Star-Spangled Church of America

"Excommunication":  an act of official censure severing an individual from a religious community and depriving him/her of the spiritual blessings of membership in such a body.


"Interdict":  an ecclesiastical penalty whereby the population of an entire country is suspended from membership in and denied the services of the established religion (essentially, excommunication of  a group rather than of individuals).


The "(No) Establishment Clause" of the First Amendment:  Congress shall make NO law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.  


I've just been re-reading an old favorite:  Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy.  Asimov is not a great writer--he's not interested in literary nuance--but he's a damned good story-teller.  And I enjoy his "psycho-historical" analysis of the seemingly inexorable forces underlying and propelling human evolution.


Early on in the Trilogy, Asimov's storyline involves the deliberate creation of a bogus religion whose priests are the only individuals having the power to produce and distribute atomic power on the four or five planets ruled by the Foundation. 


Thoroughly inculcated in this religion, the vast majority of the priest-technicians themselves believe unquestioningly in the Galactic Spirit, the Holy Food, the Space Demon, etc. They therefore accomplish their liturgical duties (maintaining atomic power plants) devoutly and meticulously, but without any deep understanding of the actual science involved. Only the high-ranking members of the Foundation--including the High Priest himself--are aware that the entire ecclesiastical edifice is nothing but an ingenious hoax, intended only to maintain control over the "faithful" inhabitants of the worlds dominated by the Foundation.


In the novel, this "government by religion" functions very well, for a very long time.  Indeed, at one point, in order to force rebellious Anacreon into complying with Foundation policy, the High Priest places the entire planet under interdict. And at the stroke of noon, all lights flicker off on the iniquitous planet.  Because, as Asimov drily notes, a religion grounded in physics (rather than metaphysics) actually works.


In 1208, Pope Innocent III--in a nasty mood about King John's refusal to appoint Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury--imposed a similar interdict on all of England.  Innocent, of course, did not actually control the power plants (or, should I say, the windmills) of England, but as the outcome of this confrontation proves, ACTUAL, physical power--in THIS WORLD-- is not necessary, provided control over human imagination about the NEXT WORLD is strong enough.  Thus, the king's barons and subjects, fearing that the loss of "holy food" would condemn them to hell in the afterlife, exerted enough pressure to oblige the sovereign himself to submit, albeit grudgingly, to the pope's will.


In European history, that episode may have been the high water mark for confrontations between religious and temporal powers. In any event, the religious authorities soon thereafter began to understand that conflict with civil authorities was really rather inefficiently messy and that their "spiritual" interests could generally be advanced more bountifully by ALLIANCE with their erstwhile adversaries.


How did this work? Simple.  By "Establishment" and "Establishment Clauses."  I.e., the CEOs and practitioners of a particular religion simply cajoled and fulminated to get a ruler to "establish" their doctrines as the official cult of the state.  This was relatively easy to do when the kings themselves took seriously a threat of excommunication (i.e., no holy food and hence no salvation).  Pope Gregory IX's famous confrontation with Emperor Frederick II is a good example of such religious intimidation.  And so, in the early days, the church may have been the senior partner in these establishment covenants.  But rapidly, the kings girded their loins--this was never a lovey-dovey alliance, after all--and then, the two "establishments" moved forward, expanding their mutual control over a) the physical (external) landscape of conquered lands and b) the psychological (internal) landscape of conquered peoples.


But to what end, you might ask?  It's clear why the temporal leaders wanted to extend their influence:  power means wealth and wealth means...well, more power--dominion, superiority, self-gratification.  Why, though, would the supposedly disinterested (nowadays we might say "non-profit") religious authorities seek to extend their influence?  The conventional answer, of course, is "to ensure salvation to those not yet saved:  'holy food' for more people." A verbal sop to the theoretical altruism of organized religion.


But I think that empirical evidence permits us to doubt that most religious establishments desired outcomes much more altruistic than those sought by their temporal brethren.  The churches, too, wanted land, wealth, dominion, superiority, self-gratification in the HERE AND NOW.  In short, they, too, wanted political power.


And so, conflicts sometimes arose between the two allies, since, in fact, they were BOTH after the same thing:  wealth, power, dominion (i.e., "profit").  And, very occasionally, such conflicts provoked an actual breakup of one alliance and its replacement with another:  we inevitably think of Henry VIII ("Defender of the Faith") and his new covenant with the conveniently-concocted Church of England.


But, in general, as the spiritual powers became less sincerely spiritual and ever more avid for real-world privilege and security, they grew increasingly willing to operate as the ostensible "junior" partners in the enterprise--always present, always pulling strings, but in the background--the eminences grises behind the throne--thereby ensuring that they still received a good chunk of the pie, but at a significantly lesser cost. Cool! The kings and princes had to pay for everything!  


And so, for centuries, "Christendom" was rent by wars that were essentially political in nature, but that were justified and sanctified by established religions.   The last of these--the Thirty Years' War--destroyed so many lives and devastated so much territory that, at its end, most of central Europe lay prostrate.


I suspect that it is the horror of that war, together with the inconclusive bloodletting of the English Civil War (again, a combination religious/political conflict), that led many Enlightenment thinkers to denounce ALL alliances (overt, covert, whatever) between political institutions and religious institutions.  Might such a revulsion have prompted Thomas Jefferson to ponder the advice of Voltaire to crush the "infamy" of established religion?


Unlike Glenn Beck, I cannot pretend to understand exactly what was in the minds of our Founding Fathers.  But one fact is very clear:  for whatever reason, the framers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights DID decide to FORBID any alliance between religion and government! Obviously, they feared the possible consequences of a partnership between civil and religious authorities.


In theory, then, since the United States has no established religion, there is NO religious Grand Pooh-Bah who can dictate or share in temporal law-making.  No high-priest or pope or archbishop or ayatollah has the authority to declare our people, our president or our leaders "outlaws" and "unAmerican" by imposing some sort of excommunication or interdict. No one has the constitutional right to switch off our lights.


In theory.


In actual practice, though, I wonder.  I think there's dirty work afoot, and I'm going to try to get to the bottom of it.  That means scraping the very depths of the politico-religious barrel, of course--and it's there that we dredge up the icky remains of that rottenest of rotten apples, Richard Nixon.  


You've heard of him.  He's the self-declared non-crook who dreamed up the Republicans' "Southern Strategy" and managed, by incorporating both explicit and implicit racism into the Republican "ideology," to convert the majority of southern whites from Dixiecratism to Republicanism. Though Nixon's principal strategist, Kevin Phillips, might disagree with me, I'm persuaded that Tricky Dicky also realized that the Republican Party, in order to reinforce its dominion in the South, would have to ALLY itself with the fundamentalist, evangelical Christianity that so often justified such Bible-based racism (not to mention homophobia, antisemitism and anti-feminism).


Thus, Nixon--and his Republican successors--Ronald Reagan, certainly--but most notably, the two Bushes--by pandering to fundamentalists and by ALLYING the temporal power with the religious power of evangelical divines (e.g., Billy Graham)--these latter-day Defenders of the Faith managed to perpetrate an incredible boondoggle on the American people.  Devoutly distracting us with Sunday-School soporifics and patriotic sanctimoniousness, they simply circumvented the First Amendment's No-Establishment Clause.  They just ignored it!  And thereby, in effect, they established a state religion!!!!  The Star-Spangled Church of America!


Oh, I know that the actual wording the Constitution was not altered a tittle. I suppose that's the "beauty" of the scheme. But a constitution is what common consensus (and five judges) say it is. It is a society's "default setting." And alas, as I write this, I believe--I truly do--that thanks to the machinations of the Republicans' cynical strategists, the United States now has a de facto official religion:  fundamentalist, evangelical Christianity.  It's become our default setting, our ESTABLISHED church.


In a sense, then, contemporary Americans CAN be excommunicated (declared ungodly and hence unAmerican), even entire regions can be interdicted (e.g., wicked San Francisco) by the religious authorities and, accordingly, punished by the civil authorities for--well--impiety! Of course, the religious justification, like the Established Church itself, is de facto, shrewdly hidden beneath a veneer of insipid, star-spangled de jure language.   

Evidence to support my claim is not lacking.  Gay couples usually can't get married--because the established religion forbids it (*in June 2015, the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in all states--but most southern states continue to impede full compliance); Muslims are told they can't build mosques where they wish--because the established religion forbids it; embryonic stem cells cannot be used for scientific research--because the established religion forbids it; Muslim immigrants are harassed and demeaned--because the established religion encourages it; the Pledge of Allegiance requires school children to acknowledge God--because the established religion demands it.  Oh, it's too depressing to go on.


I realize, of course, that the Church of America has not yet fully accomplished what appears to be its ultimate, albeit inchoate, goal:  the de jure overthrow of the First Amendment.  Holdouts exist, fortunately, and continue to give some hope to leftover Jeffersonians.  First-term abortion remains, tenuously, legal--despite the opposition of the C of A.  A few states obstinately allow same-sex marriage and/or forbid capital punishment--despite the opposition of the C of A. (*same-sex marriage is legal as of 2015, by Supreme Court decree, not legislation)


But WHY (in GOD'S NAME) have we ordinary, freedom-loving Americans tolerated this all-too-obvious sabotaging of the First Amendment?  Do we really wish to return to the "good" old days of the Crusades, the Muslim Conquests, the Spanish Reconquista, the Thirty Years' War, the English Civil War? Any decent historian will acknowledge that the alliance of religious authority with political authority has almost always been a means of restricting the authority and autonomy of individual human beings.  

For instance, what if some self-proclaimed High Priest of the Church of America works himself into a veritable old-testament snit about America's supposed abominations (the usual perversions plus, perhaps, gluttony and gambling) and proceeds to place the whole damned country under interdict?  


Will the lights go off in Las Vegas? 


Oh, it DOES seem far-fetched, doesn't it?  Perhaps it's time to stop worrying and be happy.  Tomorrow IS another day, after all.  And tonight, I could go and get myself supersized at MacDonald's.  


With holy food.

Belly Fat

I have a secret to confess:  I sometimes can't resist watching programs on the religious channels--EWTN (Catholic) and TBN (Evangelical).

Why do I do this?  Because I am both horrified and fascinated by the madness that these mountebanks fabricate, dispense and, most astonishing of all, manage to "sell" (both literally and figuratively) to the credulous salvation-seekers of the world.

And there's some real catharsis (or, perhaps, kenosis) involved, too.  Watching one of these shows is what I call a "sauna" experience.  After an hour spent with Kenneth Copeland, for example, in his TBN sweatbox, I am prostrate, limp, withered up--completely emptied of all pride in human reason, all delight in human creativity, all optimism about human thought--what Bertrand Russell once called (silly git) the "chief glory of man."

Nothing, nothing, nothing to hang on to.  All just dehumanizing and dehydrating theological twaddle. And so embarrassing. Makes me want to jump into a cold river and not come out.

But still I subject myself to these sauna ordeals--because, as I said before, I am masochistically curious--and also because, after I emerge from the intellectual flogging, I find that very few other lunatics (Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter) have much effect on me. Like the moron who hit himself on the head with a hammer because it felt so good when he stopped. Thanks to the pain, I seem to acquire (at least temporarily) a kind of immunity to inanity.

So, let me tell you about today's metaphysical flagellation.  Rev. Copeland (who cain't pronounce "can't") was denouncing the moral and spiritual depravity which has descended, like a great plague, upon America and which has resulted--the wages of sin--in a national affliction (verily, verily of absolutely Biblical proportions) of...excessive belly fat.

Belly fat.  Yes, friends, there it is!  Did you know that fully 60% of all Americans have too much belly fat?  Gospel truth. And this fat is the direct result of perverted eating which, in turn, is the sinful behavior engendered by a nonexistent or improper relationship with Jesus Christ.  Don't you see?

It's really very simple.  Get right with Jesus and the fat will melt away!

That, at least, was the implication of the little presentation made by Rev. Copeland's bespectacled guest, a certain Dr. Don Colbert, author of a number of books, all apparently ghost-written by Jesus himself, and all entitled The Bible Cure for Something or Other (fill in the blank:  Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Yeast Infections, etc.).  Today, Dr. Don was holding forth about The Bible Cure for Weight Loss and Muscle Gain.  

Though at first I was puzzled about why, exactly, "weight loss" needed to be cured, I soon realized that what the good doctor really meant was something like this:  "how to use Holy Scriptures in order to lose weight."

Of course, there was also an actual "diet" involved (i.e., lettuce, bran flakes, cottage cheese--nothing particularly unusual).  But, asserted the doctor, none of these conventional cures for belly fat would actually "work" unless the dieter had devoutly read the scriptures and, ipso facto / sine qua non, been born again into a right relationship with Jesus.

Positively ingenious scheme, Dr. Colbert!!!!  The would-be dieter buys your book (you win); then, he tries out the diet and either--a) it works (you win and so does he), or b) it doesn't work (his belly fat persists--but, and this is the best part, YOU STILL WIN.  Because the dieter's failure has nothing to do with you or with the diet--rather, the fault lies with the dieter himself--and, most especially, with the inadequacy of his spiritual development.)


This, then, appears to be the Belly Fat Doctrine:  the fatter you are, the more wicked you are.  Jesus loves thin people.  Satan rules the fatties.  So I guess Wallis Simpson had it right (albeit backwards).  You can never be too thin or (I'm sure Rev. Copeland and Dr. Colbert would agree) too rich!

P.S.  But what about the Rev. John Hagee?  Or the Rev. Rick Warren?  Aren't they both a little on the chubby side?  Just asking...

Matres et Patres

Last night, I had a dream about Alex Kroff,  my major professor when I was a doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin.  He was, officially, the director of my Ph.D. thesis--the thesis that for several years I pretended (and even partially believed) I was writing.  I suspect that Alex knew, better than I, that Ken Kirkeby was not cut out to be either a scholar or a denizen of Academe.  But he never said anything.  He never got in my face about my lack of enthusiasm for second or third-rate nineteenth century French plays.  He never insisted (not, at least, very seriously) upon seeing concrete results of my supposed research.

OK.  It's true that Alex was a bit of a dilettante himself--believing, I have no doubt, that sophisticated eating mattered more in the "great scheme of things" than did pretentious or trendy thinking (he was a stickler for proper footnotes, though).  Still, I'm pretty sure that because he cared for me as a person, he was willing to cut me some slack as a student.  He trusted me to work though my own identity crisis, without any gratuitous needling or nagging on his part.

I loved him for that.  And I still feel a bit guilty that, somehow, I didn't turn out as he would probably have preferred.  In the fullness of time, I muddled through and did the best I could.  But perhaps my lingering awareness of the "road not taken" accounts for why I so frequently dream about Alex, just as I do about my mother, father and grandparents (all of whom I disappointed in some way or another).

"Uncle" Alex died unexpectedly in 1976, not coincidentally the year I definitively abandoned all doctoral pretensions.  Late that summer, at the absolute nadir of my life, I left the University of Wisconsin pour de bon  and moved, with neither money in pocket nor objective in mind, to Washington, D.C.  But on my last day in Madison, as I piled my pathetic belongings into the old Dodge Dart that my parents had given me, I still couldn't resist jamming into the trunk--behind the worn spare tire--a small box containing ALL of the "research" I had completed in eight full years of fraudulent travail. It was a very modest parcel indeed.

Guess what? I didn't throw out that box until twenty years later, just after I had made a commitment to teach English (not French) for the remaining ten years of my career.  Try to figure that one out.

Do I have regrets about all of this?  Yes, of course.  I cannot really be proud of the time I wasted and the love I squandered in my abortive attempt to avoid the truth about my nature, viz., that I am  not an intellectual and that I have no aptitude whatsoever for the mental discipline and systematic thinking (or nitpicking) of Academe.

But I am smart.  And as a result of my "lost" decade, I learned a number of things, the most pertinent of which--for the theme of this blog--is the vital, immeasurable, incomparable worth of TEACHERS.  The loss of Alex stunned me and the depth of my reaction to his death obliged me to examine my own life.  After all, I had often sought to avoid my major professor, indeed all professors--hoping thereby to evade my own sense of failure as a student.  But Alex's sudden departure, more than anything, made me acknowledge, with deep emotion, the great affection that I felt--not just for A.Y. Kroff--but indeed for every teacher I had ever had.

Teachers.  From the very beginning, I had always loved school (if not always my schoolmates).  In many ways, the classroom was more home than home. Alma mater.  And teachers, even the weak ones (including those, like Joe Rivers, whom I tormented), were truly my foster parents.  Almi patres (?)  Thanks to Alex--and, in particular, as a result of his precipitous and wrenching departure from my life, I realized that--though I would probably never be a biological father, I COULD be the next best thing:  an almus pater, a "nurturing father," a teacher.  That was the central "turn around moment" of my life.  I woke up and was born again. Hallelujah, amen.

Recently, many years after my personal Great Awakening, I was moved by a writer to the local paper whose letter paid tribute to the teachers who had formed him. Quoting Hippocrates, he affirmed what many of us feel:  the Mrs. Brundgardts, Miss Engs, Mr. Bianchis, Mrs. Kalmeses, Mrs. Peterses, Mr. Livingstons, Mr. Glausers, Mrs. Knops, Mr. Kroffs--these teachers have also been our parents, and in consequence, we owe them an enormous debt.  Here's what Hippocrates wrote:

"I swear... to hold my teacher in this art equal to my own parents; to make him partner in my livelihood; when he is in need of money to share mine with him; to consider his family as my own brothers and to teach them this art, if they want to learn it, without fee or indenture."

Well, I don't imagine many of my former students will soon be sharing their wealth with me. Nor would I expect it.  But I'm happy that I finally realized what I could be good at.  I couldn't be a scholar, like Alex.  But I could be a good teacher--also like Alex.

I miss you, Alex Yale Kroff. Though I don't even have a picture of you, you were my almus pater. And a model for what, I hope, I too became.  Où que tu sois, même si tu ne vis plus que dans mes rêves, je t'embrasse bien fort et bien affectueusement.  Merci mon très cher père.


P.S.  Please excuse any Latin expressions that I may have mangled in this post.  I loved my high school Latin class because reading about Caesar's Gallic Wars appealed to my incipient Francophilia.  I also thought togas and vomitoria were pretty cool.  But I never bothered to learn very much of the actual language.   

Bats in the Belfry

More and more I realize just how fragile--and unreliable--is human reason, my own included.

Is anything true?

I know that I have two trees in the yard--one a maple, the other a Japanese crab.  But what good is knowing THAT?

I don't know how to fix the economy, how to bring peace to Afghanistan, how to stop global warming.

Did Paul ignore the historical Jesus and fabricate Christianity out of his own mystery-cult-obsessed imagination?

Did Allah speak to Mohammed and through him dictate the Koran?

Should adulterers be stoned?  If a woman tries to defend her husband by poking another man in the balls, should she have her hand cut off (Deuteronomy 25)?

Would lowering taxes make big corporations employ more people?

Is affordable health care a "right" for everyone or merely a privilege for those who are more important in society?

Freedom.  Freedom.  Freedom.

I don't know what "freedom" means.  I worry that it has become a loaded word, full of emotion but detached from any definite referent in the real world.

Or, isn't it possible that freedom means simply being "disconnected"?

Do you want to go to war all around the world in order to disconnect everybody from everything?

My head spins.  I suppose I should turn off the television:  in the silence of my room, I would have to confront only my OWN idiocy--not the lunatic ravings of millions of others.

"No mosque at Ground Zero because Muslims don't believe that Jesus is Lord."  "God kills American soldiers because America tolerates fags." "Save America from Mexicans:  repeal the 14th Amendment."

Bats in the belfry.  Bats are blind, like my ideas.  They go bump in the dark.  My life is a tale told by an idiot. And then?...

One Hung Low

PART ONE:  Junk Science

I know exactly what you're thinking.  You're expecting me to say something both salacious and politically incorrect about human anatomy AND funny-sounding Asian names.  But you're wrong.  True to my vow to avoid paralipsis, I'm not even going to mention Long Duk Dong, the drunken and libidinous exchange student in Sixteen Candles (see http://oldagesticks.blogspot.com/2010/05/its-really-not-worth-mentioning.html) and I'm certainly not going to recount any "Confucious Say" adages.

But, as my title suggests, I am going to talk about testicles--human ones--and about how these ridiculous, wrinkly little guys "work."  As an introduction to my meditation, I thought we might look at a picture, fortunately in the public domain (and evidently donated by the proudly-groomed photographer himself) which I found on Wikimedia.  Though it pained me a bit to do so, I have cropped off all irrelevant, non-testicular subject matter.


Now, as you can see, one really DOES hang lower than the other.  This is normal, as I'm quite sure most of you know.

What isn't normal is the, well, unencumbered airiness of the pose.  I suppose that some might call this asymmetrical scrotum "overexposed," though that prudishness is exactly what worries me.

Because, I'm really afraid that the only hope for the survival of the human race is the liberation of human testicles from all entangling, restrictive, oppressive and, most especially, overheating garments.

We all remember 7th Grade Health, don't we?  Mr. Polus (or some other phys. ed. teacher)--aided by illustrations of bull testicles and Celsius thermometers--explained to us that the production of human sperm is a very tricky business.  The fastidious little spermatozoa just can't stand too much heat (or cold).  If their wee fuzzy houses aren't kept cooled to about 2 degrees Celsius below body temperature, they just wither up in prostration and refuse to do anything--no furious swimming, no competitive egg hunting, no frantic fertilizing.

And that, of course, is why BOTH of the family jewels hang low--even though one is usually lower than the other.  The scrotum needs COOL air in order to keep its delicate residents happy and in order to ensure that a plentiful supply of sperm will be available and willing to cooperate in reproduction.

In short, the very fate of humankind, hangs upon those manjigglies' ability to hang low enough and freely enough to maintain 35C temperatures.

Which brings us to global warming.

Today, the Weather Channel announced yet another day of record-setting temperatures in much of the U.S., especially in the South:  Dallas, Atlanta, New Orleans, Mobile, Jacksonville, Birmingham.  We've had the hottest decade ever recorded and, most sources believe, 2010 will be the hottest year of this hottest decade (remember, strictly speaking, 2010 is the last year in the decade).

So, just think of all the prostrate sperm that's dying this summer!  And yet, young guys persist in running around in baggy boxer shorts protruding beneath even baggier below-the-knee cargo trunks.  And so, their poor cojones are swaddled up in literally yards of suffocating cloth.  Older dudes--the ones who might actually be interested in making babies--are even more delinquent:  they're literally smothering their sperm factories in a tight inner sheath of jockey briefs beneath a scratchy outer layer of wool (lawyers) or denim (farmers).

This is NOT GOOD.  As global temperatures rise, scrotums do their very best to hang ever lower--but let's face it:  with outside temperatures hovering around 40C, there is simply not enough hanging room inside any undies.  It's just too much of a stretch.  Hence my conclusion:  testicles are going to have to be entirely liberated, set free to flop and jiggle in the breeze.

You're just gonna have to let them all hang out, guys!  Like the well-ventilated pair in the photo. Otherwise, you're facing not just sweaty wedgies, but sterility as well.


PART TWO:  Defense of Nuts Act (or How to Save Humanity from the Threat of Global Warming)

Sartorially, if not fiscally, there IS a more conservative alternative, of course:  i.e, something could be done to arrest or reverse global warming.  Duh. Surely if we all put our thinking caps on, we could figure out some way to preserve the species and still keep those ridiculously asymmetrical testicles tucked modestly inside our shorts.

However, I'm not very optimistic about this possibility.  Despite the overwhelming evidence provided by their drooping ballsacks, most Republicans and many Democrats refuse adamantly to believe that the planet is getting too warm for sperm production.

In fact, they've never even thought of the problem in those terms, have they?

Instead, they've merely speculated about a) which cities might be inundated by rising sea waters, b) which states might become deserts, and, most importantly (c), who would have to PAY for any anti-warming measures.  And the politicos don't find ANY of these issues particularly compelling or, well, "sexy." Ergo, the Senate has simply abandoned its Global Warming Bill and, with it, any further attempt this session to regulate / limit greenhouse gas emissions.  The Republicans, says Fox News, will continue to oppose legislation based upon "junk science."

I love that expression:  "junk science."  What Fox means, of course, is that the learned look-alike journalists at Fox have concluded that, although global warming is a fact that even they cannot dispute, the notion that climate change is human-induced is, well, "junk." Just another socialist, communist, fascist lie intended to persuade innocent people to part with their money.  Well, maybe.  But, given my "meditation" in Part One of this blog, we might also employ the term "junk" as it is used in current slang:  penis and testicles.  Now, Ms. Kelly and Mr. Hemmer, THAT'S quite a different kettle of "junk," isn't it?

Personally, I think the environmentalists could make their case more sexy and politically marketable if they adopted this slang definition of "junk."  Isn't it possible that they would get more votes, especially from senators representing those overheated but prudishly puritanical Southern states if, for instance, they couched their argument in the following terms?

Since the world IS getting warmer (as even Fox agrees), and since increasing temperatures will inevitably endanger human sperm production (as Mr. Polus and the Health teachers explained), the human race has only two good options for survival:

Option 1:  in order to ensure adequate cooling for sperm production, all males must immediately cease binding, supporting or in any way covering their genitals; testicles must be allowed to hang low and swing free.  In this option, religious or esthetic prudishness about concealing "private" parts cannot be tolerated.  Too bad, Puritans and Bible Belters--this erstwhile "indecency" is henceforth an act of moral duty.

OR

Option 2:  emissions of greenhouse gases must be strictly regulated and controlled by governments (even if that socialistic measure costs money), thereby preventing further rises in world temperatures and, ultimately, the extinction of homo sapiens.  In this option, men may continue to keep their "junk" hidden, since Big Government Programs rather than Mandatory Scrotal Exposure would guarantee a sperm-friendly environment.

Despite their fiscal objections, I'll bet those conservative Southern senators would feel morally obligated to support this second option. (And not just morally, but esthetically as well:   heck, they might not be prepared for all the costly and time-consuming "junk grooming" necessitated by Option 1.)

A possible campaign slogan for Option 2?  How about  "Preserve the Sanctity of our Testicles:  Vote for Emission-Control Legislation" ?  And if a catchy title were needed, they could even call the legislation something like the "Defense of Nuts Act"  (DONUTS).  Haha.  I couldn't resist.

Ce que dit la bouche d'ombre

I don't actually like Hugo's poem "Ce que dit la bouche d'ombre."  It's a well-engineered but overwrought vision of a kind of Happy Ending Apocalypse.  Full of grandiloquent "O"s, ecstatic exclamations and poetic dexterity of all sorts, this "show stopper" is intended to convey Hugo's devout belief--nay, his "prophetic" certainty--that fallen mankind will at last be resurrected, redeemed and restored by the power of love.  This optimistic assurance is, (as I literally translate the title line) "what the mouth of the shadow says/said." (Actually, the final word of the poem--uttered by an angel--is "commencement."  All the orchestrated hysteria, as in Ravel's Bolero, had been building up to that pre-ordained climax!  Cute.)

Don't get me wrong:  I like the idea that Good will eventually triumph and that the horns of evildoers will simply melt away in the fiery radiance of God's love.

But the very fact that Hugo goes on, and on, and on--piling metaphor upon metaphor upon rime riche upon rime riche--suggests that he's not as sure about all of this as he'd like to be.  He doth protest too much and, in the end, the effusive artifice of his poem makes me question his authenticity.  Is he posturing?  What does he really know?

Like the televangelist screamers who are trying so desperately, pounding their pulpits and their Bibles, to convince their listeners (and themselves?) that THEY are the only legitimate purveyors of truth.  As Robert Graves might ask:  is this genuine nakedness or merely artful nudity?

Can I hear an "amen" here?  AMEN.

But there are parts of Hugo's poem that appeal deeply to me--most especially, the very title.  I am fascinated by the expression "la bouche d'ombre."  How in the world can one translate that formula?  The mouth of the shadow?  The yawp of darkness?  The mouthpiece of the unknown?  The voice of the depths?  The language of intuition?

Well, whatever the translation, I'm inclined to believe that such a "bouche d'ombre" does, in fact, exist.  I can't help thinking about Levin's enlightenment--at the end of Anna Karenina.  After a lifetime of skepticism and doubt, after years of attempting to extract some shred of "meaning" from life, Levin discovers (with a joy and a simplicity that I find lacking in Hugo's overblown poem) that what he is seeking, he has always known--and not just he, but everyone else as well.

"Don't all philosophical theories do the same thing," Levin asks himself, "leading man by way of thought that is strange and unnatural to him to the knowledge of what he has long known and known so certainly that without it he would not even be able to live?  Is it not seen clearly in the development of each philosopher's theory that he knows beforehand (...) and only wants to return by a dubious mental path to what everybody knows"?

In short, when the voice of darkness talks to us (like a shadow's whisper), it says, not something uplifting like "commencement", but dumb stuff that we've always known-- "don't fret; it's OK; all is well."

And this, inevitably, reminds me of Emerson's "Self-Reliance."  And of Jesus' admonition to "consider the lilies."  We don't really need a Hugo (or a Pat Robertson) to be our "lighthouse" or our "seer" because la bouche d'ombre speaks to us all equally--in the ordinary but eloquent commonplaces I just mentioned.

And also, perhaps, in an ancient admonition too little heeded by Hugo, Tolstoy or myself (I'm not humble, am I?)--another commonplace that might just summarize the profoundest wisdom of humankind:  "For GOODNESS' sake, SHUT UP!"

"Good War" Nostalgia

Last night, Linda and I went to a play entitled The Daly News.  It's a musical revue loosely based upon the experiences of a single Wisconsin family (the Dalys) during World War II.  A paterfamilias in Milwaukee records  (and sings about) his wartime communications with four sons, all of whom are serving in some branch of the military in some theater of the war.  The play was given a standing ovation by an audience comprising about 200 sexagenarians and 5 youngsters of fewer than sixty years.  In other words, nearly everybody in the auditorium remembered a father (or perhaps an uncle) who had fought in, and told about, World War II.  And so, as these aging children of The Greatest Generation rose to their feet, it was more to honor their fathers than to applaud the quality of the production.

Because, truthfully, though the tunes were melodious and the actors talented, the play wasn't really particularly "good"--in a literary or artistic sense.  But it pleased the folks (often including me) for a couple of reasons, I guess:  1) because it reminded us of the fathers we are now mellow enough to love and regard as heroes; and 2) because it evoked in us a yearning for a communal experience--a great "cause" that would unite all Americans once again as a noble, purposeful, loving family.  In short, though we didn't nudge our neighbors and articulate our thought, as we sat there listening to those ditties about our dads eating Spam and getting shot at, we were secretly wishing (at least a bit) that WE, too, could have a nice little Good War.

We could all feel so "inspired" by a war in which OUR guys were clearly the GOOD guys.  And if we had to give up our nylons or our butter or even our lead pencils, what the heck?  We would be ennobled by the sacrifice.  It would be even warmer and fuzzier than donating canned goods to soup kitchens at Christmas.  Once again, we could fly the flag proudly, confident that all other "civilized" people would love and admire us.

Well, yes:  of course, there might be a price to pay.  Unlike the Dalys in the play, some Americans might have to die for the "cause" (whatever that might be--democracy, capitalism, Judeo-Christian values).

But we would all be so happy working together:  Rosie could rivet again; Uncle Sam could count on us again.  And we could all sing beautiful, sappy, melancholy songs about Apple Blossoms or Bluebirds.

To be fair, I should point out that The Daly News was also "about" something more than the national and familial solidarity generated by war.  It was also a slight but heart-tugging reminder that human beings, especially males, rarely allow themselves to feel deeply about (i.e., "love") other human beings except in times of crisis.  Males, especially fathers and sons, avoid such sissiness--unless a good war provides an excuse for bonding.

So in the end, last night's play--despite (or perhaps because of) all its facile sentimentality--left me feeling rather empty and gloomy.  Because even all the tuneful treacle couldn't disguise the underlying truth about men (and women, too, but mostly men):  we just HAVE to have wars.  Whether they are "good" or "bad," they seem to be a necessity for the self-actualization of the human male.  Couldn't we say that Vietnam and Iraq--though morally unjustifiable--were in some sense needed--at least by a great many of those who participated?

The nice thing about a "good" war, of course, is that--like World War II--it makes everyone feel noble, not only while it's going on but--best of all--long after it's over--when it still gets a standing ovation!

On the way home, we stopped at the Dairy Queen and had a chocolate malt.  Still more sugar, alas.  But afterwards I felt a lot less empty.