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Consider:

"It is better to be drunk with loss and to beat the ground, than to let the deeper things gradually escape."

- I. Compton-Burnett, letter to Francis King (1969)

"Cynical realism – it is the intelligent man’s best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation."

- Aldous Huxley, "Time Must Have a Stop"







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Thursday, 21 April 2005

Topic: God and US

Religious War: The Christians are going after the Christians as to who are the real Christians?

Oh my! The National Council of Churches goes after Bush and Cheney and the evangelical Republican right over the theological issues regarding the environment and drilling for oil and all that stuff.

Really. There does seem to be a theological issue.

See this: Theologians Warn of 'False Gospel' on the Environment -
WASHINGTON, D.C., February 14, 2005 - In an effort to refute what they call a ?false gospel? and to change destructive attitudes and actions concerning the environment, a group of theologians, convened by the National Council of Churches USA, today released an open letter calling on Christians to repent of ?our social and ecological sins? and to reject teachings that suggest humans are ?called? to exploit the Earth without care for how our behavior impacts the rest of God?s creation.

The statement, God?s Earth is Sacred: An Open Letter to Church and Society in the United States, points out that there is both an environmental and a theological crisis that must be addressed.

?We have listened to a false gospel that we continue to live out in our daily habits - a gospel that proclaims that God cares for the salvation of humans only and that our human calling is to exploit Earth for our own ends alone,? says the statement. ?This false gospel still finds its proud preachers and continues to capture its adherents among emboldened political leaders and policy makers.?

The statement calls on Christians to take two important steps to enable socially just and ecologically sustainable communities for future generations: first, to ?repent of our sins, in the presence of God and one another,? and, second, to pursue, ?with God?s help, a path different from our present course.? ?
Well, as reported in these pages last December, a previous Secretary of the Interior ? 1981, the Reagan years ? had a born-again view of how to be a responsible steward of our forests and parks and all that.
James Watt told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, 'after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back.' - as reported on The Bill Moyers Show
Chop down a tree for Jesus?

Well, a John Hornbuckle sent me a quick email saying the problem is there seems to be no proof that that Watt actually said this. One book by one author reports this quote, but no other sources confirm that the book is accurate. And neither I nor Rick, The News Guy in Atlanta, could actually find a way to confirm it. So let?s assume Watt didn?t say it.

But the point is what we have. Remember Genesis 1:28 and this, in the King James wording? - And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

We?re working on the subdue it part of the passage -
If early decisions reveal deeply held values, it would appear that George W. Bush has taken Genesis 1:28 as providing the principle that will govern his conscience with respect to environmental policy. From the beginning he made it clear that he favors opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. More recently, he stated that "all public lands" everywhere should be considered as targets of opportunity for oil and gas producers. Further, he reversed a campaign promise to impose controls on carbon dioxide emissions, even though carbon dioxide is the single most important global warming gas. Bush wrote in a letter to four Republican Senators that carbon dioxide it was "off the table" as far as federal regulation is concerned. This is an astonishing statement given his earlier recognition of the necessity for such regulation. Thus far, it appears that the Bush policy is to talk about preserving and protecting the environment, but at the same time to act so as to encourage and enable corporations to exploit the environment free of government interference. The policy may be summed up in a phrase: "Praise God, but pass the pollution."
One supposes this a matter of theology ? and the current theology is clear.

So who has their theology right?

See this from the Boston Globe -
WASHINGTON - Sen. John F. Kerry yesterday attacked Republicans for having an "orthodoxy of view" and overly inserting religion into politics, accusing them of using God as a justification for appointing conservative judges.

"I am sick and tired of a bunch of people trying to tell me that God wants a bunch of conservative judges on the court and that's why we have to change the rules of the United States Senate," Kerry told a group of Bay State residents who traveled to Capitol Hill for U.S. Rep. Martin Meehan's annual legislative seminar. ?
Well, John is still grumpy about Ohio last November, no doubt.

The environment, what judges decide about what?.

We are being told God obviously is on one side and certainly not on the other.

But there is something curious here ? an open discussion of the contention that the Republicans have God on their side, and no one else does.

Well, they have the new Pope on their side ? and we have been told that he is infallible. The Pope can speak only the truth. You could look it up.

Is the Pope on the Republican side? Yep.

Holy warriors
Cardinal Ratzinger handed Bush the presidency by tipping the Catholic vote. Can American democracy survive their shared medieval vision?
Sidney Blumenthal, April 21, 2005 ? SALON.COM

Here is Blumenthal?s reasoning -
President Bush treated his final visit with Pope John Paul II in Vatican City on June 4, 2004, as a campaign stop. After enduring a public rebuke from the pope about the Iraq war, Bush lobbied Vatican officials to help him win the election. "Not all the American bishops are with me," he complained, according to the National Catholic Reporter. He pleaded with the Vatican to pressure the bishops to step up their activism against abortion and gay marriage in the states during the campaign season.

About a week later, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger sent a letter to the U.S. bishops, pronouncing that those Catholics who were pro-choice on abortion were committing a "grave sin" and must be denied Communion. He pointedly mentioned "the case of a Catholic politician consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws" -- an obvious reference to John Kerry, the Democratic candidate and a Roman Catholic. If such a Catholic politician sought Communion, Ratzinger wrote, priests must be ordered to "refuse to distribute it." Any Catholic who voted for this "Catholic politician," he continued, "would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil and so unworthy to present himself for Holy Communion." During the closing weeks of the campaign, a pastoral letter was read from pulpits in Catholic churches repeating the ominous suggestion of excommunication. Voting for the Democrat was nothing less than consorting with the forces of Satan, collaboration with "evil."

In 2004 Bush increased his margin of Catholic support by 6 points from the 2000 election, rising from 46 to 52 percent. Without this shift, Kerry would have had a popular majority of a million votes. Three states -- Ohio, Iowa and New Mexico -- moved into Bush's column on the votes of the Catholic "faithful." Even with his atmospherics of terrorism and Sept. 11, Bush required the benediction of the Holy See as his saving grace. The key to his kingdom was turned by Cardinal Ratzinger.
Hey, it worked!

So now the core of the Republican Party ? the ?values coalition? who accept huge deficits and a disintegrating economy, fewer jobs, reduced benefits, healthcare insurance only for the lucky few, heavy taxes on the working folks and light taxes on the rich, and all the rest - know that they are on the side of God, and no gay couple will get married, nor will any woman?s nipple be bared for all to see at any halftime show anywhere. And that crackpot theory, evolution, will not be taught to THEIR children. On much of this the ?values coalition? ? neither rich nor safe from the gyrations of the economy ? votes against their own interests. But that doesn?t matter. Their own sons and daughters die in the dusty wastes of Iraq, or return maimed or mad. No matter. Voting for any Democrat is nothing less than consorting with the forces of Satan, collaboration with "evil."

The Pope says so. And for those who don?t want to have anything to do with that Cult of Mary, well, they?ll hear from James Dobson or Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell on the evangelical side. On they?ll hear from the leader of the Senate, Bill Frist. Coming up? Dobson?s Family Research Council?s ?Justice Sunday? - where Frist will speak and work on aligning all ?people of faith? against Democrats and liberals. The immediate issue is judges who care more about the constitution than they care about God.

Cool. Should be fun.

But the Presbyterian Church doesn?t think it will be fun at all -

Frist Draws Criticism From Some Church Leaders
David D. Kirkpatrick and Sheryl Gay Stolberg, The New York Times, April 22, 2005
As the Senate battle over judicial confirmations became increasingly entwined with religious themes, officials of several major Protestant denominations on Thursday accused the Senate Republican leader, Bill Frist, of violating the principles of his own Presbyterian church and urged him to drop out of a Sunday telecast that depicts Democrats as "against people of faith."

[Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, a top official of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A.,] said Dr. Frist's participation in the telecast undermined "the historical commitment in our nation and our church to an understanding of the First Amendment that elected officials should not be portraying public policies as being for or against people of faith."

? Religious groups, including the National Council of Churches and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, plan to conduct a conference call with journalists on Friday to criticize Senator Frist's participation in the telecast.

The National Council of Churches is asking members to organize news conferences denouncing Dr. Frist.
And a little more -
Tony Perkins, organizer of the telecast, claims that ?people of faith ? see a connection between the filibuster and judicial activism.? But polls show that more Americans support than oppose the filibuster, and Republican senators may be starting to realize that ?extremists of faith? aren?t supported by mainstream ?people of faith.?

? Republicans are beginning to notice that the arrogant attempts of religious extremists to impose their will on the country aren't sitting well with religious people who don't share those extreme views.

In addition, 406 clergy members signed a petition prepared by the Interfaith Alliance urging Frist ?to defend the nation from efforts utilizing deception and fear-mongering to manipulate Americans of faith.?
Yeah, yeah. It seems what used to be called, shall we say, ?the religious mainstream? is NOT the mainstream any longer.

But what is Blumenthal taking about when he says Bush and the Pope, and by extension the evangelical right, have shared medieval vision? Say what?

After a long discussion of the new Pope?s life, he gives us this -
? The new pope's burning passion is to resurrect medieval authority. He equates the Western liberal tradition, that is, the Enlightenment, with Nazism, and denigrates it as "moral relativism." He suppresses all dissent, discussion and debate within the church and concentrates power within the Vatican bureaucracy. His abhorrence of change runs past 1968 (an abhorrence he shares with George W. Bush) to the revolutions of 1848, the "springtime of nations," and 1789, the French Revolution. But, even more momentously, the alignment of the pope's Kulturkampf with the U.S. president's culture war has also set up a conflict with the American Revolution.

For the first time, an American president is politically allied with the Vatican in its doctrinal mission (except, of course, on capital punishment). In the messages and papers of the presidents from George Washington until well into those of the 20th century, there was not a single mention of the pope, except in one minor footnote. Bush's lobbying trip last year to the Vatican reflects an utterly novel turn, and Ratzinger's direct political intervention in American electoral politics ratified it.

The right wing of the Catholic Church is as mobilized as any other part of the religious right. It is seizing control of Catholic universities, exerting influence at other universities, stigmatizing Catholic politicians who fail to adhere to its conservative credo, pressing legislation at the federal and state levels, seeking government funding and sponsorship of the church, and vetting political appointments inside the White House and the administration -- imposing in effect a religious test of office. The Bush White House encourages these developments under the cover of moral uplift as it forges a political machine uniting church and state -- as was done in premodern Europe.

The American Revolution, the Virginia Statute on Religious Liberty, the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights were fought for explicitly to uproot the traces in American soil of ecclesiastical power in government, which the Founders to a man regarded with horror, revulsion and foreboding.

The Founders were the ultimate representatives of the Enlightenment. They were not anti-religious, though few if any of them were orthodox or pious. Washington never took Communion and refused to enter the church, while his wife did so. Benjamin Franklin believed that all organized religion was suspect. James Madison thought that established religion did as much harm to religion as it did to free government, twisting the word of God to fit political expediency, thereby throwing religion into the political cauldron. And Thomas Jefferson, allied with his great collaborator Madison, conducted decades of sustained and intense political warfare against the existing and would-be clerisy. His words, engraved on the Jefferson Memorial, are a direct reference to established religion: "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

But now Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay threatens the federal judiciary, saying, "The reason the judiciary has been able to impose a separation of church and state that's nowhere in the Constitution is that Congress didn't stop them." And Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist will participate through a telecast in a rally on April 24 in which he will say that Democrats who refuse to rubber-stamp Bush's judicial nominees and uphold the filibuster are "against people of faith."
Oh, that?s cheery. And moves us from the realm of theology to political theory. Just what is a government supposed to do?

After running down many quotes from Jefferson and Madison and the like ? and making them sound awfully worried about encouraging anything like a theocracy ? Blumenthal quotes John Kennedy, who had to say that, honest, he really could be a good president, even if he was a Catholic.
"I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute -- where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote -- where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference ... I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish -- where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source -- where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its official."

Now Bush is attempting to create what Kennedy warned against. He claims to be conservative, but he seeks a rupture in our system of government. The culture war, which has had many episodes, from the founding of the Moral Majority to the unconstitutional impeachment of President Clinton, is entering a new and far more dangerous phase. In 2004 Bush and Ratzinger used church doctrine to intimidate voters and taint candidates. And through the courts the president is seeking to codify not only conservative ideology but religious doctrine.
So?

It is fairly clear the Republican Party ? for all its history ? is now the evangelical party of God, not the party of business interests and small government and balanced budgets and all that old stuff. And Christianity is now only for the medievalists ? as much as the National Council of Churches protests and the United Church of Christ kicks and screams (in a loving way). Heck, even the Unitarians are learning that what they have isn?t a REAL religion.

It?s a new world. Or if Blumenthal is right, actually an old world, a medieval one.

Well, conservatives value the past.

This past?
The Papal Inquisition was an outgrowth of the Council of Toulouse held in 1229 (not an ecumenical council) where a special ecclesiastical tribunal was established to counter the heresy of Albigensianism. Until 1231 the duty of detecting and repressing heresy had fallen on the bishops but in 1231 Pope Gregory IX appointed a number of Papal Inquisitors. Pope Gregory IX was opposed to torture, but Pope Innocent IV approved its use for the discovery of heresy, and Pope Urban IV confirmed this usage, which like the death penalty for heresy, had its origins in the Roman Law. Although intended for all Christendom, it was active primarily in southern France. This inquisition died out around 1300 with the demise of Albigensianism.

The Spanish Inquisition was a state rather than church inquisition. Established in 1481 by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, the king appointed the Grand Inquisitor and the other officials, and also signed the decrees; the penalties were inflicted in his name. The purpose of this inquisition was to remove any potential traitors (secret Muslims or Jews) who might aid in any Muslim attack or any internal uprising. At that point in history, Spain was the only country which had allowed Muslims and Jews to remain within their boundaries. The inquisition was triggered by a Turkish storming of the Italian city of Otranto in 1480. The Turks put some 12,000 people (half the population of the city) to death, including every priest in the city, and sawed the Archbishop in two. They offered to spare many of their captives lives if they would embrace the Muslim faith. Pope Sixtus IV approved the Spanish Inquisition because he was under the impression that an ecclesiastical inquisition was to be established but when the true state of the case was brought to his knowledge the following year, it was too late. All that he and his successors could do was to protest against its excesses, which they did. The Spanish Inquisition was abolished in 1834. ? Complete records of the Spanish Inquisition do not exist but it is recorded that between 1540 and 1700 a total of 100,000 cases were tried with 10,000 individuals being submitted to torture and 828 individuals being put to death. It should also not be forgotten that John Calvin, the founder of the "Reformed" churches, burned Michael Servetus at the stake for heresy and established his own inquisition in Geneva for the punishment of unmanageable Christians.

The Roman Inquisition began in 1542 and was the least active and most benign of the three inquisitions. This is the inquisition which tried Galileo. The Galileo affair was a matter of science, not religion. It did indirectly concern the Church and spiritual interests because of the circumstances of the time, and Galileo's own diversion into theological speculations. Galileo would not have clashed with religion had he not interjected his own interpretations of Sacred Scripture regarding what he thought to be a contradiction between the Bible and the scientific discoveries. The Church as Church did not digress from spiritual matters in the Galileo case. Some at the time ridiculed Scripture regarding the sun, etc. Because of the spiritual implications, the Church was seriously concerned. ?
The more things change, the more they remain the same, of course.

__

This column started out on environmental matters. So it ends with this shot - Venice Beach, California, Thursday, April 21, 2005



Posted by Alan at 20:46 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Friday, 22 April 2005 09:47 PDT home

Wednesday, 20 April 2005

Topic: God and US

Religion: Who is YOUR Copilot?

It is always dangerous to visit the award winning legal web site Talk Left because these practicing constitutional lawyers are always pointing out the oddest things about the waves of theocratic domination rolling across America these days.

It seems these folks think there should be a separation of church and state, even if the House leader Tom DeLay says that?s just bull ? "The reason the judiciary has been able to impose a separation of church and state that's nowhere in the Constitution is that Congress didn't stop them." (From a recent interview in the Washington Times.) Ah well.

Now they are pointing out things in the opposite direction ? noting, from and AFP story, that it was Pope Benedict XVI, formerly known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who inserted the Catholic church into the 2004 election by ordering bishops to deny communion to abortion rights supporters, including candidate John Kerry. Well, we now have a pro-Bush Republican Pope, it seems.

Then they point to an Associated Press item - Religious Intolerance Alleged At Air Force Academy - that also appeared in the Los Angeles Times - regarding complaints by Air Force cadets of religious intolerance at our Air Force Academy out in Colorado.
Less than two years after it was plunged into a rape scandal, the Air Force Academy is scrambling to address complaints that evangelical Christians wield so much influence at the school that anti-Semitism and other forms of religious harassment have become pervasive.

There have been 55 complaints of religious discrimination at the academy in the past four years, including cases in which a Jewish cadet was told the Holocaust was revenge for the death of Jesus and another was called a Christ killer by a fellow cadet. ...
Well, if the shoe fits?. And we don?t want any Christ-killer dropping massive bomb loads from high altitude on the Godless swarthy Muslim folks who hate us for our freedom, do we?

No wait. That doesn?t make sense.

Oh, whatever.

The ?Talk Left? summary of the rest?
- The Air Force is investigating a complaint from an atheist cadet who says the school is "systematically biased against any cadet that does not overtly espouse Christianity."

- The official academy newspaper runs a Christmas ad every year praising Jesus and declaring him the only savior. Some 200 academy staff members, including some department heads, signed it. ?

- The academy commandant, Brig. Gen. Johnny Weida, a born-again Christian, said in a statement to cadets in June 2003 that their first responsibility is to their God. He also strongly endorsed National Prayer Day that year. School spokesman Johnny Whitaker said Weida now runs his messages by several other commanders.

- Some officer commission ceremonies were held at off-campus churches. In a letter dated April 6, Weida said the ceremonies would be held on campus from now on.
Ah, the whole God is My Copilot concept returns to the American Military.

These same ?Talk Left? guys noted last November that our Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs was forced to take down a banner that read - "I am a Christian first and last! I am a member of Team Jesus Christ!" And the Academy then warned staffers against including biblical verses as taglines on Academy e-mail. And the Academy then officially disapproved of cadets using Academy e-mail to urge everyone to see Mel Gibson?s Passion of the Christ. And the superintendent announced the Academy would begin religious tolerance training.

It isn?t working.


Posted by Alan at 19:26 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Thursday, 21 April 2005 17:21 PDT home

Tuesday, 19 April 2005

Topic: The Media

Warm Frogs: The So-Called Liberal Media Evaporates Before Our Eyes

Clare Booth Luce (1903-1987) -
Socialite Clare Booth Luce, married to Henry R. Luce who published Time, Life, and Fortune, served in the US Congress from 1942 to 1946 and later as ambassador to Brazil and Italy. She also wrote plays, was a World War II war correspondent, and wrote articles and reviews.
She entered politics as a critic of the Roosevelt administration and served two terms (1943-47) as Republican congresswoman from Connecticut. Her appointment by President Eisenhower as U.S. Ambassador to Italy (1953-57) made her the first American woman ever to hold a major diplomatic post.

Why mention her? Because of Time magazine and the Time cover story (subscription only) this week.

Time's cover profiles the conservative columnist and commentator Ann Coulter. Ah, maybe the term ideologue is better. They use the term ?conservative flamethrower.? The article compares her to Clare Booth Luce, the wife of Time's co-founder, and the writer, John Cloud, claims Coulter has "a personality far more labile [likable?] and human than the umbrageous harridan I had expected." He calls her the "most unlikely of conservative subspecies: a hard-right ironist."

Well, maybe.

David Sirota says this among other things ?
There's been a lot of debate over whether the media is "liberal" or "conservative." But as I saw this week's cover of Time Magazine, I realized just how ridiculous it is for there to even be a debate.

The cover trumpets right-wing crazy person Ann Coulter. This is a woman who advocated blowing up the New York Times offices and claimed Vietnam war hero and triple amputee Max Cleland didn't deserve to be honored for his losing his limbs on the battlefield.
Yep, that?s her.

Oliver Willis asks a simple question - Can we just take the "liberal media" meme outside behind the barn and shoot it?

Yes, one can do that now.

Well, we on the left have Michael Moore. The guys on the right have Ann Coulter. Fair is fair.

But getting a lot of play on the web is this from ?Digby? over at Hullabaloo (my emphases) -
It has become clear to me that we are frogs being slowly boiled to death. And the media are enjoying the hot tub party so much that they are helping to turn up the heat.

Ann Coulter is not, as Howie Kurtz asserts today, the equivalent of Michael Moore. Michael Moore is not advocating the murder of conservatives. He just isn't. For instance, he doesn't say that Eric Rudolph should be killed so that other conservatives will learn that they can be killed too. He doesn't say that he wishes that Tim McVeigh had blown up the Washington Times Building. He doesn't say that conservatives routinely commit the capital offense of treason. He certainly doesn't put up pictures of the fucking snoopy dance because one of his political opponents was killed. He doesn't, in other words, issue calls for violence and repression against his political enemies. That is what Ann Coulter does, in the most coarse, vulgar, reprehensible way possible.

Moore says conservatives are liars and they are corrupt and they are wrong. But he is not saying that they should die. There is a distinction. And it's a distinction that Time magazine and Howard Kurtz apparently cannot see.

I have long felt that it was important not to minimize the impact of this sick shit. For years my friends and others in the online communities would say that it was a waste of time to worry about Rush because there are real issues to worry about. Likewise Coulter. Every time I write something about her there is always someone chastising me for wasting their time. Yet, here she is, being given the imprimatur of a mainstream publication of record in a whitewash of epic proportions. Slowly, slowly the water is heating up.

? The recently anointed GOP saint, Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan, was the one who coined the phrase "defining deviancy down" and I think he's been validated. When a deranged, flame throwing fascist like Ann Coulter is called "amusing" and "entertaining", deviancy has definitely been redefined.
Well, did the woman really say all those things?

Yes. The citations are here, with links to the original items.
This about a "commentator" who claimed that the Democratic Party "supports killing, lying, adultery, thievery, envy"; who said of the idea that the American military were targeting journalists, "Would that it were so!"; who said President Clinton "was a very good rapist"; who insisted that "[l]iberals love America like O.J. loved Nicole"; who said that "I think a baseball bat is the most effective way these days" to talk to liberals; who said it was lucky for former senator Max Cleland's political career that he lost an arm and two legs in Vietnam; who has said her "only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building"; and who wrote that the only real question about Bill Clinton was "whether to impeach or assassinate."
Ah, but she was kidding. But she is sly about letting anyone know if she is kidding.

So she gets the cover of Time.

The world is indeed changing.

And in just what way is it changing?

Billmon, over at Whiskey Bar provides this lively history of Luce and Time magazine -
Once upon a time ? back when Ann?s hero, Joe McCarthy, still crawled the earth ? Time was what Fox News is now ? the unofficial official propaganda organ of the Republican Party. As partisan a rag as ever befouled the propeller of American democracy, in fact. And, just as Fox News has Roger Ailes to keep it on the shining path, Time had its publisher, Henry Luce ? who actually combined the roles of Ailes and Rupert Murdoch.

Luce was a rock-ribbed Midwestern Republican ? the son of a China missionary, educated at Yale (back when God and man still cohabitated there) and raised in an era when the GOP faithful still regarded the Democrats as the party of Rum, Romanism and Rebellion.

A time much like today, in other words. And Luce?s Time reflected the boss?s prejudices in full measure, particularly when it came to the ?who lost China? debate. Luce ? a fierce friend of Chiang Kai-shek ? blamed the debacle on Truman and the Democrats (which, from his point of view, was the sensible thing to do, since the alternative was admitting Chang and his government were hopelessly inept and corrupt, and Luce, like his magazine, wasn?t very good at facing unpleasant truths.)

In any case, Luce and Time flayed the Dems ? and the party?s presidential candidate, Adlai Stevenson ? in editorial language so partisan and vicious it might have been written by Ann Coulter (that is, if Ann had taken an intensive course in remedial English composition.)

But Luce died in 1967, and his widow ? playwright cum politician Claire Booth Luce ? showed little interest in the publishing business. Loyal family retainers kept Time on the hard right side of the track for a while, but the late ?60s were tough times for Luce?s brand of absolute moral certainty. If you saw Apocalypse Redux, you may remember the hallucinatory scene of Marlon Brando, as big as a fucking Zeppelin, reading optimistic excerpts from Timeabout how well the war was going.
Yes, out here in Hollywood some of us do remember that. Amusing.

So what happened to Time?
Then came Watergate and the ?70s and the left?s cultural revolution. Loyal retainers passed away and corporate drones replaced them, and by the late ?80s, Time, while still Republican-leaning (and Reagan worshipping) was no longer the magazine that Luce built. When media hustler Gerald Levin moved in and gobbled up Time-Life in 1989, it seemed as if the last traces of the old fire-breathing, Red-baiting, Time had vanished forever ? suffocated in a vat of Hollywood schmaltz.
Ah, that famous at of Hollywood schmaltz. No doubt that vat is just down the block at Greenblatt?s Delicatessen and I should get a photo for the next issue of Just Above Sunset.

But seriously, the point here is these folks now are blowing with the wind to make money, and the question raised is putting Ann Coulter on the cover taking things to a whole new level. Is the old Time magazine making a comeback?

The short answer is no. The media are no longer that partisan -
? the differences between the old Time and the new Time not only show how much the magazine has changed, they also highlight how much the news media as a whole have been changed by the rise of the mega-monster entertainment conglomerates ? such as Time Warner AOL CNN HBO Elektra etc. etc.

Time isn?t returning to its roots ? if anything, it?s moving even further away from them. The old Time was conservative, right down to its DNA; the new Time is pandering to the conservatives, right down to its bottom line.

The old Time mirrored the obsessions of its founder, which were only partially, and not even primarily, commercial. The new Time is only part ? and probably not even the largest part ? of a line item on a quarterly profit and loss statement. The Time drones are giving head to Ann Coulter for the same reason the NBC clones are putting Left Behind knock offs in the fall line up: They?re both terrified they?ve lost touch with the mass audience, which they believe (based on what evidence I don?t know) to be drifting deeper and deeper into wacko land.

But there?s absolutely no conviction behind it, no Lucian desire to smite the wicked and elect the virtuous. Heck, according to BuyBlue.org, Time-Warner is the bluest of the blue corporations, with its executives giving a cool 77% of their $1.7 million in political contributions to the Democrats in the 2003-04 cycle.

Which is exactly why the magazine's fawning treatment of the conservative Mafia is being repaid with such contempt. Time is offering the journalistic equivalent of protection money, but the crew has something bigger in mind ? like busting up the joint and taking it over.

The kind of aristocratic partisanship that Luce represented is an anachronism in the modern media industry, which is almost as oligopolistic as the auto industry, but produces a more defective product. The old-time reactionary press barons are a dying breed ? Murdoch is probably the last of his kind. ?
Maybe so. But Billmon asserts this new ?print whatever is profitable? is more dangerous than having press barons with large holdings publishing their prejudices.
? the corporate media?s present eagerness to suck and lick the private parts of right-wing extremists is based on an increasingly frantic belief that this is what the audience wants. With their massive market power, however, the mega-monsters also have the ability to shape consumer appetites ? creating, in effect, a demand for the kind of content they want to supply.

All the pieces are in place, in other words, for a self-perpetuating spiral into extremism ? with the corporate bean counters smiling and clapping all the way. The evolution of talk radio into a contest to see who can shout the most deranged opinions into a microphone shows how the process can work. Something similar may now be happening in the print media.

We can always hope the fad burns itself out or at least plateaus ? like the reality show craze. Mass audiences can quickly grow bored when every single channel is trying to stuff the same crap down their necks. Who knows? Maybe Ann will get voted off the island.

I hope so, because we?re only beginning to get a sense of the raw propaganda power of the media megamonsters ? which, after all, are still in their infancy, like the baby velociraptors in Jurassic Park. And I?m already starting to feel nostalgic for cuddly old reactionary press barons like Henry Luce.
Yep, at least you knew where he stood.

_____


NOTE:

If you use the SEARCH tab at Just Above Sunset, the parent site to this web log, you will find fifty-five references to Ann Coulter in the last three years.

As a virtual magazine, Just Above Sunset doesn?t have a cover page ? just a home page, and it doesn?t carry a cover story photo. If it were to carry one perhaps the first one would be? Jonathan Swift? Or maybe Duke Ellington.

Posted by Alan at 19:00 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Wednesday, 20 April 2005 12:33 PDT home


Topic: God and US

Religion: The New Pope

As of Tuesday, April 19, 2005 we have a new Pope in Rome. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger has been elected by the Council of Cardinals, and has decided Pope Benedict XVI will be is papal name. And at least two of my friends are commenting on how this guy used to be a member of the Hitler Youth, the Hitlerjugend.

As I said last September here, I don't like what is in the air, but I want to avoid being one more lefty yelling Nazi and fascist like so many others. Bush is not Hitler. And Karl Rove is not Hermann Goering. Yes, Rove's grandfather was Karl Heinz Roverer, the Gauleiter of Oldenburg. Roverer was Reich-Statthalter - Nazi State Party Chairman - for his region. He was also a partner and senior engineer in the Roverer Sud-Deutche Ingenieurburo AG engineering firm, which built the Birkenau camp ? according to this research. But so what? The father of Arnold Shwarzenegger was a Nazi officer, but Arnold is our governor out here now. That?s all in the past.

Markos Moulitsas Zuniga on his web log, The Daily Kos, puts it this way -
Today has seen the third papal election in my lifetime. There are many reasons to criticize the election of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI, like his stances on women and gays in the church, social issues, his work in crushing liberation theology, his comments in regards to the priest sexual abuse scandals, and his generally conservative views.

Calling him a Nazi, however, is unfounded and unfair, and only serves to demean us.

The man is 78 years old. He was 18 when the war ended. He is of the right age group where you were required by law to join the Hitler Youth. Membership in the Hitler Youth by no means made you grow up to be a confirmed Nazi, although that was certainly the intent. Belonging to a Luftwaffe AA battery is also not a sign that he was a Nazi; had he been a fanatical Nazi, not only would he have volunteered for the Waffen SS, but he wouldn't have deserted in 1944. That desertion in itself is not an unremarkable act. They still shot deserters at that time. Being in the German Army does not mean that you were a Nazi.

There are plenty of reasons to criticize this pope and the policies he's likely to enact. Unfounded accusations are unfair, and will only serve to give the [right] wingers more ammunition.

Call him conservative, call him reactionary, call him old, call him surly, call him the wrong choice. Just don't call him a Nazi.
That seems about right.

But another citizen-journalist - and I guess that is what you could call bloggers theses days - Andrew Sullivan, has this to say about what happened here -
It would be hard to over-state the radicalism of this decision. It's not simply a continuation of John Paul II. It's a full-scale attack on the reformist wing of the church. The swiftness of the decision and the polarizing nature of this selection foretell a coming civil war within Catholicism. The space for dissidence, previously tiny, is now extinct. And the attack on individual political freedom is just beginning.
Strong words. But, then again, Sullivan is an openly gay conservative, and that is an odd mix ? and Sullivan is a devote Catholic. Forgive him?

Ah, but then Sullivan calms down. Well, not exactly -
? I am still in shock. This was not an act of continuity. There is simply no other figure more extreme than the new Pope on the issues that divide the Church. No one. He raised the stakes even further by his extraordinarily bold homily at the beginning of the conclave, where he all but declared a war on modernity, liberalism (meaning modern liberal democracy of all stripes) and freedom of thought and conscience. And the speed of the decision must be interpreted as an enthusiastic endorsement of his views. What this says to American Catholics is quite striking: it's not just a disagreement, it's a full-scale assault. This new Pope has no pastoral experience as such. He is a creature of theological discourse, a man of books and treatises and arguments. He proclaims his version of the truth as God-given and therefore unalterable and undebatable. His theology is indeed distinguished, if somewhat esoteric and at times a little odd. But his response to dialogue within the church is to silence those who disagree with him. He has no experience dealing with people en masse, no hands-on experience of the challenges of the church in the developing world, and complete contempt for dissent in the West. His views on the subordinate role of women in the Church and society, the marginalization of homosexuals (he once argued that violence against them was predictable if they kept pushing for rights), the impermissibility of any sexual act that does not involve the depositing of semen in a fertile uterus, and the inadmissibility of any open discourse with other faiths reveal him as even more hard-line than the previous pope. I expected continuity. I didn't expect intensification of the fundamentalism and insularity of the current hierarchy. I expect an imminent ban on all gay seminarians, celibate or otherwise. And I expect the Church's immersion in the culture wars in the West - on every imaginable issue. For American Catholics, I foresee an accelerating exodus. But that, remember, is the plan. The Ratzingerians want to empty the pews in America and start over. They will, in that sense, be successful.
Ah, let?s see. Contempt for dissent? A view that women should be subordinate in society? Homosexuals should be marginalized ? and if gay-bashers bash them it?s their own damned fault because they asked for their rights? No open discourse with anyone who doesn?t agree with what you believe? Silence those who disagree with you? Darn, that sounds familiar.

Did George Bush appoint this guy? No. He?s just the Pope. Harmless.

I don?t have a dog in this hunt, as they say. I?m not Catholic ? in fact, I?m not anything at the moment. On the other hand, the Man in Rome is awfully influential, even if he is not our president. So this does matter a bit in this sorry world.

The Washington Post on Sunday, April 3 did run a profile of Ratzinger and this gives us a sense of the man.
He wrote a letter of advice to U.S. bishops on denying communion to politicians who support abortion rights, which some observers viewed as a slam at Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry. He publicly cautioned Europe against admitting Turkey to the European Union and wrote a letter to bishops around the world justifying that stand on the grounds that the continent is essentially Christian in nature.

... Ratzinger was active in stamping out liberation theology, with its emphasis on grass-roots activism to fight poverty and its association with Marxist movements.
Anti-Kerry? And willing to say that works don?t matter, just the purity of your faith, so you don?t have to anything about injustice or poverty or oppression? Rove and the guys in the White House are cheering. The fellow fits right in with the conservative evangelical party that the Republicans have become. The Post also tells us that once called homosexuality a tendency toward "intrinsic moral evil" and dismissed the uproar over priestly pedophilia in the United States as a "planned campaign" against the church.

This guy is going to fit right in ? a man for our times.

And E.J. Dionne of the Post shows us why in this - Cardinal Ratzinger's challenge -
04.19.05 - ROME -- The words broke like a thunderclap inside St. Peter's Basilica on Monday. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, addressing the world's cardinals just hours before they sequestered themselves to choose the next leader of the world's 1 billion Catholics, decided to define this conclave.

"We are moving," he declared, "toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires."

The modern world, Ratzinger insisted, jumped "from one extreme to the other: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism."

Those are fighting words. They guaranteed that Ratzinger, who was Pope John Paul II's enforcer of orthodoxy, will either set the church's course -- or offer his fellow cardinals the ideas they choose to react against. Decades from now, many conservative Catholics will see the war against the "dictatorship of relativism" as their central mission. It's not a line you forget.
Yep, that?s true.

It comes down to what matters ?
? for the many cardinals here from the Third World -- 20 of the 115 voting are from Latin America, 11 from Africa, 10 from Asia -- the battle over relativism is far less important than the poverty that afflicts so many of their flock. Some of these cardinals -- Claudio Hummes of Brazil is a representative figure -- may share points in common with Ratzinger on doctrine. But for them the struggle against suffering and social injustice is part of their lives every single day.

Many of these same cardinals, and some in Europe and the United States, place a higher priority on Christianity's rekindled competition with Islam and the urgency of Muslim-Christian dialogue. It's not clear where Ratzinger's approach would take these efforts.

Ratzinger, in other words, is now central to two very different dynamics inside the conclave. Cardinals will be asked to decide -- by voting for or against him or someone he favors -- whether Ratzinger's theological approach is right. And they will decide whether Ratzinger's priorities are about the things that matter.

? What makes this papal election so unusual is not the normal disagreement over specific issues. The odd part is that the cardinals disagree fundamentally over what the election is really about because they differ in their judgments of what constitutes the most important issues confronting the church.
They decided.

Dionne says this too ?
Ratzinger is a brilliant, tough-minded intellectual who started out as moderately liberal and -- like so many American neoconservatives -- developed a mistrust of the left because of the student revolt of the 1960s. He once said that "the 1968 revolution" turned into "a radical attack on human freedom and dignity, a deep threat to all that is human."

? He is proposing that the church take one aspect of John Paul's synthesis -- the battle against relativism reflected in doctrinal rigor -- and make it the late pope's central legacy.
Damn. That year, 1968, caused no end of trouble.

______


So what is the connection of this matter in Rome with the neoconservatives ? this band of evangelical Christians running our country on militarism and intolerance of others?

Well, Jeffrey Hart is professor of English emeritus at Dartmouth College and a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, and he has a pretty good explanation of American Christian evangelical movement in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette from Sunday, April 17 here.

His contention?

The Bush presidency is not conservative. It is populist and radical, its policies deformed by the influence of Christian extremism.

Oh. That.

This is actually a long history of the American Christian evangelical movement. You can read that if you wish, but this observation is at the core -
Because Evangelicalism is sustained by no structure of ideas, and, beyond that, has no institutional support in a continuing church, it flares up in repeated "Awakenings," and then subsides as the emotion dissipates. Because it is populist and homemade, its assertions tend often to be ridiculous, the easy targets for the latest version of H.L. Mencken.

If we recall Leo Strauss's formulation that "Athens and Jerusalem" -- science and spiritual aspiration -- are the core of Western civilization, American Evangelicalism is a threat to both, through ignorance of both.

Except for that major qualification, Evangelicalism would not matter much if it were a private superstition, a sort of hobby, except that the Evangelicalism of the Bush variety has real and often dangerous effects on the world in which the rest of us, and even they, live.
And Hart goes on to discuss stem cell research and other matters that show the evangelicals shutting things down -
- Information about safe sex was removed from the Centers for Disease Control Web site.

- The scandal that the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research prohibited over-the-counter sale of a "morning after" contraceptive as encouraging promiscuity and thus spreading disease -- clearly outside the mandate of the FDA. The New England Journal of Medicine described this as a political decision, which of course it was.

- The fact that the Bush administration has devoted millions to faith-based organizations promoting abstinence, but in doing so telling flagrant lies: that condoms fail to prevent HIV 31 percent of the time during heterosexual intercourse (3 percent is accurate); that abortion leads to sterility (elective abortion does not); that touching a person's genitals can cause pregnancy; that HIV can be spread through sweat and tears; that a 43-day-old fetus is a "thinking person"; and that half of gay teenagers have AIDS. Some grants for faith-based programs stipulate that condoms be discussed only in connection with their failure.

You would think that such Halloween science would be impossible in federally funded programs. Isn't bearing false witness prohibited by the Ten Commandments? But, as we see, Evangelicals make up their own scripture. And this is the Bush administration.

- Then there was that book the federal bookstore at the Grand Canyon was obliged to carry, maintaining that the Grand Canyon was caused by Noah's Flood. Geology shows that the canyon took millions of years to form by erosion. No problem. Geology is wrong.
Sigh. And now this Pope ? cut from the same cloth.

What a world.

Who ARE these people? Well, Richard Cohen explains.

Faith-Based Pandering
Richard Cohen, The Washington Post, Tuesday, April 19, 2005; Page A19

This is a discussion of Bill Frist and the filibuster business, but in taking care of that business Cohen gets to the heart if the matter -
? Frist initially led the Senate's effort to keep poor Terri Schiavo alive even though every court that had heard her case had concluded she was, technically and sadly, dead. Now Frist will be joining a telecast that will attack Democrats as being hostile to "people of faith." It will focus on the filibuster, which the Democrats have used to block 10 of George W. Bush's 229 judicial appointments. Some of the nominees are quaintly anachronistic in their views but to a person I assume they believe in God and therefore cannot be opposed no matter what else they think or do.

"The filibuster was once abused to protect racial bias, and it is now being used against people of faith," the telecast's sponsoring organization has declared. Among the participants are some, if not all, who believe that any abortion is wrong, that a stem cell is an inviolate human life, that homosexuality is a sin, that sex before marriage is both a mistake and a sin (don't even ask about homosexual sex before marriage), and that the rights of both Terri Schiavo and her husband should have been brushed aside -- along with a couple of hundred years of allowing state courts to settle such matters.

I am pausing now to wonder if the phrase "people of faith" is meant to include Muslims with several wives, Hindus with several deities or even the odd person here and there who believes, as I am sometimes tempted to, that God can be found in a pint of Ben & Jerry's Coffee Heath Bar Crunch. But I think somehow that "people of faith" is meant to embrace only conservative Christians and maybe Orthodox Jews, who are sometimes lumped together as Judeo-Christians. People of faith, you may rest assured, are people of their faith. All others need not apply.
The result?
I don't think a gay Presbyterian would be considered a person of faith, no matter how devout, nor, for that matter, a pro-choice Methodist -- say, someone such as Hillary Clinton. The category would certainly not include a Baptist such as Husband Bill or a Jew such as Chuck Schumer or, I venture to say, an Episcopalian such as John McCain, whose faith sustained him in a Vietnamese prison. As for a Roman Catholic such as Ted Kennedy, whose faith informs his liberalism, take it on faith that he would not be considered a person of faith. The phrase would also exclude anyone of any faith who believes in a limited role for religion in public life, especially the schools, if only on the pragmatic grounds that otherwise we will be at each other's throats. This is a lesson of history.
So it is, and now we have this new Pope.

Interesting times are coming. And I don't like what is in the air.

__

Here is something amusing on the name the new Pope selected for himself - Benedict XVI - from Keith Olbermann at MNSBC -
?the former Cardinal Ratzinger is now invoking the memories of the other fifteen Benedicts.

The first, chosen in 579, is so obscure that the only trace of his pontificate is a document showing he granted one an Italian estate to a local Abbot. The second Benedict, we are told, was a great singer ? an unusual resume for a Pope. The third had to fight off an invasion by the Saracens.

Numbers four to nine are generally conceded to mark the darkest period in Papal history ? one was deposed, one was killed, one was bribed into resigning. The tenth was literally the "anti-Pope" during the pontificate of Nicholas the second in the 11th Century, but Benedict the 11th made peace with the French.

The 12th we'll get to presently; the 13th was pretty much nondescript; the 14th was feisty (during an argument with the French ambassador, he once seized the man, shoved him into the Papal chair and said "Be Pope yourself!"). And the 15th, who ascended in 1914, tried to keep the Vatican neutral during the first World War and publicly pleaded with world leaders not to fight ? becoming in the process the first Pope to correspond with an American president. There is little doubt the new Pope is trying to evoke that Benedict, and the Saint of the same name, and even the word itself (benedictum) meaning, simply, ?blessing.?

But then there was Benedict the 12th and one almost wishes there was still a place for his earthy self-deprecation at the Vatican. Elected in 1342 ? on the first ballot, and when the Popes still ruled more or less in hiding at Avignon, France ? he was Cardinal Jacques Fournier, and he evidently wasn't too happy about his new job.

To his fellow cardinals he said, quote, "you have elected a jackass."

Certainly that is not the Benedict which the former Cardinal Ratzinger hopes to emulate. But the selection does raise the question: What does the name mean in the end? Does the name shape the Pope or does the Pope shape the name?

If we could ask one past Pope for an answer, it would be the Cardinal who advanced to the title in 468. He became Pope Hilarius. At the time, the word ? in Latin and Greek alike ? still principally meant gracious or cheerful, and had not yet assumed its current sense of stand-up comedy.

They made him a Saint ? possibly because he?d have to carry that name throughout history. But it?s instructive to note that there has yet to be a Pope Hilarius II.
And there will not be another, or so it seems. The days of ?gracious and cheerful? are long gone.

Posted by Alan at 15:21 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Wednesday, 20 April 2005 12:55 PDT home


Topic: Oddities

Molecular Gastronomy: Beyond Shepherd?s Pie and Bangers and Mash

Ah, from Reuters in an item dated April 19, 2005 we learn this - ?The Fat Duck, an English countryside former pub, has topped an annual list of the world?s best restaurants, marking a new gastronomic triumph for a country once known for, well, other reasons besides its food.?

Say what? These folks at The Fat Duck are the folks who serve sardine-on-toast sorbet.

Well, they do.

Really.

So who are these people at Restaurant magazine who compile the annual list of the world?s best restaurants and just pronounced The Fat Duck the best in the world?

They are from the UK ? and specifically you can find them at Kilburn House, Manchester Science Park, Lloyd Street North, Manchester M15 6SE - if you are in town. You won?t find much trying their web site. This magazine is a trade publication - #50 per year for twenty-four issues. They don?t publish on the web. So you have to trust Reuters.

But is there a bias at work here? Reuters tells us that British restaurants won four of the top ten spots and fourteen of the top fifty, beating countries like France and the United States ? but adds that the magazine?s selections ?are based on the opinions of more than 500 industry experts around the world.?

Well, maybe these five hundred industry experts are really British, just living abroad. On the other hand, Reuters quotes the magazine?s editor, Ella Johnston, telling us the results are quite fair and honest and right ? ?It shows just how far Britain has come in terms of culinary output and the range of experiences we offer.?

And what are those experiences? Try ?smoked bacon and egg ice cream? and ?leather, oak and tobacco chocolates.? Ah! This is far, far beyond Shepherd?s Pie and Bangers and Mash.

And who is responsible for this revolutionary cuisine?
The Fat Duck, run by chef Heston Blumenthal, beat out El Bulli in Montjoi, Spain and The French Laundry in California --previously voted world?s best two years in a row.

Blumenthal, a self-taught chef, has pioneered ?molecular gastronomy? ?

That has turned The Fat Duck in Bray, west of London, into a magnet for food enthusiasts.
Really?

Note: For a discussion of the science involved in Molecular Gastronomy see this:

Doctor Food
Wednesday April 20, 2005, The Guardian (UK)
This week Heston Blumenthal was crowned the world's best chef thanks to his unique marriage of science and cooking. But how did he discover his winning formula? Leo Hickman went looking for the men in white coats who helped develop his distinctive style. Meanwhile, Dana Bickford, describes the joys of working for him.

This probably much more than you wanted to know.

By the way, you might want to check out this - an insider view of this world from someone who worked at El Bulli in Spain and now works at the Hotel de Crillon. I wonder what she thinks of this British place. It's a whole other world.

___


But the food news back here in America is all litigation these days. Reuters also tells us that fast-food chains are hopeful that Congress will pass the Cheeseburger Bill.

Oh, THAT bill.

In short, there have been some potential suits against fast-food chains claiming this or that fast-food company is specifically responsible for the litigant?s obesity and should pay damages. Thus we get this -
Fearing a flood of such cases and lobbied by the restaurant industry, more than 20 states have enacted or are considering legislation that bars or limits obesity suits against restaurants and food manufacturers.

Nation's Restaurant News, a trade publication, said restaurateurs nationwide remain hopeful that Congress will pass a federal "cheeseburger bill" limiting such suits. The House of Representatives passed such a bill last year.

In the meantime, the landmark 2002 suit against McDonald's is the only pending U.S. action blaming a restaurant chain for obesity.
There was only ONE real case ? the rest is just hypothetical - and they want legislation for protection?

Well, in matters of law once cannot be too careful

Some folks see this as silly.
"Nobody forces you to go into McDonald's," said Anthony Sabino, a professor at St. John's University Law School. "I just had a quarter-pounder with cheese and nobody held a gun to my head. Even in this litigious-crazed society ... even the most ambitious of trial lawyers throw up their hands and say this does not fly."
Well, we may get the legislation anyway. This congress is odd.

But if McDonalds severed sardine-on-toast sorbet, and smoked-bacon-and-egg ice cream and ?leather, oak and tobacco chocolates.? Ah! The problem would be solved.

Want fries with that?

Posted by Alan at 13:24 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Tuesday, 19 April 2005 20:35 PDT home

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