Iran is Paradise

... for the Republicans. You know why? They don't have any homosexuals there.

We know this because President Ahmadinejad said so in a speech at Columbia, provoking gales of laughter from cynical college students. And what made the laughter cynical? The fact that he said this in response to a question about the recent execution of two gay Iranians.

For more on how the Islamic Republic treats its nonexistent gay people -- including pictures of a torture victim -- cut and paste this link into your browser window:

http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2006/01/kidnapped_anoth.html

Anglican Communion: RIP?

It may be over at the end of the month. Click the link for a modestly-worded MSM description, or paste this link into your browser for a triumphalist shout from the Anglican right: http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=6749

In this case, we think the triumphalists have probably got it, err, right. A formal schism has been coming for years, courtesy of the global south primates, led by Peter Akinola, a friend of freedom everywhere -- if by friend you mean "enemy." Rightly or wrongly (and we think wrongly), the PECUSA was given a deadline to formally abjure a set of convictions and practices to which it is clearly committed. The deadline will expire shortly, and there is no realistic hope of a change on either side of the table. Frankly, both parties have too much at stake.

An Episcopal Church that suddenly drew a hard line on gay issues would shrivel and die within months. People would leave in droves, an exodus compared to which the mild present schism would look irrelevant.

Meanwhile, the bishops of the developing world have simply never exercised the sort of power that this debate gives them. They are prominent as never before, their names in the news and their words attended closely by arrogant northern-hemishere types who never took them seriously.

Nobody will budge, and so, late next week, the worldwide Anglican Communion wil probably be a thing of the past.

Bush Gives Evil a Bad Name

That is a delightful rhetorical jibe in Carlin Romano's piece on the language that political leaders have come to use when talking about terrorism (Chronicle of Higher Education).

Romano's complaint is that "official rhetoric after terrorist acts has become ethically neutral, merely strategic in tone and content." He offers some interesting speculation as to why this might be the case, but mainly he's expressing his irritation. He'd like to see more remarks on the order of Sarkozy's famous reference to French rioters as "scum." He believes -- probably correctly, to judge from Sarkozy's subsequent electoral victory -- that people would like to see more "stern moral judgment" from their elected leaders.

Er, um ... maybe. Gay people in the US already get an awful lot of stern moral judgment from politicos, especially during election cycles, for the precise reason that this is the rhetoric that wins elections. But does that make it wise?

In fact, as more and more anti-gay politicians are forced out of the closet (Craig, Foley ... can Santorum be far behind?), their use of this rhetoric to claim a supposed moral high ground looks both hypocritical and desperate. In the same way, for American leaders to call their opponents "monsters" even as they adopt certain monstrous practices of their own might set them up for an ugly rhetorical comeuppance.

Let's put it very simply. We all know that OBL, AQM, the Taliban and so forth are monsters, by any rational definition. But unless our government is willing (and able) to guarantee that there will be no more secret prisons, Abu Ghraibs, Gitmos, Hadithas, Mahmudiyas -- not to mention Plamegates -- then they really shouldn't be too aggressive about moralistic finger-wagging.

More simply still: glass houses.

Can Anything Good Come Out of Hoover?

Normally, we at the Egg don't spend much time on the Hoover Institution website. Right-wing think tanks don't interest us much, and Hoover's "scholars" are a pretty contemptible crowd of partisan hacks, with few real scholarly attainments.

But we made an exception for Tod Lindberg's essay on the Beatitudes, excerpted from a forthcoming book on the political philosophy of Jesus. Parts of the essay are pointless (Is Jesus "predicting" or "promising"? Ask me why I care). Much of it is humdrum, at least to people who read the work of real Biblical scholars (which Lindberg is not, and does not pretend to be). But the conclusion is worth quoting, and I would except that the Hoover Institute's crummy website won't let me cut-and-paste.

So click the link. And don't tell 'em who sent you.

Sex and Money and Crime

This one's got it all.

Ted Haggard, who may or may not be the most poorly closeted gay man since Liberace, wants you to send him money. Since no church would hire him, he's enrolled in a counseling program (not getting it, mind you, but learning to give) and "won't have adequate earning power for at least two years." No real surprise -- he was always one step away from televangelism. But let's unpack the story a little.

First off, the man is not exactly an impoverished grad student. He and his wife earned $338,000 since 2006. Pocket change to a hedge-fund manager, perhaps, but by the standards of the clergy, this is an almost incredible fortune.

Second, he will be "studying" at the the Univeristy of Phoenix, an on-line degree mill catering primarily to people with jobs, who can't make time for conventional classroom study. So there's no reason he couldn't hold work while he gets a degree. (I shelved library books in college, and proofread legal documents in seminary. If he asks, I'll tell him where to send a resume.)

Third, he wants you to send your momney directly to his family or, failing that, to a charity called Families With a Mission. This group shut down operqtions in Colorado a couple of years ago, but still functions in Hawaii. It is run by a sex offender named Paul Huberty, who during his time as an Air Force lieutenant colonel was convicted of "consensual sodomy, fondling his genitals in a public area, indecent acts and adultery," and has since been convicted in Hawaii of "attempted sexual assault," both per the Denver Post.

Yeah, I'm going to send this guy money. Wouldn't you?

Perhpas best of all is this: Huberty disclaims all knowledge of Haggard, or of any effort to raise cash for his studies. So how bad does Haggard have to be that even repeat sex offenders don't want to be associated with him?

Making Friends in Faraway Places

We love Wonkette. We really do. Something about mean-spirited, sometimes bawdy, political satire just grabs us by our cassock-buttons. And we love this post best of all:

"Nearly five years into the greatest American war ever, Army brass are finally admitting what nearly everyone else on Earth (including Dick Cheney) has known for so many years: Bombing the fuck out of a distant country for no actual reason and killing half a million of its people and scattering its armed military forces and destroying its entire infrastructure and executing its government and raping its children and elderly in torture chambers and forcing its educated and professional classes to flee to other countries is not, in fact, a surefire way to spread democracy in the Middle East."

Click the link for more.

How Serious Are We About Energy?

America's slide into industrial irrelevance continues.

Indian researchers have discovered a way to create biofuel from sunflower oil without heating it up first. (They use a fungus which secretes an enzyme, which ... well, click the link to Wired for details). The end result is a new and more efficient process, which equals cheaper fuel.

This is great news for the world, tyrannical petroleum oligarchs excepted. Cheaper, cleaner fuel is a very good thing. But it may also be disquieting news for those with a deep investment in American self-sufficiency (or, let's face it, hegemony). After all, Indians, not Americans, will hold the patent rights -- once again making our energy supply dependent upon the goodwill of foreign nations.

In the posts following the Wired story, somebody suggests that "we need a new Manhattan Project" searching for renewable energy, and that this won't happen "while Big Oil" runs the government. The author of the original story links to a post about some promising steps in that direction -- a $500 million gift from British Petroleum to some univerities for research, and US Dept. of Energy commitment of $125 million over five years, to create a Joint BioEnergy Institute. Both of these are wonderful ideas, at least in principle. (And if we can assume pure motives for an oil-besotted government and, um, and oil company).

But come now. $625 million is about one-third of the government's $1.9 billion investment in the actual Manhattan Project -- and that's without adjustment for inflation. In constant 1996 dollars, the Manhattan Project cost about $21 billion. To show the kind of seriousness about energy independence that it once showed about killing Japanese civilians, the government would have to triple public/private partnership spending -- or increase its own spending by a little more than one thousand percent.

Oh, and about the $21 billion: Yes, that's a lot of money, compared to my parish budget. But it's only about ten weeks' worth of the Iraq war.

Wiley Coyote Prays for Death

Oh, my mistake. Apparently, it's the Rev. Wiley Drake praying for death. And not his own.

Drake, the Second VP of the Southern Baptist Convention, recently endorsed Mike Huckabee's campaign for President. On his congregation's letterhead, no less. Predictably, this led to questions from Americans United for Separation of Church and State. (Their name, btw, is a nuisance to type, but a marvel of clarity. As opposed to, say, Thrivent.)

Seems Wiley doesn't like it when people question his judgment, either political or pastoral. Or when they question his tax-exempt status, which is presumably the real issue here.

John Donne On Torture

Nice little bit from Harper's, with a link to a brief quotation from Donne's 1626 Easter sermon. Donne is sometimes dismissed as an apologist for Stuart absolutism, but as some scholars (including, ahem, myself) have argued that, on the contrary, he often employed his prodigious intellect and poet's wit to the task of subtly undermining all manner of received opinions.

Who Has Integrity?

On his Doonesbury page at Salon, Gary Trudeau compiles these remarks three presidential wannabees. As Big Bird used to say, Which of these things is not like the other?

"I missspoke."
-- Mitt Romney, on his earlier suggestion that his sons' work on his presidential campaign was comparable to serving in the military in Iraq

"I misspoke."
-- Rudy Guiliani, on his earlier claim to have spent as much time at Ground Zero as most of the workers

"I made a mistake. I screwed up."
-- Bill Richardson, on his earlier comment that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice rather than a biological characteristic

Megachurch Cancels Gay Janitor's Funeral

. . . 24 hours before it was scheduled to begin.

Click to read the gory details. Bottom line: big old church eager to hold funeral for its sexton. Then gets the willies cause he, um, liked willies. Cancels funeral, insults family. Dead guy's sister claims the pastor is lying about details; he probably is.

What went on behind the scenes? We'll never know. But it barely matters, because we all get the point. Christianists don't like gay people; they dislike 'em so much, they won't even bury 'em.

Giuliani Wants to Be a Fireman

... if he ever grows up.

Fearlessly burning his bridges, the former NYC mayor has outraged firefighters and other first responders by claiming to have spent as much time as any of them -- "or more"! -- at the World Trade Center site. Therefore, he says, "I'm one of you."

No matter which borough they come from, the firefighters respond with a traditional Bronx cheer : "I personally find that very, very insulting," says one; "He's not one of us. He never has been and he never will be," says another.

"Self-absorbed, arrogant and deluded," says a third.

If You're Thinking About Voting For Rudy ...

Click the link for yet another take on why that might be a mistake, this one by Josh Johnson of the Rocky Mountain News. It's a decent rundown of what most New Yorkers already know about their former jefe. But, like many other websites lately, it offers a chilling quotation, in which Giuliani says that "freedom is the willlingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority."

Like most of the other sites that quote it, Johnson doesn't give much context. It was a 1994 speech on crime -- early in Rudy's tenure as mayor, long before 9/11. (The Times offers a meatier excerpt at : http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A01E2D9173CF933A15750C0A962958260). But there is a whole section that merits a look for anybody who wants to see how Giuliani's mind works:

"We constantly present the false impression that government can solve problems that government in America was designed not to solve. Families are significantly less important in the development of children today than they were 30 or 40 years ago. Religion has less influence than it did 30 or 40 years ago. Communities don't mean what they meant 30 or 40 years ago.

"As Americans, we're not sure we share values. We're sometimes even afraid to use the word values. We talk about teaching ethics in schools -- people say, "What ethics? Whose ethics? Maybe we can't." And they confuse that with teaching of religion. And we are afraid to reaffirm the basics upon which a lawful and a decent society are based. We're almost embarrassed by it.

"We look upon authority too often and focus over and over again, for 30 or 40 or 50 years, as if there is something wrong with authority. We see only the oppressive side of authority. Maybe it comes out of our history and our background. What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.

"[ Interruption by someone in the audience. ]

"You have free speech so I can be heard."

He goes on to say that government isn't the solution to the decay of society, stronger families are. Taken as a whole, the speech is a weird melange of conservative ideas. Each idea by itself might appeal to some part of the Republican tent, but I'm not sure that they work together very well. The emphasis on personal responsibility and the limitations of government squares poorly with the emphasis upon lawful authority, for example. Still, the ideas aren't bad or even wrong, so far as they do. But did you catch the kicker?

Make no mistake: Giulliani is an authoritarian bastard. There is a lot of trash-talk about NYC lately, at least in Sullivan's blog, calling in a "nanny state" under the present mayor. This is nonsense. it was Giuliani who erected steel barriers along the avenues so that pedestrians were no longer free to choose which intersection they used -- a stupid idea which Bloomberg quickly jettisoned. Throw in the Diallou shooting, the Louima torture and a series of excessive force cases in the NYPD, and it was obvious to most of us living there that New York wasn't a nanny state during "Giuliani time." It was a police state.

And he's also a narcissistic freak of nature. What else could explain the serial humiliation of serial wives?

These two lovely character traits -- authoritarianism and narcissism -- come together in a single lapidary remark, improvised in response to a heckler: "You have free speech so I can be heard."

And this guy is his party's front-runner? Yeesh.

Bishop Lustiger -- R.I.P.

Jean-Marie, Cardinal Lustiger, is dead. Click the link for a good obit in Le Monde.

A Pole raised in France, a Jew converted to Catholicism, the only Cardinal fluent in Yiddish -- Lustiger was quite a man. As the obit says, "Karol Wojtyla embodied the spiritual resistance to a society of atheistic Communism. Lustiger did it in a laicized French society, secular in the extreme. A powerful friendship was born."

Despite our admiration, we at the Egg have our doubts about John Paul II, and about his chosen prelates. We are partial to Jacques Gaillot, the former bishop of Evreux, whom Lustiger helped his Pope "exile" to the nominal see of Partenia. (Google him for a good time.)

One Lord, One Faith ... Err, Never Mind

Anglicans in Jamaica are updating their hymnal to include songs by the prominent Rastafarians Bob Marley and Peter Tosh. Rastafarianism, we should remind our readers, is not a form of Christianity. It is a different religion, in which marijuana is a sacrament and the late Emeperor Haile Selassie is the Messiah. In fact, the songs are being added "despite [the songwriters'] sometimes vocal opposition to Christianity," according to the AP.

But that's okay, explains church spokesman Ernie Banks. Tosh and Marley " ... may have been anti-church, but they were not anti-God or anti-religion."

We understand the Dalai Lama isn't anti-God, and is rather decidedly pro-religion. Shall we add a few of his choice lyrics? How about Cat Stevens (um, we mean Yusuf Islam)?

"Jihad" -- the Musical

Oh, this is going to be great. I'm not going to go see it, mind you. First, because it's playing in Britain and sencond because I'm a big chicken when it comes to be targeted for car bombs. But still, it's going to be great.

"It's almost heartwarming," one reviewer concluded.

Giuliani's Daughter Backs Obama

Rudy has "asked for privacy to deal with strained relationships in his family." No joke.

We at the Egg aren't going to violate the ex-mayor's filial privacy. But we are going to point out, yet again, that his "strained relationships" aren't just the usual sturm-und-drang of family life. This is a man who married his own cousin, then cheated on her and lied about knowing how they were related -- lied to his church, no less -- in order to end the marriage. Then he married somebody else, cheated on her, and publicly humiliated her by announcing their divorce to the media before he announced it to her or the kids.

He lies, he cheats, and he has no problem with humiliating even those closest to him. So no, we're not surprised that his one of his kids might prefer Obama (or for that matter Lucifer) for president.

Why Being a Christian Is Often Embarrassing

Sigh. Some minister in California is going to line his people up outside a mosque, hoping to convert Muslims as they come to and from their house of worship.

Some of you may seen nothing wrong with this picture. After all, it's a free country. The guy has a right to express himself. And as he says in the story (linked above), immigrants from the Middle Eastern tyrannies may not know that they have a choice in the matter.

True enough. But now imagine the shoe on the other foot. It's Sunday morning in Lahore, where you are working for a relief agency or oil company or some other international employer. Going to church in Pakistan is a little dangerous, because you never know when some sectarian violence will explode in your general direction. It would be safer and easier to stay home and read the Times online. But your faith matters, so you get dressed and take your chances.

And when you get to church, who is there to greet you but a crowd of Islamists, eager to save your soul? They mean well, to be sure, but they are awfully loud and forceful as they approach you, shouting and shoving literature into your hands, assuring you that your faith is "hopeless" and even "leads to eternal death."

How do you react? Angry, sure. And scared -- is there some unspoken threat here? Will your church be attacked when you enter it? Stranger things have happened, you know, in that violent foreign nation. It is very likely that you cleave more closely still to the church, as it is the only thing that makes you feel safe in this strange place. And you get ready to defend it, by any means necessary.

Well, that's exactly the situation that immigrant Muslims are in as they go to their mosque. And singling them out on the doorstep of their house of prayer isn't going to help. You may convert a few, but the rest will be convinced more filrmly that holding onto their faith is all-important. A small number may even feel threatened enough to buy into the Islamist agenda, as the only way to defend themselves and their religion against Christianist fanatics.

Why I Am A Christian

The Times of London headline says it all: "Hindu Man Chops Off Hand As Offering to Goddess." (Kali, to be sure).

Oh, we Christians have our little foibles -- the Crusades, the witch trials, the Bush Administration -- but at least our ritual sacrifice is determinedly unbloody.

Has Gonzales Stopped Beating His Wife?

Obviously, the Attorney General of the United States isn't a wife-beater. But he may be something worse.

A New Yorker piece by Jeffrey Toobin details the murder of Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Wales in Seattle, and the subsequent investigation -- which some of Wales' colleagues considered strangely inadequate, and which to this day has resulted in no arrests.

It then describes the firing of U.S. Attorney John McKay, who is part of a family so prominent in Republican circles that they are sometimes compared to the Kennedys. Despite his obvious partisan commitment, and despite pressure from within his party, McKay declined to prosecute any Democrats for fraud after the 2004 election. Apparently he didn't see sufficient evidence.

You might naturally assume that when McKay was fired, it was for this insistence that criminal prosecution be accompanied by evidence of crime. Call it an unwilingness to prostitute himself for the sake of "loyalty," which in the Rove Administration is a firing offfense, if not a capital one. (This seems to be the rule that kept Colin Powell in line).

Apparently, you'de be wrong. According to AG Gonzales' testimony before Congress, McKay wasn't sacked for lack of zeal in lynching Dems. He was sacked because he was too zealous in his advocacy of an information-sharing system among federal prosecutors -- an idea so obviously good that it has since been adopted despite McKay's support.

This would be typical Bush-era craziness -- good prosecutor fired for supporting good idea. Except that, also in typical Bush-era fashion, Gonzales is lying.

More than a year before McKay came out in favor of information-sharing, Gonzales' chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, had put his name in the infamous email to Harriet Miers. And why? Well, in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, Sampson suggested that "McKay might have been fired because he had been too aggressive in his investigation of Tom Wales' murder."

That's right. We are living through an era in which a "good prosecutor" is one who goes after his masters' political enemies, but doesn't support programs that help his colleagues work effectively -- or show any interest in learning who killed one of his own team. And, by the way, up is down, war is peace, and Bush is in in charge.

As McKay says himself, "The idea that I was pushing too hard to investigate the murder of a federal prosecutor -- it's mind-numbing. If it's true, it's just immoral, and if it's false, then the idea that they would use the death of Tom Wales to cover up what they did is just unconscionable."

So that's the question for Gonzales: On your watch, has the conduct of the Department of Justice been immoral or has it been unconscionable? And, as a follow-up: Have you stopped beating your wife?

The End of America, Part 1

Click to read the story of Mark and Deborah Kuhn, a couple in West Asheville, North Carolina. I'll give a recap, but the story is ful of perfect little details that combine to show what America becoming.

Upset about the condition of the country, the Kuhns hung a big flag on their porch -- upside down, in the "distress" position. Later, they added President Bush's face and the words "Out Now." For this, a local sheriff's deputy intimidated them, broke into their home and beat Mark up -- all after they had taken the flag down. They have been arrested and charged with, among other things, desecrating a flag.

No word yet on whether deputy Brian Sorrell will be charged with assault, battery, unlawful entry, abuse of his authority, or a violation of the Kuhn family's basic civil rights. Now ord yet on whether the sheriff's department will suspend or terminate him for this outrageous misbehavior. And no word yet on whether the sheriff's department lost the flag they deny having confiscated as evidence, or are secretly desecrating it themselves for its inevitable court appearance.

The scariest part is that the original complaint to which the deputy responded appears to have been filed by some mysterious man in military fatigues, who has been driving by the house and taking pictures, and who during the arrest cheered the deputy on by shouting, "Go to jail, baby." I know, you're thinking "Neo-Nazi skinhead thugs." So was I, until I realized it wasn't the 1980s anymore. The guy had a federal license plate on his vehicle.

The only good news here is the neighbors. They woke up, watched what was happening; they have backed up the Kuhns' version of events. And they are angry. Shawn Brady says, “This is an outrage. The 1st, 4th and 5th Amendments were clearly broken today.” When they asked what was going on, the deputies told them it was none of their business; to which Tony Plichta responds, simply, "They are our neighbors."

These are dark times, people. And the only way we are going to get through them is by watching out for each other, and guarding our neighbors' rights.

Way to Evangelize, Bonehead

St. Fortunata, in East New York (Brooklyn, for the uninitiated), is a Roman parish with a significant Nigerian membership -- mostly Igbo. But according to the Times, a number of the Nigerians will be leaving for another parish. Leaving in a huff. And why?

Apparently, their priest preached too long one Sunday. Not too long for them, mind you -- they like and expect sermons that are much longer than most American Catholics are accustomed to. No real surprise there; lots of people do. Baptists, for example, and especially (but not exclusively) the black ones. The great Renaissance homilists often went ninety minutes or more, as (apparently) did some of the Church Fathers. Anyway, this guy is reported by the Times (click link above for details) to have run a half hour.

Oooh. Half an hour! Call out the guard dogs.

Which is apparently what the pastor of the parish, Vincent Miceli, did when he stood up after the sermon and and said, "Thank you, Father. In the future, please limit your preaching to twenty to twenty-five minutes."

As we used to say at summer camp: Oh, snap! The crowd went wild. The African majority was offended, and registered its offense; while the non-African minority reghistered its support for Miceli by clapping. Instant schism, which will become official at the end of the month when the Nigerians begin to worship elsewhere.

We have to give Miceli credit. This was a display of virtuoso indelicacy. He wasn't just rude to a brother priest -- he was rude in public. In front of laypeople. Better yet, he was rude to a brother priest in front of laypeople who had liked the guy's sermon -- and probably been refreshed by the familiar African-ness of it. But that's not the best part. The best part is that he took it upon himself to be rude in public in the middle of Mass.

In the Times article, Miceli seems unrepentant -- he blames the Nigerians for not working harder to assimilate. There is no doubt some truth to that; but it has been our observation at the Egg that immigrants are much more willing to respect your customs when you don't publicly insult theirs.

"The Bombing Begins in Five Minutes"

When Reagan said that, he was making a joke. A callous, thoughtless joke about the incineration of millions of Soviet civilians with nuclear weapons.

But scary as that was, I am far more frightened today. Because today, ladies and gentlemen, Dick Cheney is the President of the United States.

(Okay, tomorrow. I'm writing late on Friday night, so let's just pretend it's Saturday).

The more-or-less elected President is going to be knocked unconscious and have a camera stuck up his butt. This is an image I would normally cherish, except for the fact that, under the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, it makes Dick Cheney the acting president.

First, stop to think about the irony. Cheney has the official reins of power because of a late addition to a document which he has used his apparently vast unofficial power to undermine.

Now, think about the damage this crazy man could do in one day of ultimate power. "Callous" and "thoughtless" don't even begin to describe Cheney's evil. Hell, I'm not even sure "incineration of millions" hits a sufficiently frightening note. A man who considers himself above the law, above the Constitution, answerable neither to the President nor the Congress (nor, so far as there is any evidence, to God), now commands the armed forces. The man who lied and cheated to start an unneccessary war that would line his own pockets, and who may well have committed treason (in the Plame case) to make sure that war started on time; a man who has called the continued practice of torture by American troops "a no-brainer" -- this man now holds the nuclear codes.

I'm terrified.

Republicans Report Reid "Rude"

According to Drudge, Arlen Specter complains that Harry Reid is "rude," and other Senate Republicans complain that relations in the upper chamber have reached "a new low."

Are they lower, one wonders, than the time the Vice-President told one of his Legislative Branch ciolleagues to "f*ck off" on the Senate floor? Or during the Clinton impeachment?

"A Rumi of One's Own"

That's the title of a provocative essay by Rachel Aviv, at the Poetry Foundation website.

She takes issue with the popular Coleman Barks translation -- or, really, paraphrase -- of the medieval Sufi poet. Barks is a good poet, but he doesn't read Persian, which means he was working from older English versions (and in at least one instance, copying their mistakes). More seriously, he seems to remove "God" from some poems and replace it with "love."

This is, to put it mildly, a discourtesy toward the author. Nor does it do the reader any favors. God may very well BE love -- such is the contention of St. John -- but that does not mean that a sophisticated writer can be presumed to use the words interchageably. It's a bit like going through the Narnia books and putting in "love" each time Lewis wrote "Aslan" -- there is logic to it, but you make a hash of the story.

The responses on the page are thoughtful, and worth reading. Here's my own:

I'm a little sad, but not surprised.

Sad, because I am so fond of Barks' version of Rumi -- as I will continue to be, despite knowing that he didn't translate from the originals, and that he took significant liberties with the author's religious commitments.

But not surprised, because this sort of thing happens so often. Robert Bly's paraphrases of Kabir are useful for comparison -- like Barks, they are good English poetry. But they aren't especially good Kabir. (As opposed to the Linda Hess/Shukdev Singh renderings).

Among Christian writers, a little of this has gone on with Hildegard of Bingen, but less egregiously so. I suppose it is harder to bowdlerize the religiosity of one's own parent culture -- or at least to get away with it.

Bloomberg Doth Bestride the World Like a Colossus?

Sue Casey, at Huffington Post, states bluntly that if NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg enters the presidential race, he will win. No ifs, ands, or butts. (In-joke about his antismoking campaign. Get it?)

She doesn't have much of a case -- he's rich, he's independent, he's pragmatic. Um, okay. We're not sure these outweigh the mayor's own ironic self-assessment: "A short Jewish billionaire from New York? Come on!" Still, we at the Egg would be more than happy to believe Casey is right. Bloomberg is our mayor, and a damned good one. Apparently, "President Wesley Clark" is simply not going to happen, so we'll take Bloomie.

What's a bit odd to us is that Sue Casey (whose bio mentions that she "cut her teeth on New Hampshire primary politics") seems distressed by the possibility that an independent might run and win, because this means "the primary season could come and go and not matter one whit," and that Bloomie could be elected "without ever having to worry about such an old fashioned notions as party primaries."

Let's be frank, Sue. That's a good thing.

Why? Well, it's not as though party primaries are required by the Constitution. Far from it; "faction" -- by which they meant political partisanship -- was something the Founders earnestly, if naively, hoped to avoid in their nascent Republic. Nor are primaries proving to be an especially distinguished way of choosing candidates. Competition among states to feel important has led to a perversely early primary season, meaning in turn that we have to endure a long, pointless, and expensive campaign. The GOP's winner-take-all system means that the dissenting votes in larger states (Republicans in New York, Democrats in Texas) are effectively worthless, and the candidates are effectively chosen by swing states -- call this the "Electoral College fallacy."

Honestly, a candidate who can take some of the king-making power-madness out of New Hampshire, Iowa and their slew of wannabees will be doing the nation a favor. And if the same candidate is beholden to neither party machinery nor the wishes of big-time corporate donors, so much the better. If, unlike any of the announced candidates (including Giuliani!) the candidate has a solid track record of effective management in one of the most complex and challenging environments imaginable, all done without the usual political game of playing interest groups off against eah other -- well then, by gum, I think we might have a winner.

If I Were President Bush ...

... I'd be taller, wealthier and more aerobically fit than is in fact the case.

And if I learned that my trusted Vice President had been disobeying my direct orders, and pressuring me into unwise policy decisions by bureaucratic end-runs around my cabinet and staff, all leading to a series of bad judgments that imeriled both national security today and my legacy tomorrow -- well, I'd sit him down for a heart-to-heart.

And it would go like this:

"Dick, from now on you follow my orders. Dismissed."

Of course, I would also be smart enough to know he wasn't going to listen, and that -- feeling cut out of the loop -- he would be more dangerous than ever, both to America and to me personally. Because of that pesky Constitution, I can't fire the guy -- and yes, there's some irony in the fact that Cheney's job is protected by a document for which he has such evident disregard. So I'd take some steps to neutralize him. Which wouldn't really be that hard. First, I'd take away most of the funding for his office, staff, and cartoon-sized document safes. Second, I'd fire David Addington and any other Cheney hardliners. (What do you mean, "Can I do that?" I'm the freaking President.) Third, I'd make it clear that the Veep's job description now had two parts: (a) the Constitutinonal, which is to sit on his fat rump and wait for me to die; and (b) traditional, which is to attend funerals for foreign dignitaries. And that's all. (Okay, that's harsh. Maybe an occasional ribbon-cutting ceremony on a new stretch of interstate.)

I would take for granted, however, that even stripped of his staff, budget and official duties, Cheney would continue to undermine my authority and weaken America's long-term interests. And at the first sign that he was doing so, I would go to Plan B.

See, the President can't fire the Vice-President, but somebody else can. So I would quietly make it known on Capitol Hill, through low-level intermediaries at first, that the White House would offer no significant objection to impeachment proceedings. I'd start by talking to the moderate Republicans who were once supposed to be my core constituency, and have felt abandoned as my administration has swung rightward. They could parley with the Dems, while I sent some higher-level messengers to build enthusiasm on the right. It would take a while to build momentum, but not -- in a Democratic Congress -- all that long.

Our Sock-Puppet President

As the WaPo's Cheney blog continues, so does the shocked reaction in the blogosphere. Click the link for an especially good reflection on just how the Veep's machinations have undermined his colleagues in the Executive Branch (if that's really where he works) and how they have required Condi and Colin to accept indignities over which lesser public figures would have resigned in protest a thousand times over.

My favorite bit, though, is not in the blog post, but in a comment by somebody called "Ugh." I'm stealing it:

"I will just note that this series makes Bush look like a buffoon (not that that wasn't obvious before), is someone going to bring it up at the White House briefings (I would assume that happened today) or at his next press conference (assuming he ever holds another one).

" 'Mr. President, How does it feel to be the first figurehead President in United States history?'

" 'Mr. President, Should we just start adressing you as 'Mr. Sock-Puppet' from now on?' "

Coming Soon: "Cheney" by Gore Vidal?

Until Cheney followed in his footsteps, Aaron Burr was the last US Vice President to shoot a man. Perhaps not coincidentally, Burr was also the last Veep to be tried for treason against his country. It may be time for Cheney to follow in those footsteps, as well.

Mr. Cheney (click above for a series of Times articles) has shown a continuing contempt for the law, whether domestic or international, up to and now including the United States Constitution. Over the years, we have assumed that his agenda -- war, oil, profiteering in both; secrecy, torture, leaking the names of covert operatives -- simply reflected the priorities of the Bush Administration.

But now we're beginning to wonder.

New assessments and revelations depict a Vice President whose office pursues its own policy goals independtly of, and sometimes at cross-purposes with, the President. (See A WaPo think piece here: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/chapters/chapter_1/). This has been thrown into sharp relief by the VP's claim that he is not a part of the Executive Branch, and therefore not subject to an Executive Order which would require him to turn certain documents over to the national archives. That's right: Cheney doesn't think Bush is sufficiently secretive or unaccountable. So he's disobeying a direct order from the President, and concocting a novel (and ludicrous) legal justification for doing so.

No doubt coached by his legal Rasputin, David Addington, Cheney claims that the Vice-President, as president pro tem of the Senate, is part of the Legislative Branch. He had previously argued, of course, that as part of the Executive he was not required to respond to Congressional inquiries regarding the lobbyists who helped him make energy policy. So to whom does Cheney think he is accountable -- and by whom does he imagine that his treasonous and illegal pursuit of personal power can be checked or balanced?

The answer, of course, is Nobody.

There was a time when we considered impeaching Bush to be a reasonable course of action. But no longer. Horrible as it is to contemplate, Bush is the only thing protecting America -- and the world -- from the madness of Dick Cheney.

So ... Rushdie is Lady Macbeth?

He is now Sir Salman Rushdie, and the Muslim world is -- once more -- afire with indignation.

Along with th predictable calls for his death ("If someone exploded a bomb on his body he would be right to do so," according to a Pakistani official) and insults to Queen Elizabeth ("the old Engish crone," according to a newspaper), there is also a curious remark by Lord Ahmed, the first Muslim peer.

"I was appalled to hear Salman Rushdie had been given a knighthood," Lord Ahmed is quoted as having said. "...This man not only provoked violence around the world because of his writings, but there were many people who were killed around the world. Forgiving and forgetting is one thing, but honouring the man who has blood on his hands, sort of, because of what he did, I think is going a bit too far."

Oh spare me, milawd. The guy writes novels. And, because of the astonishing inability of the Muslim world to grasp concepts like freedom of expression, his novel-writing has inadvertently made him an international symbol of a core Western value.

Blood on his hands? No. Zarqawi and bin Laden and Arafat have blood on their hands. Bush and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz have blood on their hands. The people who blow up commuter trains and bus stations have blood on their hands, as do the people who look the other way while their subordinates commit war crimes. There is plenty of blood on plenty of hands these days. But not on Rushdie's.

The guy writes novels. Stories. He makes stuff up. He doesn't make policy. He doesn't command a militia. Nobody is forced to read Rushdie's little flirtations with blasphemy, any more than they are forced to consume the gory muck of mid-career Stephen King or the brand-name sadomasochism of Ian Fleming. At least for those of us who have finished high school English classes, the rule is simple: If you don't like a book, you don't have to read it. If it insults you, don't buy it. If you think it is really, really offensive, you might organize a boycott. Or better yet, write and sell a better book.

But let's face the facts, Lord Ahmed (and all the rest of you thin-skinned Sons of the Prophet). The poets and strorytellers aren't the ones with blood on their hands. The murderers are.

Spreading the . . . Love?

Isaiah Thomas is an actor. Generally, we at the Egg shy away from celebritainment stories, because they fall outside our "sex-religion-politics" catchment area. But we couldn't pass this up.

Mr. Thomas was fired from his job on a doctor show recently, after repeatedly using the word "faggot" to mean something other than a bundle of sticks. So we are amused, in a kind of sick-stomach way, when People magazine asks Mr. Thomas if there are any widespread misconceptions about him, and he says:

"I don't know. Maybe for 50 years and the history of media and television I represent something that's supposed to not exist. ... This happened to Malcolm X, this happened to Paul Robeson – this misconception can happen to any man of power that loves himself and wants to spread that love and that humanity throughout the world."

Yeah. You're just like Paul Robeson. If instead of a master entertainer and passionate advocate for civil rights and justice for the oppressed, Paul Robeson had been a second-string TV actor who dissed gay people.

What You Mean "We," White Man?

That's the punchline to one of my three favorite jokes. Thank you, Lenny Bruce.

I think of it because I just read an article in the Seattle "Spokesman-Review" that begins:

"Although it's not the regular vestment for Lutheran clergy, Bishop Martin Wells often wears a clerical collar. The collar – often worn by Catholic and Episcopal priests – makes the church more public wherever he goes, said the leader of the Eastern Washington-Idaho Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. These days, the clerical collar has become a way for Wells to show solidarity for Catholic priests, as well as other members of the Roman Catholic Church."

The rest of the story is about some Papist sex scandals. And while we at the Egg are touched by Bishop Wells' desire to show solidarity for the Seattle diocese, we're a bit stumped by that opening line. Clerical collars aren't a "regular" part of a Lutheran pastor's clothing? Says who?

In fact, distinctive clerical attire -- the collar and its various predecessor garments -- have always been customary among Lutherans, excepting only those regions affected by Pietist anticlericalism. Granted, that's a lot of regions, but still. Here in New York, our synod assemblies look like penguin conventions. And you can look through the old Confirmation Class photos in any parish archives, often dating back to the beginning of photography, to see the penguins of prior generations. (Oh, and our bishop wears the traditional purple, which is really a sort of red).

As I say, these things are regional. But i wonder if the Spokesman-Review did much homework for this story, because it certainly doesn't seem to know much about the subject. "Vestments," for example, are properly speaking liturgical garb, not street clothing such as a cassock or collar. And at least in Scandinanvia and Metro New York, the penguins rule.

Hilary Takes Texas

Well, not takes, exactly. A poll suggests that, if the vote were today, Senator Clinton would tie either Senator McCain or Imperator Giuliani . . . in Texas. (Obama doesn't do quite as well).

Andrew Sullivan muses, "I wonder if the Republicans know what is about to hit them." Fair question. After all, as red states go, Texas is pretty damn red. On the other hand, it is (or was) the home of Ann Richards, Molly Ivins, Kinky Friedman and LBJ. So there is a tradition of homegrown Democratic -- even progressive -- sympathy down there.

But there are a couple of considerations. First, let's remember that Clinton isn't really all that progressive, at least not by the standards of Democratic hardliners. She's a smidge to the left of her husband, who basically ended welfare. She lacks his personal magnetism, but like him, she is a committed pragmatist and policy wonk. These are good things, both for running and for governing; but they also put the kibosh on any idea of a sudden liberal upswell in the Lone Star State.

Second, let's be clear about what is driving the poll results. According to The USA Today, "In the poll, nearly two-thirds of Texans said the country was on the wrong track. Four in 10 called the Iraq war the nation's most important problem. One in 10 cited immigration."

In other words, Texans want a solution to the Iraq disaster. They want it four times as badly as they want a new immigration policy. And despite the fact that Obama was out front in his opposition to the invasion, Texans seem to believe that Clinton is the one best able to deliver the goods.

American "Justice"

Henry King, Jr. prosecuted Nazis at Nuremberg. You remember Nazis -- genocidal fascists who tried to take over the world. So this is a man who knows from fighting against monsters.

And he says the Bush Amdinistration's military tribunals are a betrayal of American justice.

According to Reuters, King recently said, "The concept of a fair trial is part of our tradition, our heritage. That's what made Nuremberg so immortal -- fairness, a presumption of innocence, adequate defense counsel, opportunities to see the documents that they're being tried with." He was "incredulous that the Guantanamo rules left open the possibility of using evidence obtained through coercion."

"To torture people and then you can bring evidence you obtained into court? Hearsay evidence is allowed? Some evidence is available to the prosecution and not to the defendants? This is a type of 'justice' that [Robert jackson, the architect of Nuremberhg trials] didn't dream of," King said.

So, how do you think the Bush Administration will handle this guy? Will they call him "increasingly irrelevant," the way they did Carter? Or will they snicker that his vision of justice is "quaint," their preferred word for the Geneva Conventions? I guess the details don't matter; we know they aren't going to listen. They are going to continue trashing the ideals and virtues that made our country great, and by doing so fritter away what little is left of our moral authority in the international arena.

While We're Doing Litmus Tests ...

... let's make a game out of it, shall we? Bishop Tobin says he can't suport a pro-choice candidate, whose position is a "defection" from Roman Catholic teaching.

So let's ask ourselves: For whom should a party-line Romanist vote in 2008? That is, if they want a candidate whose life and policies will both reflect the Church's values and teachings? (Click the link to compare their positions.)

Let's establish some basic criteria. Rome is loudly and publicly opposed to both abortion and capital punishment, so the winning candidate must also oppose both. That eliminates most Democrats on one count, and most Republicans on the other. (To his credit, Sam Brownback admits to being "conflicted" about the death penalty, but he nonethless supports its use in some cases. See Bishop Tobin's comments, below, regarding Pilate). At this point, Ron Paul may be the last man standing.

Rome supports the Ten Commandments, including the prohibition against adultery, which it interprets as also prohibiting remarriage. This knocks out McCain, Giuliani (repeatedly), Gingrich and Delay. Probably a bunch more, too.

But Rome also favors the just-war theory, which specifically prohibits pre-emptive warfare; and in fact, John Paul II publicly denounced the Iraq invasion as immoral. So the winning candidate must have, at a minimum, failed to support the 2003 attack. (Ideally, he or she will have publicly opposed it, as did the Pope and millions of protesters all over the world). This eliminates most Republicans, as well as Clinton and Edwards.

Now, those are the most readily-defined issues. And they already leave us without one clear candidate for our sisters and brothers of the Roman persuasion. But if we take into account the Roman Catholic social teachings on justice for the poor, and especially immigration, things get even murkier. We need a candidate who is either faithful in marriage or celibate in singleness; who opposed Iraq and votes against capital punishment; with a track record of support for programs that aid the poor and protect the rights of immigrants. (This is where Ron Paul hits the theological skids. Up to here, Nancy Pelosi would be ideal; sadly, of course, she is a defector on the question of abortion.)

Well, readers, good luck to you all, as you enter play the Candidate Game. And good luck to Bishop Tobin, as he searches for a candidate. Please write if you find the Magic Contestant. And if, by election day 2008, you still haven't found one, then let me propose something else: not using religious doctrine as a litmus test for electoral poitics.

Roman Bishop Supports Adultery

This is, at least, one possible interpretation of an article by Bishop Thomas J. Tobin, on the subject of Rudy Giuliani.

Seems the bishop was invited to a Giuliani fundraiser. He doesn't know why: "I don’t know the mayor; I’ve never met him. I try to avoid partisan politics. Heck, I’m not even a Republican. But most of all, I would never support a candidate who supports legalized abortion." Writing in the The Rhode Island Catholic, Tobin goes on to excoriate Giuliani for his pro-choice "defection from the Catholic Faith." He considers Giuliani's position illogical as well as immoral. His sharpest barb is probably this one: "I can just hear Pilate saying, 'You know, I’m personally opposed to crucifixion but I don’t want to impose my belief on others.'”

But here's what jumps out at us: Tobin doesn't say a word about adultery, which Giuliani has committed often and publicly, nor about his several subsequent divorces. Nor a word about capital punishment, which Giuliani supports (and which was, we might point out, Pilate's actual crime).

It may be that Bishop Tobin doesn't know enough about Giuliani to be aware of the many other areas in which he has defected from Roman Catholicism. Or it may be that he does know, but is so single-minded in his focus on abortion that none of the other issues matters to him. (He tells he won't support a pro-choice candidate; would he support one who endorses executions, or admits adultery? Because there are plenty running this year). And isn't his refusal to condemn those practices really just a tacit endorsement?

"Mere Monotheists"

Fine sermons on the Holy Trinity are tough to come by. Here's one.

Dems Hide Clark Under a Bushel

Okay, that's as obscure a tagline as I've ever written. But here's the beef: Wesley Clark has the military training, the high-level command experience, the Washington-insider chops and the personal temperament (read "guts") to be one hell of a President, especially at a time in history when national security looms large on the screen. No other announced candidate, Democrat or Republican, mixes those characteristics into quite so potent a cocktail.

And yet Clark barely got a tumble from his party in the last primary season, and has basically been ignored in the current run-up. "I think about running every day," he says, wistfully, to a reporter. But he's not running, at least not in any meaningful way. And why? Because the Democrats are fixated on a showdown between two junior senators, one a virtual newcomer on the national scene, the other toting so much baggage that Wonder Woman couldn't lift it. Oh, and if those two wind up in Mutual Assured Destruction (as they probably will), the Dems' backup plan is a good-looking ambulance chaser whose entire history of public service is one term in the senate.

Memo to Dems: Senators love running for President -- but Americans hate voting for senators. Fact of life. The only senators in history elected to the White House were JFK and (ugh!) Warren Harding. And we don't much care for lawyers, either -- which is what Clinton, Obama and Edwards really are.

Memo to Dems, Part 2: If the Republican disarray pays off, and you take power in '08, remember that you'll still have to govern. And yes, we know how good you all are at managing economic policy, education, and so forth; we even trust that you have some solid ideas about trade, hi-tech, and health care. But a big part of governing will involve the deployment of US troops in a way that projects American power while rebuilding at least a little bit of our shattered American prestige. Oh, and actually keeping us safe from a determined and decentralized enemy. That is not work for lawyers or senators (any more than it has been, obviously, for a baseball franchisee). It is work for a soldier.

So why don't you draft one?

Right Wing Blasts Wrong Cheney

Mary Cheney and her partner are "just playing house," and the birth of their son is part of a "tragedy." This according to somebody named Stephen Bennett, who is apparently the spokesman for something called Concerned Women of America, which is apparently "one of the largest religious right groups." I say apparently because I've never heard of him, or of his group.

Apart from the venom of the guy's press release, which you can sample for yourself by clicking the link, I am struck by the fact that the Concerned Women of America have chosen a man to speak on their behalf in the public arena. How ... post-feminist?

"Outmoded, Amateurish, and Untreliable"

Per today's Times:

"As the Bush administration completes secret new rules governing interrogations, a group of experts advising the intelligence agencies are arguing that the harsh techniques used since the 2001 terrorist attacks are outmoded, amateurish and unreliable."

Outmoded, amateurish and unreliable: in a nutshell, the Administration's entire approach to national security. (And plenty of other things.)

Still, read the article. The comparison between the highly-trained, language-proficient interrogators of WWII, who spent hours prepping for each hour spent questioning prisoners, is a stark contrast to the intelligence officers of today, whose training never seems to have included foreign languages, much less a review of the relevant academic and professional literature of interrogation.

The weirdest revelation is that the various forms of torture used by US interrogators seem to be "reverse-engineered" -- that is, borrowed from Cold War-era Army manuals which described the methods we thought our enemies might be using. How many things are wrong with that picture? We are borrowing what may have been the torture techniques of an Evil Empire -- techniques which, to judge from the empire's fate, never worked all that well.

We're spending $200 million per day in Iraq. How much would our intelligence-gathering capacity be expanded if a week's worth of war funding were diverted to advanced training in Asian languages for soldiers and spies, and if another's week's worth were diverted to rigorous, systematic, peer-reviewed study of successful, proven, morally acceptable methods of interrogation?

The Coming Polygamy Explosion

A report in the Times of London (click the link) claims that 1,000 men in Britain, more or less, are living with multiple wives. Unsurprisingly, most of them seem to be Muslims. Shariah permits polygamy, but British law does not. But it seems that immigration officials have been instructed to look the other way in questionable cases.

This will no doubt be dismissed, for a while, as an oddity. But in fact, it is food for thought.

First, we should recognize that this modest number of cases will increase, rapidly in European nations and more slowly in the United States, as the number of Muslims increases. Although most Muslim marriages involve one husband and one wife, exceptions -- especially among the affluent -- are not unheard of. So Western nations, largely unacquainted with plural marriage, will need to think hard about some of the questions that the practice raises.

For example, our laws generally prohibit the practice, mostly as a matter of habit rather than a matter of principle. Sooner or later we will need to ask whether there is in fact a principle at stake in this prohibition -- and whether it is a principle of law, of social policy, or of absolute morality. And in any of those cases, opponents will need to make a compelling argument that the principle at stake outweighs the apparent right of Muslims to a free exercise of their religion. (We went through this with Mormons, in the mid-1800s, but I'm not sure that the philosophical legwork of the era will stand up to rigorous scrutiny. it seems to have depended upon vague appeals to "decency," followed by a lot of gunplay).

In this conversation, those of us who have in recent years argued for an expansion of the legal definition of marriage, so that it can include same-sex couples, may find ourselves in an uncomfortable position. I already do. Can we in conscience maintain that position if it leads us logically to permit civil laws that recognize polygamy? And how will we respond when, in a generation or so, the Young Turks within the Church itself begin to argue for Christian solemnization of such marriages? And they will, if only because there is no idea so bad that some Christians will not give it a whirl.

Girlfight!

Click the link to Slate, where Emily Bazelon and Dahlia Lithwick deconstruct Monica Goodling's testimony before Congress.

Money quote:

"Ever since Goodling surfaced in the middle of the e-mail traffic about the U.S. attorneys purge, her gender has been crucial to the role she's played in the tale. She's the only one who cried to other DoJ officials. She's the only one who took the Fifth. This woman who was single-handedly firing interns and hiring immigration judges and stonewalling new applicants, brilliantly cast herself this week in the earnest helpmeet role. And the reason this has worked so well for her is that it's hard to call attention to that without getting tied up in knots. The first thing we noticed on Thursday (didn't everybody?) was Goodling's hair—great highlights! But to even say that is to trivialize her, right? And for us to say it, as women, is to launch a catfight. It's to separate her from the big boys, by calling her a girl.

"But we're prepared to wade into the girl stuff because, to be lawyerly for a minute, it was Goodling who first put it into evidence."

They then go on to compare her, not unfairly, to Fawn Hall. Kinda takes ya back, don't it?

Bush Prefers Diplomacy to War

I know, you think I'm kidding.

But according to an Internet reporter named Steve Clemons, there is a divide over Iran in the White House, between State+CIA+SecDef on one side, counseling diplomacy, and Pentagon+Veep on the other, rattling sabers. POTUS is said to lean so heavily toward Condi and her boys that Cheney doesn't trust him to steer the right course, and is actively working to create a situation which will force the president into (more) military action in the Middle East.

Here's the gist. Cheney and his network of widely-dispersed acolytes are apparently trying to create a situation in which Israel launches a preemptive strike on Iran, prompting Ahmadinejad & Co. to attack US forces in the Gulf, plunging us into war.

Think about it. The Vice-President is concocting a strategy which deliberately endangers the lives of American soldiers and sailors -- that is, one which deliberately exposes them to an attack which will then be declared "unprovoked" even though it is not, and made casus belli. He's going to kill our soldiers as an excuse for starting a war. It's like planting a bomb on the Maine.

This is scary stuff. It is, in fact, the stuff of all those "evil conspiracy inside the government" thrillers they used to make in the 1970s -- from "Three Days of the Condor" to Kevin Costner's belated "No Way Out." People say Cheney is Darth Vader, but they're wrong. Lord Vader is a lame comic-opera Ruritanian in contrast to this sort of wickedness. Cheney is Voldemort.

A Belated Post

Along with the beautiful and reverend Mrs A. and our darling little baby (click the link to see his blog), Father A. spent Friday and Saturday some weeks back at our annual Synod Assembly. Oh joy, oh bliss.

For those who have never had the pleasure, the Lutheran churches of our region (or "synod") gather each year to do business. Each parish sends its pastor(s), and two or three laypeople. The setting is usually either a hotel ballroom or a large church building -- this year, the latter. While we are together, we hear reports from various officers and agencies (our seminary and social-service agencies, for example); we talk about the mission and ministry of our local parishes and the synod as a whole; we elect people who need electing (this year, a delegate to the churchwide, or national, assembly). And we fight.

Mostly, we fight.

Mostly, we fight about sex.

A few years ago, as the ELCA was putting into place the ecumenical agreements that arose from thirty years of dialogue with our Reformed and Anglican sister churches, we used to fight about the meaning and terms of Christian unity. But these days, mostly, we fight about homosexuality. The precise issuse varies from year to year, but usually it has something to do with whether or not we can tolerate gay and lesbian pastors living openly in committed relationships.

I could write more about the various levels of irony and hypocrisy involved in this debate. (One of the leaders of the anti-toleration wing, for example, is a boozer, who should probably have been defrocked years ago, after the assembly where he staggered around drunk at breakfast.)

But today, all I can think about is how silly and sterile the debate has become. We've been talking abut this for years, and -- so far as I can tell -- it has been years since anybody changed their mind. We all know where we stand, both as individuals and as a community. There really isn't much left to talk about, and the conversation itself is increasingly toxic and personal. Moreover, the historical tide has turned; reactionary Boomers wil make up an ever-decreasing portion of these assemblies, replaced eventually by Genration X and its polymorphously perverse heir, GenY. The age that rallied for or against Stonewall is being replaced by one that grew up watching Madonna get rich by emulating gay club culture. The battle in our culture is long since over. So why does the minority camp keep fighting, and why does the majority not simply declare victory and move on?

Here's my theory. Our congregations are closing down at an accelerating rate. We start new missions, but most of them fail or -- far worse -- limp along, draining our resources. Meanwhile, as our numbers and dollars, decline, we are losing our ability to act effectively in the public arena -- to ameliorate poverty, create fair working conditions or help immigrants and prisoners. There isn't much that we can do as a church these days, and this debate allows us to feel that we are doing something, when in fact the partisans on both sides have merely been enliusted as unwitting soldiers in the culture war.

It is significant that, although the US has been engaged since 2003 in an unjust and unpopular war, our synod assemblies (which are historically eager to offer opinions on matters they cannot change) have not passed a single resolution dealing with the subject. This might sound like a newfound humility, nut I suspect it is not. I suspect, on the contrary, that it reflects a collective cowardice, which is given protective cover by the sexuality debate. We can remain frozen, impotent, mute in the face of Abu Ghraib and Haditha and the rest of it, while consoling ourselves wih the false illusion that we are still somehow addressing the great issues of the day.

But we aren't. We're choking ourselves withy rage and frustration as we grapple over the great issues of 1975.

Crossing the Tiber

Francis J. Beckwith is an associate professor at Baylor University, and until the other day served president of the Evangelical Theological Society. This makes him a leader, albeit in a modest academic way, among American Protestants. Which is why so many people are surprised by his return to the Roman Catholic Church.

Nota bene: "return," rather than conversion. Beckwith was raised Roman, and did not need to be catechized and confirmed. He simply went to confession. It's really very sweet, as these things go. (And they do go; this sort of thing isn't all that unusual.)

What is not sweet at all, we regret to say, is the response that Beckwith has encountered from angry Protestants. Per the WashPost, a colleague accused him of 'embracing serious error," and Beckwith reported "that strangers have called him at home to berate him, and that his Internet server was overwhelmed by 2,000 e-mails a day to his personal Web site, which in the past seldom generated more than 90 a day." Surely the fatwas and burning crosses will follow soon.

Roman Catholicism is, in a sense, the United States of Christianity: a complex, powerful, and often-misunderstood Colossus, by turns loved, hated, admired and feared by the simpler, smaller and less potent would-be Colossi in its orbit. Both institutions are often better, truer and more beautiful in theory than in reality. Beckwith's decision to reclaim his citizenship -- influenced by his reading of Ratzinger's theology -- would seem a matter of principle, where one often supects that more overtly political converts of the John Paul II vintage are motivated less by theology than by power. We hope that Beckwith will not -- like so many converts -- drink the Kool-Aid and become a reckless idelogue, but that he will be like Newman at the first Vatican Council, and have the courage to advocate for the beauty and truth of theory when they are threatened by the harsh reality of power and prestige.

Falwell is Dead

Alive, he was a wretch. In death, he is -- gulp! -- a saint. That is the wonder of the righteousness imputed to the baptized by God's grace.

Click to read the NPR obit, which is fairly even-handed. I'm not so sure about the NewsHour talking-heads piece last night, with Tony Perkins and Tony Campolo. Perkins insisted that his mentor was a misunderstood, bear-hugging father figure; Campolo said that however reprehensible Falwell's political positions may have been, he was a competent theologian and a gracious human being. I think PBS might have considered a third possibility -- that he was a creep, pure and simple.

Well, this is a sticky wicket. Tradition adjures us to speak no ill of the dead. But the thought of a bear-hug from that smarmy bigot makes my skin crawl. And his decades of right-wing political maneuvering seem to outweigh the blessing of decent table manners. He may have apologized for blaming 9/11 on gays and Democrats, but he has plenty more slander to apologize for in Purgatory. (Or, failing that, to rejoice for having been forgiven as he strums a harp in the clouds).

I'm Not Saying Episcopalians are Pompous, But ....

... the National Cathedral is going to offer tours of its garage.

No doubt they expect it to be registered as a national landmark.

"God Help Me!"

That is what the Haitian refugees are reported to have been shouting as they drowned in heavy seas last Friday. There were 160 or so of them on the capsized sailboat; more than sixty died

Early reports said that their boat was "towed to safety" by a Turks and Caicos patrol boat. But that was reported while the survivors were still being held incommunicado. Even this was dubious -- towing an overcrowed boat in heavy weather, when the passengers have no life jackets, is a dubious rescue technique. But the truth appears to be far more disturbing.

As the survivors have begun to speak with reporters, disturbing new allegations have begin to appear: that their boat was minutes away from shore when it was rammed, perhaps twice, by the patrol boat. That the patrol boat towed the Haitians not to safety, but out into deeper (and shark-infested) water. That when the Haitians tried to pull themselves onto the patrol boat, they wwre beaten back with batons and abandoned in the water.

About half the passengers died.

Bush's War on Christians

One little-publicized effect of the Iraq adventure has been to make life much, much more dangerous for Christians in the Middle East. The recent murder of Christian bookstore workers in Turkey is one example. But closer to Ground Zero, the situation is far worse.

Since the 2003 invasion, 25 Iraqi churches have been bombed; nuns have been murdered; Christian women who wouldn't adopt the veil have been disfigured with acid -- and, as Paul Isaac observes in the International Herald Tribune -- there has been a massive exodus of Christians from Iraq. Approximately one third of the 1.6 Iraqi million refugees (and another third of the 1.8 million "internally displaced persons") are Christians whose lives have been threatened by the rise of Islamist militias.

Typical recent case: one of the militias has delcared a fatwa against the Assyrian Christians in a baghdad suburb, giving them 24 hours to convert or die. Needless to say, a lot of people did the sensible thing, by packing their bags and running.

There are two possiblities here. Either the President and his advisors simply didn't think through the details of this war, running in with neither a viable long-term plan nor any understanding of the society they would disrupt -- or else they did know what they were doing, and started the war anyway. Because George Bush hates Christianity, and is seeking to destroy it.

"...And Ne'er the Twain Shall Meet."

cAs Kipling knew when he wrote those words, East and West have long since met -- indeed, have they ever truly existed independently of one another? And yet the countinuing encounter of Orient and Occident is as important now as it has ever been, and perhaps a great deal more so. From Iraq to the Parisian exurbs, from China to Nigeria, there are few subjects more loaded with promise and danger for the coming century.

Pay attention, then, to Jane Kramer's article in the New Yorker, entitled "The Pope and Islam." This is far more than a quick rehash of the Reghensburg flap. It is a subtle and well-researched piece of writing, which implies more than it says, and which (blessedly) lacks the condescension, trivialization and outright ignorance of religious nuance that one expects from, say, the Times.

Kramer contrasts the styles of John Paul II and Benedict XVI in their interactions with the Muslim world. She offers a quick analysis not only of what may be at stake for the Vatican but also for some of its partners in the conversation, especially Turkey.

Kramer's picture of John Paul is flawed -- she leaves a casual reader with the impression that he was all outgoing personality, unsupported by theological acumen. In fact, although certainly not a theologian of Ratzinger's caliber, Wojtyla was a well-regarded philosopher in his own right. Those grand gestures were not naive or impulsive, either; they were the calculated moves of a man with a plan.

She describes well what seems to be Benedict's contention, that Europe must reclaim its Christian heritage in order to understand, or be understood by, the Muslim nations. She only begins to touch on some of the weaknesses in this idea, but even her quick touches are provocative. What, for example, about the millions of Asian Catholics, many of them as hostile toward Israel as any [other] Palestinians?

Anyway -- click the link. It's a long article, and well worth reading.

Mitt Romney a Tasteless Clown

He may be a good governor; we live in another state, and couldn't really judge. He might even be a decent president -- only time will tell. But Gov. Romney is clearly no literary critic. So saith the Boston Herald:

"Already under scrutiny for shifting positions on key issues and his Mormon faith, presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has made a bizarre new flip flop - saying on national TV his favorite novel is Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s 'Battlefield Earth.'

"The former Massachusetts governor told Fox News his favorite book was the Bible but his favorite novel was the science fiction tome “Battlefield Earth.”

"'Actually, the one by L. Ron Hubbard,' Romney said when asked to name his favorite novel. "I’m not in favor of his religion by any means, but he wrote a book called ‘Battlefield Earth’ that was a very fun science fiction book.' The Mark Twain novel "Huckleberry Finn" tops the book list on Romney’s My Space page. 'Battlefield Earth' isn’t on the list."

The article goes on to note that Romney has a reputation for tailoring (and re-tailoring) his message, in an effort to appeal to every coceivable interest group. Why he would think that it was good politics for a Mormon presidential candidate to make nice-nice with the Scientology people escapes us.

But we at the Egg are less interested in the political angles here than the literary ones. Assuming the Governor wasn't just pandering, we have to believe that he really has come to prefer a Fifties space opera, too damn silly even for most wild-eyed fanboys of the Goddard era, to the novel from which Hemingway wrote that "all modern American literature comes."

Quite a conundrum for voters. It would be one thing if Romney preferred a merely bad book to classic -- you know, if he chose "For Whom the Bell Tolls" over "Farewell, My Lovely," or (for you fanboys out there) "Glory Road" over "The Demolished Man." In cases like that, gustibus really non disputandum est. But he has defected to a catastrophe from a masterpiece. it's like choosing "My Mother the Car" over "The Twilight Zone." And what does that say about the man's judgment?

So unless Gov. Romney tells us that he was lying, I say we can't trust the man. On the other hand, if he announces that he IS lying, I will embrace him like a brother, no matter what the cost to his political future.

Crackdown on Psychics

The obvious joke: They didn't see it coming.

Philadelphia police have begun to enforce an old law against fortune-telling. Now, Father A. holds no brief for these charlatans, and feels a confusing mixture of sadness and contempt for the deluded nitwits who actually make decisions based on this sort of mumbo-jumbo. (And yes, we are thinking of Nancy Reagan and her Vassar-educated astrologer).

On the other hand ... and we really hate to say it ... what about free speech?

Click the link to read a local report on the case. We are especially troubled by the guy who claims that Jesus was a fortune-teller, and that he is himself therefore just like Jesus. *Sigh* Paging Simon Magus.

And if these were the Middle Ages, or some theocratic hellhole like Calvin's Geneva or [insert modern Middle Eastern nation here], rousting a few spiritual quacks would be par for the course. (See under: Michael Servetus). But these are, or at any rate were until recently, the United States of America. Land of the .... you know. And this is Philadelphia, home of that bell. You know the one I mean. Big brass thing, crack on one side. That one.

But we live in a strange new world, in which reporters go to jail for refusing to tell which administration official lied about what; in which the President says "we do not torture," while organizing torture on an international scale; in which wiretapping and eavesdropping are so common that we don't know how common they may be; in which the fairly liberal mayor of New York organized his own nationwide infiltration of church and community groups, a la J. Edgar Hoover. The old verities -- that is, civil and human rights -- seem to be passing quickly away. So it is no surprise that Philadelphia would give up on the First Amendment.

And anyway, in a nation losing its way as quickly as this, fortune-tellers may really qualify as enemies of the state.

Buckley, Jr.: The War is Lost

The White House (joined, as always, by its friends at Fox) has been scathing in its responses to Senator Harry Reid's observation that "the war is lost." I wonder how the President and Mr. Cheney will respond to essentially the same observation from the pen of a man whose name is a byword for conservatism, William F. Buckley, Jr.?

In fairness, Buckley doesn't -- quite -- say the war is lost. Instead, he compares it unfavorably to Viet Nam, in which the enemy at least had a headquarters. And he seems to assume that we will remember that despite this tactical advantage, things didn't go well for us in Nam. (This nuance may be lost on Bush and Cheney, neither of whom had any personal experience of that war. Had they been replaced, at any stage, by combat verterans like Messrs. Gore, Kerry, Kerrey, McCain, Murtha or Hagel, we might not be quite so far into the Big Muddy by now).

Buckley also compares Iraq to Prohibition -- a effort to achieve by governmental force a goal to which the people were obstinately opposed. And most disturbingly, he talks about Christianity and the Roman Empire, when "The generation of Christians moved by their faith overwhelmed the regimented reserves of the Roman state." That's right: in his analogy, we're the Romans and our opponents are the Christians. Making the current President either Tiberius or Caligula, I'm not sure which.

In truth, Buckley's comments -- made quite briefly, in a consideration of the new book by George Tenet -- are more forceful than anything Senator Reid or Representative Pelosi have said so far. We hope the Administration will also note that they are far more damning.

"He Didn't Get Killed"

That's a White House insider's verdict on the Gonzales testimony, as reported to CNN. He didn't get killed.

Talk about faint praise.

So, with senators on both sides of the aisle calling for his resignation, and Gonzales saying that he will only resign if the President asks him to, it looks like yet another opportunity for President Bush to show us what he's made of. Will he show here the same steadfast, rock-solid support for his most loyal soldiers that he showed for, say, Donald Rumsfeld? The same iron-willed refusal to give in to pressure that he has on Iraq?

Probably. And that's a disturbing thought, because Bush's stubbornness on Rumsfeld and Iraq will go down in history books as the defining failures of a head of state as dangerously out of touch with reality as anybody since Louis XVI.

Gonzales is a Weenie

We at the Egg spent some time yesterday listening to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testifying before a Senate committee. Now, granted, the senators were pretty hostile. But "hostile," in this case, simply means that they weren't giving him a free pass every time he lied.

Nor were they ready to accept his other tactic, which boils down to "Why, Senator, I've already admitted that mistakes were made [or: "that could have been handled better"]. Now can't we stop talking about all this and move on?

Gonzales genuinely doesn't seem to understand that the "mistakes" he is trying to blow past are serious. They consist of (a) collaborating in an attempt to turn the Department of Justice into a partisan political organization; and then (b) lying about it consistently, if not convincingly. Now, compared to his stirring defense of torture, this may not be so bad; but it is bad indeed. If we cannot trust the Department of Justice -- justice! -- to be impartial, then what hope for a free society do we have?

By the way, we can usually tell a weenie from a statesman by his use of the passive voice. Trapped in lie after lie, Gonzales can barely bring himself to say "I made a mistake," which is the very least of what he has done. Instead, he says, "Mistakes were made." How Reaganesque. Sadly, however, mistakes are not made in the abstract; they are made in the concrete, by real people. In this case, by Gonzales, as well as the people who pressured him to demean his office and ultimately the person who appointed him to that office. They have all made mistakes, and they should all be held accountable.

Later, talking to the PBS NewsHour, Senators Leahy and Specter seemed to describe the two different ways of looking at Gonzales' testimony. Leahy, a Democrat, suggested that it revealed a systematic effort to undermine democratic institutions. Specter, a Republican, thought this was overkill -- in his estimation, Gonzales merely showed that he was incompetent. While we are prone to side with Leahy on this, if "mere incompetence" is what it takes to remove Gonzales, then so be it.

And on a religious nore, enjoy the irony: the holier-than-thou Bush administration has ignored all those Biblical warnings about "perverting justice." (E.g., Prov. 17:23).

Administration in Flames

Think about it. In today's news alone, we learn that:

+ Paul Wolfowitz, architect of the Iraq disaster, has been caught providing an giant raise in pay to his own girlfriend. If he doesn't lose his job at the World Bank, it can only be because the Bushies simply don't see what's wrong with cronyism, nepotism and the abuse of power.
+ Four YEARS of Karl Rove's email is "missing" -- but may yet show up. Either way, it will prove that the Administration has never troubled to distinguish between politics and government.
+ Surge notwithstanding, America can't pacify Baghdad, or even protect the Green Zone. McCain, who weirdly chose to claim otherwise, now looks fatally out of touch, and will probably drop out in a few weeks.

No president -- not Harding, not Hoover, not Buchanan -- will leave behind a more disastrous legacy. America will be a weaker nation, and the world a more dangerous place, because of George W. Bush's incompetence and bad judgment.

Yoga Stalking

Clever piece in Slate by Ron Rosenbaum, on the "hostile New Age takeover of yoga." The highlight is Rosenbaum's common-sense recital of a yoga-magazine story about a woman stalking her ex-flame, and learning to "forgive" when he tells her to get a life.

Confession: While no real yogi, Father A. has done his share of Downward-Facing Dogs over the years. And he works mighty hard to screen out the blathering yogaspeak that some instructors use. ("I'm sorry," said a very fine teacher one time. "That was a such a goober-yoga-teacher thing to say.") The truth is that after years of trying, I still can't follow the direction to 'breathe into your hamstring" for the very simple reason that my hamstring has no lungs.

But far more to the point is this: Father A. spent some time studying in India, and even wrote a master's thesis on representations of the goddess Kali in art and literature. At one time in his life, he could fairly easily describe the differences between the Devi-Mahatmya and the Devi-Bhagavata. And nothing that I ever came across, either on the street in India or in the dusty Asian Religion stacks of university libraries, sounds much like the "philosophy" of the standard yoga class.

(There are exceptions, and I will even name one: a teacher named Tony Luttenberger, up in the Berkshires. He's got an old-hippie vibe, and sometimes seems half-cracked. But the man knows his ancient texts.)

Republican Family Values

Newt Gingrich was having an extramarital affair even as he led the charge against Bill Clinton over Monicagate. That is to say (for those of you who are keeping count) that he was cheating on his second wife with the woman who would eventually become his third.

Newt and Rudi are both serial adulterers. So, it certainly seems, is Bill; but at least he's managed to keep his marriage going, even if he has had trouble with the vows. McCain's first wife raised their kids while he was a POW; this did not keep him from cheating on her and divorcing her (for a drug addict beer heiress who later stole meds from a charity she worked for).

I've got a sense that the GOP isn't trying anymore. They figure that, if the public puts up with a recovering alcoholic who talks to God and hears that torture is okay, nobody much cares about traditional values anymore. And by gum, they may be right.

Heather Has Three Mommies

Nice Boston Globe opinion pice by Alex Beam, assessing Mitt Romney's chance of becoming president. Musing upon a PBS documentary, Beam considers the matters of polygamy, racism, homophobia and -- far more important -- the overall strangeness of Mormonism. Then he writes:

"By now, almost every newspaper in America has published an analysis of Mitt Romney's presidential aspirations titled "Can a Mormon Be Elected President?" The stories follow a preordained path to arrive at the politically and socially desirable answer: Yes.

"These set pieces serve mainly to make the not particularly religion-savvy political commentariat feel good about themselves. The writer appears unbiased, and the article inevitably validates the cherished American myth about our tolerance for diversity.

"Can a Mormon be elected president in 2008? No."

I guess we'll find out.

Inter-Atheist Kerfluffle

Atheism is on the rise!

Not that people are leaving Christianity, Islam, Buddhism or Hinduism in droves -- quite the contrary, in fact. But over the past couple of years, the smallish number of people who believe there is no God have started talking, and writing, about their convictions with particular fervor. The much larger number of people who kinda-sorta don't believe, but aren't sure why, have been given considerable comfort by the recent writings of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, et alii. Call it the New Atheism.

First off, let's be honest: Given the faith-based horror of the last few years, both in the Middle East and in America, it is hard to blame these guys. Neither Pat Robertson nor Moktada al-Sadr makes the notion of a transcendent being sound very appealing.

That doesn't mean that Dawkins and Harris are right as to the matter in dispute, God's existence. Naturally, the Egg joins with the vast majority of human beings, both now and through history, in affirming that God exists. But more important is this: the fact that one can appreciate the motivation of the the New Atheists does not mean that their actual arguments are any good. They aren't.

And proof of this is a series of rather savage reviews, written not by apologists for theism but rather by the Old Atheists -- scientific and literary types who have long disbelieved in God, without attempting to make a career of it. They are unsettled first by the efforts of the young Turks to assault religious faith without any particular knowledge of its content. Literary theorist Terry Eagleton begins: “Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology.”

No less seriously, they point out that the New Atheists seem intent on blaming religion and its adherents for all the world's problems, in a manner that is surprisingly irrational and, well, bigoted. the old Atheists, even if they do not believe in God, can see the good that believers have done through the ages, and continue to do. (Don't believe me? Come visit my parish men's shelter.)

And the Old Atheists have been aropund long enough to recognize that there are plenty of problems caused not by religion but by its absence. H. Allen Orr writes, of his fellow biologist, “Dawkins has a difficult time facing up to the dual fact that (1) the 20th century was an experiment in secularism; and (2) the result was secular evil, an evil that, if anything, was more spectacularly virulent than that which came before.”

As we have said before, friends, the problem isn't God. The problem is human nature. And taking God out of the picture won't improve human nature. So even those who do not believe might find, upon sober reflection, that their own best interests are served not by railing against religion in the abstract, but rather by encouraging the world's religions to live up to their own high standards.

One More Thing ....

... about that letter from James Dobson and other Christianist leaders, calling for the removal of Richard Cizik from leadership in the National Association of Evangelicals.

The signers aren't members of the NAE.

This means they have as much authority to boot Cizik as I do to change the Pope. Or the Pope does to change the Archbishop of Canterbury. Or a US president does to change the leaders of other foreign nations. (Ooops. Bad analogy.)

Dobson Jumps on the Dust-Heap of History

In the last year or so, the National Association of Evangelicals (yes, Ted Haggard's group) has begun to use its considerable political clout in support of environmental issues, especially global warming. This is just a matter of common sense and good theology, and if the NAE is late to the game -- mainline churches got there decades ago -- it is still a welcome player.

Except to James Dobson and his ilk -- the "Christianist Right," as my man Sullivan calls them. A group of influential political figures with church connections (Dobson, Gary Bauer, Paul Weyrich) sent a letter to the NAE's leadership calling for the ouster of the Rev. Richard Cizik, the association’s vice president for government affairs. They accuse him of using global warming to " divert the evangelical movement from what they deem more important issues, like abortion and homosexuality."

Hmm. Fate of the earth on one hand, buggery on the other. Which one is more important? Really?

Of course, the signers argue that global warming isn't really a problem, human beings can't affect it anyway, and so forth. How very 1999 of them. At this point, nobody -- not even President Bush -- believes their line of data-denying dithering anymore. Evanglicals are no more stupid than any other people, and realize that global warming is a grave and immediate danger which requires prompt political action. That's why the NAE will keep Cizik on, and probably give him a raise. He's leading them in the direction than most Americans, including American evangelicals, know we need to go.

So whence the letter? Simple. Dobson and Company have made their bones (as the mobsters say) on abortion and homosexuality. They have become famous, powerful, and wealthy by flogging those two ponies. And they don't know what else to ride. So they'll keep doing what they know how to do, even as the world changes around them, and wind up pathetic old remnants of an ugly period in American social history.

I can't wait.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

Conservapedia bills itself as (and we'll bet you had already guessed this) the conservative answer to Wikipedia. It looks very, very, similar. Similar enough that a semiliterate term-paper writer at a B-list school could mistake one for the other when trolling for stuff to plagiarize. Worse yet, the said young author might deliberately choose Conservapedia, as a salubrious antidote for Wikipedia's notorious liberal bias.

First off: we never thought that Wikipedia -- a colossal, user-edited online encyclopedia -- had any particular bias. How could it, we reasoned in our naivete, with so many contributors from all over the world? Fortunately, the Conservapedia editors set us straight. Their homepage features a clear analysis of Wikipedia's bias, including what they consider the obvious smoking gun: many articles feature English spelling. (You know: tyre, saviour, judgement).

Never mind that England, under Labour no less, has been Bush's closest, and indeed only, ally in Iraq. Never mind Edmund Burke and George Orwell and Maggie Thatcher. English spellings are a sign of liberal bias because, well, they aren't American.

And "conservative," in the mind of the Conservapedia editorial staff, seems to equal two things: American and Christian. In fact, virtually nothing else seems to matter to them. We at the Egg know this, because we checked. We searched for a few of our favourite -- omg! favorite -- things, and here's what we found.

Thomas Jefferson: The first two sentences describe his life and work. The rest of ther article, which is not long but still fourteen or so sentences -- is devoted to Jefferson's religious convictions, and especially to the thesis that although TJ is often called a Deist, he described himself on at least one occasion as a Christian. Whether this is true or false, we at the Egg are willing to gamble our immortal souls that Jefferson considered his role in founding the United States, doubling its geographic size, and exploring the continent more important than his religious convictions. Heck, he probably considered gardening, wine and Sally Hemmings more important too, and none of them gets a shout-out.

Benjamin Franklin: Flew a kite, invented a stove. And in the second sentence, we learn that he, too, is called a Deist but wasn't really. The rest of the article is devoted to his religious convictions, and the strong, but astonishingly ill-argued, assertion that they were not Deist.

George Washington: ran a country, won a war. From the second sentence, the article is devoted to proving that he was a Christian.

Do you see the pattern? (There are rather bad articles on Luther and Aquinas, but at least the editors didn't feel any need to prove that those two were Christians.)

As for the figures you might expect in something called Conservapedia: there is no article on Barry Goldwater. Or Patrick Buchanan. Or anybody named Buckley.

But all this would be okay if the articles were thoughtful, well-written and well-sourced meditations on the spiritual lives of great Americans. In fact, we would welcome such a wiki. But so far, this ain't it. Despite constant urging to cite sources, the articles are full of opinions, often ill-informed ones. And the prose rises, at its very best, to the level of a middle school expository essay. Consider this beautiful and apt instance, from the rousing conclusion of the entry on a well-known medieval poet: "The account of Hell is known as 'Dante's Inferno,' and it is frightful."

Frightful indeed.

Screwed Again

Oh, my. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Board of pensions is planning to switch members' health insurance from an Aetna PPO to Blue Cross/Blue Shield HMO coverage. That's bad enough; what really offends the Egg, however, is the grotesque flummery of the press release (q.v. with a click).

Others may complain, but Father A. has been quite pleased with his Aetna coverage over the years, and so have his physicians -- many of whom will need to be replaced when he can't afford to pay them out of pocket and they don't take Blue Cross. On the other hand, every ELCA pastor (or at least every one of us who serves a small church) knows that health-care costs are crippling our congregations. If this is what it takes, then so be it.

(On the third hand, one of the reasons that these costs have grown especially fast in metropolitan regions, where the churches are generally smallest and poorest, is that Board of Pensions' decision, some years ago, to stop equalizing costs without regard to geography. It was a bad, short-sighted decision, and many of us protested it at the time.)

Anyhoo, that's all background to the aforementioned flummery.

The press release describes this decision not as a cost-cutting move, but as the exciting! new! adoption of a "wellness plan." This means that if you exercise and eat right, they will give you some credit --up to $300 per annum. Fine idea, especially for those of us who do exercise and eat right. The problem is that the deductibles are going to escalate from $350 to $600. So there goes your wellness rebate.

And then there's this: "As a self-employed individual without these benefits, I am almost envious of the opportunity that this plan offers," T. Van Matthews, Simpsonville, S.C., told the trustees' products and services committee, which he chairs. "In my world, there seems to be only one incentive that the insurer considers and that is to simply raise rates," he said.

Wow. So a guy who doesn't participate in the plan, but wants us to, is recommending it. In fact, he's "almost" envious.
And he's so glad that our new coprporate overlords ... care about us. It's touching.

Honestly, the BOP health plan covers 50,000 pastors and lay staff at 11,000 congregations. That's a big plan -- you'd think Aetna would have negotiated down to something we could all live with. But what does the Egg know?