Well, I started it as a group blog to discuss political ideas and cultural phenomenon with my favorite smart people. But (and I am singly responsible for this) all politics all the time makes me a dull girl. And I’m a poly- sci student. There is only so much I can take before my little mercurial self runs off to something else. But make no mistake- I always come back to the political.

So I post about shows I’ve been to or art I love or personal stories that don’t seem political at all. I get on kicks where I am railing against the patriarchy or organized religion or even just where the hell my Kleenex box has drifted off to. We have Fursday Fun just to lighten stuff up.

That doesn’t mean that serious pieces won’t get written or don’t have a place here.’They absolutely do. I just can’t be the one doing all the heavy hitting, and since I am doing the primary writing here – I do what I can to avoid either burn out or over-covering things that have been written about ad naseum by other blogs.

I hope that you all are enjoying the stuff that is not pure politics. I hope that you all are still happy to contribute the stuff that you all are good at writing about. I think MDH’s post on the new economic realities was fantastic. Wonder’s take on religion was very heart-felt and it was good to see the progressive side of Christianity represented. DeeK is forever my darling friend for helping me rail against the patriarchy, even though we feel very differently about immigration (or not so different- depending on the day). Phuxy is my brother in arms and bringer of teh funny- even though he is always in the middle of either midterms or finals.

With that I would like to introduce our newest blogger. Little Flower actually gets paid to write (can you imagine) and is damn good with the politics side of politics. I hope you all give him a big warm hello in comments.

The White Papers

Keeping with a recent theme at the White Papers, this is the first part of a reflection on Christianity that will take more than one post:

I’ve been troubled, since I memorized the Sermon on the Mount during my teen years in the ‘70s, by the divergence between the teachings of Jesus and the practices of Christians.
There is something decidedly odd about the fact that so many of those who claim the name of the man called the Prince of Peace — who preached non-violence, loving enemies and went to his death without a fight — have such a love of violence and war and knee-jerk contempt for those who do not share their beliefs.
What to make of this? One possibility is that these folks — in the spirit of Pappy O’Daniel in O Brother Where Art Thou I’ll call them “Kill-Your-Enemies Christians” — are not. They are the false believers mentioned repeatedly in the pastoral letters of the apostles Paul and Peter. However, that puts me in the position of judging the spirituality of people, a place I don’t belong.
The position on which I settled was that God intended that his followers to take a variety of positions. My justification for this was from Paul’s image of the church as a body, and his list of spiritual gifts. The idea is that God wills that Christians be both conservative and liberal, to have different theological beliefs, and to have all different types of talents and tendencies. It all melds together into a glorious pot that one day we’ll understand at the end of time.
It is unmistakable that different denominations and sects have used different passages to come to different conclusions about the meaning of scripture. I thought that was because there was some key to understanding that was not granted to us mortals. Maybe God didn’t want everything spelled out to prevent us from worshiping the text instead of the creator.
Now, however, I’m having second thoughts …

More to come sometime when I don’t have to coach hockey.

I have to be a real employee today (sucks) so posting will be light until I can return to my idle ways of glaring at students and dreaming that they installed a retractable roof and an open bar in my lab. It’s really beautiful here today.

In the mean time- for your reading pleasure

Salon has a fantastic interview with Karen Armstorng called Going Beyond God.

Very often people hear about God at about the same time as they’re learning about Santa Claus. And their ideas about Santa Claus mature and change in time, but their idea of God remains infantile.

From the NY Times: Government whistleblowers are dealt a giant blow by the Supreme Court

The LA Times looks at the power of charisma

More later.

More poison ivy with more of the itch- causing chemical:

Compared to poison ivy grown in usual atmospheric conditions, those exposed
to the extra-high carbon dioxide grew about three times larger — and produced
more allergenic form of urushiol, scientists from Duke and Harvard University
reported.

Thank god I’m a city girl, but all you outdoorsy types might want to invest in the makers of calamine lotion.

Well, I started it as a group blog to discuss political ideas and cultural phenomenon with my favorite smart people. But (and I am singly responsible for this) all politics all the time makes me a dull girl. And I’m a poly- sci student. There is only so much I can take before my little mercurial self runs off to something else. But make no mistake- I always come back to the political.

So I post about shows I’ve been to or art I love or personal stories that don’t seem political at all. I get on kicks where I am railing against the patriarchy or organized religion or even just where the hell my Kleenex box has drifted off to. We have Fursday Fun just to lighten stuff up.

That doesn’t mean that serious pieces won’t get written or don’t have a place here.’They absolutely do. I just can’t be the one doing all the heavy hitting, and since I am doing the primary writing here – I do what I can to avoid either burn out or over-covering things that have been written about ad naseum by other blogs.

I hope that you all are enjoying the stuff that is not pure politics. I hope that you all are still happy to contribute the stuff that you all are good at writing about. I think MDH’s post on the new economic realities was fantastic. Wonder’s take on religion was very heart-felt and it was good to see the progressive side of Christianity represented. DeeK is forever my darling friend for helping me rail against the patriarchy, even though we feel very differently about immigration (or not so different- depending on the day). Phuxy is my brother in arms and bringer of teh funny- even though he is always in the middle of either midterms or finals.

With that I would like to introduce our newest blogger. Little Flower actually gets paid to write (can you imagine) and is damn good with the politics side of politics. I hope you all give him a big warm hello in comments.

The Kid and I had this discussion today:

Kid (after having seen something on TV): Mom, does war bring out the worst in men or does the worst in men bring on war?

Me: It’s a feedback loop kid. That means both are true.

Kid: Huh

Me: War is caused by the worst in men, then in war people act badly, then more war, then more bad behavior and so on.

Kid: So we have to end war to stop the worst in people.

Me: That’s just the beginning.

It’s Memorial day, and we should be honoring soldiers who have died doing what they were told to do- going to war. But I am having a hard time with that today in light of the Haditha story. Don’t get me wrong- I fully understand that the individual soldiers are there because they have to be, that they signed up to do something that I would never do. But I can’t look one-sidedly at the deaths in Iraq or Afghanistan. It isn’t just our soldiers who are dying, but innocent civilians whose towns and homes and lives have been torn apart. We don’t keep track of the numbers of civilians who’ve been killed. It would undermine the public support of the war faster than anything else has, especially because the Iraqi people have never been a focus of the war- it has always been the “insurgents” who were our targets.

Stories like the one at Haditha are not aberrations. In every war there is a Mai Lai or Haditha. They are part of the act of warfare, which is not noble. There are some things worth fighting for, but that doesn’t make war righteous. It makes war a necessary evil. When, as in Iraq, the war is instigated on false premises it is an act devoid of any reason done by the worst of men.

I cannot fault the soldiers for acting on their orders. Chances are they are just poor kids from neighborhoods like mine who were hoping to find a way out of perpetual poverty and a something larger than themselves to believe in. I can fault the worst of men, those in charge who have never been to war themselves, for sending these kids in to do their dirty work.

For those kids who were just looking for a way out, for the families in far away countries where life has been shattered into a thousand pieces and run over with muddy boots and hummers, I wish them peace and to see the best of men.

The Kid loves fantasy stuff. He likes to imagine that he is some all powerful warrior with the ability to smite enemies with a single blow. At least once a week, we have a discussion about “what would your superpower be?” He changes his powers almost every week. Sometimes it’s super-strength. Sometimes it’s invisibility. Sometimes, after an especially long day when we are walking home, he wants rocket powered feet to power him up the hill by our house.

I always want the same things- the ability to speak every language and to shoot laser beams out of my left eye when my eyebrow is raised. The Kid thinks it’s boring that I don’t want to be able to fly around the world or stop time, but I think language and lasers are pretty cool.

So kids- what would your superpower be?

Taken after many drinks while standing on a table- I am not that tall really!

By being friends with the band- of course!

I went to fantastic show at the Funhouse last night to see my dear friend, Ruthzilla, and her band ScaryBear play. I am not a huge prog rock fan (it just doesn’t mix with the indy-pop Queen status) but last night might have converted me.

ScaryBear is a tight “frantic instrumental techno thrash” joy to see. They rock the genre like no bodies business without a lot of the cock swagger generally associated with anything that loud. But that wasn’t all the joy I got last night.

Next up was Black Elk– a band from Portland with a lead singer who is a weird cross between Mick Jagger and Iggy Pop if they both were screaming in terror. We were right up by the stage getting pushed by a few hapless moshers. The last time I had been in a mosh pit I was pregnant with the Kid, but I remembered how to use my elbows pretty quick and the bouncer chilled the guys out pretty fast. But the band kicked ass. This is where I get converted to loud, angry Noise Rock.

After their set, Ruth was saying hello to the bassist for Black Elk and introduced me by saying “This is Elizabeth. You guys were so good she even liked you, and she likes Franz Ferdinand!” Turns out that this scrappy bass player also like Franz. I told him how at the last Franz Ferdinand concert the band dedicated a song to “the 2 girls dancing in the balcony” and I was one of those girls. The bass player promised a shout out to me next time. My four and half minutes of rock and roll fame have now been extended by a whole 15 seconds. Whoo hoo!

Also playing were Blood Hag. They throw science fiction books at the crowd which is cool. But by then I could barely hear them because I’d been standing right by the amp during Black Elk and not wearing ear plugs. Everything still sounds muffled today.

The final act was Captured By Robots- one guy and a bunch of robots he built to play music. It was all cover songs last night and that was cute and kitschy for the first 3 songs, but by the time he broke out with Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing, I had enough.

I had meant to take some pictures of Scarybear, but drunkenness interfered. Instead you all get blurry drunken pictures of crowds, robots, and Ruthzilla with what looks like a giant light-filled tumor coming out of her nose. Enjoy!

It’s not just me that is drunk and blurry- The Robots drink PBR!

Ruthzilla, bass player for ScaryBear, looking possessed by the light-filled tumor attached to her head

THE coach of the Iraqi national tennis team and two of his players were shot
dead in Baghdad, apparently for wearing shorts, in a district where Islamic
radicals have started to enforce brutal, Taleban-style law.

They were fricken tennis players (a subject close to my heart) and for that they get killed. Yeah- democracy is certainly on the march in Iraq- right out the door.

Argh! This is one of those stories that just makes me mad and sick all at the same time. I am tired, so very tired of people (Christian, Muslim, and Jewish alike) forgetting that the whole “Not taking the Lord’s name in vain” part of the bible means not killing people because you think God says it’s OK. It is not ok to kill someone because they are not doing what you tell them to do.

Ok, so maybe the 10 commandments aren’t exactly in the Qur’an- but this is:

“….anyone who murders any person who had not committed murder or
horrendous crimes, it shall be as if he murdered all the people.”

Wearing shorts, playing sports, buying mayonaise or being a woman who drives are not horrendous crimes.

Wingnuts of any religious flavor need their screws tightened a bit. They seem to have come loose.