Brooks to the non-rescue…again.

Technorati Tags: Religion,David Brooks,New York Times

Poor David Brooks. He just can’t seem to let go of the past.

Here’s a link to his latest The New York Times mini-screed.  In it, Brooks bemoans the individualistic times in which we live and years for a return, as Republicans these days are wont to do, to the 1950s.

Brooks longs for a return to “…commitments to family, God, craft and country.” Hm. Well, three out of four “ain’t bad.”

Family, craft and country one could understand.  God? The anthropomorphic God of the “Book?” Really?

We should commit to the metaphors of people who lived hundreds and thousands of years ago? Who dealt with life-threatening natural conditions the likes of which we have come to understand and deal with them successfully? The metaphors which wouldn’t stand the scrutiny of a skeptical analyst? Ask the families who are survivors of religious sectarian killings; what would they say about commitment to God? (Other people keep getting in the way that commitment, and no one can rationally explain why.)

Change the metaphors; use metaphors which fit the intellectual evolution of the species.

Then talk about commitment.

Otherwise, Mr. B., deal with the status quo, not the status quo ante.

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Fraternal Quip

This from my older brother: Yesterday we could not spell third-world country; today we are one.

(I wonder if it’s a joke which has been going around. Regardless, I like it.)

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Actually, God’s punishment…

Technorati Tags: Rick Perry,Conservatives,Politics,Texas,Divine Retribution

Every wonder why God doesn’t punish those people who behave antithetically to the “teachings of the ages?”

For instance, it seems obvious to clear thinkers that the wildfires in Texas are punishment for supporting Rick Perry.

Doesn’t it?

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Great Quip

Technorati Tags: Culture Wars,Republican Party

From today’s New York Times we find this little nugget in a column by Frank Bruni which puts l’affaire Bachmann in its place:

I once tried to pray away the gay. But sometimes a houseguest just won’t leave.

Quel drole!

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SCOTUS* vs California Republican Demagoguery

Technorati Tags: Republican Party,Supreme Court,California,Prison

In case you didn’t know it, Dear Gentle Reader(s), the State of California’s prison system is in dire straits. Check out this bit of information provided by the Supreme Court of the United States today:

The degree of overcrowding in California’s prisons is exceptional. California’s prisons are designed to house a population just under 80,000, but at the time of the three-judge court’s decision the population was almost double that. The State’s prisons had operated at around 200% of design capacity for at least 11 years. Prisoners are crammed into spaces neither designed nor intended to house inmates. As many as 200 prisoners may live in a gymnasium, monitored by as few as two or three correctional officers. App. 1337–1338, 1350; see Appendix B, infra. As many as 54 prisoners may share a single toilet.App. 1337.

This court case has been going on since the early 1990’s.

Don’t quote me, but I blame the Republican Party’s draconian misuse of the ballot initiative available to Californians.  (OK, these ballot measures passed, which means a majority of voters agreed with them.) Specifically, the three-strikes issue, and the 2/3 majority in the legislature needed for tax increases.

By one vote (*thankfully, Mr. Justice Kennedy provided it, otherwise I’d’ve been forced to call it a SC(r)OTUS decision because it would’ve gone the other way) the Court has upheld a lower 3-member Court’s decision to require California to reduce its prison population by some 40,000 inmates.

That’s a tough number, but it brings home the lesson of the dangers of falling for hyperbole during election cycles. We can’t get away from responsibility by believing those who don’t have our societal best interests at heart.

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Plan B (Well, no one else seems to want to do it!)

Brainstorming for elements to include in Plan B (non-military efforts for the "ideological confrontation" of the century) is a worthwhile pastime; it might even be a necessary diversion--if that isn't an oxymoron.

Here's a start. Gentle Reader, feel free to add.

1) Let's develop template posters which will be placed in neighborhoods which celebrate the "martyrdom" of suicidal jihadists. Our competing posters would proclaim that there is no "Paradise" in store for anyone who murders a child in the name of Islam, nor is such a person worthy of the title of martyr.

2) On the neighborhoods of madrasas, let's drop leaflets which assert that God is not a pimp, that it is blasphemous to teach, as well as to believe, that God would provide a cohort of women to see to the after-death carnal pleasures of child-murderers.

3) Let us proclaim that dressing to express one's religious beliefs is a personal badge of honor, it loses its religiosity when it is enforced at the point of a sword, knife, or a gun barrel. Further, it is an insult to God to teach that the female is less worthy than a male. God has no gender.

4) While we are doing the above, let us not exclude any Judeo-Christian teachings or practices which are suspect--which more than likely are inspired by the inclinations of humans rather than of a deity. In other words, erase from religious teachings anything that smacks of human emotion rather than the objective balances of the universe.

5) Let us acknowledge that we do not and cannot know the nature of the Deity. All writings are, essentially, metaphorical, and that is especially true of religious writings. We speak of the unspeakable in terms which we can understand; we cannot understand something beyond our experiences; we must not continue in the error that the God of which we speak is a supra-human by necessity of the limits of our languages.

Aristotle's Prime Mover is beyond our ken. We do the best we can, but our best cannot be definitive.

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