Address by Salt Lake City Mayor Ross C. “Rocky” Anderson
October 27, 2007
City & County Building, Salt Lake City, Utah
---------------------------------------------------------
Today, as we come together once again in this great city, we raise our voices in unison to say to President Bush, to Vice President Cheney, to other members of the Bush Administration (past and present), to a majority of Congress, including Utah’s entire congressional delegation, and to much of the mainstream media: “You have failed us miserably and we won’t take it any more.”
“While we had every reason to expect far more of you, you have been pompous, greedy, cruel, and incompetent as you have led this great nation to a moral, military, and national security abyss.”
“You have breached trust with the American people in the most egregious ways. You have utterly failed in the performance of your jobs. You have undermined our Constitution, permitted the violation of the most fundamental treaty obligations, and betrayed the rule of law.”
“You have engaged in, or permitted, heinous human rights abuses of the sort never before countenanced in our nation’s history as a matter of official policy. You have sent American men and women to kill and be killed on the basis of lies, on the basis of shifting justifications, without competent leadership, and without even a coherent plan for this monumental blunder.”
“We are here to tell you: We won’t take it any more!”
“You have acted in direct contravention of values that we, as Americans who love our country, hold dear. You have deceived us in the most cynical, outrageous ways. You have undermined, or allowed the undermining of, our constitutional system of checks and balances among the three presumed co-equal branches of government. You have helped lead our nation to the brink of fascism, of a dictatorship contemptuous of our nation’s treaty obligations, federal statutory law, our Constitution, and the rule of law.”
“Because of you, and because of your jingoistic false ‘patriotism,’ our world is far more dangerous, our nation is far more despised, and the threat of terrorism is far greater than ever before. It has been absolutely astounding how you have committed the most horrendous acts, causing such needless tragedy in the lives of millions of people, yet you wear your so-called religion on your sleeves, asserting your God-is-on-my-side nonsense – when what you have done flies in the face of any religious or humanitarian tradition. Your hypocrisy is mind-boggling – and disgraceful. What part of “Thou shalt not kill” do you not understand? What part of the “Golden rule” do you not understand? What part of “be honest,” “be responsible,” and “be accountable” don’t you understand? What part of “Blessed are the peacekeepers” do you not understand? Because of you, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, many thousands of people have suffered horrendous lifetime injuries, and millions have been run off from their homes. For the sake of our nation, for the sake of our children, and for the sake of our brothers and sisters around the world, we are morally compelled to say, as loudly as we can, ‘We won’t take it any more!’ ”
“As United States agents kidnap, disappear, and torture human beings around the world, you justify, you deceive, and you cover up. We find what you have done to men, women and children, and to the good name and reputation of the United States, so appalling, so unconscionable, and so outrageous as to compel us to call upon you to step aside and allow other men and women who are competent, true to our nation’s values, and with high moral principles to stand in your places – for the good of our nation, for the good of our children, and for the good of our world.”
In the case of the President and Vice President, this means impeachment and removal from office, without any further delay from a complacent, complicit Congress, the Democratic majority of which cares more about political gain in 2008 than it does about the vindication of our Constitution, the rule of law, and democratic accountability. It means the election of people as President and Vice President who, unlike most of the presidential candidates from both major parties, have not aided and abetted in the perpetration of the illegal, tragic, devastating invasion and occupation of Iraq. And it means the election of people as President and Vice President who will commit to return our nation to the moral and strategic imperative of refraining from torturing human beings.
In the case of the majority of Congress, it means electing people who are diligent enough to learn the facts, including reading available National Intelligence Estimates, before voting to go to war. It means electing to Congress men and women who will jealously guard Congress’s sole prerogative to declare war. It means electing to Congress men and women who will not submit like vapid lap dogs to presidential requests for blank checks to engage in so-called preemptive wars, for legislation permitting warrantless wiretapping of communications involving US citizens, and for dangerous, irresponsible, saber-rattling legislation like the recent Kyl-Lieberman amendment.
We must avoid the trap of focusing the blame solely upon President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. This is not just about a few people who have wronged our country – and the world. They were enabled by members of both parties in Congress, they were enabled by the pathetic mainstream news media, and, ultimately, they have been enabled by the American people – 40% of whom are so ill-informed they still think Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks – a people who know and care more about baseball statistics and which drunken starlets are wearing underwear than they know and care about the atrocities being committed every single day in our name by a government for which we need to take responsibility. As loyal Americans, without regard to political partisanship -- as veterans, as teachers, as religious leaders, as working men and women, as students, as professionals, as businesspeople, as public servants, as retirees, as people of all ages, races, ethnic origins, sexual orientations, and faiths -- we are here to say to the Bush administration, to the majority of Congress, and to the mainstream media: “You have violated your solemn responsibilities. You have undermined our democracy, spat upon our Constitution, and engaged in outrageous, despicable acts. You have brought our nation to a point of immorality, inhumanity, and illegality of immense, tragic, unprecedented proportions.”
“But we will live up to our responsibilities as citizens, as brothers and sisters of those who have suffered as a result of the imperial bullying of the United States government, and as moral actors who must take a stand: And we will, and must, mean it when we say ‘We won’t take it any more.’”
If we want principled, courageous elected officials, we need to be principled, courageous, and tenacious ourselves. History has demonstrated that our elected officials are not the leaders – the leadership has to come from us. If we don’t insist, if we don’t persist, then we are not living up to our responsibilities as citizens in a democracy – and our responsibilities as moral human beings. If we remain silent, we signal to Congress and the Bush administration – and to candidates running for office – and to the world – that we support the status quo.
Silence is complicity. Only by standing up for what’s right and never letting down can we say we are doing our part. Our government, on the basis of a campaign we now know was entirely fraudulent, attacked and militarily occupied a nation that posed no danger to the United States. Our government, acting in our name, has caused immense, unjustified death and destruction.
It all started five years ago, yet where have we, the American people, been? At this point, we are responsible. We get together once in a while at demonstrations and complain about Bush and Cheney, about Congress, and about the pathetic news media. We point fingers and yell a lot. Then most people politely go away until another demonstration a few months later. How many people can honestly say they have spent as much time learning about and opposing the outrages of the Bush administration as they have spent watching sports or mindless television programs during the past five years? Escapist, time-sapping sports and insipid entertainment have indeed become the opiate of the masses.
Why is this country so sound asleep? Why do we abide what is happening to our nation, to our Constitution, to the cause of peace and international law and order? Why are we not doing all in our power to put an end to this madness? We should be in the streets regularly and students should be raising hell on our campuses. We should be making it clear in every way possible that apologies or convoluted, disingenuous explanations just don’t cut it when presidential candidates and so many others voted to authorize George Bush and his neo-con buddies to send American men and women to attack and occupy Iraq.
Let’s awaken, and wake up the country by committing here and now to do all each of us can to take our nation back. Let them hear us across the country, as we ask others to join us: “We won’t take it any more!”
I implore you: Draw a line. Figure out exactly where your own moral breaking point is. How much will you put up with before you say “No more” and mean it?
I have drawn my line as a matter of simple personal morality: I cannot, and will not, support any candidate who has voted to fund the atrocities in Iraq. I cannot, and will not, support any candidate who will not commit to remove all US troops, as soon as possible, from Iraq. I cannot, and will not, support any candidate who has supported legislation that takes us one step closer to attacking Iran. I cannot, and will not, support any candidate who has not fought to stop the kidnapping, disappearances, and torture being carried on in our name.
If we expect our nation’s elected officials to take us seriously, let us send a powerful message they cannot misunderstand. Let them know we really do have our moral breaking point. Let them know we have drawn a bright line. Let them know they cannot take our support for granted – that, regardless of their party and regardless of other political considerations, they will not have our support if they cannot provide, and have not provided, principled leadership.
The people of this nation may have been far too quiet for five years, but let us pledge that we won’t let it go on one more day – that we will do all we can to put an end to the illegalities, the moral degradation, and the disintegration of our nation’s reputation in the world.
Let us be unified in drawing the line – in declaring that we do have a moral breaking point. Let us insist, together, in supporting our troops and in gratitude for the freedoms for which our veterans gave so much, that we bring our troops home from Iraq, that we return our government to a constitutional democracy, and that we commit to honoring the fundamentalprinciples of human rights.
In defense of our country, in defense of our Constitution, in defense of our shared values as Americans – and as moral human beings – we declare today that we will fight in every way possible to stop the insanity, stop the continued military occupation of Iraq, and stop the moral depravity reflected by the kidnapping, disappearing, and torture of people around the world.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Friday, November 2, 2007
My Speech at Matt's wedding
A few folks mentioned that they liked my speech at Matt's wedding so I used my notes and some video recordings to recompile it here.
INTRO
Good evening Ladies and gentlemen. My name is Ardi Mekanik. I have the honor and privilege of being Matt’s best man so in time honored tradition I wanted to take the time to say a few words tonight.
THANKS
First of all, I want to thank Marty, Carrie, Chris, Mike, & Nancy. You guys raised these crazy kids and if wasn’t for you, I’d be in a cubicle crunching code right now. So thanks for the vacation. You can take comfort in the fact that very soon, Matt and Diane will know, first hand, what they put you through and maybe then, they’ll have a little more appreciation for your dedication and sacrifices as parents.
I’d also like to thank another group, who quite frankly has had it fairly easy today. All they really had to do was stand around pouting and looking pretty and worrying about their hair, their make up, and their outfits and without them, the day just wouldn’t have been complete. I am, of course, talking about your groomsmen Andy, Mike, and Khasha.
Stephanie, Joy, Jamie, & Riley … you guys look stunning and you’ve done a great job supporting and helping Diane in the last few days.
I want to thank Kelly for stepping up and performing the ceremony. I think I can say with complete confidence that I’m the ONLY best man in the history of the world who has walked in on the wedding minister getting busy in a burger king bathroom.
I think you will all agree that Diane looks one in a million today ...as opposed to Matt who looks like he was won in a raffle. Gentlemen, today is a sad day for single men, as another beauty leaves the available list. And ladies, I’m sure you’ll agree that today’s passing by without much of a ripple.
THE BEGINNING
Now most of you have probably heard the story of how Matt and Diane met. But I’d like to give you my version of it. The truth is, I wasn’t with Matt the night he met Diane. I was tiered after a long day of playing ball and chose to stay home and relax with Jen and a few other friends. I sometimes wonder what might have happened if I rolled out with Matt that night. Chances are, Diane would have been mesmerized by my devastating good looks and … stop laughing! … and Matt would have had no chance of charming or consoling her when she found out I was already taken.
What I do remember very well, however, is the look on Matt's face when he came home that night and told me about some beautiful girl he met in Chelan as they both snuck into a packed bar through a side window. I often wondered if Matt could ever find someone who could match his spontaneity and sense of adventure. I hadn’t met Diane yet but this sounded like Matt’s kind of girl. When she came over to our Condo the next night, I KNEW this was the girl for Matt. She was radiant, pleasant, confident, and adventurous. She even went swimming in the freezing cold Columbia river at midnight. Something that even most guys in our group didn’t have the heart for. She had me at “Hello”.
ROAST
Now some of you might think that you know Matt well. You think you know. But you have no idea. I’m gonna try to give you guys a better insight into his complex character over the next few minutes and maybe also make them the most uncomfortable few minutes of his life. For the record, the most uncomfortable few minutes of Diane's life will be coming later on this evening, courtesy of Matt.
To be honest, I was a little worried about giving this speech tonight. I didn’t want to divulge too much detail about Matt’s colorful past especially since I have played a part in most of his debauchery, and I really don't want to tarnish my own impeccable reputation. So I decided to leave out anything from Matt’s past that might be offensive or embarrassing and instead talk about his great accomplishments … Then, I realized that would be a pretty short speech.
Matt was born a pudgy, happy kid. If you look at his baby pictures you’ll see what I mean. Stout, robust, basically shaped like a butt plug.
In pre-school, Matt was different than the other 5 year olds. He was 11.
In Middle School, he decided to start playing football. The coaches tried him at every single position and found him to be useless at all of them. Hopefully Diane will have better luck.
In High School, he became even more involved in sports. I'm not sure what position he played. I think the coach called him one of the team's Drawback’s. Must have been some old Wing-T offense or something.
In College, Matt got a reputation for being obnoxious and arrogant. But now he’s the exact opposite. He’s arrogant and obnoxious.
After graduation, Matt struggled for a while to find his place in the world. He was afraid nobody would remember him when he’s gone. Now I can think of SEVERAL reasons he’ll be remembered. He wouldn’t like any of them, but I assure you buddy, you’ll be remembered.
Actually, while enjoying the service this afternoon, I couldn’t help thinking that it’s funny how history repeats itself. I mean 25 years ago Diane’s parents were sending her to bed with a dummy … and here they are again today.
I also got a couple of telegrams here which I’d like to read:
Matty, good luck on your wedding day. We’ll miss you. Also congrats on winning the “Big Spender of the Month” award, again. Sincerely, the Fantasy Lounge Dancers.
Matt. I wish you and your bride the very best. I hope the bed wetting episodes have subsided.
Signed. Dr. Trevor, SanDiego Psychiatric Clinic.
RESPECT
I first met Matt playing volleyball at UW. My first impression was that he was cocky & short tempered with a venomous tongue and too much common sense. And frankly this was a deadly combination. When you’re short tempered and have a lot of common sense, the silliness of others will quickly infuriate you. And if you say what’s on your mind, harshly, you can rub a lot of people the wrong way. There’s no middle ground with this guy—you either hate him or detest him. But I didn’t’ care. Matt was my kind of guy. We quickly forged a solid friendship based on our love for sports, travel, and adventure.
Before I met Matt, I had a separate group of friends for everything I did. But in Matt, I found someone who did all the things I loved, just A LOT better. We became a 2 man team and were pretty inseparable in our twenties. Jen still calls Matt my “Boyfriend” and I’m quite confident I’ve shared more beds with him than even Diane. The years we spent battling and growing in the trenches were the best years of my life.
How many times did we come this close to killing ourselves or each other?
How many times did we find something that scared the hell out us but did it anyway?
How many times did we tolerate unbearable pain just to finish something we started?
How much tape, tiger balm, ben-gay, Gatorade, redbull, and pain killers did we go through?
How many tents, motel rooms, and beach bungalows did we sleep in?
What my friendship with Matt offered me, was a chance to be become a better person. Not just in sports, but in life. And when 2 people can become greater than the sum of their talents, that’s a rare and beautiful thing. Chemistry, synergy, team-work. Call it what you want but I think that is the core of our friendship. And I’m grateful to Matt for allowing me to experience that.
If a man is extremely lucky, he might, perhaps, once in his lifetime make a friend of such high caliber that he gradually comes to view, judge, & measure himself through that friends eyes. And he will find strength and solace in maintaining that friends respect. That friend, in essence, becomes his ego. He becomes the little voice inside his head that tells him to pick it up when he's slacking, clean it up when he's messy, and pack it up when it's time to go home. For me, that friend is Matt Sherrill.
Matt has grown and matured to be an even better man and better friend than when we first met and, Diane, you have ME to thank for that. I only have 3 people on speed dial. My wife, My Brother, and Matt.
Matty, you're the best thing that ever happened to my character and the worst thing that ever happened to my health.
BRIDE
So you can imagine my pain and surprise when Matt announced that he’s moving to California with Diane. Even though I was sad, I offered to help Matt drive the U-Haul truck and their 2 cars down to SanDiego. This might seem like a kind and generous gesture. But don’t be fooled. I was selfish. I just wanted to squeeze in one last road trip with my best friend because I wasn’t sure what the future held.
Truth be told, as I’ve gotten to know Diane better over the years, I understand why Matt has decided to make this commitment to her. She is beautiful, down to earth, and can match Matt’s venom bite for bite. Diane, you make Matt happy, and that makes me happy. I will always love you like my own sister.
ADVICE
Now Kids, since it’s your wedding day, I'd like to leave you with a few thoughts. Matty, I’m not sure you have anywhere to put it so Diane, sweetheart, do me a favor and remember these.
1. First, set the ground rules. Establish who the boss is and then do everything she says.
2. Married life can be a lot like football. So be fully committed every week and try to score every weekend. However, Diane assures me that playing away from home will result in serious groin injury and is definitely the quickest way to get traded.
3. Remember the 5 rings: the engagement ring, the wedding ring, the suffering, the torturing and the enduring.
4. Don’t forget … If you buy her flowers, she’ll know you’re guilty.
5. Diane, for what it is worth, the male species CAN get it right sometimes.
6. And Matty, remember, Women are meant to be loved, not understood.
TOAST
It has been an honor and a privilege to be the best man today. Thanks again for letting me have the job! And I honestly couldn’t wish for a better friend to be best man for.
I think you will all agree that today Matt is truly best man and Diane, let me assure you, you’re not just the most stunning person in the room, you’re also the luckiest.
My wish is that your marriage will be a thing of beauty and a joy forever, always as beautiful as Diane looks today. And may your love for each other be modern enough to survive the times but old-fashioned enough to last forever. May it grow with each year and each child you bring into this world.
Folks please raise your glasses and let’s toast these two crazy kids.
May you never lie, never cheat, and never drink too much. But if you must lie, may you lie with each other. And if you must cheat, may you cheat death & pain. And if you must drink, well … drink with us for we all love you and wish you both the love and happiness which you deserve.
Here’s to the bride and groom.
INTRO
Good evening Ladies and gentlemen. My name is Ardi Mekanik. I have the honor and privilege of being Matt’s best man so in time honored tradition I wanted to take the time to say a few words tonight.
THANKS
First of all, I want to thank Marty, Carrie, Chris, Mike, & Nancy. You guys raised these crazy kids and if wasn’t for you, I’d be in a cubicle crunching code right now. So thanks for the vacation. You can take comfort in the fact that very soon, Matt and Diane will know, first hand, what they put you through and maybe then, they’ll have a little more appreciation for your dedication and sacrifices as parents.
I’d also like to thank another group, who quite frankly has had it fairly easy today. All they really had to do was stand around pouting and looking pretty and worrying about their hair, their make up, and their outfits and without them, the day just wouldn’t have been complete. I am, of course, talking about your groomsmen Andy, Mike, and Khasha.
Stephanie, Joy, Jamie, & Riley … you guys look stunning and you’ve done a great job supporting and helping Diane in the last few days.
I want to thank Kelly for stepping up and performing the ceremony. I think I can say with complete confidence that I’m the ONLY best man in the history of the world who has walked in on the wedding minister getting busy in a burger king bathroom.
I think you will all agree that Diane looks one in a million today ...as opposed to Matt who looks like he was won in a raffle. Gentlemen, today is a sad day for single men, as another beauty leaves the available list. And ladies, I’m sure you’ll agree that today’s passing by without much of a ripple.
THE BEGINNING
Now most of you have probably heard the story of how Matt and Diane met. But I’d like to give you my version of it. The truth is, I wasn’t with Matt the night he met Diane. I was tiered after a long day of playing ball and chose to stay home and relax with Jen and a few other friends. I sometimes wonder what might have happened if I rolled out with Matt that night. Chances are, Diane would have been mesmerized by my devastating good looks and … stop laughing! … and Matt would have had no chance of charming or consoling her when she found out I was already taken.
What I do remember very well, however, is the look on Matt's face when he came home that night and told me about some beautiful girl he met in Chelan as they both snuck into a packed bar through a side window. I often wondered if Matt could ever find someone who could match his spontaneity and sense of adventure. I hadn’t met Diane yet but this sounded like Matt’s kind of girl. When she came over to our Condo the next night, I KNEW this was the girl for Matt. She was radiant, pleasant, confident, and adventurous. She even went swimming in the freezing cold Columbia river at midnight. Something that even most guys in our group didn’t have the heart for. She had me at “Hello”.
ROAST
Now some of you might think that you know Matt well. You think you know. But you have no idea. I’m gonna try to give you guys a better insight into his complex character over the next few minutes and maybe also make them the most uncomfortable few minutes of his life. For the record, the most uncomfortable few minutes of Diane's life will be coming later on this evening, courtesy of Matt.
To be honest, I was a little worried about giving this speech tonight. I didn’t want to divulge too much detail about Matt’s colorful past especially since I have played a part in most of his debauchery, and I really don't want to tarnish my own impeccable reputation. So I decided to leave out anything from Matt’s past that might be offensive or embarrassing and instead talk about his great accomplishments … Then, I realized that would be a pretty short speech.
Matt was born a pudgy, happy kid. If you look at his baby pictures you’ll see what I mean. Stout, robust, basically shaped like a butt plug.
In pre-school, Matt was different than the other 5 year olds. He was 11.
In Middle School, he decided to start playing football. The coaches tried him at every single position and found him to be useless at all of them. Hopefully Diane will have better luck.
In High School, he became even more involved in sports. I'm not sure what position he played. I think the coach called him one of the team's Drawback’s. Must have been some old Wing-T offense or something.
In College, Matt got a reputation for being obnoxious and arrogant. But now he’s the exact opposite. He’s arrogant and obnoxious.
After graduation, Matt struggled for a while to find his place in the world. He was afraid nobody would remember him when he’s gone. Now I can think of SEVERAL reasons he’ll be remembered. He wouldn’t like any of them, but I assure you buddy, you’ll be remembered.
Actually, while enjoying the service this afternoon, I couldn’t help thinking that it’s funny how history repeats itself. I mean 25 years ago Diane’s parents were sending her to bed with a dummy … and here they are again today.
I also got a couple of telegrams here which I’d like to read:
Matty, good luck on your wedding day. We’ll miss you. Also congrats on winning the “Big Spender of the Month” award, again. Sincerely, the Fantasy Lounge Dancers.
Matt. I wish you and your bride the very best. I hope the bed wetting episodes have subsided.
Signed. Dr. Trevor, SanDiego Psychiatric Clinic.
RESPECT
I first met Matt playing volleyball at UW. My first impression was that he was cocky & short tempered with a venomous tongue and too much common sense. And frankly this was a deadly combination. When you’re short tempered and have a lot of common sense, the silliness of others will quickly infuriate you. And if you say what’s on your mind, harshly, you can rub a lot of people the wrong way. There’s no middle ground with this guy—you either hate him or detest him. But I didn’t’ care. Matt was my kind of guy. We quickly forged a solid friendship based on our love for sports, travel, and adventure.
Before I met Matt, I had a separate group of friends for everything I did. But in Matt, I found someone who did all the things I loved, just A LOT better. We became a 2 man team and were pretty inseparable in our twenties. Jen still calls Matt my “Boyfriend” and I’m quite confident I’ve shared more beds with him than even Diane. The years we spent battling and growing in the trenches were the best years of my life.
How many times did we come this close to killing ourselves or each other?
How many times did we find something that scared the hell out us but did it anyway?
How many times did we tolerate unbearable pain just to finish something we started?
How much tape, tiger balm, ben-gay, Gatorade, redbull, and pain killers did we go through?
How many tents, motel rooms, and beach bungalows did we sleep in?
What my friendship with Matt offered me, was a chance to be become a better person. Not just in sports, but in life. And when 2 people can become greater than the sum of their talents, that’s a rare and beautiful thing. Chemistry, synergy, team-work. Call it what you want but I think that is the core of our friendship. And I’m grateful to Matt for allowing me to experience that.
If a man is extremely lucky, he might, perhaps, once in his lifetime make a friend of such high caliber that he gradually comes to view, judge, & measure himself through that friends eyes. And he will find strength and solace in maintaining that friends respect. That friend, in essence, becomes his ego. He becomes the little voice inside his head that tells him to pick it up when he's slacking, clean it up when he's messy, and pack it up when it's time to go home. For me, that friend is Matt Sherrill.
Matt has grown and matured to be an even better man and better friend than when we first met and, Diane, you have ME to thank for that. I only have 3 people on speed dial. My wife, My Brother, and Matt.
Matty, you're the best thing that ever happened to my character and the worst thing that ever happened to my health.
BRIDE
So you can imagine my pain and surprise when Matt announced that he’s moving to California with Diane. Even though I was sad, I offered to help Matt drive the U-Haul truck and their 2 cars down to SanDiego. This might seem like a kind and generous gesture. But don’t be fooled. I was selfish. I just wanted to squeeze in one last road trip with my best friend because I wasn’t sure what the future held.
Truth be told, as I’ve gotten to know Diane better over the years, I understand why Matt has decided to make this commitment to her. She is beautiful, down to earth, and can match Matt’s venom bite for bite. Diane, you make Matt happy, and that makes me happy. I will always love you like my own sister.
ADVICE
Now Kids, since it’s your wedding day, I'd like to leave you with a few thoughts. Matty, I’m not sure you have anywhere to put it so Diane, sweetheart, do me a favor and remember these.
1. First, set the ground rules. Establish who the boss is and then do everything she says.
2. Married life can be a lot like football. So be fully committed every week and try to score every weekend. However, Diane assures me that playing away from home will result in serious groin injury and is definitely the quickest way to get traded.
3. Remember the 5 rings: the engagement ring, the wedding ring, the suffering, the torturing and the enduring.
4. Don’t forget … If you buy her flowers, she’ll know you’re guilty.
5. Diane, for what it is worth, the male species CAN get it right sometimes.
6. And Matty, remember, Women are meant to be loved, not understood.
TOAST
It has been an honor and a privilege to be the best man today. Thanks again for letting me have the job! And I honestly couldn’t wish for a better friend to be best man for.
I think you will all agree that today Matt is truly best man and Diane, let me assure you, you’re not just the most stunning person in the room, you’re also the luckiest.
My wish is that your marriage will be a thing of beauty and a joy forever, always as beautiful as Diane looks today. And may your love for each other be modern enough to survive the times but old-fashioned enough to last forever. May it grow with each year and each child you bring into this world.
Folks please raise your glasses and let’s toast these two crazy kids.
May you never lie, never cheat, and never drink too much. But if you must lie, may you lie with each other. And if you must cheat, may you cheat death & pain. And if you must drink, well … drink with us for we all love you and wish you both the love and happiness which you deserve.
Here’s to the bride and groom.
Broadway Joe
When I think of Joe Namath I usually picture him limping on and off the field toward the end of his carrer. Somtimes we forget what a great athlete he was.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
The Problem with Atheism
(This is an edited transcript of a talk given at the Atheist Alliance conference in Washington D.C. on September 28th, 2007)
To begin, I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge just how strange it is that a meeting like this is even necessary. The year is 2007, and we have all taken time out of our busy lives, and many of us have traveled considerable distance, so that we can strategize about how best to live in a world in which most people believe in an imaginary God. America is now a nation of 300 million people, wielding more influence than any people in human history, and yet this influence is being steadily corrupted, and is surely waning, because 240 million of these people apparently believe that Jesus will return someday and orchestrate the end of the world with his magic powers.
Of course, we may well wonder whether as many people believe these things as say they do. I know that Christopher [Hitchens] and Richard [Dawkins] are rather optimistic that our opinion polls are out of register with what people actually believe in the privacy of their own minds. But there is no question that most of our neighbors reliably profess that they believe these things, and such professions themselves have had a disastrous affect on our political discourse, on our public policy, on the teaching of science, and on our reputation in the world. And even if only a third or a quarter of our neighbors believe what most profess, it seems to me that we still have a problem worth worrying about.
Now, it is not often that I find myself in a room full of people who are more or less guaranteed to agree with me on the subject of religion. In thinking about what I could say to you all tonight, it seemed to me that I have a choice between throwing red meat to the lions of atheism or moving the conversation into areas where we actually might not agree. I’ve decided, at some risk to your mood, to take the second approach and to say a few things that might prove controversial in this context.
Given the absence of evidence for God, and the stupidity and suffering that still thrives under the mantle of religion, declaring oneself an “atheist” would seem the only appropriate response. And it is the stance that many of us have proudly and publicly adopted. Tonight, I’d like to try to make the case, that our use of this label is a mistake—and a mistake of some consequence.
My concern with the use of the term “atheism” is both philosophical and strategic. I’m speaking from a somewhat unusual and perhaps paradoxical position because, while I am now one of the public voices of atheism, I never thought of myself as an atheist before being inducted to speak as one. I didn’t even use the term in The End of Faith, which remains my most substantial criticism of religion. And, as I argued briefly in Letter to a Christian Nation, I think that “atheist” is a term that we do not need, in the same way that we don’t need a word for someone who rejects astrology. We simply do not call people “non-astrologers.” All we need are words like “reason” and “evidence” and “common sense” and “bullshit” to put astrologers in their place, and so it could be with religion.
If the comparison with astrology seems too facile, consider the problem of racism. Racism was about as intractable a social problem as we have ever had in this country. We are talking about deeply held convictions. I’m sure you have all seen the photos of lynchings in the first half of the 20th century—where seemingly whole towns in the South, thousands of men, women and children—bankers, lawyers, doctors, teachers, church elders, newspaper editors, policemen, even the occasional Senator and Congressman—turned out as though for a carnival to watch some young man or woman be tortured to death and then strung up on a tree or lamppost for all to see.
Seeing the pictures of these people in their Sunday best, having arranged themselves for a postcard photo under a dangling, and lacerated, and often partially cremated person, is one thing, but realize that these genteel people, who were otherwise quite normal, we must presume—though unfailing religious—often took souvenirs of the body home to show their friends—teeth, ears, fingers, knee caps, internal organs—and sometimes displayed them at their places of business.
Of course, I’m not saying that racism is no longer a problem in this country, but anyone who thinks that the problem is as bad as it ever was has simply forgotten, or has never learned, how bad, in fact, it was.
So, we can now ask, how have people of good will and common sense gone about combating racism? There was a civil rights movement, of course. The KKK was gradually battered to the fringes of society. There have been important and, I think, irrevocable changes in the way we talk about race—our major newspapers no longer publish flagrantly racist articles and editorials as they did less than a century ago—but, ask yourself, how many people have had to identify themselves as “non-racists” to participate in this process? Is there a “non-racist alliance” somewhere for me to join?
Attaching a label to something carries real liabilities, especially if the thing you are naming isn’t really a thing at all. And atheism, I would argue, is not a thing. It is not a philosophy, just as “non-racism” is not one. Atheism is not a worldview—and yet most people imagine it to be one and attack it as such. We who do not believe in God are collaborating in this misunderstanding by consenting to be named and by even naming ourselves.
Another problem is that in accepting a label, particularly the label of “atheist,” it seems to me that we are consenting to be viewed as a cranky sub-culture. We are consenting to be viewed as a marginal interest group that meets in hotel ballrooms. I’m not saying that meetings like this aren’t important. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think it was important. But I am saying that as a matter of philosophy we are guilty of confusion, and as a matter of strategy, we have walked into a trap. It is a trap that has been, in many cases, deliberately set for us. And we have jumped into it with both feet.
While it is an honor to find myself continually assailed with Dan [Dennett], Richard [Dawkins], and Christopher [Hitchens] as though we were a single person with four heads, this whole notion of the “new atheists” or “militant atheists” has been used to keep our criticism of religion at arm’s length, and has allowed people to dismiss our arguments without meeting the burden of actually answering them. And while our books have gotten a fair amount of notice, I think this whole conversation about the conflict between faith and reason, and religion and science, has been, and will continue to be, successfully marginalized under the banner of atheism.
So, let me make my somewhat seditious proposal explicit: We should not call ourselves “atheists.” We should not call ourselves “secularists.” We should not call ourselves “humanists,” or “secular humanists,” or “naturalists,” or “skeptics,” or “anti-theists,” or “rationalists,” or “freethinkers,” or “brights.” We should not call ourselves anything. We should go under the radar—for the rest of our lives. And while there, we should be decent, responsible people who destroy bad ideas wherever we find them.
Now, it just so happens that religion has more than its fair share of bad ideas. And it remains the only system of thought, where the process of maintaining bad ideas in perpetual immunity from criticism is considered a sacred act. This is the act of faith. And I remain convinced that religious faith is one of the most perverse misuses of intelligence we have ever devised. So we will, inevitably, continue to criticize religious thinking. But we should not define ourselves and name ourselves in opposition to such thinking.
So what does this all mean in practical terms, apart from Margaret Downey having to change her letterhead? Well, rather than declare ourselves “atheists” in opposition to all religion, I think we should do nothing more than advocate reason and intellectual honesty—and where this advocacy causes us to collide with religion, as it inevitably will, we should observe that the points of impact are always with specific religious beliefs—not with religion in general. There is no religion in general.
The problem is that the concept of atheism imposes upon us a false burden of remaining fixated on people’s beliefs about God and remaining even-handed in our treatment of religion. But we shouldn’t be fixated, and we shouldn’t be even-handed. In fact, we should be quick to point out the differences among religions, for two reasons:
First, these differences make all religions look contingent, and therefore silly. Consider the unique features of Mormonism, which may have some relevance in the next Presidential election. Mormonism, it seems to me, is—objectively—just a little more idiotic than Christianity is. It has to be: because it is Christianity plus some very stupid ideas. For instance, the Mormons think Jesus is going to return to earth and administer his Thousand years of Peace, at least part of the time, from the state of Missouri. Why does this make Mormonism less likely to be true than Christianity? Because whatever probability you assign to Jesus’ coming back, you have to assign a lesser probability to his coming back and keeping a summer home in Jackson County, Missouri. If Mitt Romney wants to be the next President of the United States, he should be made to feel the burden of our incredulity. We can make common cause with our Christian brothers and sisters on this point. Just what does the man believe? The world should know. And it is almost guaranteed to be embarrassing even to most people who believe in the biblical God.
The second reason to be attentive to the differences among the world’s religions is that these differences are actually a matter of life and death. There are very few of us who lie awake at night worrying about the Amish. This is not an accident. While I have no doubt that the Amish are mistreating their children, by not educating them adequately, they are not likely to hijack aircraft and fly them into buildings. But consider how we, as atheists, tend to talk about Islam. Christians often complain that atheists, and the secular world generally, balance every criticism of Muslim extremism with a mention of Christian extremism. The usual approach is to say that they have their jihadists, and we have people who kill abortion doctors. Our Christian neighbors, even the craziest of them, are right to be outraged by this pretense of even-handedness, because the truth is that Islam is quite a bit scarier and more culpable for needless human misery, than Christianity has been for a very, very long time. And the world must wake up to this fact. Muslims themselves must wake up to this fact. And they can.
You might remember that Thomas Friedman recently wrote an op-ed from Iraq, reporting that some Sunni militias are now fighting jihadists alongside American troops. When Friedman asked one Sunni militant why he was doing this, he said that he had recently watched a member of al-Qaeda decapitate an 8-year-old girl. This persuaded him that the American Crusader forces were the lesser of two evils.
Okay, so even some Sunni militants can discern the boundary between ordinary crazy Islam, and the utterly crazy, once it is drawn in the spilled blood of little girls. This is a basis for hope, of sorts. But we have to be honest—unremittingly honest—about what is on the other side of that line. This is what we and the rest of the civilized, and the semi-civilized world, are up against: utter religious lunacy and barbarism in the name of Islam—with, I’m unhappy to say, some mainstream theology to back it up.
To be even-handed when talking about the problem of Islam is to misconstrue the problem. The refrain, “all religions have their extremists,” is bullshit—and it is putting the West to sleep. All religions don’t have these extremists. Some religions have never had these extremists. And in the Muslim world, support for extremism is not extreme in the sense of being rare. A recent poll showed that about a third of young British Muslims want to live under sharia law and believe that apostates should be killed for leaving the faith. These are British Muslims. Sixty-eight percent of British Muslims feel that their neighbors who insult Islam should be arrested and prosecuted, and seventy-eight percent think that the Danish cartoonists should be brought to justice. These people don’t have a clue about what constitutes a civil society. Reports of this kind coming out of the Muslim communities living in the West should worry us, before anything else about religion worries us.
Atheism is too blunt an instrument to use at moments like this. It’s as though we have a landscape of human ignorance and bewilderment—with peaks and valleys and local attractors—and the concept of atheism causes us to fixate one part of this landscape, the part related to theistic religion, and then just flattens it. Because to be consistent as atheists we must oppose, or seem to oppose, all faith claims equally. This is a waste of precious time and energy, and it squanders the trust of people who would otherwise agree with us on specific issues.
I’m not at all suggesting that we leave people’s core religious beliefs, or faith itself, unscathed—I’m still the kind of person who writes articles with rather sweeping titles like “Science must destroy religion”—but it seems to me that we should never lose sight of useful and important distinctions.
Another problem with calling ourselves “atheists” is that every religious person thinks he has a knockdown argument against atheism. We’ve all heard these arguments, and we are going to keep hearing them as long as we insist upon calling ourselves “atheists. Arguments like: atheists can’t prove that God doesn’t exist; atheists are claiming to know there is no God, and this is the most arrogant claim of all. As Rick Warren put it, when he and I debated for Newsweek—a reasonable man like himself “doesn’t have enough faith to be an atheist.” The idea that the universe could arise without a creator is, on his account, the most extravagant faith claim of all.
Of course, as an argument for the truth of any specific religious doctrine, this is a travesty. And we all know what to do in this situation: We have Russell’s teapot, and thousands of dead gods, and now a flying spaghetti monster, the nonexistence of which also cannot be proven, and yet belief in these things is acknowledged to be ridiculous by everyone. The problem is, we have to keep having this same argument, over and over again, and the argument is being generated to a significant degree, if not entirely, over our use of the term “atheism.”
So too with the “greatest crimes of the 20th century” argument. How many times are we going to have to counter the charge that Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot represent the endgame of atheism? I’ve got news for you, this meme is not going away. I argued against it in The End of Faith, and it was immediately thrown back at me in reviews of the book as though I had never mentioned it. So I tackled it again in the afterword to the paperback edition of The End of Faith; but this had no effect whatsoever; so at the risk of boring everyone, I brought it up again in Letter to a Christian Nation; and Richard did the same in The God Delusion; and Christopher took a mighty swing at it in God is Not Great. I can assure you that this bogus argument will be with us for as long as people label themselves “atheists.” And it really convinces religious people. It convinces moderates and liberals. It even convinces the occasional atheist.
Why should we fall into this trap? Why should we stand obediently in the space provided, in the space carved out by the conceptual scheme of theistic religion? It’s as though, before the debate even begins, our opponents draw the chalk-outline of a dead man on the sidewalk, and we just walk up and lie down in it.
Instead of doing this, consider what would happen if we simply used words like “reason” and “evidence.” What is the argument against reason? It’s true that a few people will bite the bullet here and argue that reason is itself a problem, that the Enlightenment was a failed project, etc. But the truth is that there are very few people, even among religious fundamentalists, who will happily admit to being enemies of reason. In fact, fundamentalists tend to think they are champions of reason and that they have very good reasons for believing in God. Nobody wants to believe things on bad evidence. The desire to know what is actually going on in world is very difficult to argue with. In so far as we represent that desire, we become difficult to argue with. And this desire is not reducible to an interest group. It’s not a club or an affiliation, and I think trying to make it one diminishes its power.
The last problem with atheism I’d like to talk about relates to the some of the experiences that lie at the core of many religious traditions, though perhaps not all, and which are testified to, with greater or lesser clarity in the world’s “spiritual” and “mystical” literature.
Those of you who have read The End of Faith, know that I don’t entirely line up with Dan, Richard, and Christopher in my treatment of these things. So I think I should take a little time to discuss this. While I always use terms like “spiritual” and “mystical” in scare quotes, and take some pains to denude them of metaphysics, the email I receive from my brothers and sisters in arms suggests that many of you find my interest in these topics problematic.
First, let me describe the general phenomenon I’m referring to. Here’s what happens, in the generic case: a person, in whatever culture he finds himself, begins to notice that life is difficult. He observes that even in the best of times—no one close to him has died, he’s healthy, there are no hostile armies massing in the distance, the fridge is stocked with beer, the weather is just so—even when things are as good as they can be, he notices that at the level of his moment to moment experience, at the level of his attention, he is perpetually on the move, seeking happiness and finding only temporary relief from his search.
We’ve all noticed this. We seek pleasant sights, and sounds, and tastes, and sensations, and attitudes. We satisfy our intellectual curiosities, and our desire for friendship and romance. We become connoisseurs of art and music and film—but our pleasures are, by their very nature, fleeting. And we can do nothing more than merely reiterate them as often as we are able.
If we enjoy some great professional success, our feelings of accomplishment remain vivid and intoxicating for about an hour, or maybe a day, but then people will begin to ask us “So, what are you going to do next? Don’t you have anything else in the pipeline?” Steve Jobs releases the IPhone, and I’m sure it wasn’t twenty minutes before someone asked, “when are you going to make this thing smaller?” Notice that very few people at this juncture, no matter what they’ve accomplished, say, “I’m done. I’ve met all my goals. Now I’m just going to stay here eat ice cream until I die in front of you.”
Even when everything has gone as well as it can go, the search for happiness continues, the effort required to keep doubt and dissatisfaction and boredom at bay continues, moment to moment. If nothing else, the reality of death and the experience of losing loved ones punctures even the most gratifying and well-ordered life.
In this context, certain people have traditionally wondered whether a deeper form of well-being exists. Is there, in other words, a form of happiness that is not contingent upon our merely reiterating our pleasures and successes and avoiding our pains. Is there a form of happiness that is not dependent upon having one’s favorite food always available to be placed on one’s tongue or having all one’s friends and loved ones within arm’s reach, or having good books to read, or having something to look forward to on the weekend? Is it possible to be utterly happy before anything happens, before one’s desires get gratified, in spite of life’s inevitable difficulties, in the very midst of physical pain, old age, disease, and death?
This question, I think, lies at the periphery of everyone’s consciousness. We are all, in some sense, living our answer to it—and many of us are living as though the answer is “no.” No, there is nothing more profound that repeating one’s pleasures and avoiding one’s pains; there is nothing more profound that seeking satisfaction, both sensory and intellectual. Many of us seem think that all we can do is just keep our foot on the gas until we run out of road.
But certain people, for whatever reason, are led to suspect that there is more to human experience than this. In fact, many of them are led to suspect this by religion—by the claims of people like the Buddha or Jesus or some other celebrated religious figures. And such a person may begin to practice various disciplines of attention—often called “meditation” or “contemplation”—as a means of examining his moment to moment experience closely enough to see if a deeper basis of well-being is there to be found.
Such a person might even hole himself up in a cave, or in a monastery, for months or years at a time to facilitate this process. Why would somebody do this? Well, it amounts to a very simple experiment. Here’s the logic of it: if there is a form of psychological well-being that isn’t contingent upon merely repeating one’s pleasures, then this happiness should be available even when all the obvious sources of pleasure and satisfaction have been removed. If it exists at all, this happiness should be available to a person who has renounced all her material possessions, and declined to marry her high school sweetheart, and gone off to a cave or to some other spot that would seem profoundly uncongenial to the satisfaction of ordinary desires and aspirations.
One clue as to how daunting most people would find such a project is the fact that solitary confinement—which is essentially what we are talking about—is considered a punishment even inside a prison. Even when cooped up with homicidal maniacs and rapists, most people still prefer the company of others to spending any significant amount of time alone in a box.
And yet, for thousands of years, contemplatives have claimed to find extraordinary depths of psychological well-being while spending vast stretches of time in total isolation. It seems to me that, as rational people, whether we call ourselves “atheists” or not, we have a choice to make in how we view this whole enterprise. Either the contemplative literature is a mere catalogue of religious delusion, deliberate fraud, and psychopathology, or people have been having interesting and even normative experiences under the name of “spirituality” and “mysticism” for millennia.
Now let me just assert, on the basis of my own study and experience, that there is no question in my mind that people have improved their emotional lives, and their self-understanding, and their ethical intuitions, and have even had important insights about the nature of subjectivity itself through a variety of traditional practices like meditation.
Leaving aside all the metaphysics and mythology and mumbo jumbo, what contemplatives and mystics over the millennia claim to have discovered is that there is an alternative to merely living at the mercy of the next neurotic thought that comes careening into consciousness. There is an alternative to being continuously spellbound by the conversation we are having with ourselves.
Most us think that if a person is walking down the street talking to himself—that is, not able to censor himself in front of other people—he’s probably mentally ill. But if we talk to ourselves all day long silently—thinking, thinking, thinking, rehearsing prior conversations, thinking about what we said, what we didn’t say, what we should have said, jabbering on to ourselves about what we hope is going to happen, what just happened, what almost happened, what should have happened, what may yet happen—but we just know enough to just keep this conversation private, this is perfectly normal. This is perfectly compatible with sanity. Well, this is not what the experience of millions of contemplatives suggests.
Of course, I am by no means denying the importance of thinking. There is no question that linguistic thought is indispensable for us. It is, in large part, what makes us human. It is the fabric of almost all culture and every social relationship. Needless to say, it is the basis of all science. And it is surely responsible for much rudimentary cognition—for integrating beliefs, planning, explicit learning, moral reasoning, and many other mental capacities. Even talking to oneself out loud may occasionally serve a useful function.
From the point of view of our contemplative traditions, however—to boil them all down to a cartoon version, that ignores the rather esoteric disputes among them—our habitual identification with discursive thought, our failure moment to moment to recognize thoughts as thoughts, is a primary source of human suffering. And when a person breaks this spell, an extraordinary kind of relief is available.
But the problem with a contemplative claim of this sort is that you can’t borrow someone else’s contemplative tools to test it. The problem is that to test such a claim—indeed, to even appreciate how distracted we tend to be in the first place, we have to build our own contemplative tools. Imagine where astronomy would be if everyone had to build his own telescope before he could even begin to see if astronomy was a legitimate enterprise. It wouldn’t make the sky any less worthy of investigation, but it would make it immensely more difficult for us to establish astronomy as a science.
To judge the empirical claims of contemplatives, you have to build your own telescope. Judging their metaphysical claims is another matter: many of these can be dismissed as bad science or bad philosophy by merely thinking about them. But to judge whether certain experiences are possible—and if possible, desirable—we have to be able to use our attention in the requisite ways. We have to be able to break our identification with discursive thought, if only for a few moments. This can take a tremendous amount of work. And it is not work that our culture knows much about.
One problem with atheism as a category of thought, is that it seems more or less synonymous with not being interested in what someone like the Buddha or Jesus may have actually experienced. In fact, many atheists reject such experiences out of hand, as either impossible, or if possible, not worth wanting. Another common mistake is to imagine that such experiences are necessarily equivalent to states of mind with which many of us are already familiar—the feeling of scientific awe, or ordinary states of aesthetic appreciation, artistic inspiration, etc.
As someone who has made his own modest efforts in this area, let me assure you, that when a person goes into solitude and trains himself in meditation for 15 or 18 hours a day, for months or years at a time, in silence, doing nothing else—not talking, not reading, not writing—just making a sustained moment to moment effort to merely observe the contents of consciousness and to not get lost in thought, he experiences things that most scientists and artists are not likely to have experienced, unless they have made precisely the same efforts at introspection. And these experiences have a lot to say about the plasticity of the human mind and about the possibilities of human happiness.
So, apart from just commending these phenomena to your attention, I’d like to point out that, as atheists, our neglect of this area of human experience puts us at a rhetorical disadvantage. Because millions of people have had these experiences, and many millions more have had glimmers of them, and we, as atheists, ignore such phenomena, almost in principle, because of their religious associations—and yet these experiences often constitute the most important and transformative moments in a person’s life. Not recognizing that such experiences are possible or important can make us appear less wise even than our craziest religious opponents.
My concern is that atheism can easily become the position of not being interested in certain possibilities in principle. I don’t know if our universe is, as JBS Haldane said, “not only stranger than we suppose, but stranger than we can suppose.” But I am sure that it is stranger than we, as “atheists,” tend to represent while advocating atheism. As “atheists” we give others, and even ourselves, the sense that we are well on our way toward purging the universe of mystery. As advocates of reason, we know that mystery is going to be with us for a very long time. Indeed, there are good reasons to believe that mystery is ineradicable from our circumstance, because however much we know, it seems like there will always be brute facts that we cannot account for but which we must rely upon to explain everything else. This may be a problem for epistemology but it is not a problem for human life and for human solidarity. It does not rob our lives of meaning. And it is not a barrier to human happiness.
We are faced, however, with the challenge of communicating this view to others. We are faced with the monumental task of persuading a myth-infatuated world that love and curiosity are sufficient, and that we need not console or frighten ourselves or our children with Iron Age fairy tales. I don’t think there is a more important intellectual struggle to win; it has to be fought from a hundred sides, all at once, and continuously; but it seems to me that there is no reason for us to fight in well-ordered ranks, like the red coats of Atheism.
Finally, I think it’s useful to envision what victory will look like. Again, the analogy with racism seems instructive to me. What will victory against racism look like, should that happy day ever dawn? It certainly won’t be a world in which a majority of people profess that they are “nonracist.” Most likely, it will be a world in which the very concept of separate races has lost its meaning.
We will have won this war of ideas against religion when atheism is scarcely intelligible as a concept. We will simply find ourselves in a world in which people cease to praise one another for pretending to know things they do not know. This is certainly a future worth fighting for. It may be the only future compatible with our long-term survival as a species. But the only path between now and then, that I can see, is for us to be rigorously honest in the present. It seems to me that intellectual honesty is now, and will always be, deeper and more durable, and more easily spread, than “atheism.”
To begin, I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge just how strange it is that a meeting like this is even necessary. The year is 2007, and we have all taken time out of our busy lives, and many of us have traveled considerable distance, so that we can strategize about how best to live in a world in which most people believe in an imaginary God. America is now a nation of 300 million people, wielding more influence than any people in human history, and yet this influence is being steadily corrupted, and is surely waning, because 240 million of these people apparently believe that Jesus will return someday and orchestrate the end of the world with his magic powers.
Of course, we may well wonder whether as many people believe these things as say they do. I know that Christopher [Hitchens] and Richard [Dawkins] are rather optimistic that our opinion polls are out of register with what people actually believe in the privacy of their own minds. But there is no question that most of our neighbors reliably profess that they believe these things, and such professions themselves have had a disastrous affect on our political discourse, on our public policy, on the teaching of science, and on our reputation in the world. And even if only a third or a quarter of our neighbors believe what most profess, it seems to me that we still have a problem worth worrying about.
Now, it is not often that I find myself in a room full of people who are more or less guaranteed to agree with me on the subject of religion. In thinking about what I could say to you all tonight, it seemed to me that I have a choice between throwing red meat to the lions of atheism or moving the conversation into areas where we actually might not agree. I’ve decided, at some risk to your mood, to take the second approach and to say a few things that might prove controversial in this context.
Given the absence of evidence for God, and the stupidity and suffering that still thrives under the mantle of religion, declaring oneself an “atheist” would seem the only appropriate response. And it is the stance that many of us have proudly and publicly adopted. Tonight, I’d like to try to make the case, that our use of this label is a mistake—and a mistake of some consequence.
My concern with the use of the term “atheism” is both philosophical and strategic. I’m speaking from a somewhat unusual and perhaps paradoxical position because, while I am now one of the public voices of atheism, I never thought of myself as an atheist before being inducted to speak as one. I didn’t even use the term in The End of Faith, which remains my most substantial criticism of religion. And, as I argued briefly in Letter to a Christian Nation, I think that “atheist” is a term that we do not need, in the same way that we don’t need a word for someone who rejects astrology. We simply do not call people “non-astrologers.” All we need are words like “reason” and “evidence” and “common sense” and “bullshit” to put astrologers in their place, and so it could be with religion.
If the comparison with astrology seems too facile, consider the problem of racism. Racism was about as intractable a social problem as we have ever had in this country. We are talking about deeply held convictions. I’m sure you have all seen the photos of lynchings in the first half of the 20th century—where seemingly whole towns in the South, thousands of men, women and children—bankers, lawyers, doctors, teachers, church elders, newspaper editors, policemen, even the occasional Senator and Congressman—turned out as though for a carnival to watch some young man or woman be tortured to death and then strung up on a tree or lamppost for all to see.
Seeing the pictures of these people in their Sunday best, having arranged themselves for a postcard photo under a dangling, and lacerated, and often partially cremated person, is one thing, but realize that these genteel people, who were otherwise quite normal, we must presume—though unfailing religious—often took souvenirs of the body home to show their friends—teeth, ears, fingers, knee caps, internal organs—and sometimes displayed them at their places of business.
Of course, I’m not saying that racism is no longer a problem in this country, but anyone who thinks that the problem is as bad as it ever was has simply forgotten, or has never learned, how bad, in fact, it was.
So, we can now ask, how have people of good will and common sense gone about combating racism? There was a civil rights movement, of course. The KKK was gradually battered to the fringes of society. There have been important and, I think, irrevocable changes in the way we talk about race—our major newspapers no longer publish flagrantly racist articles and editorials as they did less than a century ago—but, ask yourself, how many people have had to identify themselves as “non-racists” to participate in this process? Is there a “non-racist alliance” somewhere for me to join?
Attaching a label to something carries real liabilities, especially if the thing you are naming isn’t really a thing at all. And atheism, I would argue, is not a thing. It is not a philosophy, just as “non-racism” is not one. Atheism is not a worldview—and yet most people imagine it to be one and attack it as such. We who do not believe in God are collaborating in this misunderstanding by consenting to be named and by even naming ourselves.
Another problem is that in accepting a label, particularly the label of “atheist,” it seems to me that we are consenting to be viewed as a cranky sub-culture. We are consenting to be viewed as a marginal interest group that meets in hotel ballrooms. I’m not saying that meetings like this aren’t important. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think it was important. But I am saying that as a matter of philosophy we are guilty of confusion, and as a matter of strategy, we have walked into a trap. It is a trap that has been, in many cases, deliberately set for us. And we have jumped into it with both feet.
While it is an honor to find myself continually assailed with Dan [Dennett], Richard [Dawkins], and Christopher [Hitchens] as though we were a single person with four heads, this whole notion of the “new atheists” or “militant atheists” has been used to keep our criticism of religion at arm’s length, and has allowed people to dismiss our arguments without meeting the burden of actually answering them. And while our books have gotten a fair amount of notice, I think this whole conversation about the conflict between faith and reason, and religion and science, has been, and will continue to be, successfully marginalized under the banner of atheism.
So, let me make my somewhat seditious proposal explicit: We should not call ourselves “atheists.” We should not call ourselves “secularists.” We should not call ourselves “humanists,” or “secular humanists,” or “naturalists,” or “skeptics,” or “anti-theists,” or “rationalists,” or “freethinkers,” or “brights.” We should not call ourselves anything. We should go under the radar—for the rest of our lives. And while there, we should be decent, responsible people who destroy bad ideas wherever we find them.
Now, it just so happens that religion has more than its fair share of bad ideas. And it remains the only system of thought, where the process of maintaining bad ideas in perpetual immunity from criticism is considered a sacred act. This is the act of faith. And I remain convinced that religious faith is one of the most perverse misuses of intelligence we have ever devised. So we will, inevitably, continue to criticize religious thinking. But we should not define ourselves and name ourselves in opposition to such thinking.
So what does this all mean in practical terms, apart from Margaret Downey having to change her letterhead? Well, rather than declare ourselves “atheists” in opposition to all religion, I think we should do nothing more than advocate reason and intellectual honesty—and where this advocacy causes us to collide with religion, as it inevitably will, we should observe that the points of impact are always with specific religious beliefs—not with religion in general. There is no religion in general.
The problem is that the concept of atheism imposes upon us a false burden of remaining fixated on people’s beliefs about God and remaining even-handed in our treatment of religion. But we shouldn’t be fixated, and we shouldn’t be even-handed. In fact, we should be quick to point out the differences among religions, for two reasons:
First, these differences make all religions look contingent, and therefore silly. Consider the unique features of Mormonism, which may have some relevance in the next Presidential election. Mormonism, it seems to me, is—objectively—just a little more idiotic than Christianity is. It has to be: because it is Christianity plus some very stupid ideas. For instance, the Mormons think Jesus is going to return to earth and administer his Thousand years of Peace, at least part of the time, from the state of Missouri. Why does this make Mormonism less likely to be true than Christianity? Because whatever probability you assign to Jesus’ coming back, you have to assign a lesser probability to his coming back and keeping a summer home in Jackson County, Missouri. If Mitt Romney wants to be the next President of the United States, he should be made to feel the burden of our incredulity. We can make common cause with our Christian brothers and sisters on this point. Just what does the man believe? The world should know. And it is almost guaranteed to be embarrassing even to most people who believe in the biblical God.
The second reason to be attentive to the differences among the world’s religions is that these differences are actually a matter of life and death. There are very few of us who lie awake at night worrying about the Amish. This is not an accident. While I have no doubt that the Amish are mistreating their children, by not educating them adequately, they are not likely to hijack aircraft and fly them into buildings. But consider how we, as atheists, tend to talk about Islam. Christians often complain that atheists, and the secular world generally, balance every criticism of Muslim extremism with a mention of Christian extremism. The usual approach is to say that they have their jihadists, and we have people who kill abortion doctors. Our Christian neighbors, even the craziest of them, are right to be outraged by this pretense of even-handedness, because the truth is that Islam is quite a bit scarier and more culpable for needless human misery, than Christianity has been for a very, very long time. And the world must wake up to this fact. Muslims themselves must wake up to this fact. And they can.
You might remember that Thomas Friedman recently wrote an op-ed from Iraq, reporting that some Sunni militias are now fighting jihadists alongside American troops. When Friedman asked one Sunni militant why he was doing this, he said that he had recently watched a member of al-Qaeda decapitate an 8-year-old girl. This persuaded him that the American Crusader forces were the lesser of two evils.
Okay, so even some Sunni militants can discern the boundary between ordinary crazy Islam, and the utterly crazy, once it is drawn in the spilled blood of little girls. This is a basis for hope, of sorts. But we have to be honest—unremittingly honest—about what is on the other side of that line. This is what we and the rest of the civilized, and the semi-civilized world, are up against: utter religious lunacy and barbarism in the name of Islam—with, I’m unhappy to say, some mainstream theology to back it up.
To be even-handed when talking about the problem of Islam is to misconstrue the problem. The refrain, “all religions have their extremists,” is bullshit—and it is putting the West to sleep. All religions don’t have these extremists. Some religions have never had these extremists. And in the Muslim world, support for extremism is not extreme in the sense of being rare. A recent poll showed that about a third of young British Muslims want to live under sharia law and believe that apostates should be killed for leaving the faith. These are British Muslims. Sixty-eight percent of British Muslims feel that their neighbors who insult Islam should be arrested and prosecuted, and seventy-eight percent think that the Danish cartoonists should be brought to justice. These people don’t have a clue about what constitutes a civil society. Reports of this kind coming out of the Muslim communities living in the West should worry us, before anything else about religion worries us.
Atheism is too blunt an instrument to use at moments like this. It’s as though we have a landscape of human ignorance and bewilderment—with peaks and valleys and local attractors—and the concept of atheism causes us to fixate one part of this landscape, the part related to theistic religion, and then just flattens it. Because to be consistent as atheists we must oppose, or seem to oppose, all faith claims equally. This is a waste of precious time and energy, and it squanders the trust of people who would otherwise agree with us on specific issues.
I’m not at all suggesting that we leave people’s core religious beliefs, or faith itself, unscathed—I’m still the kind of person who writes articles with rather sweeping titles like “Science must destroy religion”—but it seems to me that we should never lose sight of useful and important distinctions.
Another problem with calling ourselves “atheists” is that every religious person thinks he has a knockdown argument against atheism. We’ve all heard these arguments, and we are going to keep hearing them as long as we insist upon calling ourselves “atheists. Arguments like: atheists can’t prove that God doesn’t exist; atheists are claiming to know there is no God, and this is the most arrogant claim of all. As Rick Warren put it, when he and I debated for Newsweek—a reasonable man like himself “doesn’t have enough faith to be an atheist.” The idea that the universe could arise without a creator is, on his account, the most extravagant faith claim of all.
Of course, as an argument for the truth of any specific religious doctrine, this is a travesty. And we all know what to do in this situation: We have Russell’s teapot, and thousands of dead gods, and now a flying spaghetti monster, the nonexistence of which also cannot be proven, and yet belief in these things is acknowledged to be ridiculous by everyone. The problem is, we have to keep having this same argument, over and over again, and the argument is being generated to a significant degree, if not entirely, over our use of the term “atheism.”
So too with the “greatest crimes of the 20th century” argument. How many times are we going to have to counter the charge that Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot represent the endgame of atheism? I’ve got news for you, this meme is not going away. I argued against it in The End of Faith, and it was immediately thrown back at me in reviews of the book as though I had never mentioned it. So I tackled it again in the afterword to the paperback edition of The End of Faith; but this had no effect whatsoever; so at the risk of boring everyone, I brought it up again in Letter to a Christian Nation; and Richard did the same in The God Delusion; and Christopher took a mighty swing at it in God is Not Great. I can assure you that this bogus argument will be with us for as long as people label themselves “atheists.” And it really convinces religious people. It convinces moderates and liberals. It even convinces the occasional atheist.
Why should we fall into this trap? Why should we stand obediently in the space provided, in the space carved out by the conceptual scheme of theistic religion? It’s as though, before the debate even begins, our opponents draw the chalk-outline of a dead man on the sidewalk, and we just walk up and lie down in it.
Instead of doing this, consider what would happen if we simply used words like “reason” and “evidence.” What is the argument against reason? It’s true that a few people will bite the bullet here and argue that reason is itself a problem, that the Enlightenment was a failed project, etc. But the truth is that there are very few people, even among religious fundamentalists, who will happily admit to being enemies of reason. In fact, fundamentalists tend to think they are champions of reason and that they have very good reasons for believing in God. Nobody wants to believe things on bad evidence. The desire to know what is actually going on in world is very difficult to argue with. In so far as we represent that desire, we become difficult to argue with. And this desire is not reducible to an interest group. It’s not a club or an affiliation, and I think trying to make it one diminishes its power.
The last problem with atheism I’d like to talk about relates to the some of the experiences that lie at the core of many religious traditions, though perhaps not all, and which are testified to, with greater or lesser clarity in the world’s “spiritual” and “mystical” literature.
Those of you who have read The End of Faith, know that I don’t entirely line up with Dan, Richard, and Christopher in my treatment of these things. So I think I should take a little time to discuss this. While I always use terms like “spiritual” and “mystical” in scare quotes, and take some pains to denude them of metaphysics, the email I receive from my brothers and sisters in arms suggests that many of you find my interest in these topics problematic.
First, let me describe the general phenomenon I’m referring to. Here’s what happens, in the generic case: a person, in whatever culture he finds himself, begins to notice that life is difficult. He observes that even in the best of times—no one close to him has died, he’s healthy, there are no hostile armies massing in the distance, the fridge is stocked with beer, the weather is just so—even when things are as good as they can be, he notices that at the level of his moment to moment experience, at the level of his attention, he is perpetually on the move, seeking happiness and finding only temporary relief from his search.
We’ve all noticed this. We seek pleasant sights, and sounds, and tastes, and sensations, and attitudes. We satisfy our intellectual curiosities, and our desire for friendship and romance. We become connoisseurs of art and music and film—but our pleasures are, by their very nature, fleeting. And we can do nothing more than merely reiterate them as often as we are able.
If we enjoy some great professional success, our feelings of accomplishment remain vivid and intoxicating for about an hour, or maybe a day, but then people will begin to ask us “So, what are you going to do next? Don’t you have anything else in the pipeline?” Steve Jobs releases the IPhone, and I’m sure it wasn’t twenty minutes before someone asked, “when are you going to make this thing smaller?” Notice that very few people at this juncture, no matter what they’ve accomplished, say, “I’m done. I’ve met all my goals. Now I’m just going to stay here eat ice cream until I die in front of you.”
Even when everything has gone as well as it can go, the search for happiness continues, the effort required to keep doubt and dissatisfaction and boredom at bay continues, moment to moment. If nothing else, the reality of death and the experience of losing loved ones punctures even the most gratifying and well-ordered life.
In this context, certain people have traditionally wondered whether a deeper form of well-being exists. Is there, in other words, a form of happiness that is not contingent upon our merely reiterating our pleasures and successes and avoiding our pains. Is there a form of happiness that is not dependent upon having one’s favorite food always available to be placed on one’s tongue or having all one’s friends and loved ones within arm’s reach, or having good books to read, or having something to look forward to on the weekend? Is it possible to be utterly happy before anything happens, before one’s desires get gratified, in spite of life’s inevitable difficulties, in the very midst of physical pain, old age, disease, and death?
This question, I think, lies at the periphery of everyone’s consciousness. We are all, in some sense, living our answer to it—and many of us are living as though the answer is “no.” No, there is nothing more profound that repeating one’s pleasures and avoiding one’s pains; there is nothing more profound that seeking satisfaction, both sensory and intellectual. Many of us seem think that all we can do is just keep our foot on the gas until we run out of road.
But certain people, for whatever reason, are led to suspect that there is more to human experience than this. In fact, many of them are led to suspect this by religion—by the claims of people like the Buddha or Jesus or some other celebrated religious figures. And such a person may begin to practice various disciplines of attention—often called “meditation” or “contemplation”—as a means of examining his moment to moment experience closely enough to see if a deeper basis of well-being is there to be found.
Such a person might even hole himself up in a cave, or in a monastery, for months or years at a time to facilitate this process. Why would somebody do this? Well, it amounts to a very simple experiment. Here’s the logic of it: if there is a form of psychological well-being that isn’t contingent upon merely repeating one’s pleasures, then this happiness should be available even when all the obvious sources of pleasure and satisfaction have been removed. If it exists at all, this happiness should be available to a person who has renounced all her material possessions, and declined to marry her high school sweetheart, and gone off to a cave or to some other spot that would seem profoundly uncongenial to the satisfaction of ordinary desires and aspirations.
One clue as to how daunting most people would find such a project is the fact that solitary confinement—which is essentially what we are talking about—is considered a punishment even inside a prison. Even when cooped up with homicidal maniacs and rapists, most people still prefer the company of others to spending any significant amount of time alone in a box.
And yet, for thousands of years, contemplatives have claimed to find extraordinary depths of psychological well-being while spending vast stretches of time in total isolation. It seems to me that, as rational people, whether we call ourselves “atheists” or not, we have a choice to make in how we view this whole enterprise. Either the contemplative literature is a mere catalogue of religious delusion, deliberate fraud, and psychopathology, or people have been having interesting and even normative experiences under the name of “spirituality” and “mysticism” for millennia.
Now let me just assert, on the basis of my own study and experience, that there is no question in my mind that people have improved their emotional lives, and their self-understanding, and their ethical intuitions, and have even had important insights about the nature of subjectivity itself through a variety of traditional practices like meditation.
Leaving aside all the metaphysics and mythology and mumbo jumbo, what contemplatives and mystics over the millennia claim to have discovered is that there is an alternative to merely living at the mercy of the next neurotic thought that comes careening into consciousness. There is an alternative to being continuously spellbound by the conversation we are having with ourselves.
Most us think that if a person is walking down the street talking to himself—that is, not able to censor himself in front of other people—he’s probably mentally ill. But if we talk to ourselves all day long silently—thinking, thinking, thinking, rehearsing prior conversations, thinking about what we said, what we didn’t say, what we should have said, jabbering on to ourselves about what we hope is going to happen, what just happened, what almost happened, what should have happened, what may yet happen—but we just know enough to just keep this conversation private, this is perfectly normal. This is perfectly compatible with sanity. Well, this is not what the experience of millions of contemplatives suggests.
Of course, I am by no means denying the importance of thinking. There is no question that linguistic thought is indispensable for us. It is, in large part, what makes us human. It is the fabric of almost all culture and every social relationship. Needless to say, it is the basis of all science. And it is surely responsible for much rudimentary cognition—for integrating beliefs, planning, explicit learning, moral reasoning, and many other mental capacities. Even talking to oneself out loud may occasionally serve a useful function.
From the point of view of our contemplative traditions, however—to boil them all down to a cartoon version, that ignores the rather esoteric disputes among them—our habitual identification with discursive thought, our failure moment to moment to recognize thoughts as thoughts, is a primary source of human suffering. And when a person breaks this spell, an extraordinary kind of relief is available.
But the problem with a contemplative claim of this sort is that you can’t borrow someone else’s contemplative tools to test it. The problem is that to test such a claim—indeed, to even appreciate how distracted we tend to be in the first place, we have to build our own contemplative tools. Imagine where astronomy would be if everyone had to build his own telescope before he could even begin to see if astronomy was a legitimate enterprise. It wouldn’t make the sky any less worthy of investigation, but it would make it immensely more difficult for us to establish astronomy as a science.
To judge the empirical claims of contemplatives, you have to build your own telescope. Judging their metaphysical claims is another matter: many of these can be dismissed as bad science or bad philosophy by merely thinking about them. But to judge whether certain experiences are possible—and if possible, desirable—we have to be able to use our attention in the requisite ways. We have to be able to break our identification with discursive thought, if only for a few moments. This can take a tremendous amount of work. And it is not work that our culture knows much about.
One problem with atheism as a category of thought, is that it seems more or less synonymous with not being interested in what someone like the Buddha or Jesus may have actually experienced. In fact, many atheists reject such experiences out of hand, as either impossible, or if possible, not worth wanting. Another common mistake is to imagine that such experiences are necessarily equivalent to states of mind with which many of us are already familiar—the feeling of scientific awe, or ordinary states of aesthetic appreciation, artistic inspiration, etc.
As someone who has made his own modest efforts in this area, let me assure you, that when a person goes into solitude and trains himself in meditation for 15 or 18 hours a day, for months or years at a time, in silence, doing nothing else—not talking, not reading, not writing—just making a sustained moment to moment effort to merely observe the contents of consciousness and to not get lost in thought, he experiences things that most scientists and artists are not likely to have experienced, unless they have made precisely the same efforts at introspection. And these experiences have a lot to say about the plasticity of the human mind and about the possibilities of human happiness.
So, apart from just commending these phenomena to your attention, I’d like to point out that, as atheists, our neglect of this area of human experience puts us at a rhetorical disadvantage. Because millions of people have had these experiences, and many millions more have had glimmers of them, and we, as atheists, ignore such phenomena, almost in principle, because of their religious associations—and yet these experiences often constitute the most important and transformative moments in a person’s life. Not recognizing that such experiences are possible or important can make us appear less wise even than our craziest religious opponents.
My concern is that atheism can easily become the position of not being interested in certain possibilities in principle. I don’t know if our universe is, as JBS Haldane said, “not only stranger than we suppose, but stranger than we can suppose.” But I am sure that it is stranger than we, as “atheists,” tend to represent while advocating atheism. As “atheists” we give others, and even ourselves, the sense that we are well on our way toward purging the universe of mystery. As advocates of reason, we know that mystery is going to be with us for a very long time. Indeed, there are good reasons to believe that mystery is ineradicable from our circumstance, because however much we know, it seems like there will always be brute facts that we cannot account for but which we must rely upon to explain everything else. This may be a problem for epistemology but it is not a problem for human life and for human solidarity. It does not rob our lives of meaning. And it is not a barrier to human happiness.
We are faced, however, with the challenge of communicating this view to others. We are faced with the monumental task of persuading a myth-infatuated world that love and curiosity are sufficient, and that we need not console or frighten ourselves or our children with Iron Age fairy tales. I don’t think there is a more important intellectual struggle to win; it has to be fought from a hundred sides, all at once, and continuously; but it seems to me that there is no reason for us to fight in well-ordered ranks, like the red coats of Atheism.
Finally, I think it’s useful to envision what victory will look like. Again, the analogy with racism seems instructive to me. What will victory against racism look like, should that happy day ever dawn? It certainly won’t be a world in which a majority of people profess that they are “nonracist.” Most likely, it will be a world in which the very concept of separate races has lost its meaning.
We will have won this war of ideas against religion when atheism is scarcely intelligible as a concept. We will simply find ourselves in a world in which people cease to praise one another for pretending to know things they do not know. This is certainly a future worth fighting for. It may be the only future compatible with our long-term survival as a species. But the only path between now and then, that I can see, is for us to be rigorously honest in the present. It seems to me that intellectual honesty is now, and will always be, deeper and more durable, and more easily spread, than “atheism.”
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Guilt
I've come to the realization that the most prevalent currency in my life is GUILT. I often tell folks that I skip trips and events to save money or vacation time. But I'm really just working off guilt. When I work off enough guilt, I might become brave enough to forray into a brief expedition and max out the credit card of my concience. Then I come back to reality and start paying off my debt again ... 'till the next episode.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Letters from Drew Dawg
My boy Drew's going to be in Singapore for a couple of years. These are his letters.
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Singaporeans and Asians are brilliant at integrating the environment amongst the buildings and roads. My drive into work is like driving into the bat cave; there are huge banzai trees planted everywhere on each side of the road. The branches overhang the road creating a cave and at 56MPH you really cannot see the through to the other-side of the express way or buildings. It’s my piece of serenity as I drive into work, unless there is someone pruning the plants. What are they doing on the side of the road? There are no bright orange cones or advance warning. I think safety is left up to the employee rather than the employer.
I spent most of the week shopping for furniture. Aside from having someone to talk to, the most interesting part is that I haggled over everything; never pay sticker price. However, they continually try to sell you things that you are neither interested in nor need. “It’s a good deal, you have to buy it.” It’s like going to a strip club and the girl you’ve just rejected says, “Don’t you think I am pretty? You make up some lie why you don’t want the goods or service, just so the salesperson goes away. But they throw in the hungry kids at home. They make you feel like you owe her something because she took the time to try to sell you. Singapore isn’t the only market like this, India was the same way. Especially rugs; rugs that only your grandma can love. Anyway, I digress. So I managed to haggle for everything from furniture to electronics; ten to forty percent. After the first haggle, subsequent negotiations came easy. Sometimes I haggled to get the price down, sometimes just so I could talk to someone when I wasn’t at work. The only place I didn’t haggle is IKEA; did I mention that I went there like five times? No major furniture, but if you want dishes, shelves, hangers, etc., IKEA is the place to go.
Moved into the Apartment in the middle of the week; its difficult keeping the 15th floor cool enough to hangout. You have to moderate between coolness and utility bills. Electricity is expensive in Singapore. So expensive, they forgot to put outlets in the bathroom! In order to have hot water, you need to flick a switch and wait three minutes. Amazingly, the hot water tank is either well insulated or it is outside, because I can turn it on once every couple of days and the water is fine for showers and the dishes. Which brings me to my next point; there is no dishwasher. So I have to do my dishes by hand; where’s my mum?
Burnt up the power supply of the Xbox. In my zeal to start playing Halo 3, I simply plugged the US plug into the adapter and into the wall. Despite the fact that the Power Supply is the size of a mini-cooler, Microsoft in its infinite wisdom decided that the voltage should only go up to 120V without fuse protection; Singapore is 200V so spark, crack, pop and no Halo 3 for me. Good thing for eBay; 90 bucks later and a new Power Supply is coming from the U.K. Soon I will be sticking the great Ardattack. So the lesson here is to check the stickers of your electrical device to see whether you can just plug in an adapter or whether you will need an electrical transformer ($100) for your US devices.
On Saturday I went for a jog; to the left of my apartment building is a golf course and the sea. Unfortunately, the sea is littered with giant cargo ships like the ants in a line in a California kitchen sink. Nonetheless it is a good place to jog, ride bikes or roller blade as the paved path is under trees and some views of the water. On Sunday, I went for another jog except this time I went to the right; on that side is an inlet and bay. There was a rowing club made of young boys and girls; those coaches were really working them; it reminded me of the Myrmidons as they raced each other. It was like 30C, with the sun reflecting off the water, those kids must have been hurting. Serves em right for getting in my way at the market. Ha ha.
I also found out that I live next to the Singapore Indoor Stadium; I think its true when bands say “I am really big overseas” because there are interesting bands playing there; like Mega-death, Heaven and Hell (Black Sabbath reunited with Ronnie James Dio do you remember “What do you wanna do with your life? I WANNA ROCK!”) – you know you do. All the old hair bands play there and on the radio. Nonetheless, on the 22nd The Black Eyed Peas are playing so I am going to try to get a ticket. I also found a softball coach during the run, and he gave me a number to a baseball and softball league set up by the American Expats. Finally, some peeps to relate too; America, BBQ burgers, and Heineken bottled in the USA at US prices because we were on the US base. Had my first beer on Sunday; completely buzzed after a beer in a half. I detoxed for nearly two weeks after the debauchery of my going way party in Santa Monica.
For being a Service Oriented country, these people suck at it; there is no sense of urgency. Seriously, I called to schedule a cab and was on hold for ten minutes and when I finally got through the lady said can you hold while I find a cab? Five minutes later, and she comes back; she says, there are no cabs answering. What the hell? In a city where there are more cabs than personal cars (seriously) and I can’t schedule a cab? You have to call cabbies to get them to come? Can’t you just put it into the computer, lie to me and tell me that it will be there in 15 minutes and show up in 20?
Enough for now, stay tuned for week three - I am in Korea.
Andrew
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Singaporeans and Asians are brilliant at integrating the environment amongst the buildings and roads. My drive into work is like driving into the bat cave; there are huge banzai trees planted everywhere on each side of the road. The branches overhang the road creating a cave and at 56MPH you really cannot see the through to the other-side of the express way or buildings. It’s my piece of serenity as I drive into work, unless there is someone pruning the plants. What are they doing on the side of the road? There are no bright orange cones or advance warning. I think safety is left up to the employee rather than the employer.
I spent most of the week shopping for furniture. Aside from having someone to talk to, the most interesting part is that I haggled over everything; never pay sticker price. However, they continually try to sell you things that you are neither interested in nor need. “It’s a good deal, you have to buy it.” It’s like going to a strip club and the girl you’ve just rejected says, “Don’t you think I am pretty? You make up some lie why you don’t want the goods or service, just so the salesperson goes away. But they throw in the hungry kids at home. They make you feel like you owe her something because she took the time to try to sell you. Singapore isn’t the only market like this, India was the same way. Especially rugs; rugs that only your grandma can love. Anyway, I digress. So I managed to haggle for everything from furniture to electronics; ten to forty percent. After the first haggle, subsequent negotiations came easy. Sometimes I haggled to get the price down, sometimes just so I could talk to someone when I wasn’t at work. The only place I didn’t haggle is IKEA; did I mention that I went there like five times? No major furniture, but if you want dishes, shelves, hangers, etc., IKEA is the place to go.
Moved into the Apartment in the middle of the week; its difficult keeping the 15th floor cool enough to hangout. You have to moderate between coolness and utility bills. Electricity is expensive in Singapore. So expensive, they forgot to put outlets in the bathroom! In order to have hot water, you need to flick a switch and wait three minutes. Amazingly, the hot water tank is either well insulated or it is outside, because I can turn it on once every couple of days and the water is fine for showers and the dishes. Which brings me to my next point; there is no dishwasher. So I have to do my dishes by hand; where’s my mum?
Burnt up the power supply of the Xbox. In my zeal to start playing Halo 3, I simply plugged the US plug into the adapter and into the wall. Despite the fact that the Power Supply is the size of a mini-cooler, Microsoft in its infinite wisdom decided that the voltage should only go up to 120V without fuse protection; Singapore is 200V so spark, crack, pop and no Halo 3 for me. Good thing for eBay; 90 bucks later and a new Power Supply is coming from the U.K. Soon I will be sticking the great Ardattack. So the lesson here is to check the stickers of your electrical device to see whether you can just plug in an adapter or whether you will need an electrical transformer ($100) for your US devices.
On Saturday I went for a jog; to the left of my apartment building is a golf course and the sea. Unfortunately, the sea is littered with giant cargo ships like the ants in a line in a California kitchen sink. Nonetheless it is a good place to jog, ride bikes or roller blade as the paved path is under trees and some views of the water. On Sunday, I went for another jog except this time I went to the right; on that side is an inlet and bay. There was a rowing club made of young boys and girls; those coaches were really working them; it reminded me of the Myrmidons as they raced each other. It was like 30C, with the sun reflecting off the water, those kids must have been hurting. Serves em right for getting in my way at the market. Ha ha.
I also found out that I live next to the Singapore Indoor Stadium; I think its true when bands say “I am really big overseas” because there are interesting bands playing there; like Mega-death, Heaven and Hell (Black Sabbath reunited with Ronnie James Dio do you remember “What do you wanna do with your life? I WANNA ROCK!”) – you know you do. All the old hair bands play there and on the radio. Nonetheless, on the 22nd The Black Eyed Peas are playing so I am going to try to get a ticket. I also found a softball coach during the run, and he gave me a number to a baseball and softball league set up by the American Expats. Finally, some peeps to relate too; America, BBQ burgers, and Heineken bottled in the USA at US prices because we were on the US base. Had my first beer on Sunday; completely buzzed after a beer in a half. I detoxed for nearly two weeks after the debauchery of my going way party in Santa Monica.
For being a Service Oriented country, these people suck at it; there is no sense of urgency. Seriously, I called to schedule a cab and was on hold for ten minutes and when I finally got through the lady said can you hold while I find a cab? Five minutes later, and she comes back; she says, there are no cabs answering. What the hell? In a city where there are more cabs than personal cars (seriously) and I can’t schedule a cab? You have to call cabbies to get them to come? Can’t you just put it into the computer, lie to me and tell me that it will be there in 15 minutes and show up in 20?
Enough for now, stay tuned for week three - I am in Korea.
Andrew
Friday, October 5, 2007
Ballers, EMail, Pink Uniforms
Last winter Colin and I started playing on an Eastside team that plays on Saturdays. We also still play on our old team in the Westside league that plays on Sundays. Anyhooo ... the team we're playing against next week in our Saturday league wears pink uniforms. I don't know why. They're actually a decent team and whoever wins next week will most likely win the division and get #1 seed for the playoffs.
The following is an email thread that started when one of our players (BA) forwarded a few scouting tips from a player on another team that had already played "Pink Team". With all the spy-gate fiasco and the Partriots off-field issues I got a kick out of this. It doesn't seem so funny today but it made me laugh yesterday so what the heck ... And yes, Football players CAN type and be funny too. Don't act surprised. Except for names, nothings changed.
---------------------------------------------
From: BA
Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2007 10:08 AM
To: Captain X
Subject: Tips on playing Team Pink
Captain X,
I was hoping to get some scouting on Team pink.
What formations they run etc?
Thanks!
BA
---------------------------------------------
From: Captain X
To: BA
Sent: Thu Oct 04 11:23:22 2007
Subject: RE: Tips on playing Team Pink
Team Pink at 3-0. WTF!!! You need to do something about that this weekend. :)
The big thing that ill tell you about TP is to watch their huddle. Their QB does a "hang loose" hand signal in the huddle which means they are running the same play from the reverse side. We may hopefully see TP in the playoffs so please dont tip them off and make it obvious you are picking up on that
Historically when i think TP i think option and a 2 back set. They gave us option only once and it was to their left. It was just with the RB (no FB) and i did notice he was wider split then normal. I dont recall them blitzing or rushing 4.
---------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2007 12:28:50 -0700
From: BA
To: Team
Subject: Team Pink Info
Out of respect to Captain X, don't make it obvious we picked up one of their signals.
---------------------------------------------
From: Me
To: Team
Subject: RE: Team Pink Info
Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2007 12:30:50 -0700
Why would they use signals in their huddle? Are they deaf? Do they have a guy with a big bass drum on the sidelines calling the snapcount? Wierd. But the RB stance on option is a good tip.
---------------------------------------------
From: Tex
Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2007 12:36 PM
To: Team
Subject: RE: Team Pink Info
They huddle so you think they are running a new play. Hang loose.
They also use shadow puppets to call the hook and ladder. So if you see a flash light out there be ready.
---------------------------------------------
Subject: RE: Team Pink Info
Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2007 12:40:13 -0700
From: JB
To: Team
I think they like to huddle so that they can exchange fashion tips on the lastest pink clothing lines.
---------------------------------------------
From: Me
To: Team
Subject: RE: Team Pink Info
Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2007 12:42:36 -0700
I heard their captain was furious when one of the players showed up in Fuschia. As punishment, his leg warmers were taken away and he was relegated from "front row" to "Backup" dancer in the season ending musical play "Cats" that the team performs at the community theater in Tacoma.
---------------------------------------------
From: Tex
Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2007 12:46 PM
To: Team
Subject: RE: Team Pink Info
I have a pink bandana that I am going to wear around my shin like Chung Li in BloodSport to remind Van Damn that he smoked his friend in an earlier fight.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Code Monkey Like You
Looks like someone read my earlier blog about code monkeys and made a video using World of Warcraft Animation. Love this song. Incidentally, the singer is the same cat that did the "Baby Got Back" cover a few blogs ago. Funny how things tie together sometimes.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Snoop DeLoop
More Covers. Gin & Juice is the most widely covered hip hop song from Country to Swing. I just might have to put 2 versions on. This one's by the Gourds. Enjoy.
Downside of BEP
I used to love BEP 'till they sold out and took on that anorexic crack smoker.
Nice ironic video to put their new BS in prespective.
Nice ironic video to put their new BS in prespective.
Greatest Cover Song of All Time
I'm dedicating the next few posts to be best hip-hop covers of all time. This one definitely takes the cake but there more coming up soon. While some go to prove that the lyrics, taken out of context, are still powerful and have their own poetic merit, other show you just how assanine the song really is once you take out base and g-strings.
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
My Dope
When the sun is out, I feel like a drug addict. I crave the beach, the feel of the ball rocketing off my hand, the sand between my toes, the screaming and shouting of the other players. I am often able to aquire this drug when I need it but my plight is still that of the addict. When it rains, I feel cured. Sometimes I like the rain. It gives me peace.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Shift Happens
I don't know if you should be scared or excited for my kids. All my hard-earned lessons in life may be useless to them.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Double Doozy
Do 2 wrongs make a right? Do 2 lies cancel each other? Does a rip off of a rip off yield an original thought?
Probably not. But I still like this ad.
Probably not. But I still like this ad.
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
Cultural Patterns
Check out how eerily similar (and super hillarious) these 2 calls are:
http://www.shaarique.com/guy-caught-cheating-by-his-wife/
http://www.betterloverseminar.com/desi_wife_catches_husband
"Thanks for teaching me the ways of American Love."
- Raj
http://www.shaarique.com/guy-caught-cheating-by-his-wife/
http://www.betterloverseminar.com/desi_wife_catches_husband
"Thanks for teaching me the ways of American Love."
- Raj
Saturday, December 9, 2006
Happy Holidays
For all you chums out there, like me, who get down in the dumps over your aches and pains, here's a tribute to you. Enjoy.
Monday, December 4, 2006
Seattle City Champs - 2006
What a great season. We went undefeated (10-0) and won the Seattle Metro Championship. Some freaky stats for this season:
- In 5 out of our 10 games we shut out the other team in the 2nd half.
- We only punted 4 times the entire season (2 in the championship game)
- I think we threw 0 interceptions (not 100% sure about this one but can't recall any)
Unfortunately our good season may get us kicked out of the league next season since other teams complained that our team is stacked with ex pros even though this isn't really true. Although, everyone except 3 or 4 guys did play in college with a couple of guys that played baseball in college instead.
See more pics from this season in my Football Album.
- In 5 out of our 10 games we shut out the other team in the 2nd half.
- We only punted 4 times the entire season (2 in the championship game)
- I think we threw 0 interceptions (not 100% sure about this one but can't recall any)
Unfortunately our good season may get us kicked out of the league next season since other teams complained that our team is stacked with ex pros even though this isn't really true. Although, everyone except 3 or 4 guys did play in college with a couple of guys that played baseball in college instead.
See more pics from this season in my Football Album.
Thursday, November 9, 2006
Monday, October 30, 2006
My Definition of Concentration
You run a drag across the middle,The ball is a bit too high and bit too late
You throttle down, leap, and twist to make the catch,
you hear footsteps,
when you wake up,
they tell you that you held on
My Favorite Minute of the week
Lately, my Saturday morning routine has consisted of taking Max to the gym with me while Jen takes Riley to swim lessons. I'm not sure it's because he's with me or the fact that Riley's not there but every time I drop Max off at the gym daycare he gets real sad and quiet. He doesn't move and when I try to get him to play with some toys he just grabs and holds on to my leg. I squat down and begin to play with the toys to get him involved but he just hugs me and burries his face in my neck. I look forward to these 60 seconds every week.
Monday, October 16, 2006
Superbowl Flashback
Watching the Bengals get raped on that terrible "roughing the passer" call reminded me of last years superbowl officiating fiasco. The owners must really be stressing QB protection to the refs bacause this is the 2nd time this season that a bullshit call like this has changed the outcome of the game. How can you call roughing the passer on a Sack? And a relatively mild one at that. Judge for yourself.
Friday, July 21, 2006
Sleepin' at the wheel and takin' it up the caboose
A while ago, a buddy of mine sent a few of this friends (author included) a link to this article by Mort Zuckerman about the decline of leadership in America. It pondered the question of why America is failing to produce decent political leaders despite the vast intellectual tallents of her citizens. I replied with my own worthless 2 cents and asked another buddy (henceforth referred to as "The Rev") what he thought about the topic.
His response was pretty deep and thought provoking so I decided to document it below.
==============================================================
Ardi,
My thoughts are:
1. We have no great leaders today because corporations and special interest groups have bought and sold essentially every politician in Congress, and of any stature in the executive branch. It's not that politicians are less idealistic today than 100 or 200 years ago, it's that corporations and special interest groups are now extremely efficient and very competitive about buying off any available figure in power. The only difference is that 50 or 100 or 200 years ago, there weren't enough corporations and special interest groups around with enough "soft money" to buy off anyone with power. If you are head of the FDA one year, you are on the Board of Pfizer the next. If you are Deputy Secretary of Defense one year, you are on the Board of Boeing the next. That is how things are done in Washington and absent laws that prevent these conflicts of interest this will only intensify. Because the people who make laws to prevent these sort o f conflicts of interest are the ones who benefit by these arrangements, they have no incentives to enact such laws.
2. "Democracy, liberty and freedom." First off, we're not a democracy and never have been. A democracy means a government run by all voting age citizens--participating and making important decisions. The closest, and probably only time, the planet came close to a democracy was fifth-century B.C. Athens when 10% of the adults participated in a "democracy". Technically speaking, our government is an aristocratic (or plutocratic) republic. (note: aristocratic means government by the best or elite, not government by nobility; plutocratic means government by the rich). We're a bit like ancient Rome with TV. Maybe this isn't a bad thing, because as Plato and Edmund Burke both famously pointed out, letting a bunch of uneducated, illogical, easily swayed mobs decide how to run the country might not be the best idea, c.f. The Jerry Springer Show. Even one of the great champions of modern d emocratic ideals, Winston Churchill, said, "Democracy is the worst possible form of government known to man--except for all the others." "Liberty" is a nice catchphrase as well, but "liberty" to do what? Uncoupled from responsibility it means a license to cause whatever harm you like. Ditto for "freedom".
Now in saying this, I'm not bashing America. Our constitution is still a model for the world, and I don't believe any country, in any age, has ever premised its foundation on a plan as fair and comprehensive as ours. But...
3. ...when we talk about "American values", I don't think this has much meaning. It's like saying we have "an awesome vibe" or "great feelings" or "something terrific". "American values" is not a tangible and measurable thing nor does it refer to something tangible and measurable. It's very easy for a politician or partisan pundit or journalist to bandy about the phrase "American values" without ever saying anything of substance. I don't think anyone can make a good argument though that the roughly 10,000 Iraqi civilians that we have killed due to "collateral damage" is a good way to export "American values."
What we ought to be exporting instead is our legal system and our economic system. While free market capitalism has its own shortcomings and inequities, its a hell of a lot better than living in a country with no political rights, no jobs, and a lack of basic necessities.
Of course, exporting our legal system and economic system to other countries--which would improve the lives of the people there--and give them a taste of why Americans think and act in certian ways, i.e. imparting our "values"--does not give us special access to a country's resources, which leads me to...
4. Fact: The value of Dick Cheney's stock options in Halliburton have increased between $10 and $20 million since 2003 as a direct result of the Iraq War. Fact: Cheney proposed invading Iraq the night of the 9/11 attacks. Fact: All CIA intelligence presented to the President supporting or not supporting a war in Iraq was ordered in 2002 to be vetted through the Office of the Vice President first, a role the Vice President had never been involved in during the previous 200+ years of U.S. History. Fact: Halliburton was awarded contracts to rebuild infrastructure in Iraq without having to submit to the standard bidding process. Fact: Halliburton has overbilled the US government and American taxpayers to the tune of over $10 million since 2003. Fact: Halliburton was recently awarded an expanded (again, no bid contract) despite this fraud. Fact: On Spetmeber 2 3, 2003, Cheney said on NBC TV's Meet The Press, "I've severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interest. I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven't had, now, for over three years." Fact: At the time he said this, he had stock options in Halliburton worth $8 million.
Are we really in Iraq in order to export "American values"? I don't think so. Where can you find the startling "secret" facts listed above? The 9/11 Commission Report and various reports from the Government Accounting Office. Are most Americans completely asleep at the switch? Yes.
5. Am I surprised most American are totally asleep at the switch? No. In the past ten years, the FCC has done away with conflict of interest regulations that for decades maintained a somehwat independent news media in this country. This was done under the leadership of FCC Chairman Michael Powell. Perphaps you've heard of his father?--guy by the name of Colin. Instead of hundreds of competing news sources in this country--which we had growing up in the 70's and 80's, we now have a situation where 90% of TV, film and radio and 50% of newspapers are controlled by six large media conglomerates. Of these six large conglomerates, the CEO's of three have created and funded right-wing think tanks. One of these parent corporations also happens to be one of the military's largest suppliers--GE/Westinghouse.
6. So yeah, you can probably gather I am gravely disappointed with US foreign policy over the past several years as well as with rampant corruption in our government, and I think most journalists write what their bosses tell them to write or go hungry. However, the fault probably does not lie entirely with government officials. Plato said in The Republic that there can be no just political order without just citizens. Yet, today citizens of liberal democracies worldwide are much more concerned with how their government functions than the private vices of the citizens within them. Likewise, modern citizens are much more comfortable talking about rights than duties. Put another way, one might say that we are much more concerned with the rights of people, than the capacities of the people with those rights. So when we talk about "American values" it is probably worth questioning what that phrase means. Does it mean the political rights enshrined in our Constitution or does it mean the collective ethical strength (or weakness) of the nation as a whole. Quite simply, are we as ethically honest and willing to sacrifice for the common good as we were 30 or 60 or 90 years ago? If the answer is "no", then we have to collectively question how we can, as a nation, export American notions of fundamental political rights when we have shrugged off the duties to our neighbors and community that accompany those rights. For example, we hold dear the notion of freedom of speech, but 30 or 60 or 90 years ago, almost no one would have driven down the street with a car stereo cranked up wailing, "F*** tha' Police!" Today, most people shrug and say that this is protected speech, and like it or not, we should be tolerant of it even if we don't like it. 30 or 60 or 90 years ago, however, the debate would have instead centered not on rights, but on duties...is it responsible to drive down the street doing this? Answer=no--it' s loud and offensive to others who live around you and thus you shouldn't do it, even if you have a right to. Our culture has shifted from one of a balance between rights and duties to one of a bold assertion of rights. So, when people around the world question "American values" perhaps their criticisms are not entirely without merit. If we are talking about exporting our values, then aren't we talking about exporting the whole package, not just the best parts?
7. About 50 years ago our country went down a dangerous path (the Red Scare), so did a country in central Europe about 70 years ago, and so has our country today. In each case, a country was stirred to action by fear of pollution by degenerates from both inside and outside the country, in each case the people were given a message of apocalyptic transformation of their supposedly endangered nation through military action and national solidarity and through leadership that was authoritative and unchallengeable. In each case, rights were taken away from the people and the country was steered down a path that benefitted those in power rather than the people. These regimes occurred not because people didn't think, but precisely because people did think, albeit in an environment that was poisoned by the wrong ideas, ideas that may not have even impacted much of the population on a conscious level initially.
It's part of our human tribal instinct to retreat in situations of fear and seek the protection of those with power, even if that means giving up much that is precious to us to those who wield power. Of course, the sharing of power, and the maintenance of basic human rights is what our Constitution was supposed to establish and protect. Here's to hoping that it still serves that need...
This journalist can talk all he wants about liberty, freedom, equality, and the rule of law but those terms don't mean jack unless they actually describe conditions that exist in our country and are reflected in our behavior towards the rest of the world. And when a journalist writing in 2006, places Washington and Lincoln on a pedestal above current leaders he needs to go back and do a little reading on history. Washington was a staunch loyalist who only flipped sides when the British refused him a commission as a regimental commander in the British Army. In 1776, the year we signed the Declaration of Independence, he kicked all blacks out of the Continental Army and sent them back to slave holders. He was a second-rate general and he almost lost the war in 1776-77 due to his poor strategies. These are not facts they like to stress in the history books. Lincoln came round to the emancipation proclamation o nly after four years of war and only when it became strategically convenient. Before that, the War had been a conflict between northern industrial interests and southern agricultural interests.
(P.S. One thing the author has half correct. We are the most generous country on Earth. We have given literally trillions of dollars in foreign aid over the last few decades. What most people don't realize however, is that the majority of this aid has been in the form of discounted arms sales. Maybe I'm cycnical, but perhaps this isn't the "gift to the world" we want to be our legacy.)
His response was pretty deep and thought provoking so I decided to document it below.
==============================================================
Ardi,
My thoughts are:
1. We have no great leaders today because corporations and special interest groups have bought and sold essentially every politician in Congress, and of any stature in the executive branch. It's not that politicians are less idealistic today than 100 or 200 years ago, it's that corporations and special interest groups are now extremely efficient and very competitive about buying off any available figure in power. The only difference is that 50 or 100 or 200 years ago, there weren't enough corporations and special interest groups around with enough "soft money" to buy off anyone with power. If you are head of the FDA one year, you are on the Board of Pfizer the next. If you are Deputy Secretary of Defense one year, you are on the Board of Boeing the next. That is how things are done in Washington and absent laws that prevent these conflicts of interest this will only intensify. Because the people who make laws to prevent these sort o f conflicts of interest are the ones who benefit by these arrangements, they have no incentives to enact such laws.
2. "Democracy, liberty and freedom." First off, we're not a democracy and never have been. A democracy means a government run by all voting age citizens--participating and making important decisions. The closest, and probably only time, the planet came close to a democracy was fifth-century B.C. Athens when 10% of the adults participated in a "democracy". Technically speaking, our government is an aristocratic (or plutocratic) republic. (note: aristocratic means government by the best or elite, not government by nobility; plutocratic means government by the rich). We're a bit like ancient Rome with TV. Maybe this isn't a bad thing, because as Plato and Edmund Burke both famously pointed out, letting a bunch of uneducated, illogical, easily swayed mobs decide how to run the country might not be the best idea, c.f. The Jerry Springer Show. Even one of the great champions of modern d emocratic ideals, Winston Churchill, said, "Democracy is the worst possible form of government known to man--except for all the others." "Liberty" is a nice catchphrase as well, but "liberty" to do what? Uncoupled from responsibility it means a license to cause whatever harm you like. Ditto for "freedom".
Now in saying this, I'm not bashing America. Our constitution is still a model for the world, and I don't believe any country, in any age, has ever premised its foundation on a plan as fair and comprehensive as ours. But...
3. ...when we talk about "American values", I don't think this has much meaning. It's like saying we have "an awesome vibe" or "great feelings" or "something terrific". "American values" is not a tangible and measurable thing nor does it refer to something tangible and measurable. It's very easy for a politician or partisan pundit or journalist to bandy about the phrase "American values" without ever saying anything of substance. I don't think anyone can make a good argument though that the roughly 10,000 Iraqi civilians that we have killed due to "collateral damage" is a good way to export "American values."
What we ought to be exporting instead is our legal system and our economic system. While free market capitalism has its own shortcomings and inequities, its a hell of a lot better than living in a country with no political rights, no jobs, and a lack of basic necessities.
Of course, exporting our legal system and economic system to other countries--which would improve the lives of the people there--and give them a taste of why Americans think and act in certian ways, i.e. imparting our "values"--does not give us special access to a country's resources, which leads me to...
4. Fact: The value of Dick Cheney's stock options in Halliburton have increased between $10 and $20 million since 2003 as a direct result of the Iraq War. Fact: Cheney proposed invading Iraq the night of the 9/11 attacks. Fact: All CIA intelligence presented to the President supporting or not supporting a war in Iraq was ordered in 2002 to be vetted through the Office of the Vice President first, a role the Vice President had never been involved in during the previous 200+ years of U.S. History. Fact: Halliburton was awarded contracts to rebuild infrastructure in Iraq without having to submit to the standard bidding process. Fact: Halliburton has overbilled the US government and American taxpayers to the tune of over $10 million since 2003. Fact: Halliburton was recently awarded an expanded (again, no bid contract) despite this fraud. Fact: On Spetmeber 2 3, 2003, Cheney said on NBC TV's Meet The Press, "I've severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interest. I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven't had, now, for over three years." Fact: At the time he said this, he had stock options in Halliburton worth $8 million.
Are we really in Iraq in order to export "American values"? I don't think so. Where can you find the startling "secret" facts listed above? The 9/11 Commission Report and various reports from the Government Accounting Office. Are most Americans completely asleep at the switch? Yes.
5. Am I surprised most American are totally asleep at the switch? No. In the past ten years, the FCC has done away with conflict of interest regulations that for decades maintained a somehwat independent news media in this country. This was done under the leadership of FCC Chairman Michael Powell. Perphaps you've heard of his father?--guy by the name of Colin. Instead of hundreds of competing news sources in this country--which we had growing up in the 70's and 80's, we now have a situation where 90% of TV, film and radio and 50% of newspapers are controlled by six large media conglomerates. Of these six large conglomerates, the CEO's of three have created and funded right-wing think tanks. One of these parent corporations also happens to be one of the military's largest suppliers--GE/Westinghouse.
6. So yeah, you can probably gather I am gravely disappointed with US foreign policy over the past several years as well as with rampant corruption in our government, and I think most journalists write what their bosses tell them to write or go hungry. However, the fault probably does not lie entirely with government officials. Plato said in The Republic that there can be no just political order without just citizens. Yet, today citizens of liberal democracies worldwide are much more concerned with how their government functions than the private vices of the citizens within them. Likewise, modern citizens are much more comfortable talking about rights than duties. Put another way, one might say that we are much more concerned with the rights of people, than the capacities of the people with those rights. So when we talk about "American values" it is probably worth questioning what that phrase means. Does it mean the political rights enshrined in our Constitution or does it mean the collective ethical strength (or weakness) of the nation as a whole. Quite simply, are we as ethically honest and willing to sacrifice for the common good as we were 30 or 60 or 90 years ago? If the answer is "no", then we have to collectively question how we can, as a nation, export American notions of fundamental political rights when we have shrugged off the duties to our neighbors and community that accompany those rights. For example, we hold dear the notion of freedom of speech, but 30 or 60 or 90 years ago, almost no one would have driven down the street with a car stereo cranked up wailing, "F*** tha' Police!" Today, most people shrug and say that this is protected speech, and like it or not, we should be tolerant of it even if we don't like it. 30 or 60 or 90 years ago, however, the debate would have instead centered not on rights, but on duties...is it responsible to drive down the street doing this? Answer=no--it' s loud and offensive to others who live around you and thus you shouldn't do it, even if you have a right to. Our culture has shifted from one of a balance between rights and duties to one of a bold assertion of rights. So, when people around the world question "American values" perhaps their criticisms are not entirely without merit. If we are talking about exporting our values, then aren't we talking about exporting the whole package, not just the best parts?
7. About 50 years ago our country went down a dangerous path (the Red Scare), so did a country in central Europe about 70 years ago, and so has our country today. In each case, a country was stirred to action by fear of pollution by degenerates from both inside and outside the country, in each case the people were given a message of apocalyptic transformation of their supposedly endangered nation through military action and national solidarity and through leadership that was authoritative and unchallengeable. In each case, rights were taken away from the people and the country was steered down a path that benefitted those in power rather than the people. These regimes occurred not because people didn't think, but precisely because people did think, albeit in an environment that was poisoned by the wrong ideas, ideas that may not have even impacted much of the population on a conscious level initially.
It's part of our human tribal instinct to retreat in situations of fear and seek the protection of those with power, even if that means giving up much that is precious to us to those who wield power. Of course, the sharing of power, and the maintenance of basic human rights is what our Constitution was supposed to establish and protect. Here's to hoping that it still serves that need...
This journalist can talk all he wants about liberty, freedom, equality, and the rule of law but those terms don't mean jack unless they actually describe conditions that exist in our country and are reflected in our behavior towards the rest of the world. And when a journalist writing in 2006, places Washington and Lincoln on a pedestal above current leaders he needs to go back and do a little reading on history. Washington was a staunch loyalist who only flipped sides when the British refused him a commission as a regimental commander in the British Army. In 1776, the year we signed the Declaration of Independence, he kicked all blacks out of the Continental Army and sent them back to slave holders. He was a second-rate general and he almost lost the war in 1776-77 due to his poor strategies. These are not facts they like to stress in the history books. Lincoln came round to the emancipation proclamation o nly after four years of war and only when it became strategically convenient. Before that, the War had been a conflict between northern industrial interests and southern agricultural interests.
(P.S. One thing the author has half correct. We are the most generous country on Earth. We have given literally trillions of dollars in foreign aid over the last few decades. What most people don't realize however, is that the majority of this aid has been in the form of discounted arms sales. Maybe I'm cycnical, but perhaps this isn't the "gift to the world" we want to be our legacy.)
Thursday, July 13, 2006
The Pain of the Game
I was starting to forget how violent, beautiful, & fun this game can be. Don't worry, the hits don't hurt as bad as they look. I think the most painful moment in this game is when you realize you can't play anymore.
Turn up your sound.
Turn up your sound.
Wednesday, July 5, 2006
Smiley Face
What did you say?
Did you walk or did you run away?
Where are you now?
Where have you been?
Did you come alone or did you bring a friend?
I need to know this
cause I noticed
you're smiling
Out in the sun,
having fun
and feeling free
And I can tell you know how hard this life can be
But you keep on smiling for me
What went right?
What went wrong?
Was it a story or was it a song?
Was it overnight or did it take you long?
Was knowing your weakness what made you strong?
Or all the above, oh how I love to see you smiling
And oh yeah, take a little pain just in case
You need something warm to embrace
To help you put on a smiling face
Dont you go off into the new day with any doubt
Here's a summary of something that you could smile about
Say for instance my girlfiend, she bugs me all the time
But the irony of it all is that she loves me all the time
I want to be you whenever I see you smiling
Because its easily one of the hardest things to do
Your worries and fears become your friends
And they end up smiling at you
Put on a smiley face
- Ceelo
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
I could go on and on and on ...
Basically I'm complicated
I have a hard time taking the easy way
I wouldn't call it schizophrenia
But I'll be at least 2 people today
If that's okay
And I can go on and on and on... but who cares?
It's deep how you can be so shallow
And I'm afraid cause I have no fear
And I didn't believe in magic
Until I watched you disappear
I wish you where here
And I can go on and on and on... but who cares?
You see, everybody is somebody
But nobody wants to be themselves
and If I ever wanted to understand me
I'd have to talk to someone else
Cause every little bit helps
And I can go on and on and on... but who cares?
Feels like
the surreal life
But it's still nice
Wish I could live twice
but I still might
if these bones heal right
I see a little light
though it's still night
And I can go on and on and on... but who cares?
- Ceelo
I have a hard time taking the easy way
I wouldn't call it schizophrenia
But I'll be at least 2 people today
If that's okay
And I can go on and on and on... but who cares?
It's deep how you can be so shallow
And I'm afraid cause I have no fear
And I didn't believe in magic
Until I watched you disappear
I wish you where here
And I can go on and on and on... but who cares?
You see, everybody is somebody
But nobody wants to be themselves
and If I ever wanted to understand me
I'd have to talk to someone else
Cause every little bit helps
And I can go on and on and on... but who cares?
Feels like
the surreal life
But it's still nice
Wish I could live twice
but I still might
if these bones heal right
I see a little light
though it's still night
And I can go on and on and on... but who cares?
- Ceelo
Friday, May 26, 2006
On the political tip
Too bad somalia doesn't have have oil. Otherwise, the poor people of Somalia would have been worthy of liberation too. Just like the poor citizens or Iraq.
Clinton is on crack. Asking oil companies to contribute funds to alternative energy research is like asking right wing bible beaters to contribute funds for new abortion clinics.
Dubyah's puppy bites back. Apparenty he can't even set up a puppet government correctly.
We're no better. Frankly I'm not so sure that we're even the LESSER of 2 evils.
Clinton is on crack. Asking oil companies to contribute funds to alternative energy research is like asking right wing bible beaters to contribute funds for new abortion clinics.
Dubyah's puppy bites back. Apparenty he can't even set up a puppet government correctly.
We're no better. Frankly I'm not so sure that we're even the LESSER of 2 evils.
Crazy
I love the new single by Gnarls Barkley. Ceelo always packs the coolest lyrics since the Goody Mob days.
I remember when I lost my mind
there was something so pleasant about that phase
Even your emotions had an echo
in so much space
And when you're out there
without a care,
Yeah I was out of touch
But it wasn't because I didn't know enough
I just knew too much
Does that make me crazy?
Probably
And I hope that you are having the time of your life
But think twice
that's my only advice
Come on now, who do you think you are?
Ha ha ha bless your soul
You really think you're in control?
Well, I think you're crazy
Just like me
My heroes had the heart to lose their lives out on a limb
and all I remember is thinking was I want to be like them
Ever since I was little, it looked like fun
And it's no coincidence I've come
And I can die when I'm done
Maybe I'm crazy
Maybe you're crazy
Maybe we're crazy
Probably
- Gnarls Barkely
Monday, May 15, 2006
Cheeseburger in Paradise
I just got back from my brother's wedding in Jamaica. What a strange trip. I definitely learned some new lessons on this one.
1) Do NOT travel with children under 3
2) Do NOT stay at resorts in remote places and no fridge in the room
3) Always make sure you have independent transportation (car, bike, motorcycle, etc.)
Miami / Boca
We flew out to Miami last Saturday. The flights from Seattle to Dallas and Dallas to Miami were pretty tough with the kids. Max was very wiggly and didn't want to sit still. Finally got picked up by Gina at the airport. The next day, Justin and I watched our 4 kids while the girls went to some parties and a music festival. After they got back, Justin and I went to Miami for Khasha's bachelor party. We had dinner at Perl and partied on Nikki Beach all night. It was a great time. We drove home at 10:00 am with no sleep and once again watched the kids and played in the pool most of the day while the girls were gone. Took a nap in the afternoon and grilled up some BBQ for dinner in the late afternoon. It was a good feeling. The kids were all running around and entertaining each other in Justin's big house. Slept like a champ that night and took off to Jamaica the next day.
I had a lot of time to chat with Justin on this trip. He's matured a lot and we got pretty deep.
Montego / Negril
Our arrival in Jamaica got off to a rocky start. I got swindled by a porter who grabbed my bags while I was wrestling with the kids' stroller and moved our stuff 30 yards and asked for a tip. Then I got yelled at by a customs agent for tipping the porter. I guess you're not supposed to. I wonder why the porter didn't get yelled at for asking for tip? Strange set up. They we get shuttle to our car rental place since it's not actually at the airport. They didn't have the car seats we had requested. I should mention that I'm very proud of Jen for not freaking out and riding in the car without car seats.
When we get to our resort/hotel I once again get hijacked by a porter while talking to the lady at the front desk. I'm fiercely independent (almost to a fault) and get extremely irritated when folks open doors for me or carry me bags or offer any other services which I really don't want/need. But to have it forced on me agitates exponentially. Of course I didn't want to come off as a cheap-skate so I just let the poor bastard roll our luggage up to the room.
The next couple of days were spent swimming in the pool or ocean with the kids and going to rehearsal dinners, family functions, etc. All this was done in between and while negotiating bouts of vomiting and diarrhea by Max.
I should mention another lesson learned/observation here. Our first few days in Miami/Montego Max was his usual hyper healthy self. We was either sprinting down the airport isles, fearlessly diving into pools despite lack of floatation devices or ability to swim, or practicing his WWF moves on mommy and daddy while sitting in airplanes. All this required me to be in 24/7 alert mode. I was constantly running, jumping, lifting and didn't have a moment's peace. I was proud of his vigor but kept complaining about the fact that I could not relax for one single moment. Around day 5 Max got sick and severely dehydrated. He would spend the day lying in bed with half glazed look on his face. It tore me apart. I felt terrible for whining and complaining about his hyperness and wished for it to come back as soon as possible. I learned a lesson. Some of life's challenges are unrecognized blessings.
I got to meet Rachel's family and really liked them. They seem genuine, passionate, and direct. There is no guile or posturing in them and they love Khasha.
The Big Day
The wedding was beautiful. Like a true warrior Max resurrected himself long enough to attend the wedding and do his part as ring bearer (he was back to sick the next day). He was dressed in white pants, blue shirt, and black sandals like all the other grooms men. Riley looked like a dream in her flower-girl and floral tiara. The photos were during the mid-day sun and holding and wrestling with Max got us both hot and sweaty. The kids were all over the place during the wedding. Riley stepped on Rachel's head dress and yanked her head back. Max cried towards the end and was all over the place the rest of the time. Everyone thought it was cute but I was sweating it a bit. The dinner and reception was a lot of fun. Max fell asleep in a gym bag.
Last Day
We decided to go to Negril the next day but Jen got scared when she heard news of violence around the Island. So we went to the Ritz but Max pooped all over himself and me so we went back to the hotel to clean up and let him get some rest. I took off with a group of the guys and went to Negril. We had a fun adventure getting there and jumped off the famous Rick's Cliff. We also played some volleyball at Alfred's beach bar. It was a good day. I got an earful from Jen when I got back for leaving her in the room with the kids all day.
2 more lessons learned:
1) I LOVE my home
2) My job is a peaceful refuge.
1) Do NOT travel with children under 3
2) Do NOT stay at resorts in remote places and no fridge in the room
3) Always make sure you have independent transportation (car, bike, motorcycle, etc.)
Miami / Boca
We flew out to Miami last Saturday. The flights from Seattle to Dallas and Dallas to Miami were pretty tough with the kids. Max was very wiggly and didn't want to sit still. Finally got picked up by Gina at the airport. The next day, Justin and I watched our 4 kids while the girls went to some parties and a music festival. After they got back, Justin and I went to Miami for Khasha's bachelor party. We had dinner at Perl and partied on Nikki Beach all night. It was a great time. We drove home at 10:00 am with no sleep and once again watched the kids and played in the pool most of the day while the girls were gone. Took a nap in the afternoon and grilled up some BBQ for dinner in the late afternoon. It was a good feeling. The kids were all running around and entertaining each other in Justin's big house. Slept like a champ that night and took off to Jamaica the next day.
I had a lot of time to chat with Justin on this trip. He's matured a lot and we got pretty deep.
Montego / Negril
Our arrival in Jamaica got off to a rocky start. I got swindled by a porter who grabbed my bags while I was wrestling with the kids' stroller and moved our stuff 30 yards and asked for a tip. Then I got yelled at by a customs agent for tipping the porter. I guess you're not supposed to. I wonder why the porter didn't get yelled at for asking for tip? Strange set up. They we get shuttle to our car rental place since it's not actually at the airport. They didn't have the car seats we had requested. I should mention that I'm very proud of Jen for not freaking out and riding in the car without car seats.
When we get to our resort/hotel I once again get hijacked by a porter while talking to the lady at the front desk. I'm fiercely independent (almost to a fault) and get extremely irritated when folks open doors for me or carry me bags or offer any other services which I really don't want/need. But to have it forced on me agitates exponentially. Of course I didn't want to come off as a cheap-skate so I just let the poor bastard roll our luggage up to the room.
The next couple of days were spent swimming in the pool or ocean with the kids and going to rehearsal dinners, family functions, etc. All this was done in between and while negotiating bouts of vomiting and diarrhea by Max.
I should mention another lesson learned/observation here. Our first few days in Miami/Montego Max was his usual hyper healthy self. We was either sprinting down the airport isles, fearlessly diving into pools despite lack of floatation devices or ability to swim, or practicing his WWF moves on mommy and daddy while sitting in airplanes. All this required me to be in 24/7 alert mode. I was constantly running, jumping, lifting and didn't have a moment's peace. I was proud of his vigor but kept complaining about the fact that I could not relax for one single moment. Around day 5 Max got sick and severely dehydrated. He would spend the day lying in bed with half glazed look on his face. It tore me apart. I felt terrible for whining and complaining about his hyperness and wished for it to come back as soon as possible. I learned a lesson. Some of life's challenges are unrecognized blessings.
I got to meet Rachel's family and really liked them. They seem genuine, passionate, and direct. There is no guile or posturing in them and they love Khasha.
The Big Day
The wedding was beautiful. Like a true warrior Max resurrected himself long enough to attend the wedding and do his part as ring bearer (he was back to sick the next day). He was dressed in white pants, blue shirt, and black sandals like all the other grooms men. Riley looked like a dream in her flower-girl and floral tiara. The photos were during the mid-day sun and holding and wrestling with Max got us both hot and sweaty. The kids were all over the place during the wedding. Riley stepped on Rachel's head dress and yanked her head back. Max cried towards the end and was all over the place the rest of the time. Everyone thought it was cute but I was sweating it a bit. The dinner and reception was a lot of fun. Max fell asleep in a gym bag.
Last Day
We decided to go to Negril the next day but Jen got scared when she heard news of violence around the Island. So we went to the Ritz but Max pooped all over himself and me so we went back to the hotel to clean up and let him get some rest. I took off with a group of the guys and went to Negril. We had a fun adventure getting there and jumped off the famous Rick's Cliff. We also played some volleyball at Alfred's beach bar. It was a good day. I got an earful from Jen when I got back for leaving her in the room with the kids all day.
2 more lessons learned:
1) I LOVE my home
2) My job is a peaceful refuge.
Monday, May 1, 2006
The Truth About 9/11
CLICK HERE FOR THE TRUTH
I'm not really sure where to start or what to say after seeing this. Although there's nothing here that I didn't already know or suspect, the culmination of the facts and detailed data is astounding. This isn't the liberal media twisting the truth. These are not the rantings of a whiney Democrat angry about not getting his way.
Forget what you believe in. Forget whose side you're on. Look at the facts and ask yourself. Is it all BS? Is the altenative explanation provided by the government MORE plausible? I'll shut up now. Take some time. Tune in. And really pay attention. Check out these 3 videos on the truth about 9/11 and what really happened at the WTC.
CLICK HERE FOR THE TRUTH
I'm not really sure where to start or what to say after seeing this. Although there's nothing here that I didn't already know or suspect, the culmination of the facts and detailed data is astounding. This isn't the liberal media twisting the truth. These are not the rantings of a whiney Democrat angry about not getting his way.
Forget what you believe in. Forget whose side you're on. Look at the facts and ask yourself. Is it all BS? Is the altenative explanation provided by the government MORE plausible? I'll shut up now. Take some time. Tune in. And really pay attention. Check out these 3 videos on the truth about 9/11 and what really happened at the WTC.
CLICK HERE FOR THE TRUTH
Riches to Rags
Ever notice how clothes have a way of getting demoted? Some people throw clothes away but I usually keep them around for sentimental or practical reasons. I was mowing the lawn the other day and I happened to glance down at the old, ripped up hiking boots I usually wear for yard work. I started to think about all the clothes that we wear during important or epic times in our lives and how years later, they become demoted to the basement like Milton in Office Space. Then it occurred to me that maybe it's not the clothes that get demoted. Maybe it's the owner’s life that evolves into a catatonic abyss and the clothes follow the owner's demise.
Here's my list of the top clothing downfalls of all time:
- The boots that braved the Amazon rainforest now mow the lawn.
- The fleece that climbed Machu Pichu now takes the kids on Sunday morning strolls.
- The shorts that partied on the beaches of Ibiza now go to the gym.
- The jeans that rolled at all-night raves now roll around in rat poo under crawl spaces and are not even allowed in the house
- The gloves that saved fingers in Fernies 20 below cold snap now pull weeds.
- The shirt won at the city championship game now crawls under the car for oil changes.
So what does this all mean? Heck, I don't know. Probably that I'm too immature to accept adulthood and choose to whine about it in this blog. Just be thankful I'm not bitching about my lower back.
Here's my list of the top clothing downfalls of all time:
- The boots that braved the Amazon rainforest now mow the lawn.
- The fleece that climbed Machu Pichu now takes the kids on Sunday morning strolls.
- The shorts that partied on the beaches of Ibiza now go to the gym.
- The jeans that rolled at all-night raves now roll around in rat poo under crawl spaces and are not even allowed in the house
- The gloves that saved fingers in Fernies 20 below cold snap now pull weeds.
- The shirt won at the city championship game now crawls under the car for oil changes.
So what does this all mean? Heck, I don't know. Probably that I'm too immature to accept adulthood and choose to whine about it in this blog. Just be thankful I'm not bitching about my lower back.
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