The Story Told Differently

First off, I realize this post might come off as odd. For starters, it is an actual post. Who would've thought it was still possible for me to post twice in one day? More importantly, though, I think it may surprise a few people.

I've long heard, and probably even said once or twice, the maxim that goes something like "if only we told the story differently . . . " E.g., "If only we Democrats could frame the issues better, use positive language, etc. we might win more elections"; or, as I'm sure some of the readers of this blog have wondered or said aloud, "If only Christians weren't such distended assholes, the faith always be treated like bullshit nobody (not even the faithful) really believes." There is, of course, an obvious logic to this kind of thinking. Without it, where would all our marketing gurus be today? But logic only ever goes so far for me. I can't help but wonder: is it possible for an actually existing (versus hypothetical) faith to finally and fully override and overrule either (a) what one would like their faith to be, or (b) what one would like to think this faith used to be?

That is to say, what would it mean for the truest manifestations of the faith (be it religious or political) to be boiled down to the simple formula: "the story told differently"? What if this manifestation of the faith is, for lack of a better word, a singularity; or, to be more "prophetic," miraculous? Is it still possible, in this apparently post-liberal age, to use the same language and forms of a faith (e.g., the Bible, the sacraments, the liturgy, etc.), but for this use of language & form to be recontextualized? What I'm talking about is not a return to liberalism -- for instance, the transformation of the traditional gospel of orthodoxy to the social gospel of Enlightenment values, and thus of traditional concepts of redemption and judgment to the terms of social justice (although I'm not opposed in principle to this transformation). Rather, what I'm wondering about is the relationship of speaking and living the faith & truth: is it still possible to speak of the faith in such a way that the opposition between "story told well" and the "story told badly" makes no sense? Why? Because the story told truthfully is in-built with an intensity that makes it impossible to "frame" (and thus to circumscribe) but also impossible to silence -- i.e., that speaks itself in truth simultaneously in spite of & because of its particular context/language/form.

Which is to say, in short, what if there are no "better" stories, or "better" versions (and thus more compelling versions) of the truth? Only stories/versions that perpetually call forth the truth that is worth listening to and speaking -- the story told differently, that truth which effectively destroys it form, perhaps on a Cross, and thus all one expects and knows of it, perhaps like a god, in order that it might be reimagined into something neither qualitatively "better" or "worse," as this assumes some standard by which we judge it; but rather & simply something worth being listened to and spoken yet again, a listening & speaking in faith that is, finally, the only true act: that of creation.

Full Time

I just realized something that is a little astonishing: this week I'm working forty (paid, non-research) hours for the first since 1997!!

A Month Later ....

A Month Later . . .

It really does not feel like a month (over a month, even!) since I last posted here at my poor, neglected blog, Silentio. The very thing that kept me going through many a day and evening back in Glasgow, the sole connection I had with so many of you back in the States, becomes the one thing I ignore the most upon my return. I'd like to think this is because I personally see and/or talk to my readers. While this is true of a few of you, I imagine it is not of most. Alas.

A weird couple of days. A banal embodiment of coincidentia oppositorum, for those of you inclined toward either the philosophical or the Latin. On the very day that I received in the mail my doctoral diploma, I also received official correspondence from the British Academy indicating that I was not awarded one of their postdoctoral grants -- which would've sent me back to Britain for another three years of research and writing (this time, w/ a salary!). Before I continue w/ extra bits of this and that, I should also point out that my grant application was awarded an "A," which means, so they say, that if money was available I should receive it. Whatever, we know what it really means: my application (but not me, because I refuse to take it personally) was a Grade A Reject. So be it.

Moving on. So, the day that hearkens back to those great years spent abroad but that also cuts any imminent return, K. is told that she is getting a pretty substantial promotion that will require her (and, thus, us) to move in about six months. The thing is, we know not where. And will not know for a few more months. An imminent move refused ... an imminent move granted. A move that would send us forward by moving us back to a place we know (& I love) ... a move that would send us forward by moving us to, in all likelihood, parts unknown. Still not entirely sure what to think of this.

But, nevertheless, congratulations to K. She deserves it.

"Organic" on the Cheap

Not too long ago, I wrote a post about "eating well." It was surprisingly well-received even beyond the confines of this blog. Since then I've had several very interesting conversations about various alternatives & solutions to, by all accounts, our food crisis. One of the most common solutions, certainly here in the States, is to make more healthy food more widely available by virtue of it being inexpensive. This perspective, one would assume, would welcome Wal-Mart's decision to start selling organic food, in bulk & at low costs. Healthy food to the masses! Yay!

If you'll recall from that original post, though, I was very sceptical that capitalism would be our savior on this one. I remain so.

Angel of History

I'd forgotten how much I loved this passage. So dark. So true.

This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such a violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress. (W. Benjamin, On the Concept of History, Thesis IX)

Purity (Blue) Ball

Via Mark Morford I only just learned something that depresses me only because it doesn't surprise me: Purity Balls. Morford's description is better than I can offer at the moment:

Purity Balls. No, not some sort of newfangled spherical chastity device to be inserted using vacuum tubes and pulleys, but rather fancy creepy dress-up rituals taking place in towns like Colorado Springs and Tucson and Zoloft Jesusville, in which Christian dads rent a bad tux while their daughters, mostly teenagers but many as young as 6 or 7, get all dolled up in gowns from JCPenny and they all drive out to the airport Marriott and prepare to, well, lose their minds.

It begins. At some point the daughter stands up, her pale arms wrapped around her daddy, and reads aloud a formal pledge that she will remain forever pure and virginal and sex-free until she is handed over, by her dad (who is actually called the "high priest" of the home), like some sort of sad hymenic gift, to her husband, who will receive her like the sanitized and overprotected and libidinously inept servant she so very much is. Praise!

Would that I were making this up.

The dad -- er, high priest -- in turn, stands up and reads his pledge, one stating that he will work to protect his daughter's virginal purity that he has so carefully and wickedly drilled into her since birth, since she was knee-high to a disturbing dogma, that he will protect her chastity and oversee it and help enforce its boundaries, which might or might not involve great amounts of rage and confusion and secret stashes of cheap scotch, although his pledge claims it's with honor and integrity and lots of bewildering Godspeak. Which, in many households, is essentially the same thing.

Really, what can you say to something like this? I mean, it's hardly surprising, depravity with the best of intentions, but sweet Jesus, people, c'mon! I'm sorry, but NOT having sex, not even waiting until marriage, is NOT necessarily healthy sex. It's not unhealthy either, mind you. Healthy sex is that which doesn't kill you, or cause you to kill somebody else (i.e., emotionally, psychologically, physically, etc.). What about "spiritually," though, the Christian moralist squeals? Look, for one, if you want to get spiritual about it, the flesh is already dead -- sex in or out of marriage doesn't change that. It's a fleshly act that creates fleshly (& squishy) pleasure and children, mixed w/ the endorphins that make us sometimes feel out-of-body if it was especially good. There's nothing wrong this, and count me among the masses who love it ... but it certainly isn't pure, at least not in the sense implied by the intention to store your daughter's genitals, in some lame form of female circumcision, in a safety deposit box until she's married.

Eating Well

My desire to eat well is not altogether different from my desire to be religious. I do think there is a value to both, but I do not typically have the will to truly accomplish either. The flesh, as it were, is weak. I'd like to be able to differentiate the two. That is, I'd like to fashion a religious piety that makes my weakness a strength, and thus provides me with some kind of redemption. As it is, though, I am increasingly having a hard time fathoming such a redemption without a commitment to eating well.

What does it mean to eat well? For most of us, it is just a matter of eating healthy -- of balancing the bad stuff we put in our body with good stuff; or, even better, putting in our body more good stuff than bad stuff. In this sense, "healthy" presupposes either a state of equilibrium or an appropriate ratio (of good stuff to bad) to be the ideal, the result of which being that one lives a longer and/or more (mentally & physically) productive life. In my mind, this is only one part of eating well. Or, perhaps we frame it more positively: this is the general structure of eating well. When we get more specific, though, we find that eating well, eating healthy, cannot simply be about me & mine eating well/eating healthy. Rather, in order to keep eating well, to make it a habit that allows & animates life, eating well must be extended beyond me -- to others, to every other. This is precisely because of the interconnectedness of human existence: as much as we might like to think our health & well-being is ours alone, it is in a give-and-take relationship with & through the activities of others -- and thus, their health & well-being, as well. (Not to mention the fact that the truest measure of life, that which happens after it is over, after we've died, and thus even the truest measure of the "afterlife," is what we leave behind, the results of our [the plural] eating well.) Eating well, then, is more than counting calories & carbs; it is more than avoiding nuts if you're allergic to them. It is more than making sure you get enough iron & protein. It is, in short, more than insuring you & yours have all the vitamins necessary to live long & vital lives. It is, rather, having the will to insure that others have the capacity to do (& thus to will) this as well.

If this is true, eating well is perhaps the most revolutionary, radical action possible. The most unthinkable, even, what for the ever-present first-world dominance over food cultivation & distribution. In the name of profitability, we are sold (and gladly purchase) cheaper, typically less healthy, goods, which all too often not only inject us with the poisons that kill us, the consumers, but also kill the laborers who are paid to grow & produce it, by forcing them to abandon their natural sources & markets of subsistence.

I really want to eat well, as much as I want to believe in miracles, in beginnings that never stop & that thus change the social fabric & our conception of what is possible and what is not. I really do, and yet I still do not. Where, then, to begin?

If There Was Any Doubt

I can't believe we're at this point again -- the point where I have to protest an apparently inevitable war. This is just so fucking absurd, it is beyond belief. War ... against Iran? Seriously. Another one? *sigh*

Well. I can't do it. Not today. I'm not in the mood (more on that in a post later). Good thing there's Matthew Yglesias to run down the many reasons even considering this is beyond stupid.

Release the Hound of Hell!!

Most of you know this already, but for those of you who do not, there is a new addition to our humble family. Her name is Ireland, and terror follows in her wake. Truly. She is a thing to be feared -- in both the sense of her awesome majesty and of her power to kill you in an instant. She is not to be messed with. Granted, she'll do it without barking or growling, and possibly with a lick on the nose. Oh, but those are but a part of her charade. She is evil incarnate. Believe me. She will destroy us all.

That is, once she wakes up from her nap under my desk.

Update: I just cannot resist one final picture. I know, I know. What have I become? But, I cannot help myself.

Local Blogging

It's good to see that the Cincinnati City Council is on the verge of taking one further step to insuring the city maintains its reputation as the Unhip Capital of the Midwest.

Proving yet again that it is a powerhouse of a newspaper, the Enquirer doesn't actually spell out City Councilman Cecil Thomas' plan. Fortunately, Citybeat does:

A person caught in Ohio with less than 100 grams of marijuana is charged with a minor misdemeanor, which entails a $100 ticket. Thomas is proposing an ordinance that would make possession of less than 200 grams a first-degree misdemeanor, with a maximum sentence of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

I'm no pothead. Nor do I sell pot. But I have a really hard time seeing how this is supposed to keep guns off the street, or protect the 'hood. When your shit is threatened, you become a threat. So I was told, in so many words, by a friend who likely sold and used pot. Which is to say, guns would seem more likely as a result of this. Not to mention, of course, it's just another way to appear tough on crime by bloating the jails with poor people.

Maybe I'll Just Call This Movie-Week

If you've not yet seen Caché, I highly recommend you do so. Granted, I had to drive thirty minutes to my town's "other" arthouse cinema, but it was worth it. I was going to write an assessment of it, but Steven Shaviro has done it for me over at his blog.

An excerpt, but the whole thing is fantastic:

We are made to feel guilty and complicitous, while at the same time we are given no way out from this position, and no release even from our own being safe because of the unquestioned privileges that people less fortunate than us do not have. Indeed, we are shielded from consequences because we are, after all, watching a film, this is not happening directly to us in "real life." Despite the fact that "real life" itself is revealed by Caché to be no more (as well as no less) "real" than a video. Which means that, whatever we understand intellectually, on the affective level we end up sharing Georges' self-protective sense of unquestioned privilege, as well as his sense of guilt.

In this way, Caché simultaneously abuses and flatters its audience. And I think that the flattery (rather than the abuse) is the nastiest thing about the film. From a political point of view, after all, guilt is just about the most worthless and useless affect/emotion there is. Nobody has ever questioned their privilege, or even done anything decent, out of guilt. Oh, lots of white people "identify" with "minorities" out of guilt, or give to charity (Live 8, anyone?), or mutter pious platitudes and express their support for "identity politics" of various sorts, which allows them to be self-congratulatory about how radical they are, when in fact they aren't. Indeed, many people of power and privilege positively get off on being made to feel guilty, whether it is the oft-repeated apocryphal story of wealthy CEOs getting release by being abused by a dominatrix, or the more common everyday spectacle of white suburbanites feeling cleansed after getting a good scolding (followed by absolution) from Oprah (or white people with more intellectual/political pretensions getting a good scolding from bell hooks). I do not claim to be exempt from this whole process.

And this is exactly what Caché does to/for its viewers. Or better, it indeed exposes this mechanism of flattery-through-guilt; but without offering any escape from it, and even without quite criticizing or critiquing it. As if that were just the way it is: which indeed, it is. This is what the obvious question about Haneke's own position comes down to. (Is he claiming exemption from the condition that he otherwise shows to be universal among people of privilege? Well, yes and no. That's an evasion, of course, but the evasion itself is the point). What's most powerful about the film is that it not only decrees guilt, but cranks the guilt up to a self-reflexive level: the guilt is reduced or managed by the flattery and privilege that we retain while observing all this; but such a meta-understanding itself creates a new, higher-order sense of guilt, which in turn is cushioned by a new, higher-order sense of self-congratulation as to our superior insight, which in turn is an unquestioned privilege that, when comprehended, leads to a yet-higher-level meta-sense of guilt, and so on ad infinitum. There's complete blockage, no escape from this unending cycle. The experience of the film is one both of self-disgust and of a liberation, through aestheticization, from this self-disgust. The latter is what makes Caché truly insidious. . . .

There's a long shot/long take at the very end of the film, in which -- foregrounded in no way, so it is easy to miss -- amidst a whole crowd of people doing all sorts of things, we see some sort of contact between two of the minor characters . . . that suggests even new levels of complicity and uncertainty. I think that this only reinforces the film's overall coldly delirious deadlock. The more explaining we need to do, the more we are trapped in the film's (and society's) self-reflexive spiral of guilt and privilege. The film offers no way out, because it never breaks with its sense of privilege, no matter how unwarranted it shows that privilege to be. The creepiness of finding oneself under surveillance, the creepiness of seeing a marriage break down into mutual vicious recriminations, is nothing compared to the creepiness of realizing that one still has one's shield of privilege despite these intrusions, and that the facade of bourgeois marriage will survive everything that's going on underneath.

More About Movies

To prove that I'm not just some big cynic for disliking Crash, I thought I'd repost something I wrote for another blog.

So, I went and saw Brokeback Mountain the other day. I mean, why not. I figured, what self-respecting otherwise heterosexual academic doesn't have one or two, or a dozen, 'conference buddies'?

Actually, I went in with a very bad attitude. Cynical, one might say. Surely, I thought, this is just the "liberal" version of the Passion of the Christ [ed. In hindsight, maybe this was Crash]. That is, the movie we liberals are supposed to support, even if its rubbish. Even though we know its rubbish. (Because, let's not be mistaken, the story of Jesus getting the shit kicked out of him wasn't particularly interesting either.) My thought was that the homosexual cowboy thing, while not entirely contrived, because I'm sure it happened often enough back in the cowboy days, was mostly just to jar our expectations of either homosexuals or cowboys, a jolt made all the more explicit by the juxtaposition of their bourgeois heterosexual relationships, with the intention of making us all better, more accepting individuals.

Now, does the movie do this? Yeah. Undoubtedly. And yet -- and perhaps this is why I resist being finally identified as a cynic, because I do not think our critiques can ever stop there, but rather we must go through cynicism, in order that we might find something more, for lack of a better time, human -- Brokeback Mountain is more. A common assessment is that the movie is heartbreaking. And it is. Devastatingly, in fact. Relationships, and not just the homosexual one, are delicately portrayed in all their human, and thus often dissatisfying and uncomfortable, complexity.

Last year, the supposed celebration of monogamy in March of the Penguin was hailed as the mark of true family families. Fuck those cute penguins, though. The family values of Brokeback Mountain are the family values I know. Granted, I've not (yet) known anybody who had a gay lover while being married, but I've known plenty of people who loved their kids but didn't know how to show it until just nearly the kid didn't want that love anymore. I know people who love being together, as a couple or a community, but don't actually love one another. And I know a helluva lot about loving people I cannot have, either because of either internal or external pressures (or a mixture of both). The movie, more than a celebration of tolerance, is a celebration of love as frailty.

In love we do not simply make ourselves stronger, or more truly ourselves; indeed, if we become ourselves at all in love, and I think we do, we do so only in weakness and brokenness. (Is this, I wonder, some bastardized Gnostic notion of love?) Perhaps this is why in most long-term relationships there are periods of forgetfulness, or even flat denials that "I don't love you anymore." And perhaps those relationships that last are those that do not so much remember the past, or beckon its return, but actually find a certain, maybe but momentary, sublime awareness and acceptance that the person I love now is not, and cannot be, the same person I fell in love with.

I don't know that it should've won Best Picture. Correction: I don't care which movie wins Best Picture. Just saying ... I'm not hating on Crash for the reasons a lot of you might be thinking.

On Crash

Maybe I'm obtuse. Maybe I'm just not racially sensitive enough. Maybe I for some reason just miss the fine art of making movies. But I really do not get the fuss over this movie. Didn't get it when I saw it several months ago; and do not get it now, as I watch the cast and crew celebrate their Oscar win. Far too easy a moral ... far too lazy a story. Shrug.

You Really Can't Believe Me. Honestly, I Make a Lot of Stuff Up

Let me preface this by saying something unequivocal and untainted by qualification: I really don't like kids. Okay, having said that, let me equivocate and add a couple of qualifications. (1) I really don't like kids that make me realize how much I hate the idea of ever having any; (2) I really don't like kids that stare at me while I'm eating; and (3) I really don't like kids that don't like me.

By and large, nobody thinks it's a good idea that I ever be a parent. While the jury is still out in the minds of many whether K. would make a good parent, with most being won over by how much she genuinely seems to like most kids, a good 90% of friends polled are simply horrified at the thought of me being a father. (This was confirmed in a conversation with two such friends last night.)

This has got me thinking, though. Is "proving people wrong" a valid reason for trying to have a kid? I mean ... isn't that just as valid as, "oops, I guess that forgotten pill was a big deal"? I mean, sure, women have the biological-clock thing going for them. But, really, biology? A natural urge to be a mother? If that's all you have in your motivation bag, then don't come talking to me about the "miracle" of childbirth -- at that point, your child is as natural as a turd.

Now, before I'm attacked by the legion of mothers who undoubtedly read this blog, I'm not comparing anybody's child to a piece of crap. Near as I can remember, none of your kids have stared at me while I'm eating; and most have no reason to hate me, but certainly every reason to be happily oblivious to my existence. No ... my point is simply that everybody has an underlying motivation for wanting to have a baby. This talk of biological need to have a child, to breed, is far too animalistic and primal for me to think anybody actually believes it on the level of biology alone. I won't begin to speculate as to what the "real" reasons are, or to what degree they may or may not be valid. (Not only am I not in a position to assess that, I don't particularly care.) Furthermore, my point is that maybe "proving people wrong" isn't such a bad reason to want to have kids. I mean, relative to other reasons, I have to think it has as much validity.

Before you inquire whether I've just learned that K. is pregnant, I'll stop you in your tracks and say, "Hell to the no!" Nor am I all that interested in proving any of you people wrong anytime soon. But someday, who knows, maybe I'll be able to sit a son or daughter down on my knee and tell them the story of how Papa made her out a love borne by spite. And we will laugh at one another, and then at others, and then at you.

Gotta Save Up Those GBDs

Travis Frey, stands accused of one count of child pornography and another count of trying to kidnap his wife, but I suspect with this four-page document he's made his fair share of male (and even some female) fans.

Note: I'm not blockquoting any of this for fear of the Google hits.

Bedtime Reading

Final serenity. -- A newspaper obituary for a businessman once contained the words: "The breadth of his conscience vied with the kindness of his heart." The blunder committed by the bereaved in the elevated language reserved for such purposes, the inadvertent admission that the kind-hearted deceased had lacked a conscience, expedites the funeral procession by the shortest route to the land of truth. If a man of advanced years is praised for his exceptional serenity, his life can be assumed to comprise a succession of infamies. He has rid himself of the habit of getting excited. Breadth of conscience is passed off as magnanimity, all-forgiving because all-too-understanding. The quid pro quo between one's own guilt and that of others, is resolved in favour of whoever has come off best. After so long a life one quite loses the capacity to distinguish who has done what harm to whom. In the abstract conception of universal wrong, all concrete responsibility vanishes. The blackguard presents himself as victim of injustice: if only you knew, young man, what life is like. But those conspicuous midway through life by an exceptional kindness are usually drawing advances on such serenity. He who is not malign does not live serenely but with a peculiarly chaste hardness and intolerance. Lacking appropriate objects, his love can scarcely express itself except by hatred for the inappropriate, in which admittedly he comes to resemble what he hates. The bourgeois, however, is tolerant. His love of people as they are stems from his hatred of what they might be. (T. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life)

A Common Sense Shit Post

I know most people regard me as a die-hard partisan Democrat, though I'm not, and that I'll say and do anything to make a Republican seem dirty, which I will, but it is reporting like this that should put to rest the attempts of so many to paint the Jack Abramoff scandal as one shared by both Democrats and Republicans.

It goes without saying that career politicians of all stripes are almost certainly dirty individuals, in some respect anyway, and that there should be reforms; but it doesn't stand to reason that this scandal needs to be equally laid at the feet of both parties in order for that to happen.

A Shit Post

As a lot of you already know, be it through other kind-hearted bloggers or through conversations with me, I successfully defended my PhD dissertation last week. Remarkably, things went very smoothly. All that is left now to make the necessary editorial revisions, bind it, and spend another $100+ shipping it o'erseas.

I've been asked a lot lately how it feels being finished. My instinct is to regard the whole affair as oddly anticlimactic. But, really, I only feel this when sober. Get a few pints or drams of whisky in me, and I'm the king of the world. Another reason to stay boozed up, I guess.

The other question commonly asked is, in short, 'What now?' Good question. The short answer, besides getting drunk a lot and revelling in my superiority complex, is that I desperately need to find a job. One that does not relate to shelving CDs and DVDs. In order for that to happen, though, I need to get some more stuff published. So, basically, there's no rest for the weary. As soon as I get the thesis bound and shipped, I have to start tearing article-sized portions out for possible publication, finish up writing articles and reviews I committed to writing without really thinking, and then pimp out my services to a institution that finds appealing somebody trained in philosophical aesthetics and theology. Any of you with uncles or great-aunts who happens to be on the Board of Trustees of a college or university, you know where to find me.

Wow. This might be the most boring blog post ever.

Maybe We're Not So Different After All

I obviously spend a lot of time frustrated at my country's undyingly fundamentalist fervor -- be it fully fleshed out in something ostensibly noble like 'justice', or something ostensibly wrong like 'revenge' -- for, in short, a messianic return. We all want a return on our investments, so why not go for the biggest return of all, the promise of which prompts the investment, cynical or pious, of many a president and professional politician.

Which brings me to Scott Peterson's excellent two-part article in The Christian Science Monitor on the appropriation of religious language, especially that of rapture and eschatological fulfillment, in the political saga currently unfolding in Iran. (part one // part two).

It's nice to think that all that divides us is the name of that tyrannical religious excuse for demagoguery.

Checking In

I can't believe it's been nearly a month since I last posted. I've been bad before, but surely never this bad. And this after a torrent of comments related to my, shall we say, strong opinions about The Chronicles of Narnia.

There is something about life in Belgium, especially when you're not in the city, that causes days to race by without you even noticing. Mind you, I'm not isolated. I have super-fast internet, a variety of BBC channels, and an assortment of Flemish and French documentaries that I can sometimes vaguely follow. So, I know what's happening in the world.

I know, for instance, that the US Senate is on the verge of likely confirming a Justice with a conception of 'executive' power disturbingly similar to that of the US President, and that all right-thinking people should by very very concerned. A move to Belgium, in fact, should not be ruled out.

I know that West Virginia mine officials, the private corporations that failed to heed governmental warnings and governmental agencies that failed to enforce said warnings, have little to no interest in the lives of the workers who keep them in power.

I know that I'm a little sad that Tom DeLay will no longer pursue leadership of the House -- but am also a little delighted that in the span of a few years the head Republicans of both the Senate and the House have had to resign their positions in disgrace.

I know that I'm very depressed at the prospect that none of this will matter on Election Day in November.

I know, moving to lighter stuff, that last night the New England Patriots took one more step toward playing the Indianapolis Colts in the playoffs. ('nuff said) And that the Bengals will likely lose today against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

I know that my viva is less than two weeks away and all bravado has slipped away.

I know that this was a very haphardously random blog post.

I know that I'm going to try to be a better blogger the rest of my trip abroad.

Saturday Night at the Movies

K. & I caught a late showing of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe [aka, The Chronicles of Narnia -- not sure which is the official title] on Saturday night. Now, as a few people have already pointed out, I'm not a huge fan of Lewis anyway, so my comments here are not entirely unexpected. Having said that, I like to think I'm open-minded enough to enjoy something even if I expect to hate it; and hate something I expected to enjoy. It's certainly happened before. It did not happen this time around, though.

Well, let me back up. I can't say that hated the movie. That's giving a bit more credit than it deserves. I am, surely, deeply opposed to what I regard as its testicular jingoism. But whatever. For the sake of argument, I'll just accept that as benignly metaphorical. Even then . . . I find myself really disturbed by a war in which the winner suffers no real losses. Aslan (inexplicably) returns -- thankfully, his version of sacrifical atonement ultimately makes about as much sense as Anselm's; all the 'good guys' who get struck down during battle are revived and on hand for the coronation of the kids. I mean. If there is a battle between good and evil, a battle that I guess would seem worth fighting, the high cost of death doesn't seem too much ask. And yet, we get the sense here that even 'the good' isn't something worth (or something you're capable of) dying for. Which makes me think ... in Narnia, what is? Sort of cheapens the 'warfare' metaphor. I mean, hell, even Judas hung himself for the sake of Christ's cause -- the quintessentially tragic victim. Nothing like that here.

'Oh, Brad, you're being petty again.' I know some of you are thinking that. Maybe I am. But you know, is a little loss really that much to expect? Or, for that matter, ambiguity. This, I suppose, is the primary thing that annoys me most with the recent crop of 'Good v. Evil' movies: absolutely no nuance or complexity of character. Consider Lord of the Rings. You think you're getting some nuance with Golem, but no. Tolkien has to make explicit that Golem is as beastly as we'd normally expect. He bites off Frodo's finger for the sake of owning the ring, damn the cost to himself. Well ... what if Tolkien had injected some ambiguity to that scene? What if we were left wondering and arguing about Golem's intentions? Perhaps he saw Frodo's moral failure at the moment of decision, or simply knew that one could not refuse the ring, and did the most heroic act in the entire book? Wouldn't that, dare I say it, be a little more like the real world? As it is, you have an exciting turn of events, but no moral ambiguity. Much the same here. You think you're getting some complexity of character w/ regard to Edmund. But, no. He's just a prat who deserves to die. There is nothing patently evil about this, since this is how most of us live our lives -- categorizing people according to various criteria -- but it certainly is a failure as a piece of art or literature, which is ultimately intended to create new horizons of meaning and not simply parrot or reinforce the one that already exists.

'But, Brad. Have you considered the possibility you're judging the movie by a standard it was not written / presented to achieve?' Yes, I have. My only response is that movies that are this epic in scale -- that is, movies whose message is momentous and so obviously injected with universal themes & scope -- an aborted artistic ambition is damning. And it infects the rest of the project. Notably the degree to which it is sold to the highest bidder, namely Disney, and then pimped out as nothing short of a vapid promo for a video game. In the end, this is what I walked away regarding the movie. As far as it goes, I suspect the game will be very fun indeed.

Then again, maybe I'm just an old-fashioned elitist. Granted, one who likes the bawdy humor of 'Drawn Together', who has fond memories of the movie Bad Boys, still listens to Howard Stern, and knows the chorus to almost every Top 40 love song from the 1980s.

[None of this even touches on of the clear technical problems w/ regard to the film's editing and very flimsy characterisation. But I don't want to ruin the movie for people who haven't yet seen it, or haven't read the book, so I'll save that for the comments if anybody is interested in sounding off.]

Playing the Fool

I've only recently begun reading anything written by Simone Weil. There's a lot of interest there, but I really like this quote from one of the letters she wrote while in an English sanatorium.

When I saw Lear here, I asked myself how it was possible that the unbearably tragic character of those fools had not been obvious long ago to everyone, including myself. The tragedy is not the sentimental one it is sometimes thought to be; it is this:

There is a class of people in this world who have fallen into the lowest degree of humiliation, far below beggary, and who are deprived not only of all social consideration but also, in everybody's opinion, of the specific human dignity, reason itself -- and these are the people who, in fact, are able to tell the truth. All the others lie.

In Lear it is striking. Even Kent and Cordelia attenuate, mitigate, soften, and veil the truth; and unless they are forced to choose between telling it and telling a downright lie, they manoeuvre to evade it.

What makes the tragedy extreme is the fact that because the fools possess no academic titles or episcopal dignities and because no one is aware that their sayings deserve the slightest attention -- everybody being convinced a priori of the contrary, since they are fools -- their expression of the truth is n ot even listened to. Everybody, including Shakespeare's readers and audiences for four centuries, is unaware that what they say is true. And not satirically or humourously true, but simply the truth. Pure unadulterated truth, luminous, profound, and essential.

From here, Weil goes on to too quickly & conveniently equate herself with the fool, but I'll be damned if the first part isn't well stated.

That Wasn't So Hard, Was It?

I realize I've already gotten a round of congratulations already, but I would be remiss if I didn't announce here, officially & all, that today I printed out my thesis & shipped three copies of it to Scotland. All that awaits now is my examination in late-January.

You know, I started this blog in the early days of my research, one cold morning while in Brussels. Most of you have seen me through many an intellectual turn, and you've accepted it all with wonderful dignity, class, and patience. Much obliged.

I guess I'm now fresh out of excuses for not blogging regularly enough, huh?

The Emo-ification of Kelly Clarkson

Today the Belgian & I were driving to grab some lunch somewhere, and we we heard the newest Kelly Clarkson song, 'Because of You'. I enjoy it when her songs come on the radio. This isn't because I like the music -- I hardly even pay attention to it, let alone like or dislike it -- but because I can tell that K. is trying for all she's worth NOT to like the music. The funny thing is, no matter her resistance and claims to hating Kelly Clarkson, she cannot help but sing along.

Anyway, as to the song, since when did Clarkson, who by the way I think is kind of hot, go emo? It's really starting to hurt her hotness, quite frankly.

Speaking of 'emo', I really love this picture.

Follow the Light

The light, it would seem, is at the end of the tunnel for all this thesis-business. By the end of this week, all major proofs should be complete, bibliography finalized, and a copy emailed to my advisor for one final read-through. Fingers crossed, people.

Torture & Martyrdom

It's a short post, but Matthew Yglesias is right on in his discussion of 'The Pragmatics of Torture -- specifically, torture as a means for a regime to hear what it wants to hear.

And that's precisely the sort of thing torture is really good for. If you already know what the truth is -- perhaps because it can be deduced from regime-type rather than boring intelligence gathering -- but just need some more evidence in order to convince others, then torture is a really, really, really good way of getting that kind of evidence. That's always been the main historical use of torture -- you have your prisoner, you want a confession, so you torture him until he confesses. It's not, after all, as if the administration was genuinely wondering about Iraq/al-Qaeda ties. They knew what they wanted to prove and they needed to make the case. Torture was an excellent way to get the job done.

Yglesias' point, I think, extends beyond torture to my own thinking about religion / theology -- to the point, even, that I may even agree with a friend who has recently stated that torture is the theological problem of modern times. (This is the case, for me, insofar that we are all being tortured, in a way, by our socio-political & religious regimes -- tortured to the point of our capitulation, i.e. quiet resignation to reality, or perhaps even to our deaths. For some, the solution comes only in a certain kind of death that opens up the possibility of something new -- something along the lines of a martyr's death, which rallies the forces of change. Perhaps. But certainly not one death, that of a history redeemed, such as that of a Cross or otherwise. Rather, only inasmuch as that martyrdom is representative of the only death that truly is, that which always comes from within at every moment, whereby life is but a certain kind of death, and thus that which betrays the transcendent / true / perhaps even eternal sovereignty of those regimes as necessarily false, as a projection of our own capitulated confessions.)

It is Halloween, After All

Last night the wife & I visited a haunted boat. Judging by the picture she posts here, one could be forgiven for thinking that I wasn't too enthusiastic about the venture. This is, however, not the case. Our picture was taken after thirty minutes of waiting in line, thirty minutes of hearing behind me a family of what seemed like eighteen trying to convince themselves that they either are or are not, it varied from minute to minute, scared; and of watching a kid in front of me decked out in full L.A. Laker apparel having to sit down at ever bench made available along the way because the sheer energy required to stand up was too much for his basketball loving bones. Oh, not to mention that I'd just shelled out $22 for two tickets to enter a boat that looked completely cheesed out, complete with a glowing skeleton head on top. So, in short, I wasn't expecting much.

To say, then, that the experience exceeded my expectations is not really a compliment. To say that it was worth the $22, though, certainly is, because I normally do not like to spend money unless there is food or drink involved in the expense. There were the obligatory moments of shock and surprise. Where somebody jumps out from around a corner and makes one squeal for one's wife just before concluding cynically, "Aargh, you got me! I have a central nervous system!! Wanker." The scary part, of course, isn't in being surprised like that. It is, rather, in the anticipation of being surprised like that, which plays no small role in the the fright that you create for yourself while walking through pitch-black hallways. Whoever runs this particular haunted house seemed to 'get' that fact. Either that, or I was typically at the front of my group -- me, K., and three high school girls -- and thus not the target of their shock therapy tactics.

A Link a Day Makes the Work Day Go Away

Slowly. Ever so slowly. I'm nearing the finish line with this thesis, four years in the making. I've no idea if it'll be acceptable, if I'll return from Glasgow in January drunk with celebratory whisky or that of sorrow, or whether I'll be told to come back in six months with something very different. I've lost any sense of objectivity. That is to say, I think it's crap. But really, who knows?

Anyway. Sorry for the silence. You really haven't missed much. I've not done a lot of good internet-reading, so precious few things to link to. And my thoughts have been pretty bog-standard for this blog. And God knows I don't wnat to be repetitive, right?

Anyway, for old times sake, because I love a good article on Cormac McCarthy, here's one by Joyce Carol Oates from the most recent edition of New York Review of Books. Enjoy.

Hey, It Beats Reading People

Wow. I'd totally forgotten how much I enjoyed reading The New York Review of Books. I probably forgot because the free online content is so-so at best. The trick is to find a library or bookstore with a print a print edition, becaues then you're sometimes in for a treat.

In the Oct. 6, 2005 issue, for example, there is not only a very fine article by Tony Judt about the problematic differences between eastern and western European memories concerning the Holocaust (i.e., eastern Europe had to content with Soviet occupation, and thus are more liable to regard the horrors of Communism as on par or worse than that suffered by Jews in the Holocaust), but also Adam Hochschild's withering assessment of the newly installed exhibition at the Royal Museum for Central Africa (just outside Brussels, Belgium), called La mémoire du Congo: Le temps colonial. (Hochschild is best known -- to me, anyway, since my household is now half-Belgian -- for his fabulous, must-read book about King Leopold II's tyrannical ravaging of Congo, King Leopold's Ghost.) Oh, and this isn't to mention at all Garry Wills' article, 'Bush's Fringe Government', which I briefly write about here.

Rarely has an evening spent reading rather than working been so educational.

The War On Weather

Remember a couple of years ago Lt. General William Boykin characterized the war against terror as a spiritual war between the Christian God & the Muslim God-- the latter being, in roughly equal parts idol and Satan? You will recall, of course, that nothing came of this. Boykin was neither fired nor demoted, and to this day works in the highest echelons of our nation's intelligence community. Surely, then, Boykin must be privy to spiritual intel that we who do not read Frank Peretti novels are not. Clearly, this is a spiritual battle -- as in the days of the Old Testament, a contest of the Gods!

The Christian God has surely proven himself to be pretty bad-ass. He has blessed America with a truly unparalleled willingness to amass & spend billions of dollars to create the largest military that the world has ever seen, several times the size of that of its avowed enemies combined, at the expense of silly programs like education and health care. We are a sacrifical bunch, to say the least. Well, if you discount companies like Halliburton & the Carlyle Group, who make a profit from the militaristic sacrifice. But, you know, consider them the high priests, and all things are roses. Not only has the American God blessed us with the willingness to amass this military, but also the moral fortitude to unleash it. That's right. We're modern day Elijah's, bringing the fight to the false gods, one erratic bomb / friendly-fire bullet at a time. We'll topple your false gods & your dictators, all on the same day!

And yet, of late, like George Foreman, the Christian God is looking like He might not be able to go the distance. He is, after all, also the Jewish God, so he's pretty old by now. Sure, He can still lay waste to the infidel, & packs quite a whollup; but, he's looking a little sluggish, isn't it he, with each new roadside bomb, and each new frustrated attempt at propping up a democracy that has nothing to do with the false god, Allah.

The upstart, Allah, played it pretty close to the vest after coming out with a head full of steam on 9/11. A few jabs here and there. But mostly, he looked up against the ropes. I submit, though, that the Christian God got a little cocky. You see, there are always multiple fronts in major wars & fights. There was the obvious one: the one that blew shit up with bombs. And then there was the the more complex one, the one that the Christian God normally doesn't like to take credit for, but, c'mon, who's He kidding? I'm talking about natural disasters like enormous earthquakes in Iran and tsunamis in Indonesia -- infidel countries, both. Oh, He thought he had the false god down for the count there. Oh boy, didn't we all! Oh ... but that Satanic god, he's a tricky one, that damned false god. He seems to have realized that where he can't match the overwhelming sacrificial insanity of the Christian God & His followers -- pfft, his followers can only manage to blow themselves up two or three at a time -- he can surely whip up a mean natural disaster or two.

'What's that', he said to his minions, 'the waters surrounding the Christian God are as warm as they've been in generations? What's that I spy, low-lying cities along coasts? What's that I hear, the sacrifical Christian God left his belly exposed? Oooo ... methinks I have a plan.' That's right, people. These storms, Katrina, Rita, etc., their all the work of Allah, the false god ... Satan. In short, we cannot win our war on terror without realizing the profound importance of this aspect of our war. The war against weather. Gird your loins! We've all been drafted into the army of Christian soldiers. We're all fair game.

It Felt Good

It Felt Good

It often surprises a lot of people who don't know me really well, and may likely disturb some of my online colleagues, but I love sports. I could, for instance, very easily turn Silentio into an all-sports blog, and probably end up having something to say on an almost-daily basis. (A far cry from my general reluctance to post anything I've actually been thinking about lately.)

The only problem with this, however, is that I don't normally like a lot of 'normal' sports fans. This can likely be explained by the fact that I grew up in Lexington, Kentucky, and was subjected to nearly constant cries of 'Go CATS' whenever the subject of University of Kentucky basketball came up. By the time I was in high school, no longer inclined to 'bleed blue', I relished their heartbreaking losses more than anything else.

This is not to say, though, that I cheered for those teams who played them. To this day, I still dislike Duke -- and cringe when I see Christian Laettner's last-second shot, even while appreciating Grant Hill's pass, which certainly made the play work. No, since leaving Lexington over ten years ago now, I've almost completely left behind any partisanship when it comes to teams. I neither cheer for or against teams. I'm more sympathetic to some, I suppose. But would never buy a team jersey or a hat with their logo. As in academics, my thinking & fandom is too abstract & distant -- maybe even theoretical. By and large, I cheer well-executed plays and exciting games.

I've annoyed many a hardcore fan of any given team by sitting down & watching a game with them, only to suddenly cheer 'for the other side' when they execute a bone-crunching block, or a great pass, or a level of play that is just genius. I remember sitting in a cafe in Brussels watching Manchester United play Real Madrid in the Champions League. I wasn't a huge fan of either, but, given the possibile hostility of the crowd, decided to be partial to ManU. I wanted them to win, I really did. And yet Real Madrid played one of the most flawless forty-five minutes of soccer I've ever witnessed. Granted, that's not a lot -- but it was a sentiment affirmed by most of the hardcore fans who know far more than I. Where they were willing to be in awe after the game, I completely forgot any faux partisanship during the game. They were just too good not to cheer, even if I didn't want them win!

In an attempt to (a) gain a few friends at work, and (b) find something to get excited about besides good execution, I decided to join a Fantasy Football league. Of course, it's been four years since I've really followed American football, I know none of the new guys, and most of the old guys are, well, old ... so, it shouldn't be at all surprising that my team, after Week One, is pure shite. I mean, I was up against a guy who didn't have a good game, and he's still going to beat me by 30+ points (no matter if Donovan McNabb & Brian Westbrook have good games -- both players of mine).

On one level, I was really ticked. But on another level, I found a whole new way of enjoying the games. And I re-discovered something I lost a long time ago: frustration. Before, I'd just get frustrated when a team consistently did boneheaded things on the field, and thus lowered the level of play. Yesterday, though, I felt the frustration, resentment even, deep in my bones. Last night, for instance, Matt Stover (my kicker) missed a fieldgoal. I was pissed. He then missed a second fieldgoal. I was livid. This morning I learn that he actually even missed a third after I'd turned off the game. I was mortified.

And it felt good.

Breaking News

If you don't know already, Chief Justice William Rehnquist died tonight.

I know you're all expecting some woe-is-our-country-now-that-Bush-gets-another-justice-selection post. Ah, but not so. Because, really, Rehnquist was a pretty conservative dude, bent on getting rid of as many governmental regulations on business as judically possible. Replacing him with another conservative, as will surely be the case, would just be business (literally) as usual.

Very Worst Day

Imagine, if you will, you're a foreign national living in London. One morning, you walk to the subway station, en route to, I dunno, a shitty job at Roots n' Fruits. You pick up your free copy of The Metro, you walk through the ticket barriers and make your way down the elevators toward the subterranean platform. Halfway there you hear your train pulling in. This is London, so God knows when the next one will be there. So you run.

Is this where your worst ever choice was made? Or was it when you decided to take the subway the morning after a bomb attack? Or was it the non-choice of your skin color? Hard to say, but for at least one guy this very banal beginning turned into his very worst day.

Absolutely. Swamped.

Man ... all you who knew me prior to the PhD process, those who supported my decision to pursue it, really, why didn't you smack me instead?

Self-Congratulations

K. & I celebrated our first-year anniversary on Thurs. & Frid. by driving through Eastern Kentucky in a largely unsuccessful bid to find a walkable trail through Daniel Boone National Forest. Instead, we ended up in the mining town of Harlan, where K. very nearly decided to end our marriage because I kept singing 'Harlan Man' by Steve Earle. Needless to say, little hiking was done here. Not soon thereafter, in search of a small lake nearby that looked on the map to have a trail, we found ourselves in Ben Hur, Virginia being trailed very closely by (as they say in these parts) 'the law'.

Upon realizing that neither of us were made for the hills, we made our way, completely on a whim, to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, where we sat in the walkway just outside the door of our room getting so drunk that the Cajun-style Pringles we bought earlier in the day tasted good, and listened to a woman in a too-loose tank-top who, when she was not screaming into her cell phone, was glaring & accusing me of trying to check out her rack, when in fact I was merely checking out her black eye. I suppose K. would've have left me then, too, if she hadn't been checking out the woman's rack. (Or, more likely, simply not paying attention to anything but the burning realization that she'd married an idiot.)

Happy Anniversary, K.!!

Oh Dear

I will never live down some things.

UPDATE: Whoo-Hoo. With pictures, now. Man, I was thin back then.

Water. Must. Drink. Water.

(Via Unfogged) I'm curious about what you all have to say about yesterday's OpEd in the New York Times about the merits of tap water over bottled water.

Me, I'm definitely not a bottled-water snob. For years, I was a Brita filter man -- but that was only because it was one of my roommate's. Before that, when I was living with my parents, I got all my water from the electronic doo-dad on the fridge. And when I was in college, I pretty much stuck to the water fountain in the dorm. My reasons for switching to bottled water were (a) one day in Glasgow a van rolled through my street with someone announcing over a P.A. 'Don't drink the water! Don't drink the water'. Turns out, heavy rains mixed with sheep shit and ended up contaminating the water supply. We were told over the news to boil all bathwater, and not to open our mouth during showers. That was enough reason there to prefer the blind ignorance of bottled water. Then, though, (b) there was the convenience of bottled water. By and large, you walk a lot more in Europe in America, and sometimes a brotha gets thirsty while on the go. Which leads to (c), bottled water was freakin' cheap over there. A nice big bottle of Voldic, for example, set me back less than a pound; and when I was in Belgium, Spa would run less than a Euro.

Of course, here in America, things are a bit different. Contaminated tap water is much more rare, unless you live out in the country; I'm in my car more than I am on my feet; and a two-liter bottle of Coke is somehow cheaper than a one-liter bottle of Spa or Voldic (sometimes at a 3:1 ratio).

I used to think my wife was full of crap when she insisted there was a difference in taste between bottled (spring) water & what came out of the tap -- and yes, we've tried blind taste tests, and she can tell bottled water from tap water, though perhaps not the difference in brands -- but, I do kind of agree that a glass of room temperature tap water is just not as immediately refreshing as a bottle of room temperature bottled water (particularly Spa ... Evian is a bit too metalic). Much of this might be aesthetic, maybe even nostalgic. I don't know. Or maybe it's the fact that I can chug a bottle of water quicker than I can from a glass. I doubt its more nutricious, but if anyone's seen the contents of my diet they know that's the least of my concerns.

No Country for Old Men

I started reading Cormac McCarthy's latest book while at work yesterday. I'm only about fifty pages in, so this assessment is very premature. But, I gotta say, it's pretty good. There is certainly a different vibe here, and the philosophical musings don't smack you over the head as was the case in most of his Westerns. But, I dunno, there's something really appealing so far. Will report again after I get a chance to finish it.

If anybody else is reading it -- Jeff, Pat, JD, etc. -- let me know what you think.

UPDATE: Okay, turns out I was wrong. It's about as lame as I'd feared. In fact, it somehow managed to be even MORE lame than expected.

Commodifying Nostalgia

A pretty interesting article by Bernardine Dohrn, formerly of the Weather Underground, over on the online version of The Monthly Review. Her message is simple enough, and reminiscent of a conversation I had with a friend earlier this week: Beware Sixties Nostalgia.

It is clear that the Sixties, which was never really The Sixties, is being wielded as a bludgeon against today's young risktakers; a barrier, a legendary era which can never be equaled today. In fact, the Sixties was annually declared "dead" by the pundits of Time magazine and Newsweek beginning in 1963 and throughout the mid-seventies. During the subsequent three and a half decades, there has been a relentless campaign to promote four myths about those radical social upheavals. These legends about the so-called Sixties must be on the table to be scrutinized by today's young activists.

First, the '60s is enshrined as a heroic time of huge demonstrations, militancy and organizing. It was never all that.

Sixties activism was almost always small, isolated, surrounded by hostile, angry crowds. The groundbreaking actions of the students who joined the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the women who stood for an end to patriarchy, and the veterans, draft resisters and deserters who defied the military machine are legendary now because they were right about history and morality. Overwhelmingly, their courage was the quiet kind, the inventive sort, often unrecognized, not showy.

[. . .]

Second, and paradoxically in counterpoint to romanticization, there has been a relentless thirty-year campaign to demonize and criminalize the Sixties. Militant resistance is portrayed as criminal, mass rebellion transformed into mob action, courageous choices derided as self-serving, moderately outrageous comments in the heat of the moment seized upon and repeated ad naseum as if they were the whole story or true.

[. . .]

Third, the struggle has been commodified, sold back to us as clothing, music, drugs, and film. It is trivialized, sucked of content, leaving only the husks of oldies, tattoos and faded murals.

[. . .]

Fourth is the lethal, deceptive telling of Sixties' history as if it were predictable and known, smoothing out the turmoil, the turbulence, the anarchy, and the ethical choices. The pat illusions that "we" all opposed the Vietnam War, "we" all were relieved that civil rights were granted to African Americans, and the "media" helped end the Vietnam war.

All four are really good points, but I'm of the mind that the third one really holds them all together -- and is, in a perhaps anachronistic way, the reason for the remaining three. Dorhn complains there that the Sixties have been commodified, and that this is problematic. And I would agree. However, the real problem isn't that the Sixties are now but a t-shirt and a CD. As she points out, that took a while to happen; the problem is that the processes of commodification have become that much more advanced, and far more capable of incorporating dissent. To the point, for example, that Starbucks can sell bottled water and use a portion of the proceeds for famine relief, and Macy's can sell Rwandan baskets -- and thus effectively squash any real debate about how the free market in which these companies clearly participate is very possibly culpable in both famine and the collapse of native markets. In this way, resistance to -- or at least a self-conscious analysis of -- the fundamental structures of western civilization, which clearly go beyond protesting a single presidential administration, or even the rights of one race of people (as recognized by Martin Luther King, Jr., just prior to his assassination) is almost immediately incorporated & copyrighted as a capitalistic endeavor, and thus drained of its life and vitality.

This is why, I suppose, so much 'revolutionary' political philosophy has turned to religious imagery: i.e., because the more prophetic elements of religion are highly resistant to commodification. The prophetic can be watered down or ignored; but it also always returns if it is truly representative of the True & the Just. I don't know that this is necesarily a good way to approach one's political resistance -- and I know that readers of this blog, as well as that of another, are bound to disagree with me and with one another -- but it is certainly worth thinking about & discussing.

Too Good Not to Quote

This article in today's Times about how the manufacturers of those eco-friendly hybrids we all say we wish we could drive, if only they were as big & bad-ass as the Hummer, have begun replacing any nominal environmental consideration for the more hairy-testicle concern of, sigh, acceleration, is just too good to pass up. It is, I am not afraid to admit sanctimoniously, because that is my right as an American with a blog, truly symptomatic of just about everything I loathe about the modern human condition. Read it all ... and then weep at its close:

Consumer Reports, in an article published in May, found that in actual on-the-road conditions the Accord hybrid averaged 25 m.p.g., versus 24 m.p.g. for the 4-cylinder model and 23 m.p.g. for the nonhybrid V-6. The E.P.A. figures show a larger benefit for the hybrid, but the agency's fuel economy figures are considered by many to be inaccurate because they do not reflect the way cars are actually driven.

The two-miles-per-gallon increase over the V-6, about 8 percent, is still significant, and federal tax rules, which are based on cost and not mileage benefit achieved, still give an Accord hybrid buyer a substantial subsidy. But 8 percent is not in the range that would make a substantial dent in American oil consumption. If every car in the country were converted to a hybrid with that improved mileage, the gain would be swallowed up in three to four years by growth in driving demand.

Mr. [Mark] Buford said he got just what he wanted from the Accord, a hybrid with no sacrifices. "I wasn't prepared to give up anything to 'go green' - not performance, amenities, or space," he said.

The HILARIOUS kicker, of course, is that Mr. Buford is still able (a) to listen to NPR, perhaps even contribute, and consider himself a liberal eco-friendly warrior; and (b) cash in on his $600 tax credit. If everything holds to form, I'm sure he'll take his savings, buy into TerraPass , and enjoy the wonder of the emissions trading market.

Silence

Well, what can I say, I had a couple of weeks there as an at least halfway decent blogger. Little did I know that, in all my excitement at being 'halfway decent', I neglected to blog again for another couple of weeks. Two steps forward ... two steps back. What can I say? (I did, however, manage a somewhat thoughtful post over here.)

I can't promise really consistent posting the next couple of weeks. Not that this will surprise you. Sure enough, consistency would be the real shocker. Nevertheless, the fact is I have a late-September deadline to submit my thesis. The writing is basically finished, but because I'm scatterbrained and completely unable to think in anything resembling coherency, I'm having to piece together my mad rambles one sentence at a time. It's like looking hay in a stack of needles, I tell you. A very painful process of (a) seeing the ridiculous stuff I will at times write, and (b) enduring my stubborn tendencies that believe it's good stuff anyway.

Anyway. In the comments of the previous post, I see a request for another book request. A part of me thinks this might be Aggie sarcasm, considering the silence, but I'll play along anyway. Sadly, I've not had the chance to read anything too interesting. I've started a few books, but few have grabbed me and not let go. Few books do this immediately for me, though. Sometimes it takes a day or two of reading here and there, and only then, without realizing it, I'm hooked. I suspect Paul Auster's Moon Palace may very soon turn out to be such a book. (Thanks to Brannon for the recommendation.)

Recommendation

A word to the wise, for those who are not already aware, the short fiction of George Saunders will rock you like a hurricane. I've spent the last couple of weeks, when not doing all the smarty-art shit I'm required to do for the sake of a degree, reading his two collections, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline and Pastoralia. I cannot recommend them enough.

Some of the reviewers on Amazon, because they are idiots, characterize Saunders as 'dark' (I would say that they are more 'demented'). Some even go so far as to say that you should only read one story at a time, and then leave the book aside for a while. He's that disturbing, they claim. While I'm not opposed to one reading a short story collection deliberately, I'm not sure this is a very good reason -- and certainly not in the case of Saunders. What I find very curious about Saunders is the seeming ease he has in fusing 'disturbing' with 'hopeful' ... and more specifically, 'human'.

Most of his satirical stories, and boy they can often be pretty damn funny in parts, center around (mostly) men who have very little going for them, and who are living lies of various degrees and kind. Most are at some point faced with a choice -- a choice to act in defiance to their respective lies. There is, for Saunders, freedom at the heart of the blind necessities that make contemporary culture such a bitch. What some people may object to, of course, is that such freedom is not always of the 'happy' kind. Freedom is, for the most part, bittersweet to its core. There is a truth to this, and it is one that Saunders very consistently realizes in his fiction.

Weather Underground

Apropos the comment thread below, I finally sat down and watched the fantastic documentary about the The Weathermen Underground, the radical revolutionary outfit of the '60s and '70s intent on overthrowing the US government. The movie had me at "Hello, I'm going to read a declaration of a state of war...within the next 14 days we will attack a symbol or institution of American injustice." Some fascinating stuff here that opens room for the sort of debate that we really ought to have more often -- namely about the nature of (and suppression of) dissent and revolutionary change.

Most of the former Weathermen agree that the revolutionary zeitgeist, notably that in America, can be attributed to the madness of Vietnam and the draft. As such, when both came to their end, so did the Leftist unity. There's probably something to this; and it is certainly something that the Left will want to consider, should the situation in Iraq turn into a civil war and thus require an American draft. Are moments such as these the Left's 'one shot' at getting shit done, those moments when madness & coercion are so palpably real; or is it the Left's version of a sale at Wal-Mart -- i.e., shitty goods at half-price?

This, to me, is the most important thing to consider . . . rather than any possible 'Rage Against the Machine' nostalgia I might want to feel for a time in which political change seemed on the doorstep, when radicals didn't need the key because they figured they could just bust down the fucking door.

'Different Philosophies'

In the spirit of Karl Rove's recent slander of liberals, and the subsequent defense by the White House that he was simply highlighting the 'different philosophes' at work in the war against terrorism this week, the DNC has helpfully provided us all with a supplement to this 'different-philosophies' hypothesis:

Democrats
Believe capturing the person primarily responsible for the attack should be a top priority.

Republicans
It's been four years, and Osama bin Laden is still free, even though Bush's CIA chief says he knows where he is.

Democrats
Investigate the intelligence failures that led to 9/11.

Republicans
Do everything in their power to block the 9/11 Commission from doing its work.

Democrats
Propose creating the Department of Homeland Security.

Republicans
Push tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

Democrats
Believe we should have stayed the course in Afghanistan, not allowing the Taliban to resurge, the warlords to take power, and the opium trade to skyrocket.

Republicans
Ignore Afghanistan as the situation worsens.

Democrats
Believe that we should be honest with our troops about the reasons we go to war, give them everything they need to be safe, and make sure we go in with an exit plan.

Republicans
Manipulate intelligence to trump up reasons to go to war, don't give our troops the support they need, constantly mislead the public about the direction the war is going, and fail to make an exit plan. And turn Iraq into the ultimate terrorist training ground.

Silly, Karl. He thought he had to highlight different philosophies by making up shit.

UPDATE: Son of a bitch, this kind of thing pisses me off.

The Department of Veterans Affairs told Congress that its health care costs grew faster than expected and left a $1 billion hole in its budget this year, lawmakers said Thursday.

House Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Steve Buyer, the Republican from Indiana, said the department can meet this year's health care costs by drawing on spare funds and money from other operations, including building construction.

But next year's health care budget falls well over $1 billion short, said Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho.

"I was on the phone this morning with Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jim Nicholson letting him know that I am not pleased that this has happened," said Craig, chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee.

"This shortfall results from either deliberate misdirection or gross incompetence by this administration and the Department of Veteran Affairs," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington.

The next person who tells me or somebody I know we don't have a moral obligation to call this kind of thing horsheshit can simply go to hell. All you who feed off the blood & guilty consciences of others, who unfalteringly support a government who does not give sufficient material support to troops presently IN COMBAT NOW or THOSE WHO HAVE ALREADY SERVED ... who will likely step over the homeless veterans, scarred for life by the mental and physical debilitation wrought by a war you wanted but wish to hear nothing about, sneering at their inability to 'get a job' and the reason your downtowns are dead. Fuck. You. All.

A Little Perspective

For all the attention it evokes, terrorism actually causes rather little damage and the likelihood that any individual will become a victim in most places is microscopic. Those adept at hyperbole like to proclaim that we live in “the age of terror.” However, while obviously deeply tragic for those directly involved, the number of people worldwide who die as a result of international terrorism is generally only a few hundred a year, tiny compared to the numbers who die in most civil wars or from automobile accidents. In fact, in almost all years, the total number of people worldwide who die at the hands of international terrorists anywhere in the world is not much more than the number who drown in bathtubs in the United States.

-- John Mueller, Chair of National Security Studies at Ohio State University

Sympathy Extended

Long-time friend of Silentio Scott Martens has truly heartbreaking news re: his wife's pregnancy. Scott, from K. and I, the deepest of sympathies in this, the worst of times.

Favorite Songs A-Z

Pat had the brainstorm recently that he needed to establish his mark on the internet and start his own damn meme. Apropros Pat, of course, his meme is a pain in the ass. The rules: (1) List songs you like from A to Z; (2) Don't use the same artist twice. Easy enough, right. Pfft. Yeah. I gave up on it a few weeks ago, and finally knocked it out today -- yeah yeah, when I should be working on other things, I know.

My list:

America Is (Violent Femmes)
Best Imitation of Myself (Ben Folds Five)
Cold Hard Facts of Life (Porter Wagoner)
Dark End of the Street (Flying Burrito Brothers)
Ellis Unit One (Steve Earle)
Flower (Liz Phair)
Going to Town (Afghan Whigs)
Hang My Teeth On Your Door (16 Horsepower)
I Am Stretched On Your Grave (Kate Rusby)
Jerusalem (Dan Bern)
The Killer (Twilight Singers)
Lilac Wine (Jeff Buckley)
Mr. Mudd & Mr. Gold (Townes van Zandt)
99 Problems (Jay-Z)
The Outdoor Type (Lemonheads)
Promises (Lyle Lovett)
Quality Control (Jurassic Five)
Ruby Don't Take Your Love To Town (Kenny Rogers)
Striptease (Hawksley Workman)
This Drinking Will Kill Me (Dwight Yoakam)
Under Your Breath (Whiskeytown)
Via Chicago (Wilco)
Windfall (Son Volt)
Xplosion (Outcast)
You've Got Me (The Roots)
Zapata's Blood (Rage Against the Machine)

Looks Like I Picked the Wrong Day to Quit Believing in God

Oh ... doesn't it just figure. I misplace my theism right when I need it the most:

So it's 2005 and this is the academic question that has driven the Daily News and the right-wing New York Sun into apoplectic fits, and caused heartburn all over CUNY: Should Tim Shortell, an atheist, be allowed to assume the chair of the sociology department of Brooklyn College? You know, an atheist--someone who doesn't believe in God. An anticleric. A disrespecter of religion. A mocker of Christianity. Someone like, oh, Diderot ("Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"). Or Voltaire ("The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reasoning"). Or Bertrand Russell ("The Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world"). Actually, Russell is a particularly relevant example here. The appointment of one of the twentieth century's greatest logicians to a professorship at City College in 1940 set off a hysterical campaign against the "Godless advocate of free love" on the part of the Episcopal and Catholic churches, the Hearst papers and Tammany Hall. A flagrantly trumped-up lawsuit was fast-tracked through the system, Russell was denounced in the state legislature and the job offer was withdrawn.

Unfortunately, Shortell is no Bertrand Russell, whose Why I Am Not a Christian did so much to enliven my teenage years. For one thing, Russell was an energetic antireligious propagandist, while Shortell's low opinion of God and his fans is confined to a brief essay, "Religion and Morality: A Contradiction Explained," posted at www.anti-naturals.org, an obscure website with a vaguely Situationist flavor. For another, Russell was a terrific writer, while Shortell's essay is self-satisfied adolescent twaddle. Believers are "moral retards," "an ugly, violent lot": "In the heart of every Christian is a tiny voice preaching self-righteousness, paranoia and hatred. Christians claim that theirs is a faith based on love, but they'll just as soon kill you." Moral retards? Well, at least he can't be accused of linguistic PC.

*SIGH* Too little religion = Too much religion = UNEMPLOYMENT.

The Cult of Ana

Over two years ago, on this very blog, back when it was, um, something worth reading, a Lonestar guest blogging friend introduced us to the disturbing world of Ana. Over the years, it has proven to be one of the most frequently hit posts, mostly via Google, in Silentio's short history.

I call your attention to it today because, apparently, it's not gone away. Maybe it was naive to think it was only a passing fad. Mark Morford explains:

Just when you thought you'd seen it all, now comes the news that teenage girls are forming new, secret online clubs.

Not just any clubs, mind, but sassy nutball cultlike clubs whose leaders tell their followers what to eat and how to think and how to hide their big ugly secrets, their neurosis, their imminent damage, and they even have a unifying fashion symbol: they all wear little red wristbands to show their weird solidarity, their allegiance to a warped and unhappy goddess who goes by the name of Ana.

This is true. This is happening now. And you may, at this point, think it's all cute and good and Net-friendly and you might say, aww, how great is that, lonely lost teenage girls finding each other online and making new friends and worshipping some celebrity named Ana, sharing secrets and diet tips and advice and isn't that just the coolest thing? Isn't that just the way of young girls, socializing and sharing and emoting? Isn't that the genius of the Internet?

Why, sure it is. It's all special and warm and funky until you learn, of course, that Ana is short for -- wait for it -- anorexia.

Yessirree. This is what the girls call it. Or, rather, her. Ana is their secret best friend. Ana is their salvation. They draw pictures of her, send her their prayers, recite her creed.

These girls, they love Ana and they want to be with Ana all the time and they have bizarre little support groups who rally the sad and the faithful to love and follow Ana no matter how hungry or sick or shriveled they get (Ana mocks them if they succumb to food), and if they choose not to befriend Ana they can also take a liking to Mia (bulimia) or find a new boyfriend in a totally popular guy named Ed (eating disorder).

This is not a joke. This is not a gimmick.

If only it were.

Tag ... You're It

I have been tagged, and am thus morally obligated to spread an internet meme one blog further. So ... here we ago:

(1) Total Number of Books I've Owned: A rough guess... 300-400. I gave a lot away just prior to moving to Scotland. I'm down to around 100 now, I guess. Would probably be a lot more if (a) I didn't move so often, (b) if I was a bit more brawny and moving boxes filled with books was not a problem, or (c) I was not an extraordinary tightwad.

(2) Last Book I Bought: Suttree (Cormac McCarthy)

(3) The Last Book I Read: From cover-to-cover, it was David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. In addition to assorted introductions, conclusions, and indices.

(4) Five Books that Mean A Lot to Me (in no particular order): The Recognitions (William Gaddis); Kleinzeit (Russell Hoban); Minima Moralia (Theodor Adorno); Blood Meridian (Cormac McCarthy); Rings of Saturn (W. G. Sebald)

(5) People to Tag: Pat Rock, Julia Rock, Mike Riggs, Brad Pickens, Brannon Hancock.

Penetrating

Think you know Star Wars. Oh sure ... we're all aware of the phallic sabers, and the Lacanian field-day one can have with it at all. But rarely has all this been put to such delightful effect than in this little essay, which has single-handedly (heh!) given me a reason to see Episode Three:

By now, everyone's so familiar with the familiar song and dance about Star Wars being the Woodstock of our generation, about how Joseph Campbell and the power of myth powered the most comprehensive comparative religion fable rolled into one tell-all amazing sci-fi epic of epic proportions that you could probably just puke. The truth is, that crap just sells more tickets to pseudo-intellectuals who need to rationalize going for the eleventh time to see a movie about their most deeply rooted fear: impotence and premature ejaculation. Star Wars is one big cock tale about one and only one thing, the ability to get and keep it up all the way to the end.

[. . .]

And just what are the instructions to our young fighter pilots? "The approach will not be easy. You are required to maneuver straight down this trench and skim the surface to this point. The target area is only two meters wide. It's a small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port. The shaft leads directly to the reactor system. A precise hit will start a chain reaction which should destroy the station."

This is perhaps Star Wars dirtiest little secret: that shooting your wad to destroy her requires not taking the approach of the main vaginal port (which would impregnate her), but delivering your load anally, to the "small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port." Luke's latent homosexuality is unrecognized by him but clearly recognized by Vader, well-versed in the ways of black leather and masked identity, who senses the boy's dark sexual ambition and comments, "The force is strong in this one."

A Special Day

I never thought there'd be a day that I would get a chance to post two links relating to the ingenious convergence of cows and politics. My friends, that day has come.

Just a Helpful Reminder

Since the filibuster / 'nuclear option' debate will likely reach a feverish pitch this week, I think it might be helpful to remind ourselves what this particular fight is about. On one level, yes, it is about abortion -- namely, getting anti-abortion judges into the federal benches. And, yes, it is also about religion -- that is, getting prayer-friendly judges their federal gavels and robes. There is bound to be debate about the former; and I sare say an even larger majority of Americans are in favor of the latter. And on one level, I can abide both. But lest we forget, and this is where my willingness to be level-headed exits through the nearest window, it is also about the gays.

Frank Rich, in an otherwise unextraordinary column, explains:

Today's judge-bashing firebrands often say that it isn't homosexuality per se that riles them, only the potential legalization of same-sex marriage by the courts. That's a sham. These people have been attacking gay people since well before Massachusetts judges took up the issue of marriage, Vermont legalized civil unions or Gavin Newsom was in grade school. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, characterizes the religious right's anti-gay campaign as a 30-year war, dating back to the late 1970's, when the Miss America runner-up Anita Bryant championed the overturning of an anti-discrimination law protecting gay men and lesbians in Dade County, Fla., and the Rev. Jerry Falwell's newly formed Moral Majority issued a "Declaration of War" against homosexuality. A quarter-century later these views remained so unreconstructed that Mr. Falwell and the Rev. Pat Robertson would go so far as to pin the 9/11 attacks in part on gay men and lesbians - a charge they later withdrew but that Mr. Robertson repositioned just two weeks ago. In response to a question from George Stephanopoulos, he said he now believes that activist judges are a more serious threat than Al Qaeda.

[. . .]

Which judges do these people admire? Their patron saint is the former Alabama chief justice Roy S. Moore, best known for his activism in displaying the Ten Commandments; in a ruling against a lesbian mother in a custody case, Mr. Moore deemed homosexuality "abhorrent, immoral, detestable, a crime against nature" and suggested that the state had the power to prohibit homosexual "conduct" with penalties including "confinement and even execution." Another hero is William H. Pryor Jr., the former Alabama attorney general whose nomination to the federal bench was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. A Pryor brief to the Supreme Court on behalf of the Texas anti-sodomy law argued that decriminalized gay sex would lead to legalized necrophilia, bestiality and child pornography. It was Justice Anthony Kennedy's eloquent dismissal of such vitriol in his 2003 majority opinion striking down the Texas statute that has since made him the right's No. 1 judicial piñata.

Keep this in mind every time you hear the use of 'give them the courtesy of an up or down vote', or 'constitutional option', or any of the myriad slurs cast against sitting 'activist' judges.

Navel-Gazing With a Purpose

I take a lot of flack from several regular readers of Silentio, but typically the criticisms come down to a couple of things:

(1) "You don't post enough, Brad."
(2) "You post too much smarty-art-religion shit, Brad."

Interestingly, I often hear the same criticism from the same person, in the same email, during the same conversation. They obviously pine for the days of old when I had untold time and energy to write about my views on the build-up to war in Iraq, post bookcovers of Swedish erotica, and as well as the occasional diatribe about Christian bookstores and asphyxiated Jesi. Yes, such were the good ol' days.

I'll first address (2). I've attempted to remedy this accursed pretension, to some extent, by doing most of my academic-type posts over here. If you're interested in that sort of thing, bookmark it.

As for (1), I have no defense to offer. None at all. I'm one part busy, the other part lazy. And, if I'm allowed a third part, a bit bored of the blogging medium -- i.e., it just isn't the same outlet of frustration it used to be. Hence the false promises of posts to come, and posts that consist mostly of blockquotes. It's really quite sad, I know.

I once described Silentio this way:

As it stands today, if the blogosphere is a road map, Silentio is a gravel road just off the dirt road that inexplicably emerged from a cornfield two miles away from the state route that leads to the highway. You, my friends, most of you literally my friends, from days of old, are for the most part, like it or not, not included in that dialogue I just mentioned. We're alone -- crickets chirping -- traffic humming far in the distance -- rural mendicants, maybe squatters, huddled around a campfire, singing occasionally, arguing often, but never silent. No, never that. Silentio is yours as much as it is mine. This is what I tell myself, what I like to believe.

Obviously, our gravel road path has now become more weeds than gravel, and is trodden by only a few who happen to know the way around these parts. It doesn't even connect to the state route. All that remains of the campfire are the grey, nearly hollowed-out dry bones of some nondescript animal we ate in our bygone bacchanalia.

The party was over quickly, wasn't it? Perhaps it was indigestion. I realize I might be writing to myself by now, since I never check Sitemeter anymore, and I don't mean to overstate the importance of Silentio, because it probably was never as important to you as it was to me. (I offered it to you, sure, but only to the extent that I could control the offer. My gifts always come with strings attached, to yank back at any moment, without notice.) And yet, I can't help but think of it as an experiment akin to my beloved German Romantics: Friedrich Schlegel, Novalis, Friedrich Schleiermacher. They had such grand, noble ideals. All of which, or most of which, lasted about three or four years. A blip on the timeline of philosophical and artistic history, let alone their respective lives. After only a few years of meeting in the parlors of Jena and Berlin, the circle of friends and egos fell apart. Schlegel finally married his lover Dorothea, who he had illicitly wooed away from her husband, and quickly thereafter converted to Catholicism; Novalis finally got his wish and died, joining his young bride in the Germanic ground; and Friedrich Schleiermacher seamlessly reconciled his Christian piety with his pluralist leanings, and wrote one of the influential sytematic dogmatics of the nineteenth century.

The grandeur, perhaps naivete, of Romanticism was over in a flash. Gone was their 'new religion' of irony and wit, art and sentiment, of the world as infinitely progressive poetry. Unsurprisingly, it quickly spread throughout Germany, then Britain, and then America in a bastardized form wherein feeling and sentiment was valorized to an extent it never was for Schlegel and his ilk, who always insisted that its purported pantheistic spirit is pierced to the core by an irony that is as destructive as it is creative. (Melville understood this, clearly.) Without irony, it's little wonder that the trajectory of Romanticism went to two kinds of death: (a) the natural kind, wherein an idea is tired and withers on the vine, or is locked away in the asylum, to live out the remainder of its days; and (b) the malevolent kind, wherein an idea is appropriated for ideological purposes, for uniting the Volk, for the sake of ethnic purity and an avowed necessity of historical rule / exception.

All of this makes me wonder, in a way that will make many of you moan with thinly veiled exasperation, about the idea of eternity. Christians await the eschaton, the time of reconciliation and redemption, when things shall be made right -- whatever that means. This time is a no-time, however, because it is the end of time. The end of history. Such has been the promise of many an idealistic philosophy, and yet they have always lasted less than a generation. What if, contra Marx, this isn't a sign of the priority of materiality, and thus the proof of a certain historical inevitability, but simply a indication of infinity's ephemerality. That is to say, what if infinity is to be understood not as a certain duration of experience, but as a the possibility of a certain (miraculous?) intensity of experience -- whereby 'the end', of history / time / etc. (heaven, nirvana, etc.) is, materially, but a moment; and, thus, always just a flash in the pan. Like a certain blog.

S. Žižek says somewhere that the most difficult part of any revolution is the day after its success. What to do after the intensity of 'the end of time' (i.e., the end of the status quo, the breaching of the horizon of a given politico-economic reality) has exploded with its mighty but short-lived fury? The temptation, and to some extent necessity, is to normalize such intensity -- to make it appear inevitable, destined, and thus that which must be inforced by a new rule of law, status quo, etc. The extent that this is true, I think there may always be a place for prophets and martyrs ... even after the promised 'eschaton' of redemption or revolution.