Missing the point

This morning the LA Times editorialized Obama's choice of Rick Warren to offer the invocation at his inauguration, saying something to the effect that it's just a prayer.

The Times missed the point. This is a missed opportunity, and it's a bad choice. While it may certainly be true that a president and her pastor may disagree on all sorts of issues, the historical record to which the Times turns does not include clergy people who are fresh off an anti-human rights campaign. Warren actively campaigned for proposition 8. That's his right, of course. But by choosing Warren to play a very public role in his inauguration, Obama cast doubt on his own rhetoric.

It's a shame. There are many of us who were hoping for change. There are many of us who are disappointed.

As for Warren...give me a break. The guy agrees with James Dobson on just about everything. He just does it in sheep's clothing.

UGH! What's he thinking?

So, is this part of that "crossing boundaries" thing that the President Elect spoke of? Because if it is, it may be a boundary that's not worth crossing.

This morning it was announced that Rick Warren, Senior Pastor at an Orange County (CA) megachurch, would be offering the invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration. Interesting.

Yes, he hosted Obama and McCain during the election for what some say was a move at inclusion. And yes, he's been moving his church toward the center--at least when it comes to certain issues. But what is also true is that his church was part of the "Yes on 8" campaign that recently voted to strip millions of Californians of their right to marry.

It's no small issue, and there are a lot of people who aren't very happy.

I can understand that, given that there are hundreds of qualified clergy out there who haven't confused their personal religious beliefs with the "will of God" and recognized that treating people differently under the law for whatever reason is not the American way. Why not choose one of them?

Or why choose anyone, for that matter? Are we really still in a place where we have to have someone stand and mumble some words that most people will ignore to invite and/or placate a God about whom we do not agree? What's the point?

The worst invention EVER.....

OK, so maybe I'm just venting after driving the freeway on this rainy day...but maybe it's more than that.

I think the automobile is the WORST invention ever, and here's why:

1) It creates the illusion that we are our own little islands. Cars give us the feeling that we're independent of others, and that we have control. Cars create the illusion of autonomy and exacerbate the ludicrous American notion of independence.

2) The automobile keeps us so separate from the humanity of other people that we somehow feel free to cuss out total strangers, say things about their mothers that probably aren't true, blurt out expletives that we would NEVER say were anyone listening, and in general behave badly.

3) The automobile is built around the illusion that we are separate from the environment and that this separation has no cost. But it has a HUGE cost. Cars are destroying our environment. To build them we rob the earth of resources. To run them we rob the earth of resources. To build them we pollute the environment. To run them we pollute the environment. And when we're done with them, we somehow believe that they just magically go away...but they don't...they rust and rot and pollute even more!

4) The automobile is created by an industry that is now in jeopardy of failing, possibly causing great economic harm to many many people. In other words, the automobile is responsible for building an economic house of cards that's built on non-sustainability. It's all about to come tumbling down, and there's not a lot we can do about it.

5) The automobile is a killer. That's right, a killer. Think about all the gruesome highway deaths that have been the result of the need for each of us to have our own, independent way of getting around. Sure, people die on trains and planes too...but check the percentages...it's SO much safer to take the train or fly...

6) And while I'm ranting about mass transit, the automobile killed that too. LA and environs was home to one of the finest mass transit systems in the country...that is until the automobile killed it. The rights of way are still there for the most part...but will we use them? Not while we keep deluding ourselves into thinking that cars are a good thing!

7) The automobile has us over a barrel--and not just an oil barrel. (Prices have come down, for now, but how long will that last? And even if the price stays low, what part of LIMITED SUPPLY are we missing?????). The OTHER barrel is the one that has many of us living in places that are only habitable because we own cars. Too far from a store, or anything else that represents civilization, there are an awful lot of folks who will be S.O.L. on the day there are no longer cars to drive. We call them "suburbanites."

I'm done for now...but I don't think the conversation is over. In fact, I think it's only just begun.

Jon Stewart!

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The Real Crisis in America

Here's the sad reality of American consumerism: a death all too real--and symbolic of what things have come to:

"A Wal-Mart employee in Long Island, New York died after being trampled to death by a mob of shoppers on Friday, the traditional first day of the holiday shopping season. The 34-year-old worker Jdimytai Damour was killed after a crowd of 2,000 broke down store doors and ran over him shortly before the store"s schedule 5 a.m. opening. Four shoppers were injured in the stampede. Nassau County police were trying to determine what happened during the stampede, but said it was unclear if there would be any criminal charges." (from Democracy Now website: democracynow.org)

No matter how you paint the current economic crisis in America, the corpse of a Walmart worker bears the truth: it's all been built on a platform of consumer spending, artificial hype and a false assumption of "value." What else could account for the fact that a horde of shoppers (who probably all think of themselves as very nice people...some of them probably even go to church!) could trample to DEATH a human being so that they could get a blender for $5? (a blender just like the one they could have purchased at their neighbor's yard sale last week for $2!).

And what's worse....people didn't stop. When it became clear that something had gone terribly wrong (hmmm...what gave it away, the fact that the crowd ripped the door off the store and shattered the glass? Or maybe it was the fact that there had been an attack on that line earlier, one for which the police had to be called?) they just kept on pushing. That cheap TV, that blender, that toaster, that WHATEVER, was more important than a human life. Even when it became clear that the store had become a crime scene, people continued to rush around looking for bargains.

Have we no shame?

It is the marketplace at work. It is profits before people. It is senseless global profit-seeking on behalf of absentee stockholders. It is "trickle down" economics in all its naked glory.

It is insanity.

Such talent!

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

Really, Mr. Goldberg?

Nice try....no, really.

In case you haven't seen it, this morning's LA Times (December 2, 2008) printed a column by the venerable Jonah Goldberg in which he likens an anti-prop 8 ad that featured Mormon missionaries to antisemitism and anti-Muslim propaganda. In the column, he lambastes "gay-rights groups" for running a "scorched-earth campaign." (link: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-goldberg2-2008dec02,0,6411205.column).

Of course the problem with Mr. Goldberg's argument is that, somehow, we're supposed to muster sympathy for the Mormons and agree with him that the gay community is liberal, white, and wealthy (ie, not really the underdog). The elusive truth (at least to conservatives, it seems) is that the gay population of the United States is not representative of "Hollywood liberals" (that's right, whenever you want to win popular opinion to your side, start talkin' 'bout them thar Hollywood types!), can hardly be described as wealthy (another stereotype...studies have shown that the gay community is not wealthier than average, nor does it have power elites in its pocket, as has been suggested). True, the emerging voice of the pro-gay agenda (which, arguably, is pro-everyone, because it represents equality for ALL citizens, no matter what their religious conviction or affiliation), has been represented by white people with money. But is that any different than in any OTHER part of the socio-political sphere?

It seems that Mr. Goldberg has managed to turn this whole thing around and point fingers at those whose rights were being attacked in the first place. It wasn't the anti-prop 8 people who put this question before the voters. It was, in actuality, people (including Mormons) who hoped that, by simple majority, the rights of the minority could be removed. Tsk, tsk....

History has proven, over and over, that the majority will not necessarily do the "right" thing, that progress toward "liberty and justice for all" does not necessarily happen in the voting booth. When the gauntlet is thrown down, what else can those who are threatened with second-class citizenship really do but fight back?

It's true, the ad that parodied Mormon missionaries wasn't really fair. But would anyone really say that all those ads from the pro-prop 8 campaign (funded, in good measure, by Mormons whose church TOLD them how to vote!) were FAIR?

I'd agree, Mr. Goldberg, that "gay marriage is likely inevitable." I also know that it won't happen if those whose rights are being trampled upon don't rise up and fight. It's easy for those who enjoy the full rights and freedoms of their citizenship to somehow make this about themselves. But no matter how much those on the conservative side of things might wish to be defined as the victims, it just ain't so.