| I Live! |
[Sep. 8th, 2007|01:55 pm] |
My dear readers (the plural may be rhetorical here),
Since my last post, I've been quite busy. I'm being published (forthcoming, insha'allah), I got blessed by a bishop, I was admitted to a top 10 law school, I deferred that admission, I've picked up a crimson degree from a school just outside Boston, and I've been compelled to flee the United States. I now reside in exile in a tranquil emirate on the Persian Gulf (or, as my hosts insist on calling it, the "Arabian Gulf").
Just as I have fled my beloved old American Megalopolis for foreign lands, so must this journal migrate to a new world of its own. Livejournal's great and all, but, well, you know. Anywho, once I have the new blog up and running, I shall attempt to post a link to it here.
So good bye for now, gentle reader. If applicable, cherish the blessings of life in the United States. Cherish real pork, bacon, ham, and sausage. Cherish tofu too. Cherish alcohol, big bookstores, rain, Jews, gays, the dogs in your neighborhood, unpretentious people, and turn signals. All these I miss, and more besides.
Fare thee well! |
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| A Christmas Message from Richard Nixon |
[Dec. 25th, 2006|12:15 am] |
[December 25, 1973. A scowling Richard Nixon appears on the television screen, hunched over his desk in the Oval Office]
Nixon [gruffly]:
Good evening. I come before the nation this Christmas day with sad tidings, to announce the sudden passing of my daughter [glances at cue card] Tricia. The story of her death is a grisly one [music starts] and it goes a little something like this:
Nixon [singing off key]:
Tricia got run over by a reindeer,
Just outside the White House, Christmas eve.
You can say there's no such thing as Santa,
But as for me and Agnew, we believe.
She'd had far too much bad acid,
And we'd begged her not to go.
But she'd left her tranquilizers,
So she stumbled out the door into the snow.
When they found her out on K Street,
At the scene of the attack,
There were hoof prints on her forehead,
And incriminatin' Claus marks on her back.
Now were all so proud of my wife,
She's been takin' this so good.
See her in there watchin' football,
Drinkin' gins and tonic with Rosemary Woods.
It's not Christmas without Tricia.
Checkers 'n me have got the blues.
And we just can't help but wonder:
Should we try to pin her murder on the Jews?
Now the goose is on the table,
And we've trimmed off all the grist.
But I'll tell you one goddamned thing:
Santa's number one on Nixon's enemies list.
So if you're listening, Father Christmas,
You should watch your fucking back.
I'll burglarize your psychiatrist,
And leak your files to a right-wing media hack.
Tricia got run over by a reindeer,
Walkin' from the White House Christmas eve.
You can say there's no such thing as Santa,
But as for me and Agnew, we believe.
[Flashes double-handed victory sign and exits] |
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| The Mideast War of 2006 |
[Dec. 1st, 2006|06:34 pm] |
Last night (by which I mean this morning) I dreamed that I was in the "Middle East," the entirety of which was roughly the size of an American football field. War was raging between "Iran" and "Israel," which were about three hundred feet apart, with two small mountain ranges and a large field in between them. It was nighttime. For some reason (latent jihadism?), I was in Iran. The entire country was essentially one big command center, approximate in size to an endzone. The Iranians were busily launching rockets over the mountains that stood directly in front of us; the Israelis were bombarding us in turn, although none of their rockets seemed to be doing any damage to Iran.
I didn't know anybody on the Iranian side, so I decided to cross over to Israel. I walked around the mountains, then past the grassy no-man's land, lit only by the missiles streaking overhead. Then I walked around the other mountain range into Israel. Israel was more crowded and better lit, and had nicer machinery than Iran. The President of the United States (Josiah Bartlet) was present. The phone rang, and President Bartlet picked it up. He announced that Iran had surrendered, and that the war was over.
The President then invited everyone (myself included) back to the White House for refreshments. We arrived instantly and went upstairs to the residence, where Mrs. Bartlet (ably played by Stockard Channing) served drinks and tasty hors d'oeuvres. As we talked, Mrs. Bartlet suddenly turned pale. She then pointed to particular tray of appetizers, announced that they had been poisoned, and said that anyone who had eaten them had about two minutes to live. She then revealed that she had cancer, and that this was her chosen method of suicide. I had not eaten anything from that particular plate, but several other people had. They were quite irate. |
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| The Gap That Wasn't There |
[Nov. 12th, 2006|09:08 pm] |
Last week I ventured a guess as to Barack Obama's interest in the US Senate race in Tennessee. If I was right, then Obama's people should be fairly happy. With 48 percent of the vote, Harold Ford performed slightly better than predicted by the non-partisan polls taken before the election. In this black-white contest, at least, the "15 percent gap" seems to have disappeared.
On a totally tangential note, Harold Ford was banging a girl from Georgetown who was the same year as me--when she and I were both sophomores, and he was a member of Congress. Her blog is the ideal to which my own humble writing aspires. |
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| The "Democrat" Victory |
[Nov. 11th, 2006|04:15 pm] |
If you have been paying fairly close attention to George W. Bush's oratory during the election cycle, you may have noticed something odd. The President of the United States, a man who by all rights ought to know the opposition party's actual name, has consistently referred to the Democratic Party as the "Democrat Party." Is this grammatical laziness? Faux-folksiness? A circumscribed speech impediment akin to Dr. Adams' inability to pronounce the "t" in "planetarium"?
None of the above, actually. It is a time-honored and deliberate tactic, the essence of which is to "deny the enemy the positive connotations of its chosen appellation." The New Yorker did a piece on the interesting history of this tactic back in July. |
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| Their Eyes Were Watching Ford |
[Nov. 2nd, 2006|10:15 pm] |
I've read that Barack Obama is closely following the US Senate race in Tennessee, and that he may take its result into account as he mulls a presidential run. At first, I couldn't understand the Tennessee race's relevance to Obama. Harold Ford's politics are well to the right of Obama's, and Tennessee isn't Ohio or Missouri or Illinois--it's not one of those states that can be characterized as "the United States in miniature." But I now have a guess as to what Obama hopes to learn. He's not so much interested in whether Ford wins or loses (he's going to lose, incidentally). Rather, Obama's looking to see the extent to which Ford's poll numbers accurately correspond with Ford's actual share of the vote on election day. This numerical relationship is of especial importance to African-American candidates.
Because of modern America's anti-racism taboo, almost nobody contacted by political pollsters will admit to voting against a black candidate solely or largely because of the candidate's race. However, quite a few of those polled will often claim to know "someone else" who does automatically vote against black candidates. Some political scientists have posited a gap of up to 15 percent between the percentage of whites who claim to support a given black candidate in pre-election polls and the percentage who actually vote for that candidate. What Obama is watching for in Tennessee, then, is whether Ford polls 47 percent on November 6 and then draws, say, only 39 percent of the vote on November 7.
I would nevertheless caution Obama (a daily reader of this page) against drawing too broad a conclusion from the Tennessee contest. Ford is no Obama (in a number of respects), and race plays differently in Tennessee than in the United States at large. And finally, although America's anti-racism taboo may conceal our remaining racists from pollsters, that same taboo also means that millions of white Americans are dying to vote for an African-American president--to prove definitively to themselves and the world that our politics have transcended the color line. |
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| The P's |
[Nov. 1st, 2006|12:35 am] |
When I mention what I study, I am sometimes asked where American evangelicalism comes from. My standard answer has tended to be a rambling tour through early American intellectual history with little structure and, I fear, less coherence.
Recently, however, I came across a helpful mnemonic device that doubles as a quick summary for evangelicalism's origins. According to Randall Balmer, who I think is a pretty good scholar of the subject, American evangelicalism is a blend of "Three P's"--late New England Puritanism, Scots-Irish Presbyterianism, and Continental Pietism--forged together in the crucible of the mid-eighteenth century First Great Awakening. It's a simplification, to say the least, but one that I think does more good than harm. It's also a good indicator of just how distinctly American American evangelicalism is.
I might, however, add one further "P" of my own--Pentecostalism. This latter-day P, appearing in force at the start of the twentieth century, has gradually infused a charismatic strand into many evangelical churches, so that today the "gifts of the Holy Spirit" are found within many non-Pentecostal evangelical denominations. |
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| It's time for... |
[Oct. 17th, 2006|11:29 pm] |
... a drive-by complaint about grad school! People here proudly present themselves as experts on conservative evangelicalism thanks to the most tangential personal connections imaginable. They claim special insights into the mysterious workings of the evangelical mind because (in the tremendously self-impressed words of a vapid non-entity in one of my classes) "My uncle sometimes goes to Saddleback Church."
Well. Your uncle goes to Saddleback? Your great aunt reads Left Behind? Your ex-girlfriend's cousin got roughed up by James Dobson for a love offering? Guess what! This is the United States in 2006. EVERY FUCKING AMERICAN IS NO MORE THAN ONE DEGREE REMOVED FROM A HARD-CORE BIBLE-THUMPIN' DRENCHED-IN-THE-BLOOD-OF-THE-LAMB EVANGELICAL.
And if any of you claim I am wrong on that last point, then I will immediately convert to hard-core evangelicalism. Then you'll know me, and you'll be wrong. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 2nd, 2006|11:00 pm] |
So, it's almost certainly Ban Ki-moon who will enjoy the honor of having his name deliberately mangled by Republican congressmen for the next five years.
Somewhat interestingly (to religious studies nerds, that is), Ban Ki-moon's election would thus perpetuate the near-total Christian monopoly over the secretary-generalship. Trygve Lie was presumably a Lutheran, as was Dag Hammarskjöld. Kurt Waldheim and Javier Pérez de Cuéllar are both Roman Catholics. Boutros Boutros-Ghali is a Coptic Christian, and Kofi Annan appears to be a Protestant of some sort (his parents were named Henry and Victoria, and he was sent to Protestant schools). Ban Ki-moon is also apparently some species of Protestant, from what I was able to dig up online.
The only non-Christian to hold the office thus far has been the Buddhist U Thant, the third secretary-general. It would have been interesting if there had been a credible Muslim candidate this time around. |
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| The True Importance of the Supreme Office |
[Sep. 28th, 2006|11:08 pm] |
Here are the names of the candidates for the Secretary-Generalship of the United Nations:
Ban Ki-moon
Shashi Tharoor
Vaira Vike-Freiberga
Surakiart Sathirathai
Jayantha Dhanapala
Zeid Raad Zeid al-Hussein
Ashraf Ghani
Policy questions aside, any one of these names is acceptable to the GOP--they all sound "funny," and will thus work well as boo-lines in stump speeches. Picture Norm Coleman saying "Ban Ki-moon" very slowly and very scornfully... |
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| Back by Popular Request! |
[Aug. 24th, 2006|01:43 pm] |
Gather round, children! It's time for another happy tale from the life of Princess Vicky!
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IT WAS A LOVELY SPRING DAY in the kingdom of Queen Joan and Princess Vicky. Vicky was skipping through the woods to the south of the royal castle, singing songs of joy and exchanging cheery greetings with all her woodland animal friends. Suddenly, Vicky heard a faint, eerie music. Filled with innocent curiousity, she walked toward the sad tune. As she drew nearer, she could distinguish voices singing. The words were in a foreign tongue, but they were beautiful and unmistakably mournful.
Vicky came to the edge of a clearing. Peeking around a tree, she beheld three elves, standing and holding hands! Their ears were pointy, their skin translucent, their eyes lavender but downcast. Vicky stood, bewitched by their unhappy voices. She had never known such despair. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she choked back a sob.
The elves froze. "Who goes there?" they cried in one voice.
Trembling, Vicky stepped out from behind the tree. The elves looked at her curiously.
"It's only I," said Vicky, "a happy girl from the castle."
"We are Aredhel, Altariel, and Spork," they replied. "We dwell within the Cavern of Telemnar."
"I didn't mean to snoop--but I couldn't help myself! Your music is so lovely, yet so sad. What do the words mean?"
"We sing a dirge," said the elves, "A dirge for these woods. By order of the Queen, Joan the Merciless, they are to be cut down for timber."
Vicky's pure heart soared into her chest, and she rushed up to the elves, clapping her hands with excitement. "O my friends!" she cried, "I pray you not despair. I myself shall go to the Queen and bid her stop this wicked plan!" And she ran off to the castle, as fast as her little feet could carry her.
( Will Princess Vicky save the southern woods? I doubt it--but click here to find out, gentle reader! ) |
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| The Empire State's Electoral Empire |
[Aug. 17th, 2006|11:47 pm] |
In the history of presidential politics, no other state can rival New York’s record of electoral influence. This is immediately apparent from the geographical composition of major-party tickets (Federalist, Democratic, Whig, Republican) in presidential elections. Since the introduction of the present electoral system in 1804, the major parties have nominated New Yorkers for either president or vice president forty-seven times. (Their nearest rivals, Ohioans, have been nominated for president or vice-president just thirteen times.)
New York has enjoyed two fairly distinct eras of electoral influence. The first was during the earlier half of the nineteenth century. From the election of 1804 through the election of 1848, a New Yorker appeared on the ticket of at least one major party in every presidential election except one (1828).* After the 1848 election, New York took a brief hiatus from presidential politics. Only a single New Yorker earned any electoral votes in the four elections from 1852 through 1864, and that was on a third-party ticket.
New York’s second and more glorious electoral reign began in 1868. From the election of 1868 through the election of 1956,** a New Yorker appeared on at least one of the major-party tickets in twenty-one out of twenty-three presidential elections. (And in seven of those twenty-one elections, New Yorkers appeared on the tickets of both major parties.)
How did New York achieve this degree and duration of influence? Firstly, of course, through sheer size. New York became the electorally largest state starting with the election of 1812, and remained in first place through the election of 1968 (California nosed ahead after the census of 1970).
Secondly, New York State was frequently competitive in presidential elections. There are several instances of New York being won by razor-thin margins, and consequently swinging the entire electoral outcome. Indeed, from 1868 through 1956, New York voted for the winning candidate nineteen out of twenty-three times (or twenty out of twenty-three times, depending on who actually won the election of 1876).
Based on the same source of data, one can fairly construe the last several decades as being the “post-New York” era in American electoral politics. In the twelve presidential elections from 1960 through 2004, only three New Yorkers have appeared on major-party tickets (in 1964, 1984, and 1996).*** None of the three were very influential in New York politics. All ran for the vice presidency. And none were elected. Sic transit gloria New York.
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*-In several of these early elections, one party nominated multiple candidates for the presidency and/or vice presidency, running different tickets in different states.
**-Eisenhower was a citizen of New York (where he was president of Columbia University) at the time of his election in 1952, and remained so throughout his presidency.
***-Nixon was a citizen of New York in 1968. However, I have not counted him as such in this study. This is inconsistent with my treatment of Eisenhower, but an exact comparison is inappropriate here. Eisenhower was born in Texas and raised in Kansas. He left Kansas in 1911 and spent the next forty years living on various army bases. Since Eisenhower would otherwise be politically rootless, I consider his New York citizenship in the 1950s to have been "real." Nixon, in contrast, was a Californian born and raised. He had been elected to the House and the Senate from California, and had run for governor of California in 1962. And he switched his registration back to California before the 1972 election. I thus consider Nixon in 1968 to have been an appropriately "fake" New Yorker, i.e., a Californian-in-exile. |
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| Is Senator Obama the Antichrist? |
[Jul. 25th, 2006|03:38 pm] |
There are now several voices encouraging Barack Obama to run for the presidency in 2008. I happen to think this is a good idea: the party should not sit on its trump card, the man should get out of the Senate before it sours him as a candidate, and full advantage should be taken of the extraordinary electoral openness of 2008. Most of all, however, I want Obama to run because I like the man's policies and his mind, insofar as I am able to judge them.
I am obviously not alone in my high opinion of Obama. Not all credit for his electoral landslide can be given to the trainwreck that was Alan Keyes. Obama has a great way with people, and this is reflected in his ability to get votes, to wow audiences, and to get favorable press coverage.
One can take several views with regard to this popularity. If one likes the man and his policies, one can simply be glad of it. If one dislikes the man (which seems rare) or his policies (which many do), then one will doubtless complain of Obama's "free pass" from the press (much as many on the left disapprove of the media's love affair with John McCain). And indeed, regardless of one's political views, one may be worried about any politician who receives too much adulation and too little criticism. It takes a tremendous degree of self control not to be unhinged by such things.
But I write of a fourth and peculiarly American response to Obama's popularity. This response is barely detectable at present. It is found not in newspapers or on television news, but in whispered conversations and in strange corners of the Internet. It is further obscured by its restriction to the evangelical far right, in which America's mainstream press is little interested. In these dark places, the rumor now grows that Barack Obama is popular because he is evil--so evil, in fact, that he may be the Antichrist.
No recognized leader of the evangelical right has said this. No denomination has proclaimed this. No evangelical publication (of which I am aware) has written this. But Google "Obama" and "Antichrist," and look through some of the 28,000 hits that come up. The whispers are already present, over two years from the 2008 election, and over six from 2012.
Any intelligent and decent person must be, I think, not only disgusted but puzzled by such talk. But the Obama-as-Antichrist rumor grows from fertile ground in American history and culture.
First, the rumor is heir to the old separatist Protestant fundamentalism of the mid-twentieth century, which viewed all worldly success as due to the Prince of This World, Lucifer. Obama stands near the peak of earthly glory, he gazes at the summit, it seems his for the taking. Clearly, it can only be Satan who has raised Obama to this high place and shown him the kingdom of the world and its splendor.
Second, and alongside the old fundamentalism, is the eschatology of the new evangelical right. For the most accessible example of their Antichrist iconography, consider the villain of the Left Behind novels. He appears on the world stage seemingly out of nowhere, rising rapidly to the highest political post available to him. He is young and attractive. He is a master of rhetoric and, consequently, of every audience. He is intelligent (indeed, brilliant), humane, spiritual, and liberal. He is wildly popular, and loved by all the world (save, of course, "true" Christians and "good" Jews). Millions of American Christians have read these books, and have uncritically swallowed their eschatology (not to mention their supernatural premises). They look at Obama, and what do they see? The touchstones of the culture war (abortion and homosexuality) tell these Christian folk that Obama is evil. Obama's characteristics--his meteoric rise, youth, golden tongue, charisma, good mind, popularity--tell them that he may be the greatest evil in all of human history.
I close with a prediction. It is highly likely that Barack Obama will run for the presidency at some point, perhaps in 2008 (God willing), perhaps later. But, if he runs, I promise you that the whispering campaign will rise to a (relative) crescendo within the evangelical right. It may still remain relatively hidden from the mainstream press. But rest assured that pastors and teachers will characterize Obama to their flocks in ways utterly unambiguous to their listeners. The very same traits applied to Nicolae Carpathia will be applied to Obama, and this literal demonization will fall on fruitful ground. |
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| The Enthronement of the Beast |
[Jul. 2nd, 2006|11:58 am] |
Not much to say about it. For two hours, the bar was a howling yelling singing mass of the English, their descendants, and those that love them. And then, absolute silence, and everyone just slipped away.
But I'm looking forward to the final, albeit in a neutered way. France v Italy would be a good game; France v Germany would be a fun game. |
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| Aid and Comfort |
[Jun. 28th, 2006|10:38 pm] |
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The media over the water seem pessimistic about England’s chances. But I charge that their “criticisms” and “analyses” are unconscionable, if not treasonous. Does not the press realize that they are sapping away my brave boys’ morale? The media’s job should be to whip England supporters into a superpatriotic frenzy while proudly ignoring any and all of England’s faults. There will be plenty of time later for rational scrutiny. Now is the time to let lusophobia run rampant! |
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| Meditations on the Late Defeat of USA |
[Jun. 24th, 2006|02:34 pm] |
2 to 1. That was the score by which Ghana beat USA on Thursday. Bully for them. But I’d like to turn your attention to two other numbers: 1 and 2. These are Ghana’s respective rankings for political rights and civil liberties, on the Freedom House scale of 1 to 7.
Slice it any way you like—Ghana is deficient in civil liberties. All people in the world yearn for Freedom, the Almighty’s gift to mankind. Accordingly, full and unadulterated Freedom must and will be brought to Ghana.
Remember 6/22. On to Accra. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 15th, 2006|06:30 pm] |
Today belongs to the faithful.
Tomorrow will not--unless we stop fucking around. |
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kaptainkool's journal
