Just Getting Old

I try to be thoughtful. Certainly there are a few of my readers who believe me to be anything but, and there is nothing I can do to prove otherwise. I haven't the energy to presume infallibility, or eternal clarity. I can only aspire, to dream, even to hope. But today is an exception, or so I sense in my gut; for my thoughts are all scattered about.

It may be very much the case that Saddam Hussein needed to die. It has been a long battle with his obdurate spirit, with his intractable ways. Lord knows that had Mr. Hussein shown a smidgen of humility, had he simply opened his country -- without games and shenanigans -- to the West for free and unfettered inspections, the Invasion of Iraq would not have ever occurred. Lord knows that there were countless murders under his regime: he even committed murder in the street when he was young, well before he came to power. He murdered members of his own family though he had promised them no harm. He was anything but charming.

Considering all that (and there is much more to consider), it nonetheless comes as a shock to wake up to news that Mr. Hussein is dead; that he has been hanged during the Muslim call to morning prayer.

Surely my sentiments are born out of my being too Western, or too effeminate, or too squeamish for such news. Surely I am too weak, too soft and pampered, to accept this sad tale. But the fact is that I do accept it. I just don't do so with any sort of elation or any sort of repose. This news comes as a harsh fact. It comes as a sort of spiritual blunt trauma to the soul. One is not to rejoice at the death of one's enemies.

Some of you may recall my argument against the death penalty (at least as it would be enforced in the United States). Some of you may also recall my reaction to the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Today, in the quiet of this morning, I am reminded of those somber thoughts. And I am also reminded of what an emergency room doctor said to me when I had an ankle injury (peroneal subluxation) she was misdiagnosing right before my eyes. She told me: "No, no, no. There's no tendon there. You're just getting old."

She was wrong about the tendon.

Peace, somewhere, for but an hour.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Waning Towards Waxing

I must take a brief break from my hiatus to bid you all well. Have a wonderful New Year's celebration. I pray that this coming year is the best year of your life. May life vastly exceed your wildest expectations.

And may there be everywhere more joy, peace, and love, and less striving for the meaningless, the vain, the empty. May this approaching year be the Year of Grace, of Kindness, of the Willing Spirit, of the Open Hand.

Blessings all!

BG

I bid you each and all a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah. May you find holiness, joy and peace; may you see signs and wonders. May this season touch you deeply; and may you touch the mysteries such a season portends. For me, this is all about rebirth, the promise of redemption. I feel an acute need for both.

I am off for a while, perhaps a long while. We shall see.

Happy New Year!

Bill Gnade

It's Time To Fix Its

Sometimes little things like this just KILL me. I mean, it sat there for over 24 hours, all wrong and misshapen, and it was just so obvious. I am talking about my headline for Sunday's post: TIME Is It's Own Award. How could I not see that glaring absurdity floating between the t and s in Its? It amazes me how easily some things just elude detection.

Oiks.

TIME Is Its Own Award: The Beast Is Honored

As you must know by now, TIME magazine has bestowed upon the masses the rather confusing appellation, Person of the Year. Of course, the editors of that fine journal understand their use of the language better than most of us: When they declare YOU, meaning, well, YOU, to be Person of the Year, and yet they mean US, which means, you and me and everyone else who use this medium, then their equivocal language begins to make sense: the Person of the Year is really the Persons of the Year.

And yet this is not really true at all; it is not one whit accurate. TIME is not lauding persons; it is not a person or persons who are feted by TIME's inestimable annual award. If TIME is praising or noting anything, if TIME is praising a force or phenomenon or movement or revolution of information, it is really praising personae, or personas. For the WWW is not filled with people (this is hardly a cybernation of real folks). Rather, the WWW is the cult of personaes. How many bloggers (of the millions), for instance, are known by name, by address? Who are the millions of people behind the screen personae we see everyday? TIME would have been nearly as astute in bestowing such great notoriety, even honor, on mere ANONYMITY, for the ANONYMOUS run rampant through this medium. My guess is that among those who are contributors to the "information age", or information deluge, there are far more unknown contributors than known. Only a few of us post our real names, and share images of ourselves, in clear and honest admission: we are not personae, but persons to the fullest extent this medium permits. And yet, though I end nearly every essay posted here with my name, my REAL name, I find that others refer to me as "Contratimes," though I do not refer to myself this way at all. And though I usually paste my initials or name in every comment I leave elsewhere, people seem to miss the self-identification: they refer to the name of my website as if I am the name of a place, or a position.

WHAT TIME HAS REALLY HONORED

But I am not sure that TIME is even noting the unknown users and contributors of the great global gateway. I believe that TIME is actually recognizing the gateway, the web or net or digital neighborhood or whatever it is called, as the Person of the Year. It is the WWW that TIME is honoring, is recognizing. We, mere contributors and consumers, are like the dust of Eden gathered together in so many small bits and bytes; we are giving shape to Adam, to Eve, while TIME, and others, are just trying to breath life into the great PERSON we are all creating: the great IDEA, the great SYNTHESIS and SYNCRETISM; the great nearly all-knowing machine called the Internet. The great BRAIN, the great whistleblower, police officer, guardian angel; even the great provider -- of goods and services and even love and meaning and affirmation and purpose -- that will finally unite us all as family, friends, brothers and sisters. Perhaps someday soon this whole thing will just run itself, and run us. And why not? IT knows our favorite books, our favorite movies. IT knows where we like to shop, what clothes we like to wear, what music we listen to. IT knows which men prefer brunettes, which women prefer Brad Pitt. IT knows who is a Republican, a Liberal, or a defender of the Labor Party. IT knows my religion, and IT even knows why I accept that religion. IT knows your status, your socio-economic standing; IT knows what you can contribute. And IT need not really know who YOU are: IT just needs to feed your IP address -- like any good parent -- with a cookie or two. To IT, you just need to be a number, and IT will take care of the rest. Just type in your prayer, and the answer will appear on your screen or land outside your door in a day or two (assuming you choose Next Day delivery).

Perhaps the single best proof of all of this is to be found in the picture of TIME editor Rick Stengel holding a copy of TIME's "Person of the Year" issue. One look shows something shocking: Stengel's own picture appears on the cover. Has TIME then bestowed the "Person of the Year" honors on itself? It seems so. But does this not suggest that TIME has actually anthropomorphized the Internet: that the Internet is US, is YOU, is all our faces and personaes and fragmented selves wrapped into ONE, one big YOU?

And then, of course, there is this story from TIME, "The Beast With A Billion Eyes: On the Web, anyone with a digital camera has the power to change history." It is this Beast that is referred to as the "Person of the Year" as shown in these two screen captures from TIME's website:


This is TIME's Person of the Year, a thing that is not really a person at all.

(And soon academics will gather to debate what "person" even means.)

Peace to you all, lauded members of the Thing of the Year.

PS. (added 12.18.06): Please note that TIME's cover is a mylar mirror: the idea is that you will see yourself in reflection. Of course, please note too that the mirror is a computer screen. In other words, you will find yourself look at yourself through a machine (which should give the philosophical idealists much to applaud. Go, Fichte! Go, Schelling!) It's all about creating a giant, thinking, feeling Machine -- in your image!!

Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Technorati tags: TIME, Person of the Year, Internet, Blogging, The Beast, The Mark of the Beast, Thing of the Year

Take A Bow, I Guess

I have no idea what I am going to wear to the awards ceremony. Probably exactly what I am wearing now.

(And when I take my bow, I promise not to bang my head on this keyboard -- cna;kjheylwyru[893u -- Ouch! Like that.)

Peace.

BG

A Shot To The Heart

I may be mistaken, though it is not really the sort of thing that makes me care much for accuracy anyway. But I believe suicide has come close to my household in each of the past four Decembers. And then there was the accidental suicide two years ago on Thanksgiving.

I have written about last December's suicide in three Contratimes' essays, "When The Phone Rings Late At Night," "In Memoriam," and, "Staggering Still." That story remains a difficult one for me; there has not been even a few hours in which I have not thought of my college friend, M.

Yesterday, I attended the funeral service for a local friend, another man named M. This man was not a close friend; he was just a friend and a good guy, someone I liked, someone who laughed with me when we bumped into each other at the store, or when we discussed our various hikes or experiences in the wild. We had met when I was 14 and he 20, some 31 years ago. We had more than a few things in common that had to do with the outdoors, but there were others: I had been friends with his ex-wife, and friends with some of his friends; his sister is one of my neighbors. And we had gone to the same high school though he, 6 years my senior, graduated with my sister (now deceased) when I was in junior high.

On Tuesday, M.'s elderly mother died at a nearby nursing home. She had been a loving and lovely woman, mother, grandmother. She had cared for her five children in some of life's most difficult circumstances. And she was adored by all. But her death struck her one son particularly hard: by the end of the day M. would also be dead, his body found in his mother's empty house a couple of miles from where his mom had died, mere hours separating their times of death.

Last year, I grieved a man who died in Colorado. The year before I grieved for Timmy, an old schoolmate, whose alcoholism the two of us often battled together, with me praying for him with all due fervor. He even spent Christmas week seeking sobriety in my house one year, with me and my family making room for him, trying to deny him his love of big bottles of rum. And the year before Timmy died, I grieved my cousin Tom, who hung himself in a bathtub in some Florida apartment while visiting friends. Tom had recently come to New Hampshire to rekindle relations with my mother; the two were thrilled to renew acquaintances after too many years of sorrows and great distance; my mother giddy that someone on her side of the family would want to get close in her waning years. Little did she know how cruelly Tom's heart was tormented. And then there was little, sweet Roland, a learning disabled boy and my nephew's best friend, who accidently drank himself to death during Thanksgiving week two (or was it three?) years ago.

But yesterday's sorrow was not really mine. M. and I were just close enough to like each other, to share those kinds of moments when you wonder aloud why you aren't closer friends. But the tragedy of his death will reach deep, very deep, into the hearts of those he left behind: siblings, nephews, nieces, childhood pals. I cannot know their grief; I cannot really carry it. I can only know my own sorrow at not being able to help those who so carefully conceal their need for help. I can only know my own anger and sorrow in the wake of deaths that have struck closer to my heart than M.'s did yesterday, or today, or even tomorrow. I can only know the emptiness I feel, hiking in the same great woods M. hiked, wandering about in silence, outside in the cold distance, hearing a single report to the heart.

In the autumn of 1978, during the first half of my senior year in high school, I would sit next to a quiet boy named Russell Holt. We were in Contemporary Issues together; he was bright as a star, a stand-out cross-country runner, a kid with long and somewhat greasy hair; he was gentle as a lamb. How could I have ever known that one particular morning would be our last together in our seats in Room 115B? How could I know that he would put a shotgun in his mouth when he got off the late bus that day, having just finished cross-country practice with Mr. Ladue? How could I know that every vestige of memory of me - and all his more popular classmates - would be splashed all over the walls of his family's kitchen wall?

Russell Holt's death shook me to the core, and it all called me toward Christ. My conversion began with a desire to be open to all the horrors and sorrows of the human heart; I did not want to be blind to whatever it was I hadn't seen in Russell Holt as his leg jiggled alongside mine in Contemporary Issues. I wanted to see, to be present: I wanted to believe that there was hope, redemption, joy, and a peace that could heal. That could comfort and console. And I wanted, in accepting Christianity, to embrace a love that could see beyond the end of my own self-absorption; I wanted to notice the forgotten, the forsaken, the overlooked; I wanted Russell Holt to know that I cared, that I was glad that he was alive.

Now, nearly 30 years later, I know that I still can't see even beyond the end of my nose. In fact, it is getting harder to see at all. How I wish this were not so! How my heart breaks over all the noise I've allowed to drown out so many calls for help -- even the one call for help -- I may have heard had I just quieted my mind and my soul. And yet (!), I know how fearful it can be to hear such cries, to be open to the scream: griefs and sorrows can overwhelm us, can reveal to us our weaknesses, often weakening our ability to keep the flame of our good intent burning at all. We often flee such sorrows because we believe they will indeed consume us; will indeed suck the life and marrow out of our own being, leaving us too weak to live our own dreams or to love our own sons and daughters. My heart wants to be bold but not too bold; I want to hear, but not too much: I want to fight fires, but only the safe fires; I want to climb mountains, but only the lower ones; I want to sow love, but only when it is lovely.

The heart is a difficult place to find one's hope, one's joy. It is a hard place to find a foothold. Perhaps that is why I am so eager to fill my day with distractions and sundry trivialities: books, bargains, baseball, beer, and the other banalities of the day. I am afraid to really be what I am called to be; I am afraid of what is true about the nature of even my own need: that I cannot avoid the fact that I am a person very much in need of grace, forgiveness, redemption, and a hope that is not some cheap illusion.

The Physician did not come to heal the healthy, but the sick. And He does not heal the wallet, or the ego; He does not heal with accolades and honors, with awards and Christmas bonuses, with publishing deals or tax write-offs or hot babes or hot sex or cold beer in fast cars or Botox or breast implants or a new kitchen or a well-lauded poem or an iconoclastic rock song or a five-star meal or a bigger church or a bulging credit line or a new gun or a better wife. His healing begins with a broken God nailed to a cross.

The next step is for me to let go of the hammer, to let fall the nails.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Blazing To The Top Of The Charts

Just a hasty observation, but if I was, let's say, Hillary Clinton, I would be delighted with the early excitement over Senator Barack Obama. In fact, I would be fueling it at every turn. I would even attempt to move the media towards Mr. Obama. Why? Because I would want Mr. Obama to peak too early. And it is, quite likely, exactly what he is going to do. People in New Hampshire gathered on Sunday to see the man, to touch the hem of his garment; and I mean people gathered by the thousands. Over 100 reporters captured his every move and jotted down his every word. And all this -- all this money and hoopla and passion -- for a man who has not even announced he is running for president. The only other phenomenon in New Hampshire's primary history that closely resembles the Obama-Nation† was when John F. Kennedy announced his candidacy for president while standing on Main Street in Nashua.

And all this for a man who is, to be honest, utterly unseasoned, with nary a stitch of experience. That some critics of George W. Bush like to point out that he himself was hardly a fireball of political activity prior to his 2ooo run miss several points, the most salient of which is that many Republicans were utterly aware of Bush's lack of experience. In New Hampshire, at least, George W. Bush was hardly a Republican favorite. But at least Bush had some experience simply by being a President's son. I might have this wrong, but George W. actually worked in nearly every office of the White House during the Reagan-Bush years. This qualifies for something, though it does not entitle any man to have the Oval Office.

But I will not detract from Mr. Obama's popularity by suggesting he is too inexperienced. I will merely point out that those who also seek the office can only be encouraged that Mr. Obama is peaking early.

Or so they hope.

THE CULT OF PERSONALITY

I think it is important to note how many folks are indeed already committed to voting for Mr. Obama should he run. How can this be? He is hardly known, he is hardly seasoned in the public eye. On what are his enthusiasts basing their enthusiasm? I have already heard much about his charm and charisma. Is that it? I have heard Harold Ford Jr. describe Mr. Obama as brilliant. But is that all? And I know Mr. Obama has written a couple of books. But is that enough? Is this, at least right now, merely the cult of personality, the adoration of persona? Surely it is not the cult of substance, or the cult of strong political record, right? It is something other than these things. Is it more hosanna politics?

I wonder.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

†I note the word the term Obama-Nation for a host of reasons. Obviously, no supporter of Mr. Obama could ever refer to his followers as Obama-Nation, largely for its homophonic cousin, abomination. Moreover, yesterday I saw the word "obamanible," penned by an Obama defender upset by criticisms over Mr. Obama's middle name (which is Hussein). But Mr. Obama's name will no doubt lend itself to all sorts of wild headlines in the Daily News or New York Post: "Barack Star!" "Running Out Of Money: Barack's B-roke!" "Obama's Meandering State of the Union Speech: Barack's Baroque!" "Southern Vote is Clear: A'bama Says No To Obama!" "Barack Urges Kids: Obey Ma!" OK. These are foolish and, I dare say, unfortunate. But the reality is not to be denied: Headline writers are going to have a field day. "O-BAM!- A: Barack smashes O'Reilly's fastball in Factor interview."

Technorati tags: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, New Hampshire, Cult of Personality

Call Me An Ismist

In several recent emails I have received, and in one particular on-line discussion, it has been suggested that my use of words like 'liberals', 'conservatives', 'progressives', and even 'atheists' (in another discussion), is too vague, too broad, even too mindnumbing. Not a few writers might further suggest that such words are without meaning. One writer might even liken such terms to bombs, to mere invective.

Because of the apparent need for clarity (though only partially), and even more because of the apparent insensitivity such terms suggest (being so much meanness), I am proposing a halt here at Contratimes in the use of any descriptive that applies to a person or persons. For instead of using the word 'liberals' to denote a particular set of people known to embrace a particular set of ideas and values, I am going to use the word 'liberalism.' Similarly, I shall say 'conservativism' instead of 'conservatives.' And instead of the shocking use of the word 'atheists', I shall refer to mere atheism. In other words, I will try to refer to sets of ideas; I shall label groups of thoughts, and not groups of people.

Of course, I am sure there are a few ever-vigilant souls who will rise up to protect, in a very abstract way, the much maligned and abused bundles of ideas I shall lasso with certain suffixes. No doubt 'isms' will become as malignant as '-ists' or its equivalent.

How this will play out, well, I have no idea. It will all be a difficult adjustment to make. 'Right-wingers' will become 'Right-wingism', and 'Nut-job' -- a word I've never penned here -- will have to become 'Nut-jobism'. 'Anarchists' will become 'anarchism', or, perhaps, the more awkward, 'anarchistsism.' And 'Maureen Dowdists' will have to become the more complete and kind, 'Dowdowism.'

But I have no doubt that I will eventually figure this all out. Whether my efforts will reward any of us with more clarity or more kindness is probably rather doubtful. But I will try to be less sweeping in my language; though, of course, there are some of you who don't find me sweeping enough.

How to please everybody? The answer to that question can only be found, I am certain, in the answer to a different question: How do you please anybody? If I can answer that then, well, I am on my way.

Peace, this day and always.

BG
©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

PS.To slake your thirst with some real bombast, read this scathing correspondence by the First Lady of Political Polemicism.

PPS. I note that 'Ismist' is associated with some sort of Burning Man festival event in 2000; I further note that it has something to do with quasi-underground music. I use the word freely, without association to anyone else. My Google search for the term may show that others have used it first, but I claim it here, for myself, with no reference to anything to do with a dead lake or a little known musical revolution.

Oiling The Palms

A few posts back I mentioned that Hugo Chavez, the incomparable president of Venezuela, had not only called the President of the United States the devil from the podium at the UN, he also called for the death penalty for the Chief Executive. It would be hilarious if it were not so intrinsically evil. I mean, last year we all heard great remonstrances against a TV evangelist who encouraged the assassination of Mr. Chavez. But judging by the way the media responded to Mr. Pat Robertson, one would have thought that Robertson, a mere leader in the evangelical church, had issued an astringent fatwa on Latin American decency. The relative silence in the major media in the wake of Mr. Chavez' many rhetorical offenses is disconcerting; for here is a man - aiming to succeed Fidel Castro among Latin American leaders - who denounces America at nearly every turn; a man who controls not merely a church but instead vast oil reserves. Robertson, by and large, is taken seriously; his rhetoric is declared dangerous to American security and interests. But Mr. Chavez' obscenities? Dismissed as the utterances of a whacko.

Mr. Chavez, as you know, is offering the neediest Americans home heating oil at massive discounts through Venezuela's CITGO. Such beneficence is an apparent attempt to free some of us from President Bush's alleged tyranny and oppression.

What startles me the most is that a former US congressman -- and yes, a Kennedy -- is leading the way in New England for Mr. Chavez' program. Massachusetts Democrat Joseph Kennedy, who is running TV commercials promoting his similar beneficence, is helping Americans by distributing discounted oil that belongs to a rather poor Venezuelan citizenry. This oil, as you know, is not Hugo Chavez'. It is the Venezuelans'. And yet Mr. Kennedy is willing to take it for his Citizens Energy Corporation, at significant savings, to add to his list of good deeds.

But you should read all of the Wall Street Journal op-ed about the affair posted at this link. It is quite revealing.

And now a little note about the commercial mentioned. I cannot help but laugh at the video of an allegedly 84-year-old woman yanking a bed frame into her kitchen so she could sleep near her kitchen stove. Such a fact is not at all funny: there is tragedy, sorrow, and tremendous need in many American homes. But what is amazing is that the film crew is making this woman drag her bed across her floor -- again!? -- in an apparent reenactment. Can you imagine? What the hell were they thinking as they shot this, and what is Mr. Kennedy thinking using this as a promo? My laughter is not born out of insensitivity. Just the opposite. I laugh with incredulity, at the absurdity of it.

It all borders on the surreal. Unfortunately, this is all too real.

(Recent reports, by the way, show that the Citizens Energy Corporation is filling homeowners' fuel tanks with Number 2 snake oil.)

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Technorati tags: Joseph Kennedy, CITGO, Chavez, Pat Robertson

"Don't Eat The Meat": Passing Gas At The Butcher's

In a casual on-line conversation this past week, I made mention of the Biblical prophecy that proclaims -- in the end times -- that eating meat will be forbidden. There was a small scrum over this, with one writer doubting that the world could ever become -- by law -- a strictly vegetarian planet. Of course, none of us in our conversation were talking much about the end of the world; nor was I hurling Biblical verses about with attendant claps of thunder.

But I just picked this off of the FoxNews website. It is, at least apparently, rooted in some fact, namely a United Nations report. Moreover, I have seen a few other news reports over the last few days discussing the same matter. And the matter is hardly new. I mean, even Canada's legendary singer/songwriter Bruce Cockburn referred to the cattle industry as the harvesting of "methane dispensers" in a song, If A Tree Falls, nearly 20 years ago. But this news clip is so gloriously interesting I can barely contain myself.

Read the brief report for yourself:

Livestock Worse Than Humanity?

A report by the United Nations' Food and Agricultural Organization says cattle and other livestock cause more greenhouse gases than cars, planes, and all other forms of transportation put together. Britain's Independent News says the report blames cow flatulence and manure for one-third of all methane emissions — which warm the earth 20 times faster than carbon dioxide.

The world's 1.5 billion cows are also blamed for everything from acid rain to desertification and the destruction of coral reefs. And while cows are taking the heat in one U.N. report, another says humans are doing less harm to the environment than previously thought. The Sunday Telegraph says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has reduced its estimate of human affect on global warming by 25 percent. And it has lowered its prediction of how much sea levels will rise by half. The Panel cites improved data for the revisions.

So much for hamburgers, bacon, leg of lamb. We're talking about a world where mint jelly is all that's left on one's dinner plate (assuming, of course, that there were no insects involved in the process).

As one restaurateur said to me, her face turned up in a sneer when I asked her for some honey, "Der! Bees aren't vegan!"

Please, pass the methane dispenser before it is all gone.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Ideas About Ideologues

I know more than a few people who often dismiss certain folks as "ideologues." It is almost said reflexively. At times it seems a curious habit. The disparagement is always done with great facility and, perhaps, felicity. And I never quite understand it. Definitions in some of the older dictionaries I own show that, first and foremost, an ideologue is an expert in ideology, which is defined as "the body of doctrine, myth, symbol, etc., of a social movement, institution, class, or large group." The secondary meaning is that of a person who deals with systems of ideas. And the tertiary meaning describes a person "who advocates a particular ideology." (The Random House College Dictionary, 1975).

Curiously, more recent definitions are rather blunt. For example, the American Heritage Dictionary is utterly matter of fact:

ideologue (noun): An advocate of a particular ideology, especially an official exponent of that ideology

And the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary gives us this definition for ideologue:

1 : an impractical idealist : THEORIST
2 : an often blindly partisan advocate or adherent of a particular ideology

It is interesting to note how unnuanced these online definitions prove themselves to be. I wonder if this is the trend in computer age diction, where words become more rigid, lacking subtlety, posited in all their raw black-and-white glory. Computer users are, after all, in a hurry.

My observation -- provincial as it is -- about the word in question is that the man denouncing another chap as a "mere ideologue" is usually himself something of an ideologue. With that said, I, of course, admit that my comment lacks subtlety. I promise to make amends in a forthcoming essay on the topic.

For now, two things. First, I would love to hear what you think "ideologue" means: what does it connote and who does it denote? Second, I urge you to read one of my all-time favorite essays (fragmented as it is) by C. S. Lewis. After reading his capital essay, Bulverism, this morning, I am reminded -- again -- how careful I must be.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes -- All Rights Reserved.

Come Unto Me, All Ye Who Are Heavy Laden (with explosives), And I Will Give You Rest

They are neighbors. They pass each other on the street; they breath the same dusty air. And yet … and yet.

This morning, a large crowd -- men and boys searching for work -- gathers together to fight despair, anxieties subsiding a bit in such company. There is strength in numbers, target strength.

Suddenly, a wave of optimism, some cheering, some shouts of incredulity. Hope. "Follow me, I'll hire you!" The group moves this way, then that. Men press forward to get a chance at something. They gather round a minivan, a truck. Some get in.

"Yes! Yes! I have work for you! I will hire you. Come, come closer."

In a sadistic suicide flash, 60 people are dead. Over 200 are wounded. Shiites, the poorest, lay bleeding in a Baghdad street, their ears deafened by the sound of more bad news. All in a day's work.

These are the people we all hope to help in a very different way than the man with the van full of lies. Sadly, near yet another crater in the ground, day laborers will indeed gather for work, their compensation coming in bits of flesh. They pray for peace with their neighbor and yet only find a piece of their neighbor.

It is, really, a job that cannot possibly be done in a day.

(Today, prayers for lost sons, husbands, fathers, wives, mothers, daughters, and hope.)

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Technorati tags: Baghdad, Suicide bomber, Peace, Day laborers, Iraq

Year In Review: Speak Your Mind (If You Wish)

As the end of 2006 approaches, I wonder about the year's most important stories. Were I to review the year at this website, I might find myself unable to pin down the year's big news. Of course, I have a hunch or two. But what do you think? Why?

Sound off if you wish. I urge you to speak freely, even passionately. I am listening. This is about your opinions, not mine.

Blessings.

BG

He's No Common Tater

Contratimes' friend, The Commentator, who hails from the great land of Canada, has published his most recent installment of "Five Q's" wherein he asks five questions of a featured guest. I cannot thank him sufficiently for deeming me worthy enough to participate. Our interview, brief as it was, can be found here. If you are at all interested, I urge you to give The Commentator a visit. He is an entirely decent chap, and he deserves your attention (which explains why, since he introduced himself to me, he's been listed in my blogroll for months).

Here are the five questions I was asked and, I pray, answered.

1) Why do you blog?
2) How would you rationalize the blogging phenomena in society?
3) In the realm of religion, are we witnessing a "Great Awakening" in America? If so, does this mean a radicalizing of America? If not, is religion on the run so to speak?
4) Does theology have a place in the realm of political discourse and debate when it comes to forming public policy?
5) Is there a liberal bias in your opinion?

The Commentator's first "Five Q's" featuring freelance journalist J. M. Berger, contributor to National Public Radio, The Boston Globe and others, can be found here.

Building Better Brain Bombs

[Every once in a while I post an essay that is really a reply to something that happened off-stage, so to speak. This is one of those moments.]

The other day I received an email from someone who felt that she knew me, my opinions, my own sense of what is true, right, wrong. I shall name no names, and I shall give nothing away here. But the writer suggested that I was being, well, dishonest; and if not dishonest, I was being inaccurate, even, perhaps, revisionistic. What startled me most, of course, was the intimation that someone I barely know knows me better than I know myself. And what I apparently did not know without the help of this particular interlocutor is that I have always supported the Iraq invasion spearheaded by George W. Bush.

It's curious what people claim to know. I can assure you that my wife took this bit of news as a surprise; she recalls trying to get me to change my mind about Iraq, insisting, for example, that I should read Why We Fight by Bill Bennett (she insisted again Friday night that I need to read it). I have not read that undoubtedly fine work, largely because I already have far too much to do as I promote war at every turn. But what I think is clear is that people mistake my strident defense of President Bush as somehow support for everything he stands for; but my defense is really a critique of the junk hurled his way. I have never been pro-war, but I have been very much anti-crap. And I believe this fact with all my heart: the leftists are the revisionists when it comes to the genesis of the Iraq invasion.

Some people cannot believe that Michael Richards is not, in fact, Jerry Seinfeld's fictional neighbor, Kramer; Mr. Richards created such a convincing character one is tempted to conclude that he and Kramer are identical (how jarring it is to learn that they are not). Great actors who loathe serial killings nonetheless convincingly portray serial killers. Great novelists who are anti-war nevertheless portray war in all its brutal accuracy, even without having actually served a moment in battle. Great defense lawyers posit great apologies on their clients' behalf, leading jurors towards a "not guilty" verdict that the defense lawyer himself would not ever reach. You get the point. Merely because I have argued against the arguments proffered against the war, it does not follow that I am for the war. I am merely against bad arguments.

I would urge readers, who are interested in my feelings about the war against Islamic fundamentalism, to read what I believe is my definitive statement as presented in my series, "The Most Important Question: On Inevitability And The War On Terror." Readers will discover what I believe is really at stake; and readers will note, too, that I was far ahead of the pretentious and leftist billionaire George Soros, underwriter of the Democratic National Committee, who -- in a silly essay I discussed here -- called for a change in metaphor when discussing the war on terror. (And as for the attempts by linguist George Lakoff to redefine the Iraq War as an occupation, see my comment #2 at MadMike'sAmerica in this thread.)

I have been quite consistent in challenging bad arguments. I have challenged the idea that pacifism is strictly forbidden in Christian orthodoxy. I have challenged the idea that peace is attainable in "Oscar Wilde, Seinfeld, And Peace That Eludes." I have challenged arguments that suggest that only liberal dissent is deemed unpatriotic. I have criticized arguments that the war in Iraq is a quagmire, or that its difficulty proves its foolishness, or that American troops would fare better with more armor. I have criticized Madeleine Albright. In fact, I have criticized many things here. But I have never opined that I support war.

Sadly, my critic(s) will probably not read my definitive series "The Most Important Question", no matter how much I implore them to. Nor will they probably bother to read my lengthy but sincere letter to America, drafted mere days after 9/11 (and posted at a new Contratimes auxiliary), to judge its consistency with the series mentioned above. They are free to define me as they deem most expedient for them. I offer no definitions about their personal beliefs, since I hardly know these folks. I shall respectfully leave them alone.

Lastly, the emailer described me as a bomb thrower. You know, a sort of intellectual terrorist, a kind of Molotov cocktail-tosser in the brain. I stand, apparently, in the same company as Ann Coulter or, well, no one else. My rhetoric is shaped merely to detonate in the midst of irrefutable logic (or so it is suggested).

I find the 'charge' amusing.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes -- All Rights Reserved.