent, including the Catholic resistance. There is plenty of evidence for this - the Northern Rebellion in 1569 was a Catholic one, while Guy Fawkes in 1605 shows the continual dissatisfaction once James took over. The fact that Sir Francis Walsingham and William Cecil rose so high in the Elizabethan government as spymasters also shows that Elizabeth had plenty of enemies (real or imagined). According to Asquith, Shakespeare was a secret Catholic, and this gives his plays a new layer of meaning that makes them easier to understand. She makes this conclusion by very inconclusive means, by pointing out Catholic activity in the area of Stratford when he was young, among other things. It's all circumstantial, and therefore not as compelling as one would hope. Asquith is stronger when she examines the literary culture of late sixteenth-century England, as she makes connections between Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, and Ben Jonson - all more obvious Catholics than the Bard. She also gets into the coding of all Elizabethan literature - again, she's on firmer ground here. Then she examines the plays. She claims that Shakespeare used easily identifiable markers for Catholics and Protestants - "light" and "dark," "high" and "low," for instance, which don't necessarily mean good and bad, as she points out - and dozens of other codes to show that he was speaking out, the only way he knew how, against the draconian measures of the Crown.

Where she shines is explaining the most problematic plays, such as Titus Andronicus, which has always been kind of a bizarre "horror movie" in the Shakespearean canon. Written in 1594, Titus has often puzzled critics - "How could Shakespeare have written such a terrible play?" Asquith writes is the usual reaction. She points out, though, that the play was written in the aftermath of the death of Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange, a Catholic hero. Even though his death is usually attributed to Jesuits (it's largely assumed he was poisoned), Asquith points out that the Cecil family benefited greatly from his death. Lord Strange was a great patron of the arts and was probably Shakespeare's early in his career. Asquith sees Titus Andronicus as an angry reaction to Strange's death, and she goes about proving it. As an allegory, Titus Andronicus is a history of Reformation England, with Titus standing in as the old Catholic order who loses control over his life when he foolishly gives up the throne (and power) to the wrong brother. According to Asquith, Shakespeare uses this allegory quite often - Lear is an example of the old Catholic order, for instance, as is Prospero, with the marriage of Miranda and Ferdinand representing Shakespeare's hope that the old religion could be reconciled with the new - and uses characters to represent other stages of the transformation of England from a Catholic to a Protestant country. When viewed through the lens of Shakespeare's anger over the murder of Lord Strange, Titus Andronicus makes more sense. At least it does to Asquith.

She also explains Shakespeare's later plays, the ones that came after the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 (a reaction to which she also sees in the plays Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus). Why, when Shakespeare was capable of writing great comedies and tragedies (1599-1606 saw the completion of Twelfth Night, Hamlet, Measure for Measure, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth - among others) did he shift, in 1608, to writing "fairy-tales," as Asquith puts it (page 239). Her explanation is that after the Gunpowder Plot, James I began to move away from the brief mood of reconciliation with Catholics that accompanied his accession (if indeed he had ever been sympathetic to Catholics, he certainly wasn't after the conspirators tried to kill him), so Shakespeare and other writers stopped appealing to him. Instead, they turned their attention to the heir to the throne, Henry (1594-1612). As Henry was a 14-year-old, Shakespeare deliberately wrote "romances" that would appeal to the heir's sense of adventure while still subliminally influencing him to support the Catholic cause. Hence, in the years 1608-1612 (when the prince died of typhoid fever), Shakespeare wrote Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest. Asquith makes the point that these plays, although more simplistic (at least the first three) than his earlier plays, continue his propaganda campaign, just geared toward a different, younger audience.

Finally, Asquith explains why, in 1610, Shakespeare left London and returned to Stratford, basically retiring. He was only 45 years old and seemed to be at the height of his powers, but he completed only one more play (The Tempest) and simply appeared to give up on theater. She goes briefly over Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsman, his final two plays that were basically written by John Fletcher from amorphous Shakespeare plots, and shows how Henry VIII, especially, is blatant Protestant propaganda that doesn't fit at all into the rest of Shakespeare's output. Her explanation is that the assassination of Henry IV of France in 1610 by a deranged friar confirmed James's fears that Catholics couldn't be trusted. The English king therefore started cracking down harder on Catholics, and many prominent ones were forced deeper into hiding. Asquith points out that many other playwrights dropped out of society at this time, and the one who didn't, Ben Jonson, publicly repudiated Catholicism. She also claims that when Shakespeare's first folio was published, in 1623, there was a loosening of the restrictions on Catholics and many who had fled in 1610 came back. It was, of course, too late for Shakespeare, who died in 1616.

The reason these hidden messages in Shakespeare's work have remained so for 400 years, Asquith argues, is because historians were unwilling to tarnish the reputation of religious tolerance that has become a hallmark of Elizabeth's reign. Even after years of scholarship on Elizabeth's secret police and the somewhat shocking lengths Walsingham and Cecil would go to root out supposed conspiracies against the queen, many historians still wanted to believe this was a fringe element and that the majority of the populace embraced Protestantism. This is a silly fairy tale in its own right, but it also forms the bedrock of English character in many respects, so it's plausible that Asquith is onto something. Her argument is that many more people were Catholics into the seventeenth century but that has never been acknowledged, and we need to examine the time period with fresh eyes and understand what the culture was saying about the monarchy.

On the one hand, this is a very interesting book. It's always been a bit vexing, to me at least, that Shakespeare never seemed to be all that political in his writings, especially given what we know about other playwrights (Marlowe and Kyd, especially), who were very political. So this book is a fascinating look at someone who, according to Asquith, was very good at being political and very good at hiding it enough so he wouldn't get in trouble with the authorities. However, it often feels like she's reaching. As I pointed out above, the evidence that Shakespeare was Catholic is very circumstantial, and the fact that he wrote a terrible play - Titus Andronicus - might have had to do with an attempt to produce a "blockbuster" and appeal to the fascination with sex and violence that people of all times have. Christopher Marlowe, who died around the time Shakespeare began working on Titus, was more of a crowd-pleaser in those early days, as many of his plays fit into a Jerry Bruckheimer kind of mode - Tamburlaine (for which he even wrote a sequel!) and The Massacre at Paris, for instance. Maybe Shakespeare was just trying to "sell out" early in his career. Asquith's arguments, while compelling, often come across as determining a thesis and then looking for messages that fit the thesis while ignoring everything else. I'm no Shakespeare scholar, so I don't know if her thesis has made any inroads with them, but while it's a very interesting book, I'm not sure how reliable her conclusions are.

Still, if you've ever read and enjoyed Shakespeare, you might want to check this out. Asquith writes very well, and although she often beats us over the head with her interpretations (another allegory for the history of England? really?), she keeps things moving and does a nice job looking at the context for Shakespeare's plays, something most people ignore. It's definitely a cool book to read.

God is mean

SAN ANTONIO - A man who rammed his truck into a woman's vehicle on a highway early Friday told authorities he crashed into her while going more than 100 mph because God told him "she needed to be taken off the road."

The truck rear-ended the car on U.S. Highway 281, both vehicles spun across a median then came to a stop along a barrier in the opposite lanes. Both drivers suffered only minor injuries.

"He just said God said she wasn't driving right, and she needed to be taken off the road," Bexar County Sheriff's Office spokesman Kyle Coleman said in the online edition of the San Antonio Express-News. "God must have been with them, 'cause any other time, the severity of this crash, it would have been a fatal."

The pickup driver did not tell police how the woman was driving. Police could not find alcohol or drugs in either driver.

A psychiatric evaluation has been ordered for a man.

Man, God is mean! Why is He (or She, or It) always telling people to kill others? Can't God do His (or Her, or Its) own dirty work, for crying out loud?

Jews vs. Mormons!

Man, that would be a cool video game!

So this news story bugged me. Holocaust survivors are trying to stop the Mormon church from "baptizing" Jews killed in Nazi concentration camp posthumously. If you're wondering WTF?, well, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints baptizes people who are, you know, dead by proxy, where someone stands in for the dead person. This story is about an agreement made in 1995 between the Mormons and Holocaust survivors, but let's consider this idea of proxy baptism. How silly is that? I don't have a problem with current Mormons "baptizing" their non-Mormon ancestors, as weird as it is. But the Mormons baptize anyone they want, including people like Gandhi (I seem to remember hearing). I know it doesn't make any difference to the dead people, but does the Church now list Gandhi as a Mormon? That's just dumb.

I try not to pick on specific religions, even the truly wacky ones. I don't have a problem with Mormons believing this will reunite their current members with their ancestors, but why do dead people from around the world need to be Mormon? Will the Mormons in Heaven feel bad if Gandhi isn't with them?

I often wonder if some people are from this planet

Last week, I saw this.

Out in Michigan, a man in an adult education English class doused his teacher in a nonflammable liquid and threatened to burn her as a witch because she assigned "The Crucible." Yes, the Arthur Miller play.

The 20-year-old man is obviously a bit unhinged. He said he was trying to kill the witch by pouring holy water over her head. He called the play "blasphemy" on the day it was assigned, then chanted around the teacher the next day.

Seriously. I get that there are crazy people in this world, but what's depressing is that a large sector of our population probably wouldn't see anything weird about what this dude did. That's even sadder than the fact that this guy thought the teacher should be burned.

One final point: the detective quoted in the story is named Ken Denmark. Doesn't that just sound like a tough-guy P. I. in a 1970s television show? Well, I thought so. "Ken Denmark, P. I." starring Perry King! It totally works.

What I've been reading

Pontius Pilate by Ann Wroe. 412 pages, 1999, Random House/Modern Library.

I've always been a sucker for Pilate, so when I saw this book, I had to have it! Wroe doesn't write a biography, as such, because there's hardly anything that we actually know about Pilate, but it's still a fascinating book.

What Wroe does is write an imaginary biography of Pilate. She delves into what the life of a Roman soldier and gentleman of the early first century would be like and extrapolates from that. Of course, we can't know if Pilate was like that, but given that Roman men rarely broke the mold, we can easily believe that Pilate's life followed the track she lays out. Another thing she does is examine the legacy of Pilate through the writings of the Church Fathers and especially the medieval mystery plays. It's an interesting way of illuminating the life of a man about which we know hardly anything but played such an important part in the history of Western civilization.

Wroe basically lays out Pilate's life in chronological order, but with plenty of asides to delve into legend. She uses the Gospels liberally, naturally, but she also uses the Apocrypha as well. As she moves through Pilate's life, her tangents often become esoteric, but that's part of what makes the book so interesting. She psychoanalyzes Pilate to a degree, but she also gets into why we are so fascinated by him. It's difficult to understand what Pilate was thinking, of course, because the Bible doesn't get into that, but Wroe deftly takes the brief passages that deal with him and spins a tale of a man struggling with several different pressures as he tries this rebellious minister. She never absolves Pilate, but she does try to understand why the governor would allow himself get involved in the trial. As she tracks the trial, she puts us into his palace and into his heart. She shows us how different the Roman and Jewish cultures were and why Pilate could not understand this difference at all. Pilate might have been a cruel and inept man, as is implied in various sources, but that doesn't mean he didn't try to rule the colony in a way consistent with Roman values. That he failed, Wroe claims, is because he failed to appreciate the uniqueness of the Jewish way of life. This extended to the trial of Jesus, where Pilate allowed himself to be outfoxed by Caiaphas and the priests. Wroe takes her time with the trial, looking at Judas and his role, the Sanhedrin and the way it used Pilate, and how Jesus himself manipulated the governor. Pilate was a failure, but he wasn't a failure because he didn't care about governing well. He was a failure because he was in an impossible situation.

The most fascinating parts of the book is when Wroe takes off and imagines how Pilate acted based on texts written long after the fact. The English mystery plays are a big source, and Wroe shows how those writers, along with others, used Pilate to further their own ends. Pilate was useful to writers who wanted to cast Jews in a bad light and who wanted to prove that the governor was part of the divine plan. Pilate becomes a patsy who is twisted to suit God's plan, but Wroe makes the point that it was his very spinelessness that made him the perfect foil for Jesus. She gets into a complex discussion of the nature of faith itself, and how Pilate had none, so he was doomed in his battle with Jesus. But as Wroe points out, later writers became enamored of the idea of Pilate as the first witness to Christ, the first to proclaim Jesus as the King of the Jews (ironically-titled placard or not), and the first to understand the Resurrection. Pilate becomes us, every person who did not believe but saw the light. Later writers wanted to show that even someone as obtuse as Pilate could come around to the light of Christ, and some churches have made Pilate and his wife Procula saints. Pilate's struggles with Jesus become humanity's struggles to learn about Christ, and later writers wanted desperately to believe that he won. If Pilate couldn't see the light, what hope do any of us have?

Pontius Pilate is an extremely readable yet complex book. It's a fascinating journey through an almost completely imagined landscape, and although Pilate is in the middle of it, he's also a passive observer to so much history it's somewhat astounding. Pilate is the universal human, and that's what makes him so compelling. This book is extremely interesting, because it puts us in Pilate's place. What would we do? That's the question, and it's not an easy one to answer.

Stupid conservative radio talk show hosts should shut up!

Today I foolishly switched to one of the many conservative radio stations in town, mostly because there were commercials on the sports talk radio shows. Once Rush Limbaugh was on, and the other time Michael Savage was on. I turned them off quickly, because they made me angry. I'm rather unabashedly liberal (for the most part, although like a lot of people, I'm liberal on some things and conservative on others, something hard core people on both sides tend to forget), but I don't like crazies on either side ranting about stuff. As conservative talk dominates the airwaves here in the Basin, I usually end up listening to that for a few minutes. So what did I hear today that made me angry?

Rush was talking about Barack Obama, his wife, and his ex-preacher. He was going on about Michelle Obama giving a speech to a group of women and encouraging them to stay out of jobs that pay shitloads of money and stay in jobs that have to do with service for the community that don't pay as much. Rush did say that it's noble to be in social work, but he specifically picked on Ms. Obama because he says she is "anti-middle class." He said she got this idea specifically from Obama's pastor, the controversial Jeremiah Wright, who, according to Rush, has ranted against the middle class before. Wright, according to Rush, is very against materialism and hates the middle class. Now, I have no idea if Wright is actually anti-middle class. If he's friends with the Obamas, who are very wealthy, I doubt it. One point on which I tend to agree with conservatives is that liberal Democrats in politics tend to be far richer than they like to admit, so their concern for the poor comes off as a bit disingenuous. I don't know what Michelle Obama's speech was about or what her motivation was, but it seems, from what Rush said, that Reverend Wright is actually talking about being a good Christian. You know, that Jesus dude, who told everyone who followed him to give away everything they owned? Now, I'm sure Rush considers himself a Christian, so you'd think he would be remotely familiar with the teachings of Jesus. You know, as he's the basis for the religion and all. So I'm unsure why he's so angry about Reverend Wright railing against materialism. Shouldn't all pastors do that?

Okay, moving on to Michael Savage. He was reading an article about the Larkspur, California city council. The writer of this article was ranting about the fact that Larkspur, along with several other city councils, are so politically correct that they're turning into Communist cells. Yes, Savage called them "Communist cells." Anyway, the writer was saying that the city council had decided to speak with a unified voice to the media. That means, according to this writer, that if a vote goes 3-2, the minority does not get to voice their opinions. The writer was apoplectic that the Larkspur city council would oppress free speech in this way. It's like a Chinese village in the 1950s, according to Savage. Or, you know, like the United States circa 2003, when anyone who suggested that the war might not be the best idea was branded a traitor. Remember those great days? Apparently, if you disagree with something that's really cool, like stupid wars, then the majority can overrule any dissent! But when a tiny town in stupid hippie California does something, then we need to send in the Marines to liberate the noble conservatives hiding in their basements because the town council is squashing their right to speak!

This is why I hate conservative talk show hosts. Not because they're wrong, because they're often correct. But extreme people on both sides are so blind to the shit their own sides pull while they're condemning the sins of the other side. I mean, I agree that taxing the shit out of people isn't the best idea, but I hate to hear conservatives condemn it while never admitting that giving tax breaks while spending more money and growing the deficit to obscene amounts is probably not the best way to run the country. And I hate to hear liberals condemn the wealthy while they make more money than I will ever do and then say we need to tax people like me more. They both suck. But conservatives are louder and more obnoxious, so they earn my ire. Fuck Rush and fuck Savage. Rush needs to find out what it means to be a Christian, and Savage needs to remember recent times in our country when the conservative majority oppressed free speech. So fuck 'em both.

Top Ten Day: My favorite Christian sects

I don't know why I thought of this topic, or if it will be interesting to anyone but me (maybe this guy), but I've always been fascinated by the various divisions in Christianity (being a history major of European history, this is perhaps not shocking), and naturally I have favorites. So here are my ten favorite, in no particular order (except for the first two, which are my absolute favorites!):

1. The Anabaptists. This group, which tried to create some kind of utopia in the German town of Münster in the 1530s, was notable because they believed that infant baptism was invalid and that only adults could receive it. Now, today this might not seem too radical, but back then, despite the Protestant Reformation sweeping Europe, that was crazy talk! In fact, a lot of Protestants persecuted the Anabaptists, because they learned quickly from the Catholics about oppressing people who thought differently than they did. A bunch of Anabaptists took over Münster and tried to create a theocracy, but German princes besieged the city and it turned into a horrific place. Their leader, John of Leiden, legalized polygamy and took 16 wives, and near the end, the townspeople turned to cannibalism. Or did they? Accounts vary. Anyway, this apocalyptic event drove Anabaptists underground, not surprisingly, but their traditions live on with the Amish, Mennonites, Quakers, and, of course, Baptists. I just always thought the Münster rebellion was pretty cool.

2. The Cathars. One of the most depressing spectacles of medieval Europe is the Albigensian Crusade, launched by Pope Innocent III to destroy the Cathars of southern France in the early 13th century. The Languedoc, as the south of France is known, was influenced by Muslim Spain, and was a place of learning and (relative) tolerance, ruled over by the counts of Toulouse, who were often more interested in reading than ruling. Innocent (1198-1216) was flexing papal muscle in these years (he Interdicted England, for crying out loud!), and he didn't like the fact that the Cathars were so powerful in the Languedoc. The Crusade, the first launched specifically against Christians, destroyed the infrastructure of the region, brought it under the sway of the French (Catholic) king, and made Simon de Montfort, an obscure French count, a superstar (until he was killed in a siege). This Crusade also gives us the famous line by the papal legate when asked how to distinguish Cathars from Cathoics at the siege of Béziers: "Kill them all, the Lord will recognize His own." Charming fellow. Anyway, Cathars themselves were influenced by gnostic teachings, believing that all matter was evil and that the divine spirit was trapped in a polluted world. Jesus himself was not a man, but a manifestation of the divine spirit. The Cathars believed that procreation, war, and capital punishment was wrong, which pissed off quite a lot of medieval Christians, who really enjoyed screwing and slaughtering! And, of course, the Cathars were supposed to have the treasure of the Templars, and they hid it from the filthy French! Ha, screw you, Frenchies! Cathars, by the way, have a web site. Check it out!

3. The Nestorians. Back in the fifth century, the archbishop of Constantinople, Nestorius, taught that Christ had two distinct natures - a divine one and a human one, and that they did not mingle. This led him to claim that the divine part of Christ did not suffer on the cross. Boy howdy, this pissed people off, you bet! The Council of Ephesus in 431 condemned Nestorius, but of course a lot of people still believed in that doctrine, and they went off to the East. It reached China still exists today in Iran, Iraq, and India. The Church's unofficial web site is here, and the Catholic Encyclopedia delves very deeply into Nestorianism here. I like the Nestorians because the heresy led, however mistakenly, to the legend of Prester John, which is a very cool story.

4. The Arians. Ah, Arianism. One of the most popular Christian heresies ever, and one that had an excellent chance to be the "orthodox" teaching throughout Europe. But alas! it failed, and has been relegated to the dustbin of history. Arius, the bishop of Alexandria, taught that the pre-incarnate Christ was created by God and did not exist prior to that. The Catholics, if you recall, believe that the parts of the Trinity are equal and have always existed. Splitting hairs, say you? Bite your tongue! Arius was condemned at a rather famous Council at Nicaea in 325 (whence comes the Nicene Creed), but his teachings lived on. Many Germanic tribes adopted Arianism, including the Visigoths, who ruled in Spain until the eighth century (but by then had become good Catholics). Arianism was very popular for centuries, but it eventually fell to the all-crushing Godness of Catholicism!

5. The Monophysites. The Monophysite position was completely antithetical to the Nestorian one - Monophysites argued that Christ had one nature, as opposed to two. This heresy was eventually rejected by the Catholic Church at the Council of Chalcedon of 451. Yes, it's hard to keep up.

6. The Copts. The Coptic Church, which is the dominant Christian sect in Egypt today, is actually monophysite. I guess that I should have distinguished between "heresies" and "sects," but what the hell. Copts don't recognize the Roman Pope, but the head of the their church is the Pope ... of Alexandria. I just find the Christians of Egypt interesting.
[Edit: A few commenters have pointed out that the Coptic Church is not really monophysite. Sorry about that. I knew I shouldn't trust the Internet! I wouldn't want to insult any Copts out there, so I'll just say I was wrong and move on.]

7. The Ethiopian Orthodox. Ethiopia, surprisingly enough, was one of the earliest countries to embrace Christianity (they say they're the oldest; the Armenians disagree). Because of this and the fact that Ethiopia is, to say the least, a bit isolated, means that their form of Christianity is archaic. Plus, the Ark of the Covenant is in a church in Addis Ababa, so they have that going for them.

8. The Mormons. What's so fascinating about the Mormons is they wouldn't be out of place in fourth- or fifth-century Asia, what with the whole origin of the sect and the fervor with which they practice and the persecution and intolerance they faced (and occasionally still face) and the way they quickly turn to oppression themselves when they get the chance. It's all very medieval, but the fact that it's such an American form of Christianity makes it oddly compelling.

9. The Catholics. Well, duh.

10. The Byzantine Orthodox. This refers to the Orthodox Church prior to the fall of Constantinople in 1453, when the Orthodox Church splintered. This is perhaps another no-brainer, as I've always dug the Byzantine Empire, and I just love that the schism between it and the Catholic Church came about from such tiny things, like the "filioque clause." For those of you who don't know Latin, "filioque" means "and the Son," which was inserted into the Nicene Creed, so that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. This caused much consternation in the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and helped lead to the break between the two Churches (there were, of course, other reasons, but I love that one). The Orthodox Church today, of course, celebrates Easter at a different time than the Catholic Church does, which I'm surprised hasn't led Benedict XVI promulgating a new crusade. He seems like that kind of guy.

So those are my favorite sects. Like I said, I guess some are technically heresies, but you get the idea. I like others, of course, but those are my favorites. As for the majority of Protestant sects ... boring! When they take over a German town, legalize polygamy, and turn to cannibalism, then come talk to me!

What I've been reading

From Jesus to Christianity: How Four Generations of Visionaries & Storytellers Created the New Testament and Christian Faith by L. Michael White. 508 pages, 2004, HarperCollins.

I may be an atheist (which will preclude me from ever being president but not dictator of the world), but I am terribly fascinated by the history of Christianity and how it evolved. So I am intrigued by books like this, which are about that evolution. White is the director of the Institute for the Study of Antiquity and Christian Origins at the University of Texas, so I suppose he's somewhat qualified to write about this subject.

White structures the book generationally. He begins with the world of the New Testament, looking at Rome and Judea in the reign of Augustus. Then he gets to the historical figure of Jesus, which is the first generation. Each generation covers about 40 years, so the letters of Paul are included in this first generation, as they're the oldest books in the New Testament. The second generation begins with the first Jewish revolt (AD 66-73), when the nature of both Christianity and Judaism changed as the former began to be less of a Jewish sect and more its own religion. This period covers the writing of the first three Gospels (the Synoptic ones). In the third generation, which begins around AD 100, Christianity begins to become a "church," and the people who knew people who knew Jesus begin to die. This is also when the Gospel of John was written. Finally, in the fourth generation, which stretches from mid-first century to the end of it, Christianity begins to define itself against "heresies," which necessitates the formation of a New Testament, a process which lasted well beyond the confines of this book. White, however, shows why an orthodox, canonical list of scripture became crucial for the continued growth of the religion.

White puts the life of Jesus and the world of the New Testament in context by looking at Rome and Herod the Great's reign in Judea. This is obviously somewhat important for understanding who Jesus was. He breaks down the Gospels to illuminate the life of Jesus, but the book really hits its stride when he gets to Paul, who wrote the earliest "books" of the New Testament. He has already gone into the oral tradition of the Jesus movement, as he calls the early "Christians," who still considered themselves Jews before the revolt of the 60s. Now, with Paul, he looks at who Paul was and what he was doing. He puts to rest the ideas that Paul turned Christianity into a "Greek" religion, pointing out that there was plenty of interaction between Jews of the Jesus movement and Greeks prior to Paul; the thought that Paul was the "second founder" of the church, as the Jesus movement was vibrant and diverse before Paul began preaching; and that he was the "first Christian," as Paul never considered himself anything but Jewish. White does, however, shed some fascinating light on the context of Paul's letters (the earliest, 1 Thessalonians, was written in 50-51) and how he shaped a distinctive form of the new religion. Early on in the writings of the Christian founders, there is a definite eschatological bent to the ideas, as Paul expected Jesus to return any day. It's interesting to consider that Paul had no thought to the consequences of some of his letters because he didn't think the believers would be around very much longer.

The Gospels come from the second generation, after the disastrous Jewish Revolt, which brought about the destruction of the Temple and a new, rabbinical version of Judaism. It also prompted people to begin writing the story of the life of Jesus down, which White points out came about because the people who actually knew Jesus were beginning to die off and the oral traditions about him were going to fall away. The oral traditions, White argues, were very influential in the creation of the Gospels. Mark was written first, around 70-75, which is right after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, so the Gospel reflects some of the sadness about this event. By the time we get to Luke-Acts (which, White argues, ought to be regarded as one book written by the same author), there was a sense of anxiety about the delay of the parousia, the return of Jesus. In Paul, there is no need to reconcile the lack of a Second Coming with the passage of time, but Luke changes the way the Second Coming is viewed, as the "kingdom" has already arrived with the destruction of the Temple, and it becomes separate from the return of the Messiah. Jesus's return moves into an indeterminate future. Obviously this is a key component in the evolution of the church.

As the first century comes to a close, the Roman emperor Domitian (81-96) began terrorizing many throughout the Roman world, although White argues that he didn't really target Christians, as many people have claimed. What Domitian did, however, was establish imperial cults to himself, rather than dead emperors, and some Christians were more accommodating than they should have been. This inspired, among other things, the Revelation of John, which rejects imperial cults. As we move into the second century, we get more (apocryphal) Gospels that deal with the growing need to fit Christianity into Roman society. This leads to the Gospel of John, which is far more anti-Jewish than the earlier Gospels. Christianity had moved from a Jewish sect to a separate religion, and the writings of AD 90-120 reflect that.

As White begins to look at the mid-first century, he gets into the definition of "scripture" and why Christians felt the need to codify the texts of the New Testament. Part of it was because of the different regions that practiced Christianity. The Egyptian form (which became Coptic) was different from the the Syrian form, which was different from the Greco-Roman form. Obviously, the regional forms overlapped in a great many ways, but they all had their quirks that made them unique. There was also still a very strong Jewish strain in Christianity, and some Christians had begun to look suspiciously on Paul's letters as anathema to the "true faith" because Paul had taken it too far from its Jewish roots. Similarly, many Christians were beginning to declaim those adherents who denounced Paul. Ironically, a "heretic" was responsible for coming up with the idea for a "scripture" of texts that would be canonical. In the 130s and 140s, Marcion, a Christian from Anatolia, went to Rome and began preaching about his version of Christianity. Among his ideas were that the God of Genesis was a different and inferior God to the Father of Jesus, which led him to reject Jewish scripture entirely; that Jesus was not born as flesh and blood, but was an entirely spiritual being; and that Paul was the only authority in this matter. These ideas led him to form his own collection of authoritative texts which contained an early form of Luke and the ten letters of Paul (Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, and Philemon). Marcion was excommunicated, but he gained a wide following and forced other Christian thinkers to come up with their own authoritative scripture.

As White reaches the latter half of the second century, he looks at the establishment of actual church buildings (prior to this, a "church" was just a gathering of Christians) and the debate over which letters of Paul were authentic and should be included in the canon, and which Gospels were authoritative. Throughout the book, White continues to examine apocryphal literature, including several Gospels (the Gospel of Thomas, for instance, which was a very popular text), and how they reflected the concerns of the community whence they emanated. Another influential Christian in the formulation of an authoritative Testament was Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyons from 177-190. Irenaeus, who wrote an extremely influential text called Against Heresies, argued for the inclusion of the four Gospels we now have, and is often credited with coining the word "catholic" to refer to the universal truth inherent in the Christian message. White does point out that the New Testament wasn't codified until the Council of Carthage in 394, but by the end of the second century, the texts that would eventually included in it were all there, with just some debate over a few of them.

This is a very interesting and exhaustively researched book. It's not the most entertaining book, but White keeps things relatively lively and doesn't get too bogged down in the scholarship. He does a nice job placing the development of Christianity in the context of the Mediterranean world, but the one place I think the book falters a bit is when he talks about the creation of the texts and how they are reactions to things in the community. He generally does a good job, but with some of the writings, he keeps things somewhat vague, and I was hoping that he could be more specific. I assume that for some of the writings, the specifics aren't known, which is a concern for something that happened 2000 years ago, but from what he has written, it seems like he knows the specifics but chooses not to divulge them. I could be wrong. With the major books, and especially with Paul's life, he does a better job, which leads me to believe he doesn't know the context in all cases, but it's just a minor complaint.

For the most part, I like this book a lot. It's very fascinating to read about the creation of the New Testament and how the political reality of the early Christian world shaped it. If you're at all interested in the Bible, this is an excellent book to check out.

My wife grew up in Minersville, Pennsylvania

Why do I write this? Well, you may have heard that Minersville is experiencing a bit of a religious revival, as the Virgin Mary has begun appearing on a garage door on one of the town's main streets. Krys's grandmother even went down there and touched it! Krys's grandmother is a hard core Catholic, but she was also the kind of person who, ten or fifteen years ago, would mock people who believed in this sort of thing. We're a bit worried about her these days if she's buying into this.

Here's a story about the phenomenon. The text is accompanied with this picture:

Yeah, I think it's a bit of a reach as well. But here's a better picture:

Uh, okay, maybe not. This is from the WNEP story. WNEP is YOUR SOURCE FOR NEWS in northeastern Pennsylvania!

You don't get a good view of it in this video, but you do get a good look at the kind of people who live in Minersville. Considering that back when Krys lived there, the county was number one in the country for alcoholism, maybe the Virgin Mary is telling these people to stop drinking so much Yuengling!¹


I didn't pick on Miss Teen South Carolina for her answer about American education because I can sympathize with her - she's on television and probably really nervous. These people, however, are easy to pick on. I know WHY they want to believe in the Virgin Mary appearing on garage doors. It's the same reason people in the Middle Ages wanted to believe in such things: their lives on Earth are so shitty they need to believe in something better. Believe me, if you'd ever been to Minersville, you'd understand why people want to think that there's something better out there.

Krys is going back there in October to visit her family and introduce them to Norah. I hope the Virgin is still there so she can check it out!

Minersville is just to the west of Pottsville on this map, by the way. In case you're wondering.

¹ Yuengling, America's oldest brewery, does make some damned fine beer, however. So I guess I can't blame all the Polacks up there for drinking it!

The Pope is awesome

I'm sure you've seen this:

Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday asserted the spiritual primacy of the Roman Catholic Church.

He did so at the expense of Christian Orthodox churches, which he said are wounded, and Protestant churches, which he said are not really churches at all.

The pope approved a document that says the only path to true salvation is Catholicism. The move was a stark reaffirmation of centuries-old Catholic belief that Protestant churches are lacking because they cannot trace their leadership back to Christ's apostles.

...

Some Catholic Church observers think the pope is trying to revisit the historic events of Vatican II from 1962 to 1965.

Last week, he eased restrictions on the Latin Mass, which was stopped almost entirely after Vatican II.

Even before his papacy began, he believed the church needed to draw more visible lines for Catholic faithful.

At the beginning of the process that made him the church's leader, he said, "We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires."

...

Others were not surprised by the pope's stance. For them, it was simply a reaffirmation of long-held beliefs.

"Catholicism is complicated, and being Catholic is a daily practice of understanding and acceptance that there is no order nor drive-up window to the gates of heaven," said Gayle Plato-Besley, 42, of Phoenix.

Those sentiments were echoed by the Rev. Christopher Fraser, adjutant judicial vicar of the Phoenix Diocese.

Fraser said it is important to note the intent of the pope's documents.

"In fact, the purpose of this document is more self-directed and reflective than it is a commentary on the incompleteness or insufficiencies of other churches and communities," Fraser said.

He pointed to the importance of language to the pope. "In the Catholic world, precise use of vocabulary and distinctions are imperative to the rendering of an authentic and genuine communication of beliefs."

Fuck yeah, Pope Benedict XVI! I knew there was a reason I loved this dude. I mean, given the Catholic Church's fucked-up stance on women in general, reproductive rights in particular, plus the idiotic rule of celibacy, it's about time someone made it obvious that the Church is still stuck in the 13th century. I mean, Benedict is just stating the obvious, isn't he? "Other churches"? Fuck that! Those wacky Protestants, reading the damned Bible and deciding for themselves what's relevant! We can't have that! That way lies anarchy ... and a loss of total power of the Pope! I mean, if the Pope doesn't have total control over your life, God might. And that's just ... well, it's just crazy, isn't it?

Somewhere in Hell, Innocent III is cheering.

What I've been reading

Damascus Gate by Robert Stone. 500 pages, 1998, Simon & Schuster, Inc.

There's a lot to like about this novel of political intrigue in 1992 Jerusalem, as Stone weaves a tale full of millennial passions, Arab-Jewish relations, mysticism, and a quest for meaning, set against a backdrop of a plot to destroy the Temple Mount and restore the Jewish Temple, a foolhardy task if there ever was one. It's a hugely ambitious novel, and one which I admire more than I like. There are some problems with it, you see.

The main story concerns Christopher Lucas, an American expatriate journalist who has come to Jerusalem searching for meaning in his life. He lives an indolent lifestyle, trying to find stories to tell, and ultimately finding little to fill the void inside him. One day he comes across Sonia, another American, but far different from Lucas. She's a black Sufi whose parents were Communists, and she spent time in Castro's Cuba when she was younger and in third world countries during her adult life. She too has come to Jerusalem to discover something, and she thinks she has found it in Sufism. She and Lucas begin a tentative romance, but his lack of faith contrasts sharply with her mystical faith. When Stone tracks their relationship, the book is riveting, even as he introduces other players to highlight their differences (and similarities). The people in the novel are all lost souls, and when a musician friend of Sonia's, Raziel Melker, becomes friends with an older Louisiana man, Adam de Kuff, who becomes a street preacher and stirs up the religious yearnings in his flock, Lucas finds himself being drawn into a world that he refuses to understand. He begins to work on a book about "Jerusalem syndrome," the idea of people coming to the Holy City and becoming possessed by a millennial fever, and so even as he tries to get closer to Sonia, he is also trying to analyze this phenomenon. She attempts to coax him closer to her side, but he resists, and this tension keeps much of the book gripping and fascinating.

Stone overreaches, I think, with the plot to blow up the Haram esh-Sharif. The plot is introduced almost halfway through the book, and it never really coalesces into much, fizzling out impotently, even though it has major consequences for the players in the drama. It's just that Stone tries to turn this into a political thriller, and it's not really suited for that. Although the meditative parts of less "exciting," they are also far more interesting, and the idea that De Kuff is setting himself up as the Messiah is far more pertinent than blowing up the Muslim holy places. Toward the end, Stone attempts to reconcile the fact that restoring the Temple in the physical world means little in the spiritual world, but that's somewhat self-evident, and it feels forced. The machinations of the plot - who's really behind it? - are not terribly interesting, and the various dangers that beset the characters could easily spring simply from the volatile atmosphere that already exists in Jerusalem. Lucas and Sonia take a harrowing journey through the Gaza Strip, and although the problems that occur there are tangentially related to the plot, they don't have to be. It's unfortunate that we get tangled up in it, because it doesn't seem to fit.

The bomb plot also hinders the book in that Stone is forced to introduce many more characters than my poor little brain, at least, can handle. Characters show up early on in the book and then disappear for 300 pages, when we're supposed to remember them. That might be more my problem than the book's, but it's still a bit annoying to read about characters who have previously appeared for one or two pages and who we're supposed to remember. Many of them are involved in the bomb plot, so they would be unnecessary if that aspect was dropped.

The best thing Stone does is give us a wonderful sense of the city of Jerusalem. As Lucas moves throughout the city, we get a good feel for the various neighborhoods and the tensions in the streets and houses. These are people packed onto a tiny plot of land, each believing their way is right and that they have a valid claim to the land. The mystical feel of the book goes a long way toward mitigating the frankly dull bomb plot. Is De Kuff a holy man, or just crazy? Will Lucas ever believe, or will he convince Sonia that she's foolish for believing? What is Melker's role in the plot - is he part of it, or are others using him because he himself is a spiritual fool? Even without the bomb plot, the various organizations jockeying for position in Jerusalem are vividly shown, as they all bite and scratch at each other to gain a small upper hand. Stone almost effortlessly shows the folly of trying to take control of something that defies control - the soul. He never belittles the religious or the non-religious, but he does point out that each person will fail, unless they recognize what's inside them and deal with that accordingly. Lucas will fail to find peace, and Sonia will fail to find salvation, unless they can understand who they are. That's where the book shines.

It's unfortunate that it isn't better, because the parts that are good are very good. It's an intriguing and difficult book to read, but it's certainly a fascinating journey through a city that defies expectations and people who are trying their best to live in it.

There's no better way to celebrate Guy Fawkes' Day than with a pedicure!

I went to get a pedicure today, because pedicures are awesome. If you have never gotten a pedicure, I recommend them highly. I don't get them that often, but I should, especially living here in the desert, because my feet get very dry and callused. My mom is here to babysit the kids while we go on vacation, so I was able to accompany Krys to get my feet done.

Instead of linking to various explanations about Guy Fawkes' Day, I'll just link to my post from last year, which has a bunch of links to information. I urged you to read V For Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, which incorporates the story, but if you're a visual kind of person, you can now watch the movie, which I reviewed here and which is, in my humble opinion, a truly great movie.

What's the deal with Guy Fawkes' Day, anyway? Are they celebrating his failure, in which case they enjoy being ruled by an oppressive regime that persecutes members of a different Christian sect, or all they celebrating the noble attempt, in which case they're lauding an early terrorist who advocated killing innocent people in the name of God. If only an actual English person would stop by and illuminate us ignorant Yanks!

"Him you brainwashed? What's he got that I don't have?"

We were visited last weekend by the Jehovah's Witnesses. When I answered the door, the two women told me who they were, but they also said they were actually looking for Spanish-speaking households. They gave me their little pamphlet, then left. I felt like George Costanza, who provides the quote that is the title of this post, when the Sunshine Carpet Cleaners "induct" Mr. Wilhelm into their cult but not him. To quote George again, "What kind of a snobby, stuck-up cult is this?"


We had fun with the pamphlet. Krys immediately thought, "That little girl is going to get eaten by that bear!" Krys is, of course, horribly cynical. I explained that in the New World, the bear and girl would frolic in harmony. She still thinks the girl is going to be an appetizer.

I just thought I'd pass this along: if you want to get rid of the Jehovah's Witnesses when they come to your door, just say you don't know Spanish. Apparently they have enough boring English speakers!

News from around our bizarro world

In lieu of real content, I link to strange news stories! And some commentary, I suppose.

A Baptist church in New York fires a Sunday School teacher for being a woman! She's worked there 54 years, but fuck you, Grandma! Their justification? The Bible says women should not teach men. I like how whenever "Christians" want to be all narrow-minded and ban something or disallow something, they quote the Bible - but never Jesus. In this case, it's Paul. Why? Because Jesus was a lot nicer than these pricks, and if they started using him, they'd have to be nice to women. Eeeewwww!

An Indian restaurant in Bombay (isn't it Mumbai now?) is named "Hitler's Cross"! The owner did it to attract attention, he says. India has only 5500 Jews, and Holocaust knowledge is limited. My question is, Why call it this if Hitler is only a "historical figure" in India and not seen as a monster? He wasn't terribly important to India. And it's not a German restaurant. This guy sounds like a tool.

You know who loves Paris Hilton's debut album? Paris Hilton, of course!

A postcard a mother mailed to her son in 1948 finally reached him. It only took 58 years. No jokes about the mail service, please!

Psycho killer raccoons terrorize Olympia, Washington! There has to be a low-budget horror movie in this, right? If you don't think so, let me repeat three words: Psycho. Killer. Raccoons.

A Swedish television station mistakenly shows a porn movie behind its news broadcast! Nothing fun EVER happens in the U.S.!

Al Sharpton wants black youths to resist "gangster culture." This is a bit more serious. I happen to agree with Sharpton, but maybe Roger or T., as black men who live in Sharpton's neck of the woods, can comment on this better than I can. Doesn't Sharpton cry racism any time a black man is accused of anything? How can he say "gangsterism" is keeping black men from achieving when his self-serving cries of racism might also be doing so? Or am I way off-base? I don't keep up with Sharpton as much as I would if I lived in New York.

Oh, and Pluto is no longer a planet. Our fine newspaper actually suggested a few weeks ago that astronomers were considering dropping Pluto because it had been discovered in Flagstaff in 1930 and not by some old stuffy astronomer in Europe. They were serious.

So there's some news for you as our world spins in the silent void. Aren't you glad you live on such a strange (for now) planet?