Would Jesus Shop At Walmart?

In the midst of the chaos and frustration of my recent troubles with my computer and with Apple I guess I was in the mood for considering the evidence for an even more egregious business monolith... WalMart. I have always had a problem with WalMart and I have been inside a WalMart store on less than a dozen occasions in my life. One of those occasions was a few years ago on a trip from San Francisco to LA when I needed to pick up batteries in the middle of nowhere and the only place to shop was the behemoth. What I was struck by on that visit was the sense that it was truly a plantation. The people working for almost no wages and the people shopping in the store were the very same people. It was as plain as day that the people shopping there were simply sending the money they earned from WalMart, back into WalMart... because they weren't paid enough to shop anywhere else if they wanted to.

Well, last night I got home to find a movie rented by my housemate that details everything (or at least much) that is wrong with WalMart, from their use of child labor, to the way they underpay their workers and use tax payer money to subsidize their massive profit margin, to the way they simply show no concern for anyone or anything once they've snagged your cash. The film, WalMart-The High Cost of Low Price is an absolute must see for anyone who tries to maintain an excuse that WalMart is a good place to shop. It isn't, it can't be, and to shop there is simply immoral.

The Quakers have a concept that a person is not responsible for something if they don't know about it. However, to have the knowledge and to still act as if you did not have that knowledge then makes you guilty. The evidence against WalMart is out there. To see it for yourself it only requires ordering up the movie on Netflix, or dropping into your local video store (I doubt if you'll find the movie available at the local WalMart) and checking it out for yourself.

In light of this, I was surprised to get up this morning and check my email to find a link to a new campaign featuring a Baptist preacher from Kentucky asking the very poignant question, Would Jesus Shop At WalMart? The commercial is viewable here. After you see it... go get the WalMart movie and answer the question for yourself.

It's the holiday season... and justice begins right here.

Katrina - One Year Later

One year ago right at this very moment, the levees intended to protect New Orleans were broken and flooding. Hundreds of people had already been wiped out. Of course we didn't know any of this until days later. That very evening, the President Bystander (a term I stole from Bruce Springsteen) stood up in front of the country and announced that the levees had held, but the truth was that they had not held. A few days later, he would express another disingenuous false declaration when he stated, "I don't think anyone could have anticipated the breeching of the levees." A comment, almost laughable in its horrible similarity to the same type of incompetent remark four years earlier when Condi stated, "I don't think that anyone anticipated that terrorists would turn planes into bombs." In both cases it's exactly what happened, and people – many people – had indeed warned, of not only the possibility, but the liklihood, of both events. The fact was, and is, that it was a lie and not a very good one at that.

Since that day there have been many statements made by Dubya and his cronies in the Republican congress, not to mention a rather substantial collection of impossible gaffs, blunders and downright incompetence on the part of Mayor C Willy and Governor Katherine, but the lion's share of responsibility and the greatest burden of response lies with the criminally incompetent construction and maintenance of the FEDERAL levee system by the Army Corps of Engineers and the utter lack of timely, responsible and caring action on the part of FEMA and the rest of the federal government; this virulently incompetent, low lying, devious, capricious government of venal bureaucrats and self-preserving sycophants.

So, on the anniversary of our nation's greatest disaster, as he always does, Dubya has set off on another mission of public relations damage control, meandering about New Orleans and making yet another premature declaration of victory in a war that is going to last for years and whose ultimate effects will be left for others to deal with. He will no doubt roll up his sleeves and make big promises and grand statements in mangled syntax that will make some of us laugh through our tears while others just nod and shrug.

Maybe he'll give Katerhine Blanco a back rub; I imagine she could probably use one.
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In the meantime, you can find a really excellent article on the forsaking of New Orleans in The Nation here.

Some things just don't matter... or do they?

I really wish someone could explain to me why the US Flag, as displayed on the uniforms of the Army (I don't know about the rest of the services) is displayed backwards.

According to the US Flag Code when a flag is displayed flat
"... the union should be uppermost and to the flag's own right, that is, to the observer's left." This is of course in the same material that suggests the proper way to dispose of a flag is by burning (something that a few pinheaded members of Congress encouraged by Fearless Leader and including Lady Clinton have been trying to outlaw with an incredibly ill-conceived and patently absurd Constitutional Amendment). What I want to know is what idiot designed the backward flag patch and for what reason? Is it supposed to symbolize the flag flying backwards as our forces go ever onward? Or is it just someone's basic stupidity in ignoring the clear rules laid down for respect of the symbol everybody seems to get so all fired head up about? Clearly... it was not done by anyone who was ever a Boy Scout!

And while we're on the subject... what's up with this well documented desecration of the flag by Fearless Leader his own damn self? Signing a flag with a Sharpie!?!?! Is there any way to call that anything other than desecration, and therefore a distinct violation of the flag code, not to mention an incredibly arrogant gaff for the POTUS (but probably not as big a gaff as giving the Chancellor of Germany a backrub, or "Brownie you're doing a heck of a job!").

So... does any of this matter?

It seems to me that, as has been said by many before... "God is in the details." If you are incapable of, or uninterested in, paying attention to the small things why in the hell should anyone trust you with the big stuff?

Or, as Arthur Miller put it, "Attention must be paid."

Or... as the central message of the Buddha so clearly states... "You must be present to win."

Tom Paine... American Patriots... and Me

There's an editorial in The Nation today that reinforces the basic premise that began this blog. It ends where I began, with a quote from Tom Paine that reminds us about what it really means to be a Patriot, a call, as relevant now as it was more than 200 years ago, that "Ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny but the tyrant, stand forth!"

The librarians of this country, under the auspices of their organization the ALA showed the same dedication to freedom of thought and the value of culture when they chose to hold their convention this past week in The Crescent City. Such a move falls directly in line with their dedicated agenda to keep people aware, thoughtful, and free.

The Nation article discusses some of the ways that the ALA's members have kept up the vigil to fight some of the more egregious aspects of the Patriot Act and it's important to remember, on this patriotic weekend, that the U.S. was founded NOT on the principle of beating other people INTO our idea of freedom, but in securing, nurturing, and maintaining freedom at home.

This weekend we come to this greatest of our national holidays - a holiday filled with everything (both good and bad) that makes the U.S.A. what we are. The White House, its current resident and the whole collection of sycophants that gather around him in nearly rabid devotion to every whim of the Shrub and his Gardeners, have made up THEIR minds about what patriotism and love of country are supposed to mean, and their definition is pretty damn narrow. I don't like their narrow vision and I steadfastly refuse to accept it. To me it's people like the librarians of the ALA, the members of Code Pink, the Cindy Sheehans, and the Max Clelands that remind us that part of being a Patriot is loving your country enough to fight for the rights of those at home. In another piece, also in The Nation, George McGovern, the man whom I first voted for at 18 when he ran for President in 1972 (the first time 18 year olds could vote), speaks to the issue directly and personally. That is how it should be, for the issue IS direct and it IS personal.

I have a number of friends, and they are certainly not alone among the populace, that feel one should not discuss politics or argue political perspective. They feel that politics is personal and such discussion only causes unnecessary strife. To me, on the other hand, it's not only important to discuss these things, it is imperative. We do not have the right NOT to discuss them. When we elect officials who send the youth of our land off to be killed on the other side of the world, when we lend our agreement to policies and laws that attack freedoms at home (freedoms that those young people are supposedly giving their lives for somewhere else) and presume - in our name - to declare what is right for the rest of the world, when we agreeably pay tax dollars that are burned by the billions on war while children in this country die of starvation, suffer from lack of adequate education and drown in a cess pool of flood water caused by inadequately constructed levees... WE ARE RESPONSIBLE... WE ARE COMPLICIT... WE ARE GUILTY.

It takes courage, strength, hope and faith to stand against the true believers and the opportunists and speak to the idea that We The People means ALL OF US!

As Little Steven sang some years ago during another right wing manufactured crisis... I am a Patriot, and I Love my Country... Because MY country is all I know.

MAIG & THE CONSTITUTION

THE EVOLUTION OF PAPER

"Marriage between one man and one woman does a better job protecting children better than any other institution humankind has devised,'' said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. "As such, marriage as an institution should be protected, not redefined.''

Of course… when you consider the number of divorces, sexual scandals, and downright bad (often criminal) sexual behaviour of a large percentage of Congress, one might have to say that being a politician does a better job of destroying marriage, and it's supposed protection of children, than any other activity known to humanity. Additionally… the Constitution, that wonderful, amazing document that defines who we are as a nation, already has a good deal to say about how it should be used and what "redefining" actually means.

The Constitution of the United States of America is an evolving document, an always changing declaration of what we want to be as human beings and as a nation. As such it has gone through a number of changes, and most of those are changes that increased the propogation of freedom, that promoted a greater largesse and a more open and positive way of being with each other.


In 1865, we as a nation figured out that slavery (despite being allowed by the Bible) was morally wrong, politically indefensible and abusive to people. The Thirteenth Amendment was passed and our country was improved… The Constitution evolved.

Amendment XIII
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

This was further expanded three years later in 1868 with the Fourteenth Amendment.

Amendment XIV

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

One of my favorite things about the Fourteenth Amendment is its careful description of who citizens are and what they are entitled to (and where), AND it's shift of language - moving from citizens to persons - to detail the fact that in this country (and in those places under our federal protection) PERSONS do not have to be CITIZENS in order to be guaranteed the benefits of that great cornerstone of the Constitution, "equal protection under the law." This is a feature of the grand document which the President Bystander (to plagarize The Boss) seems to have missed in his high school civics classes.

A goodly number of years later, the country stumbled over fundamentalist obsession and The Eighteenth Amendment took away the right of people to drink. However, 14 years after that the country came back to its senses and the 21st Amendment was passed to repeal that abuse of Constitutional power. In between those two the country decided that women should be enfranchised with the right to vote.

Amendment XIX

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

In 1964, we decided that it was important to remove whatever obstacles to full participation in the electoral system were being placed in the way, and so the Amendment Twentyfour was passed to remove the poll tax as a way of restricting people's right to vote.

Amendment XXIV

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

In 1971, the twentysixth amendment gave the right to vote to 18 year olds just in time to allow me to vote for George McGovern by absentee ballot from my college dorm room in Tulsa Oklahoma.

Amendment XXVI

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are 18 years of age or older, to vote, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of age.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

It seems to me we could have come up with a few more ways to increase the general benefit and welfare of human beings in this country… ratifying the ERA for example would have been a good idea. A similar amendment guaranteeing equal rights to all citizens regardless of sexual identification or persuasion would be a good one, but in both cases they really aren't necessary, because the Bill of Rights has already provided for this in a non-specific form:

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.


I love Amendment IX … It makes things very clear. Those guys (and they were all guys) actually had the humillity (something our current leaders clearly lack) to admit that they probably hadn't thought of everythhing. Amendment IX basically states that just because we choose to GUARANTEE certain rights, doesn't mean that people don't have all the other rights we didn't think to guarantee.

Amendment X concludes the original Bill of Rights by stating that the power not given to the Federal government belongs to the states and to individuals.

As I said at the beginning, we are a growing nation with an amazing evolutionary document that defines who we are. That document has never been used to take away people's rights except during the ill-conceived, fundamentalist driven disaster of Prohibition. A mistake, later wisely corrected. Other than that one false step, amendments to the Constitution have only been used to progressively GUARANTEE rights to MORE and MORE people.

It is a unique and fascinating political example of what my seminary professor, J. Lynn Elder described as the true purpose of life… MAIG - Maximum And Increasing Gratification.


All of that seems to make it very clear that the idea of the Federal Government choosing to TAKE AWAY a right from the states and the people is in itself not only bad form, thoughtless communal interaction, and ill-conceived logic, it's also… most likely… inherently UNCONSTITUTIONAL. And THAT makes the whole debate a waste of time… a waste of time at a time when we just damn well cannot afford to have our legislators wasting ANY time.

But more importantly… It's just wrong and stupid. How many people will die in Iraq and Afghanistan while Dubya and the dimwits
in the Capitol argue about a law that is wrong, stupid, unnecessary and doomed to fail anyway (thank God).

It's my belief that most people in this country understand that, and that the necessary ratification for a constitutional amendment would never be accomplished (even if it could pass the Congress). It's a non-starter; an intentional diversion from the debacles of the Bush Administration from New York to Afghanistan to Iraq to New Orleans and it is an unconstitutional cowtowing to a bunch of religious fanatics by a collection of hypocritical sycophants.

I'm sorry… we deserve better than this!

Two thoughts... one war

This afternoon I received two reprints from friends relating to the lives of the many who are stuck fighting our war so far away.

There are so many stories, of soldiers and innocents, and innocent soldiers, on both sides of all our wars, but the battles over what is right and what is wrong don't remove the pain of the loss that is delivered again and again.

In both cases, the authors of these pieces can say more of what it means to remember on this day than the many words that I would stumble through, so in lieu of making my own mess of it, I'll just leave it for them to say.



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An Army of One
By LOUISE ERDRICH


Minneapolis

I FIRST noticed that he was unusually polite when I brushed by him to get into my middle seat on the plane out of Los Angeles. Then I saw the rose at his feet. It was a long-stemmed red rose. I'd nearly stepped on it. I showed him how to roll it in a magazine and we put it safely in the seat pocket. He looked at my newspaper and said he was interested in Iraq.

"Why?" I asked, though I could tell by now.

"I just came from there."

His eyes were a clear, pale, unusual green. His cheeks thin and sunburned. He could not keep still. His fingers fluttered, his eyes darted to each person who entered the aisle. He told me that he'd graduated two years ago from his high school outside Seattle on a Friday and that he had enlisted on the following Monday. "Because I'm sort of patriotic." With a shy squint he pulled up his sleeve to show that his arm was tattooed with a brilliant Stars and Stripes, a mint-green Statue of Liberty and a frowning eagle, all woven together.

He had just returned from the Sunni Triangle near Falluja and was stationed now in the West. His roommate had been killed — as well as a friend on his third tour of duty. At another point, a Humvee he was riding in had been half-melted into the street by a roadside bomb.

Though there was e-mail, the whole battalion would curtail its communications with the outside world when there was a death, so that the two men in dress uniform could be the first to deliver the news to the family back home.

"Sometimes I get mad when my family says I'm changed," he said carefully. "But they have changed, too. While I was there we caught lots of bad guys, right? I don't want to go back and start all over. A Pennsylvania Guard unit has taken over our work and so far they're getting hammered. Back when I left, I didn't have a girlfriend ..."

I looked at him and thought there was no way they wouldn't send him back. He looked at me; then whatever he saw made him quiet. The plane landed in Seattle. He carefully retrieved his rose. "I brought her a whole big bouquet last time," he said, "but by the time I landed it was all messed up, so this time I just got her one."

"One is more eloquent," I said.

He got up. "After you, ma'am." So I left first. In the terminal, I saw him once again. He was bent over his backpack, hitching something onto it. He straightened and put his cap on backward, bill down his neck. He was carrying a skateboard on his back, a red rose in his fist, and the war.


Louise Erdrich is the author, most recently, of "The Painted Drum."

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After Loss of a Parent to War, a Shared Grieving

By LIZETTE ALVAREZ


ARLINGTON, Va., May 28 — Jacob Hobbs, 10, did not mince words about the death of his father.

"He was in a Humvee, driving at night on patrol, and a homemade bomb blew up on him so bad it killed his brain," Jacob said of his father, Staff Sgt. Brian Hobbs, 31, of the Army. "But he wasn't scratched up that much. And that's how he died."

Sitting across from Jacob in a circle at a grief camp over Memorial Day weekend, Taylor Downing, a 10-year-old with wavy red hair and a mouthful of braces, offered up her own detailed description. "My dad died four days after my birthday, on Oct. 28, 2004," Taylor said quietly of Specialist Stephen Paul Downing II. "He got shot by a sniper. It came in through here," she added, pointing to the front of her head, "and went out there," shifting her finger to the back of her head.

"Before he left," Taylor said, "he sat me on his knee and he told me why he had to go: because people in Iraq didn't have what we did. They didn't have enough money. They couldn't go to school. And they didn't have homes."

An estimated 1,600 children have lost a parent, almost all of them fathers, to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Over the Memorial Day weekend, nearly 150 of these children gathered at a hotel here in this Washington suburb for a yearly grief camp run by the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, a nonprofit group founded in 1994 that helps military families and friends cope with death and talk about their loss.

Burying a parent is never easy for a child, but losing a father in a violent way, in a far-off war, is fraught with a complexity all its own.

The children receive hugs from strangers who thank them for their father's courage; they fight to hold back tears in front of whole communities gathered to commemorate their fathers; they sometimes cringe when they hear loud noises, fret over knocks at the door and appear well-versed in the treachery of bombs.

And often the children say goodbye not just to their fathers but to their schools and homes, since families who live on a military base must move into the civilian world after a service member dies.

At the camp, their drawings of their fathers are never mundane, they are mythic: a father as hero, in uniform, with medals trailing across his chest and an American flag floating high above.

"Before my dad left, he said he wasn't afraid to die," Jacob said of Sergeant Hobbs, who was killed in a bomb blast in Afghanistan on Oct. 14, 2004. His father was awarded a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart, Jacob explained. "He saved his commander from an exploding tank," he said.

Many of these children are old enough to remember their fathers, but now the images are slipping away in fragments.

One memory few will ever forget is the moment they learned that their fathers would not come home. Paul R. Syverson IV, a 10-year-old with a blond crew cut and his father's face, saw a soldier at the door. "My mom saw him and started crying," said Paul, trying hard to stifle tears as he recounted how he was sent next door to play.

His father, Maj. Paul R. Syverson III, 32, a Green Beret, had been killed by a mortar round inside Camp Balad, Iraq — or as Paul put it, "He was eating breakfast, and he was shot by Iraqis."

Later, "I cried," he said. "I played with my soldiers. And then I went to the basement because my dad was a collector of 'Star Wars' stuff. I took those out, and I played with them."

Brooke Nyren, 9, whose father, Staff Sgt. Nathaniel J. Nyren, died in a vehicle accident in Iraq on Dec. 28, 2004, told her story in a writing assignment at the camp. When two Army men showed up at the door, "I was really scared," Brooke wrote. "The two Army men asked my mom, please can you put your daughter in a different room. So I went in my room. The only thing I was doing was praying."

"My hart was broken," she wrote.

Paul, the blond 10-year-old, recounted how his father was injured by a bomb in Afghanistan in 2001. The blast broke his father's back, Paul said, but not his eagerness to fight again. Paul's drawing features his father, with his green beret, and the words, "Men will jump and die."

And Jacob, who wants to be a soldier, remembers his father saying that he had to go off and fight. "But he didn't like my mom crying," Jacob said. "She always cried when he left because she didn't want him to die."

The violence of their fathers' deaths, and its public nature, can be especially troublesome for children. "'It's a traumatic grief that is highly publicized," said Linda Goldman, a grief specialist. "Dad was murdered in a public way. This heightens the sense of trauma because it never goes away."

The children's mothers say the deaths have had expected repercussions, like plummeting grades and mood swings. But they have also seen unexpected reactions. Madison Swisher, 8, who sleeps in her father's T-shirt, is afraid of loud noises; her dad died in Iraq from an improvised bomb. She and her younger brother talk a lot about bombs in general. They call the Iraqis the "bad guys" and are afraid the bad guys will arrive any minute.

Several mothers said they worried that their children's hero worship, a healthy balm in the beginning, could turn problematic if they tried to follow in their fathers' footsteps.

Teenagers, in particular, have trouble adjusting. Scott Rentschler, 14, was living on a military base in Germany when his father, Staff Sgt. George Rentschler, was killed in Iraq in 2004 by a rocket-propelled grenade. His life, Scott said, "is a roller coaster." Scott's grandmother, Lillian Rentschler, said that moving off a military base was difficult for him, and that society and schools make few allowances for children in their second year of grief.

"People think he should be all fixed up," Ms. Rentschler said.

The outpouring that families receive after a death is mostly comforting to them. But in time, it can verge on stifling, some parents said. Jenny Hobbs, 32, Jacob's mother, said that in their hometown, Mesa, Ariz., her three children were "embraced as heroes. It was cool to know them."

But there was a downside, Ms. Hobbs said, and ultimately she moved the family to Ohio. "The death is in the public eye," she said. "It is hard to let go. The war is still going on, and you are reminded of it. One reason I had to move is that it was hard to be normal."

Ms. Hobbs continued: "He was no longer ours and human. We needed him to be ours."

Parents and mentors say they try to help the children stay connected to their fathers and grieve in intimate ways, far from the public eye. They post photographs all over the house, make teddy bears out of their dads' shirts and encourage them to write letters.

Eddie Murphy, 10, whose father, Maj. Edward Murphy, 36, died in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan in April 2005, did just that one day at grief camp. "Summer is coming up," he wrote to his father. "It won't be the same without you. You won't believe it but I'm in Washington."

He signed off: "I love you. Hi to Heaven."

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Peace.

Some Cats Know...

A man I deeply loved, but whom I only briefly met, died this week and it makes me very sad.

Willliam Sloane Coffin was the kind of man that made me believe in America and made me believe in the church. There are only a few of those folks around (some of them even read this blog) and I consider myself abundantly priviledged to have gotten to meet even a single one of them. Some (a very few) I have even gotten lucky enough to call my friends. Bill wasn't one of those… but there are many times when I feel like he was.

The first time I met Bill Coffin I was at a "refugee conference" in Tucson Arizona. There were many strange things about that weekend in Tucson… Not the least of which was going with my then lover to see The Talking Heads concert film (directed by Jonathan Demme) "Stop Making Sense" at a theater where in high school I had gone with a then girlfriend, to see the musical "You're A Good Man Charlie Brown." There were several other weird experiences on that trip and it was the last time I entered the city limits of Tucson… When the week was through, I really had no desire to ever go back.

"Same… as… it… ever… was."

I was there for the first time since I had graduated from the University of Arizona. I was there because the conference I was attending was a church conference, and in Tucson I had been very active in the church… but the only people I knew at the conference - just around the corner from where my grandmother had lived, and just a few blocks from a big Baptist church where I had spent an enormous amount of my time - were from California. I had gone to jail with some of these folks… the folks I had gone to church with in Tucson were nowhere to be seen... "Same… as… it… ever… was."

The conference was on immigration and refugees, and I was in from San Francisco where I had developed a small reputation with people that I worked with for being "the guy who said 'no' to Bank of America." I didn't think it was a big deal, because it was really based on the simple fact I didn't want to subject some of the people that I was employing at the time to the idiotic, capitalistic grandstanding of a project I was being asked, by the bank, to produce. I had actually said NO to a whole lot of people and things at the time (including the IRS, the State Department, the INS, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Southern Baptist Convention), but in Tucson I met the real thing… Bill Coffin stood up before us and shouted in that Bronx Preacher accent that we were CALLED damnit… CALLED to stand up for the people who could not stand up for themselves. And he proved it… He had been there… He was one of the real ones. He stood and stood and stood... until finally toward the end, he really just had to sit.

At the same conference, another of my life's heros, Elie Weizel, stood up and made the statement that has come to define large parts of my life and psyche ever since… "NO PERSON CAN BE ILLEGAL." I will never forget that moment… and I will never forget that phrase. It, perhaps more than any other set of words, has defined what I believe about responsibility, citizenship, and personhood for the last 25 years.

"Same… as… it… ever… was."

On another occasion, I had the opportunity to hear William Sloane Coffin in his home church, that big grand amazing building that Rockefeller built on Riverside Drive as much as a memorial to himself and to money as it is to God… but Coffin (like so many other preachers in that pulpit) seized the moment and stole the show, speaking truth to power and suffering no fools, gladly or otherwise.

Recently, as a result of that little storm from last summer (remember Katrina?), I have of late had the opportunity to meet with, visit with, and break bread and fish with another of those heros that make me who I am. Dr. C. T. Vivien. A man who walked the roads and stood the lines with Dr. King, who calls me (and just about everybody else) "Doc" and loves to talk about church, and preaching and Jesus… while also talking about the great paintings on the walls, and the great food that comes out of the kitchen, of Dukie Chase's restaurant in New Orleans. When I sit to dinner (or in the car on a ride like hell's fury to catch a plane out of NOLA) with C.T. I am simply in awe; I experience the moment like one of my favorite scenes in the movies when Jack Nicholson looks at "his girls" in The Witches of Eastwick and says to his dog… "see what humans can do?" When I'm with C.T. I find he calls my mind to another Son of the South, a man who I have had great conversations with on the phone, but whom I have never met in person, Brother Will D. Campbell. He's another one of those folks that gets under my skin and makes me want to suck meaning out of every moment I've been given on this planet. I'll never get to that place... but it's one hell of a ride tryin' out the path.

I just want to thank all y'all… But… tonight… especially I want to thank Bill. You - a Presbyterian - made me a better Baptist, a better American, a better man, and a better human being. A dear friend of mine recently had the opprotunity to get to know Bill as a friend... I envy him that oppportunity, but I'm glad he had the chance. As I look up from my computer and out the window across the city, the big bright moon shines right in my face and it feels like Bill's come by to check up on me.

Here's to ya Preacher Coffin... I hope the beer's cold… the music's good and the conversation's as spicy as ever.

What Then Must We Do... What Then Must We Do...

Naomi Klein has piece in The Nation entitled "'Never Before!' Our Amnesiac Torture Debate"

It's an important article in light of some of what I talked about yesterday. Go read it. If you have trouble getting it (you might have to register for The Nation) email me and I'll send you a copy.

The main point of the article is that torture is not a new way of doing business for the U.S. What IS different is that the Bushies are trying to do it publicly and while that's a treacherous step down a slippery damn road, it is NOT the only news. The School of the Americas has been in the business for a very long time.

When I went to Nicaragua 23 years ago with the very first Witness for Peace team in the midst of our nation's support of the Contras, I heard many stories of ugly abuse and blatant torture and those came first hand from people who had experienced it personally. I heard more of the same three years later when I returned with a group of people to paticipate in a music festival and record an album with Ken Medema and local Nicaraguan singers. On both occassions I had interviews with victims of our government's policies and I was moved and motivated to make some serious changes in my life.

Over the years, some of those changes have remained and some have fallen by the side of the road. What I am aware of at this particular moment on this particular day is that, as Arthur Miller has Linda Loman say of her husband's life in the play "Death of a Salesman," attention MUST be paid.

With all that is going on, from my backyard to Baghdad, I am feeling the need, as I said yesterday, to do something... ANYTHING... but to do it right away.

So... to quote another of my favorite dramatic characters, Billy Kwan (played by Linda Hunt) quoting Tolstoy in the film "The Year of Living Dangerously"...

WHAT THEN MUST WE DO?

The Things We Think And Do Not Say

I woke up this morning at 6:45, reached my arm out from under the covers as I usually do and turned on the radio. But, for some reason, instead of listening, as I usually do, to the morning jazz set on WWOZ, I switched over to WWNO for NPR's Morning Edition.

The first story right out of the box (so to speak) was news on the "trials" of Guantanamo detainees. The next story was about Dubya's visit to New Orleans tomorrow. I switched off the radio, got up, went to the kitchen and started to make coffee. As the coffeemaker did it's thunk, spurt, fizz thing I sat down and turned on the computer. This is something that I keep prommising myself I will not do - starting the day in cyberspace - but, like some weak assed, morally wrecked junky, I do it day after day after day despite my best intentions and theoretically better judgement.

The news on the radio made me think about a story I saw on 60 minutes Sunday night (in the hour before the Oscars) when they did a bit on a soldier who was being "unjustly accused" of killing two Afghan detainees. Men who died hanging from the ceiling by chains and with their legs, as the coroner's report stated, "pulpified."

It also made me think of a statistic that has been running randomly around in my head for the past couple of weeks. A statistic on the number of people dead and/or missing in New Orleans post-katrina. The official death toll of the storm is approximately 1100. However, as we move into the seventh month post-katrina it is important to remember that there are, depending on whose numbers you choose to pay attention to, between 500 and 1900 more people still missing and most likely dead. So let's expand that out shall we? If we make the obvious next step that officials are unwilling and/or unable to make and accept those folks as no longer with us, it brings the New Orleans death toll post-Katrina to at least 1,600 and very possibly 3,000 people.

This is what triggered my search for Jerry Maguire.

The premise of the movie, the "inciting action" as it were, is Jerry's creation of his mission statement, "The Things We Know And Do Not Say." His decision to say it elicits positive response from everyone… even the copy store clerk. Googling the title of the mission statement, I was surprised to actually find a copy of the document at a wonderful website from New South Wales, Australia. I have to say, I've always liked Cameron Crowe, but the fact that this guy actually wrote the mission statement out in full is a piece of screenwriting homework that I really admire… It's not really what I'm writing about here, but I had to say it anyway. Dealing with backstory is the woodshed work of writing and I am not very good at woodshed work. I prefer to think about it for long periods of time, but doing the actual work of writing out character bios, personal journals, mission statements… Ugh, please, do I have to!??!?

Well that's the synchronistic lesson of the day.

It really is the woodshed work that matters and I am as guilty as the rest of the U.S. electorate in not having done my part.

George Bush will fly into my town tomorrow - his tenth visit since Katrina - and he will make a nice show of how much he cares, just like he did back in September when he stepped out from behind Andrew Jackson's statue, strode across the grass of Jackson Square (originally named the Place de Armas) and told the displaced citizens of New Orleans and the nation as a whole that he would see that everything that could possibly be done to help New Orleans would be done, and that he would not rest until he made sure that it had happened. He'll make another grand and glorious statement for a collection of media people and at ten p.m. EST Anderson Cooper will make some grand and glorioius declaration about "keepin' em honest" while ultimately missing the point.

Last week we were treated to proof of what most of us (at least those of us who were watching television in New Orleans on Saturday August 27) knew six months ago. When George Bush stood before the public in early September and made the statement that "no one anticipated the breaching of the levees," he was lying. Straight out, no holds barred, fully functioning in his right wing, compassionate conservative, neo-con casuistry, lying. He did know that the levees would probably fail and he knew it well before the storm came ashore. Last week we saw the video evidence of it; the discussions of the levee problem took place and a week later Bush lied about it.

What the news folks chose to focus on last week was not the real story. Those who wished to make the president select look stupid tried to show video that made him look stupid and as usual the bilious pontificators proclaimed, with full dedication to the administration's talking points, that we weren't seeing everything.

Of course we weren't seeing everything! But what matters is what we were seeing and what we were seeing was proof that George Bush lied AGAIN.

He lied in September 2005, just like he lied in September 2001 when he, and his stiffly quaffed mannequin, Condi, spouted the line "No one anticipated that these people would use airplanes to crash into buildings!" As with the Katrina issue, it became clear very shortly thereafter that not only did a whole lot of people anticipate the "use of planes as missles," but they told the administration about it, and they did so rather emphatically.

As for the levees… hell… I even knew about the breaching of the levees. It wasn't that deep a secret. While still safely ensconced outside the hurricane zone in Northern California, I watched with fear in 2004 as hurricanes bored their way through the Gulf of Mexico and then, always at the last minute, turned aside from my (then) home away from home. There was a huge piece on 60 minutes about it in the summer of 2004 and there was a detailed article in the New Orleans Times-Picayune about that same time.

The video evidence of last week was not about how stupid Dubya looked (we've had plenty evidence of that and even his supporters think he looks dumb). What the evidence showed last week, and what most people didn't talk about, was that BUSH ISN'T STUPID, HE'S A LIER!

Yeah yeah yeah… all president's are liers. Most likely true. They probably have to be to survive long enough in politics to get to the position of president. As the bumper sticker says… "Would somebody please give this guy a blow job so we can impeach him?"

There are lies… and then there are lies.

So back to the story about the soldier. He claims that he was trained and ordered to torture people, and Bush claims we don't do those kinds of things. But, when John McCain gets a bill passed through Congress, Bush signs the bill and crosses his fingers, issuing a presidential statement that says, essentially, "that's all well and good, y'all go ahead and play your funny games, but I'm gonna do what I feel like 'cause I'm the president damnit."

It's back to that quote from Edmund Burke that every single one of us has heard at some point in our lives… “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” There is some question as to what the actual quote really is, but thepoint is obvious.

George W. Bush has lied… consistently, repeatedly, intentionally and with malice. He has used a smokescreen of "I didn't know" and/or "I don't care" as a way to excuse actions that are intellectually dishonest, probably illegal, and certainly immoral. It has served him well to appear inept, but he is not inept. He is evil.

3,000 people died on 9/11 because he chose not to pay attention while on vacation at his ranch. Several thousand more American soldiers have died since then in a war that he lied to take us into and continues to lie to keep us from leaving. Countless thousands of innocent people have died for the same reason.

At a minimum, 1,500 people, and probably closer to 3,000 people have died from the worst natural disaster in American history because he chose not to pay attention in August 2005 while on vacation on his ranch. Subsequently he has made hollow promises while backing and filling, rolled up his sleeves while closing his eyes and ears.

It's impossible to begin to imagine the damage that has been done to the reputation of the U.S. - and the danger both present and future to U.S. citizens and soldiers abroad - because of immoral, illegal, and irresponsible torture policies sanctioned by his administration that he has chosen (and continues to choose) to ignore.

These really are "the things we think and do not say."

New Orleans cannot survive another summer based on lies and hope.

The country cannot survive another three years of lies and criminality.

The world cannot survive any more silent acceptance by those of us who know better, but do nothing.

Many of us - and I am definitely including myself - have mirrored the president's dishonest behaviour, giving silent agreement and willing participation with a wink, a nod, and shrug of our shoulders while this man and his handlers take our country down into hell on a set of greased rails.


It's time to stop doing nothing.

It's time for the woodshed work.

It's time to do ANYTHING.

I was just talking to God...

So Ray Nagin, in his post Katrina stress mode, or in his "Help Mister Wizard I don't want to be Mayor anymore" attempt to throw the forthcoming election, has decided that talking to God AND to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is all a very good thing. In this he joins other wonderful, forthright and intellectual public servants like of course George Bush and, my personal favorite, Pat Robertson.

Well, after all of this God Talk (and talk back) I've become very curious as to why God keeps saying different things to all these different people. I mean he tells Dubya that it is important to go to war in Iraq, but he tells Ray Nagin that he's angry about the war in Iraq, so he's sending hurricanes to get us. Of course, the hurricanes don't wind up in Crawford Texas (now THAT would be a miracle worthy of divine blame!). Robertson, who I'm pretty sure has been talking to God (and to the dust bunnies) for a lot longer than Nagin or Dubya COMBINED decided that God is mad at New Orleans because of Gays and Abortions and sent Katrina to take us out for that reason. He picked up this line of reasoning from another pinhead God talker… Jerry Falwell who blamed the maniacs who crashed planes into the twin towers on Lesbians, Abortionists and… drum roll please… the ACLU, while Pat sat next to him doing his best impersonation of Harpo Marx.

Most recently Pat has been saying that God has a biological contract out on Ariel Sharon (much like Pat called for the government assasination of Venezuelan President Chavez) for messing with YHWH's real estate investments.

Of course, in the Katrina case, Robertson negelected to note that the brunt of Katrina actually MISSED New Orleans ever so slightly and that the people hit hardest by the flood were neither gays nor abortionists. Which brings me back to Ray Nagin who has decided that GOD wants New Orleans to be a "chocolate city." Almost immediately he started back peddling on that one, winging his way to the proclamation that what he meant was CHOCOLATE MILK, not a really great metaphor either (ESPECIALLY after Katrina), but I guess his omnipresent speechwriter wasn't taking calls right at that precise moment.

I really don't think Nagin meant that he only wants African Americans in New Orleans, and the fact remains that pre-K the city was a majority black city, and there is absolutely no denying that the makeup of the city AS a majority African American city goes a long way to making New Orleans the very place it is. If the central cultural marker of New Orleans is Jazz music and its related genres, not to mention all of the other art that grows out of the rich cultural gumbo created here, then any thought that somehow New Orleans can (or will) substantially change in that way is ludicrous, callous and stupid. But New Orleans' mixture is more than all of that… and frankly, Dr. King's message was oh so much more than that.

Somehow I'm having a hard time getting my mind around God (or Martin Luther King Jr. for that matter) sitting up in heaven, screaming to Ray Nagin at the other end of a cell phone like Cuba Gooding Jr. and Tom Cruise.

Mayor Nagin seems to have decided that as a follow up to his career as a cable tv executive, and mayor, he now wants to be a Baptist preacher. I learned a long time ago (when I actually WAS a Baptist preacher) that one should not speak for folks who are significantly superior to oneself in behavioral, intellectual or rhetorical skills. So, with all this confusion I decided to have a little talk with God myself… and she asked me to pass on a message to everyone. She told me to tell y'all to…

SHUT THE HELL UP!