About the tsunami

This column by Bob Herbert from today's New York Times both expresses a lot of what I'm thinking about the disaster in southern Asia and makes me feel stupid for carrying on about my mp3 collection and other trivial matters as I did in my post from earlier today. But then again, life goes on, for most of us anyway. I still can't get a handle on what is happening on the other side of the globe, or what I would be doing if I were closer to that situation...

Our Planet, and Our Duty
By BOB HERBERT

Published: December 31, 2004

One moment the kids were laughing and skylarking on the beach, yelling and chasing one another, sweating in the warm bright sun. The next moment they were gone.

The world is used to horror stories, but not on the stupefying scale of the macabre tales coming at us from the vast and disorienting zone of death in tsunami-stricken southern Asia. Einstein insisted that God does not play dice with the world, but that might be a difficult notion to sell to some of the agonized individuals who have seen everything they've lived for washed away in a pointless instant.

The death toll now is more than twice the number of American G.I.'s killed in all the years of the Vietnam War. Not just entire families, or extended families, but entire communities were consumed by waters that rose up without warning to destroy scores of thousands of people who were doing nothing but going about their ordinary lives.

On Tuesday The Times ran a big front-page picture taken in a makeshift morgue in southern India. It certainly captured the horror. It looked for all the world like a sandy playground covered with dead children.

Imagination pales beside the overwhelming reality of the tragedy. There were, for example, the grief-stricken throngs, clawing through mud and rubble, peering into the faces of the severely injured, wandering through piles of decaying corpses, in search of loved ones.

The Boston Globe quoted a young man whose college sweetheart was among the more than 800 people killed when a train carrying beachgoers in Sri Lanka was slammed by a 30-foot wall of water that lifted it from the tracks and hurled it into a marsh. "Is this the fate that we had planned for?" cried the young man. "My darling, you were the only hope for me."

Perhaps a third of those killed were children. Many were swept away before the eyes of horrified, helpless parents. "My children! My children!" screamed a woman in Sri Lanka. "Why didn't the water take me?"

The killer waves that moved with ferocious speed across an unprecedented expanse of global landscape flung their victims about with a randomness that was all but impossible to comprehend. People in beachfront dwellings ended up in trees, or entangled in electrical power lines, or embedded in the mud of hillsides. People died in buses, cars and trucks that were swept along by the waves like leaves in a strong wind. Sunbathers were swept out to sea.

In that environment, Einstein must stand aside for Shakespeare, whose Gloucester said: "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport."

Any tragedy is awful for the relatives of those who perished. But this is a catastrophe of a different magnitude. "This," as one observer noted, "is like confronting the apocalypse."

"What makes it especially frightening is that whole communities have been annihilated," said Dr. John Clizbe, a psychologist in Alexandria, Va., who, until his retirement a couple of years ago, had served as vice president for disaster services at the American Red Cross. He said, "We've known for years now that the emotional devastation that survivors feel and experience is often greater than the physical devastation."

The recovery process is easier, he said, when there is a supportive community to bolster those in need. But in some of the most devastated regions of southern Asia, the regions most in need of support, those communities have vanished.

It's a peculiarity of modern technology that people anywhere in the world can sit back and watch in real time, like voyeurs, the life-and-death struggles of their fellow humans. The planet is growing smaller and its residents more interdependent by the day. We're fully aware that our planetary neighbors in southern Asia are desperately drawing upon the deepest reservoirs of fortitude and resilience that our troubled species has at its disposal.

What this means is that we're the supportive community. All of us. This catastrophe would at least have a silver lining if it moved the people of the United States and other nations toward a wiser, more genuinely cooperative international posture.

William Faulkner, in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, said: "I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance."

That's what Faulkner believed. We'll see.

Just another day

Even though it's Dec. 31, the last spot on the 2004 calendar and a significant moment for that reason. One nice thing is that it's pretty warm outside. And sunny too, which we prize up here in Michigan, this time of year.

I updated my profile here on Blogger.com. Updated my photo, though I think it's too small. I will fiddle with it more later. The picture is over a month old. It's a shot of me reading through the materials that came with my digital camera, one of the very first I took with it. Nothing very distinguished - but it's suitable for the moment. I will have a nicer portrait made and I'll post it when I get my hair trimmed and feel like sitting for a pose of some sort or another. Since the camera is mine, I am not in too many pictures - Julie still likes to use her 35mm camera for her photos.

The household is quiet today, except for my music. Right now, the song is "Smiles" by Spiritualized. I have 5778 songs on Itunes that haven't yet been played, which amounts to 17+ days worth of music. So I have a folder titled "unplayed musique" that I've set on shuffle. Every so often I will delete songs that have been played from the list so that I don't get any repeats. Now I'm listening to the Chemical Brothers' "Buzz Tracks" which is a relatively rare cut from their "Setting Sun" single release of 1996. The ChemBros have a new album coming out in January (!) called "Push The Button" that I'm pretty excited to hear. Their first single, "Galvanize" has already been circulating over the web, though not officially released yet. I have the long and short versions already, but I will buy the product when it's released. I am a big fan of the Chemical Brothers and what is now considered "old school" Big Beat techno.

I suppose it's time for me to take a shower and get something productive done around here. I don't want to overtax myself though since I'll be up late tonight and probably up early tomorrow morning to help my boys with the newspaper deliveries.

Next song is "Mock Tudor" by Orbital. Wow, a lot of edgy electronic English music coming up on the shuffle. But just to let you know how eclectic and diverse my collection really is, here's a sample of what's coming up in the playlist:

Mama Kin by Aerosmith
Da Doo Ron Ron by the Crystals
Use of Time by 311
Heart of the Sunrise by Yes
He's So Shy by the Pointer Sisters
Shot Down in Flames by AC/DC
Come On Ride The Train by Quad City DJ's
Humble Mumble by Outkast
Bread and Wine by Peter Gabriel (from the "Last Temptation of Christ" soundtrack)
Alone Again Or by Love
When the Music Starts by Lenny Dee
Love Is by Vanessa Williams
Juxtaposed With U by Super Furry Animals
Spinning Away by Brian Eno
Open Sesame by Kool and the Gang
Batdance by Prince
She's A Lady by Tom Jones
Chant by Public Image Ltd.
I Believe I Can Fly by R. Kelly
Love Is The Drug by Roxy Music
Rise Up O Men of God by Phil Keaggy

that's probably enough! :o) I love my music collection!

Year's End

We are getting pretty close to being done with 2004, of course, so it's time for me to do some reflective wrapping up of what this year was like and what I will most likely find memorable about it.

What comes to mind first is that it was an election year, the occasion where George W. Bush apparently won a second-term (even though there are still rumblings about voting improprieties coming out of Ohio that seem to be just on the edge of breaking out into a bigger media story.) This election had been a focal point for a lot of people over the past few years, the time when we figured Bush would get his comeuppance for the mismanagement of his presidential responsibilities and the scales of justice would be righted for the flawed election of 2000. But instead, the left's "consensus candidate" John Kerry, came up short in his bid to unseat Bush as he turned out to be a flawed nominee himself. The net effect of this election result is that I'm left feeling burned out and cynical about the political process and pretty hesitant to look toward elected representatives to be any kind of assistance for promoting the kind of change that I'd like to see happen in our society. It remains to be seen if this is just a passing sensation, an understandable weariness after a run of several years where I invested more than was probably healthy in the hopes that a democratic election would serve to repudiate what I consider to be a misguided and inappropriate set of policy initiatives pursued by the Bush administration. I'm pretty much back to where I was in my early 20's, viewing the political class and government in general as a bunch of self-serving power brokers whose values and ideals are directed toward securing the welfare of a very narrow segment of our general population. Kerry's flaccid response (what seems to me a kind of "disappearance") after a campaign in which so many invested passionate hopes and energies also fuels my cynicism. He just seems to have accepted the outcome a bit too easily, secure in his own personal fortune and the senatorial privileges that he can return to without breaking anything resembling a sweat.

So let me leave politics behind, though I will also mention the war in Iraq. I continue to struggle with the fact that the USA launched this invasion in the first place, seeing every day's catastrophic headline as sheer vindication of my antiwar sentiments in general and my specific opposition to Bush's plans for Iraq dating back to 2002. It still appalls me to think of the brutal destruction and chaos that our armies have unleashed, and I grieve for the soldiers who are over there, whether they are the dead, the wounded or the simple survivors. It's just a tragic, pathetic situation that did not have to be that way, but regretting it is ineffectual so I am just stuck lamenting the folly and misery of it all.

And of course it is difficult for me to not mention here the current calamities still unfolding over in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and other regions of southern Asia and eastern Africa. 120,000 dead as of tonight, by official estimates, and that number will continue to rise. The numbers put even the horrors of war into a relative context, and make me wonder just how people can honestly see God as "directing" such natural disasters, even though I know that a lot of peoples' beliefs lead them to such conclusions, because of the theological emphasis on God's absolute sovereignty that has developed in some traditions (including the Reformed, which is so prevalent in this area.) I don't really intend to disparage anyone's beliefs in particular, or come across as condescending, but it just escapes me as to what kind of "comfort" or "assurance" people can take in the idea that God had a purpose or reason to set such events in motion. It doesn't exactly "make sense" to me to see them instead as random forces of nature that happened to sweep up many thousands or millions of lives into a state of radical disruption and death, but it's preferable and more comprehensible to regard God as a "passive spectator" in the larger sense, just like the rest of us are around the globe, far from the danger zone, wondering just what we can or should do to alleviate in some small way the suffering that is mediated to us by televised images and written accounts. Even though it's a "current event" happening at the tail end of the calendar year, and thus is more prominent in my attention than many other things that happened in 2004, I can't help but imagine that this will go down as the Major Historic Event of this particular year, just like the 9/11 attacks will always characterize the year 2001 for me and most people in what we habitually call the "civilized world."

What else was there? The Summer Olympics. A positive because Greece pulled it off without any major problems or screw-ups. A few doping scandals, not that big a deal to me. The Boston Red Sox won the World Series. That's pretty significant. "The Passion" and "Fahrenheit 9/11" stirred up a lot of conversation that wasn't strictly connected to their respective cinematic merits. Pop music was almost entirely dominated by hip-hop acts as far as the most popular songs were concerned. U2 released a new album to keep the flickering flame of rock music burning a bit longer (in terms of mass cultural impact.) I saw quite a few bands at the Van Andel Arena, which have all been chronicled here in this blog. My media collection grew quite a bit as I discovered the joys of used DVDs and the I-Tunes music service and software (as well as ripping music from library CDs and some file-swapping websites.) I now have an almost complete collection of the #1, #2 and #3 Billboard Hot 100 singles dating all the way back to the 1950's, as well as a lot of more eclectic music that appeals to my personal tastes. 12, 608 tunes, 37.3 days, 51.64 GB at the moment, though I have a few duplicates that I could weed out of tracks that have found their way on to my hard drive through multiple sources. That's a lot of music! I should find a way to catalogue my collection on line somewhere, on my website probably would be the best place. There may be a few people who'd be interested in finding out what it is that I listen to and watch on video.

I also got a new job as a staff trainer. That's pretty significant. Though the full impact of the change has yet to be felt - I have further trainings and certifications to go through before I am able to do all of what is expected of me, and by the end of March, when those trainings are done, my weekly routines will be substantially different than what I've become accustomed to, even over the past couple of months as I've transitioned into my split responsibilities.

My children are all a bit older - I now have three boys in high school, the middle-school years are behind us as a family. I'll have two sons entering college in the fall, as well as my daughter beginning her junior year. Basically, I'm expecting to be broke for the next several years.

This will have to suffice for now as my impression of 2004. I may add some more tomorrow, but these are the mountain peaks that stand out to me. I'll sleep on it tonight and see if I come up with any more "biggies" that escaped my memory just now.

Post-Christmas Post (Part 2)

OK, the Christmas vibe is rapidly receding as I resume more of my normal work duties and life routines, so let me capture my thoughts here before it dissipates completely.

My basic observation is that unlike many critics who routinely roll out their messages of how Christ has been left out of Christmas these days, I see plenty of reminders about what the "true meaning of Christmas" really is all around me and I figure they are too numerous to miss for anyone to make the claim that the story of Jesus' birth isn't adequately emphasized. I'll say that here in Michigan at least, that's how it is. The Grand Rapids Press almost seemed to be going out of its way to please this segment of its readership, with full page ads, editorials, columns and cartoons all pointing out in various pious ways what the holiday was "really" about.

Now I am quite happy to celebrate and commemorate the Nativity story, God's presence among us, his dwelling with us and entering the stream of experience in this world that so many of us find vexing or worse, and the general upsurge of benevolent sentiment that comes with the season. But that is no longer "all" that Christmas is "really" about. Christmas also has a social, cultural and economic significance that has to be reckoned with and is nothing to be ashamed or dismissive of. And there are many of my neighbors who simply don't have any reason or interest in participating in the religious aspects of the holiday, and I don't think they should be made to feel secondary because they don't participate in Christmas on that level.

Basically, what I'm saying is that the old laments about how we've lost touch with the essence of Christmas are worn out and tired, needlessly repetitious, apparently made by people who feel the need to chastise our society simply for being what it is. Christmas is a fine season just the way it is, somewhat disruptive in certain ways, but altogether worth going through. One could even consider it a kind of character-building challenge to successfully navigate oneself through all the hassles, pressures, assorted aggravations and overdoses of schmaltz and sentimentality that are all but impossible to avoid.

But I do feel bad for all those people who got stranded at airports and/or lost their luggage over the holiday. What a bummer.

Post-Christmas Post (Part One)

I spent a mostly computer free weekend doing various Christmasy things with my family so obviously haven't had much to say here or on my email lists, but now I'll take a few minutes to do so before I head back in to work.

It was a nice holiday break overall. Pretty similar in many ways to Christmases of the past several years as far as who I spent it with, the kinds of gifts we exchanged, the sentiments expressed, where our family and relatives are basically at in life. We've been blessed with stability and a higher-than-we-should-take-for-granted level of predictability to our lives. I say this thinking about the millions of people whose lives were radically disrupted (and thousands that were lost) in the tsunami waves that hit southern Asia yesterday. That's a very staggering scenario to contemplate - mainly, it overloads my circuits and I find that I simply don't have much of any sensible response to it. I still have a lot more to learn about exactly what happened...

But back to my story. Here's a rundown of gifts I received: shirts, gloves, a recharger/USB port for my digital camera, a big ol' coffee mug and a bag of Starbucks French Roast from my Secret Santa (which is MINE ALL MINE!!! since Julie doesn't like what Starbucks does to their coffee), the "Opus" retrospective from Berkely Breathed (creator of "Bloom County"), the LOTR:ROTK XPD ED 4-DVD set, the Disney Treasures "Mickey Mouse in Black and White, Vol. 2" collection, and some gift cards and items to be exchanged because they bought me something that I already had. (Which I plan to exchange for the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol. 2 and perhaps a few other goodies to be determined later.) As you can tell, I like media, DVDs especially, and since I already mostly have the stuff I need, I figure DVDs make me an easier person to buy for.

My big gift for Julie was a KitchenAid Artisan mixer in pistachio green which matches our kitchen walls. She was very excited and pleased with it, which made me feel great! This is the Cadillac of mixers, so I'm told, and the kids pitched in on the veggie slicer accessory. So we are set to enjoy even more good fresh homemade meals. Julie and I spent some time yesterday afternoon rearranging our kitchen counters to accomodate this new appliance (or is it a utensil?) It's cool.

We also enjoyed watching Brandon's "Napoleon Dynamite" DVD last night. This is a beautiful and funny movie that you should see if you haven't already. Even if it's not your style of humor, watching this film will help you understand the younger generation, if you want to rationalize it that way. My boys have seen it five times now and still find it hilarious and perfect. We all enjoyed watching the deleted scenes and will soon be watching the film with running commentary to get additional insights into this brilliant work of cinematic art.

I have more to say but I must be going now, so this is only Part One of my Post-Christmas Post. I'll be back later today to expand on what I've already said.

A Generous Orthodoxy

I won't spend a lot of time here describing the book, but last night I just finished reading Brian McLaren's "A Generous Orthodoxy," which continues his candid exploration of how today's Christians are adapting to the postmodern cultural environment. I'm going to be offering more extensive commentary on my pomoxian email list (link found elsewhere on this page) if you want to track that discussion. But I just mention it here because I've made my Blogger.com dashboard my start page on Firefox, for the purpose of prompting me to update this blog more frequently. And since that's the most significant news I have to mention at the moment, I mentioned it here.

Also, I've made significant progress on my collection of #1 mp3's. I now have every Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper from 1960 forward, and only about a dozen or so needed from the 1950's, mostly obscure tracks, though for some reason I'm having a harder time finding a couple of Pat Boone songs, which surprises me because he was Mr. Hitmaker in that era, close to what the Beatles and Supremes did in the 60's and the BeeGees and Elton John did in the 70's, and George Michael and Hall & Oates did in the 80's and Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston did in the 90's and Usher did this year...

Christmas Pageantry

Elsewhere in cyberspace awhile back, I had promised to blog on the variety of Christmas concerts I attended last week. Starting with a high school band performance featuring two of my sons (not in soloist roles, just part of the orchestra - Curt on percussion, Derek on saxophone), then moving on to Michael W. Smith and a couple of nights later, Martina McBride.

As it turned out, all three nights were enjoyable in their own way, but none of them left me with anything particularly profound or insightful to say. The high school program was just like a lot of other such concerts I've been to, pleasant to see the students making progress and running through a traditional mix of holiday classics. Michael W. Smith offered a professional, occasionally powerful and moving set of tunes, mixing various combinations of male and female vocalists into his efficiently-rendered arrangements - very clean, slick, mostly predictable and not at all "risky." The audience was the most subdued and homogenous group of the many events I've seen this year at the Van Andel Arena. Like going to a really big (10,000 +) church. Martina McBride presented a much more sophisticated, showbiz variety package, emphasizing both state-of-the-art multimedia technology on large three part synchronized video screens and old-fashioned sentimentality, spending a lot more time on the Santa Claus side of the Christmas holiday than either of the two previous programs (though of course she did finish with a selection of sacred Christian holiday music, concluding with "O Holy Night" - which she certainly has a voice powerful enough to carry it off as a grand finale.) So much for that. I had a good time at all three events... but there was another Christmas concert that touched me so deeply that I have to mention it here.

It happened this past Thursday night. Wedgwood Christian Services, my employer of almost 16 years now, put on a Christmas program for the first time in a few years. The youth we work with in residential settings have, in the past, stirred up enough difficulty and/or anxiety on our part to preclude us from trying to organize them into a choir or otherwise asking them to assemble for the sake of public performance. I won't get diverted here in describing our clients in detail - suffice it to say that they can be very high maintenance and create problems that hindsight would have us wondering just what exactly we were thinking before we even got the project started.

But we've had a number of changes around our organization this year, including the promotion of two part-time chaplains to full-time leadership roles, and they took it upon themselves to organize a program, perhaps against their better judgement, but doing the right thing nevertheless. So it happened that the girls from the home I supervise were enlisted to perform for the program.

Now I have to mention that our team is blessed to have a number of gifted, bright staff, and two of them, Shana and Michelle, have brought their talents into the mix in wonderful ways, instructing our girls in the arts of singing and dancing, respectively. They each spent time over the past week or two putting together musical numbers and rehearsing them in time for Thursday's event. As I've alluded, we did have some drama along the way, including a near-fight that erupted at the dress rehearsal on Wednesday, which wound up restricting two girls from attending. Then there was also the flap that erupted when, on Thursday morning, we found out that the song the girls were going to dance to, "Let's Get It Started" by the Black Eyed Peas, was considered inappropriate for a Christian Christmas program (which makes sense to me, it just wasn't communicated clearly enough in advance but that's another issue, not mine...) Michelle and Shana impressed me all over again by collaborating on finding a more suitable song for the girls to dance to from Shana's collection of Christian music, and then convincing the girls that they could make the adjustments necessary to have a successful dance routine.

So Thursday evening rolled around at just about the usual time we'd expect it to, and we gathered in Wedgwood's chapel, wondering just exactly what would transpire after all the fuss and toil. Well, I can't adequately capture here how captivating a sight it was to have somewhere between 30 and 40 "Wedgwood Kids" on stage singing praise songs, a few brave souls stepping forward for their solo parts, in front of a truly packed house. About 180 people filled the chapel, requiring extra seats to be brought in that lined the walls of the sanctuary. Our girls did a fantastic job - not "professionally flawless" by any means, but they kept their focus, they each overcame the considerable anxieties and distractions that might have otherwise prevented them from going forward with their parts of the show. And in the process, they really did awaken in me a renewed sense of appreciation for what Christmas can be about if we approach it in the right frame of mind. Christmas at its best is about patient waiting drawing to a close, hope finding its fulfillment, with the promise of even better things to come gaining credibility because we've seen with our eyes and heard with our ears the visible manifestation of God's presence among us.

I can't argue convincingly to any skeptic that this is what I experienced on Thursday night, and I am not all that confident that everyone in the room experienced God's glory in the same way that I did, but I am reasonably sure that many of us caught a glimpse of something divine and were touched on a level that isn't always so easy to reach by ordinary entertainments and diversions. This was, beyond measure, the most meaningful and memorable Christmas pageant I've been to in quite a long time.

Hot 100

My latest obsession is collecting mp3's of all the songs to have hit the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100. I recently got a book that lists them all, from Rock Around the Clock in 1955 through Elton John's tribute to Princess Diana, the updated "Candle in the Wind" from 1997. I also found a website that lists all the #1's, #2's and #3's since then so that I have an idea of what songs to gather from here on out. I have 294 different #1's, out of somewhere between 900 and 1000, I don't have an exact count. I enjoy listening to them in order and thinking about the fads that have transformed pop culture over the past 50 years or so.

Thanksgiving Rundown

A brief recap of my day...

Up late last night - I got it into my head to make an Itunes playlist consisting of all the songs I own that reached the #1 spot in the Billboard Hot 100 over the years. I have a book that lists them all from "Rock Around the Clock" up until "Candle in the Wind 1997" (the Princess Diana tribute by Elton John.) So it turns out I have 146 of the 860 tunes on that list.

Up early this morning to pick up bundles of the Grand Rapids Press - I have three teenage sons who each have their own route and even though two of them have their own drivers license it still falls on me for some reason to go out first thing on Sunday mornings and this particular holiday to retrieve the papers. Which I then lug into our living room where Julie puts the various sections together, the boys bag 'em, I haul the papers out to our minivan and then we four guys head out to the routes to deliver 'em. About 150 papers altogether. The Thanksgiving paper is the biggest daily edition of the year, of course, full of ads for tomorrow's huge traditional shopping spree.

Yesterday we got whomped by a massive snowstorm, I should mention, which left somewhere close to 10 inches of snow on the ground! I'm not exaggerating! That really slowed everything down and made for a more-miserable-than-usual pick-up for me since I could only find one of my winter gloves. So we didn't get the whole delivery process done until nearly 9 am, when 8 am is the goal that the Press sets for us. But it wasn't entirely our fault, since we were shorted a bundle of "section twos" and had to drive to a nearby mall and the truck that gives out extra papers to make up for such shortages.

So we got home, a fresh pot of coffee was on and Julie was baking some bread and making a salad for the family feast. My mom, sister and grandmother had the other courses covered. Breakfast was light. I browsed through the paper and the ads, half-heartedly. I don't plan to do much shopping tomorrow. I have to work but even if I didn't, I'm not feeling up to wrasslin' the crowds and there's no particular consumer item i just have to have at a few bucks lower than usual either.

Julie suggested that we each find a Bible passage that inspired thoughts of gratitude which we could share with each other. So I went to Ecclesiastes and found the following verses:

I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy
themselves as long as they live; moreover, it is God's gift that all should
eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil. (Ecclesiastes 3:12-13)

...which speaks pretty well for me today.

I also spent some time cleaning up our bedroom which had been falling into a state of ruin as the clutter piled ever higher.

Eventually it came time to head over to my moms for the big dinner and family time. It was nice, pretty much the same kind of thing that we've done for years now. Mom, Grandma, Debbie (sister) and her husband Ed, and my family. I spoke with my step-brother Doug who lives in Washington state which was cool and way long overdue.

We had a very nice meal. Watched the Lions get creamed, humiliated, completely blown out on national TV, basically evaporating all the good vibes that they had generated earlier this year when they were playing fairly well and looked to be making strides toward long-term respectability. Now they seem as lousy and out-classed by the rest of the league as ever. It didn't help that they were up against a blazing hot quarterback (Peyton Manning, who's on a record-setting pace for throwing the most touchdowns ever in a single season, tossing six today) and dealing with their own QB controversy (what to do about Joey Harrington, which I won't bother explaining here.) Most of the game we had the sound off and Christmas carols playing in the background.

After dinner I removed a broken microwave from above my mom's oven. We wanted to install a range hood but ran into some structural obstacles that left the job unfinished.

I made out my Christmas list and here's what I asked for: Books: "The Complete Peanuts (1950-1954)" CDs: Beatles "The Capitol Albums Vol. 1" (a new package featuring the track listings and mixes from the 1964 releases) DVDs: The LOTR Return of the King extended version, a few Shakespeare titles (Mel Gibson's version of Hamlet, Roman Polanski's MacBeth, Olivier's Hamlet), the Ultimate Matrix 10-disc extravaganza, Looney Tunes Golden Collection Vol. 2, and the new Disney Treasures "Mickey Mouse in Black and White Vol. 2" that is due for release soon. Also some accessories for my new digital camera that I need to start using to post pictures here on my blog and elsewhere.

We hung out and socialized a bit more, the usual family chatter. Then we came home around 6 pm. Julie and I felt like watching a movie, so we pulled out a used DVD I had bought awhile back for a very cheap price - a fine German film called "Nowhere in Africa" that is based on the true story of a Jewish family that fled Nazi Germany to Kenya in the late 1930's. I was very impressed by this movie, which won the 2002 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Picture. The characters were complex and fresh, the story was quite intriguing, photography and soundtrack excellent... I won't write a review but I will recommend it to anyone who bothers to read this far. So we finished that awhile ago, now I'm downloading the digital photos from this afternoon into my PC, checkin' my email and updating my blog. Voila, that's the end, happy Thanksgiving Day, everybody, now to go get a good night's sleep!

New U2

For the first time in awhile, I made a point of buying a new CD on the very day it was released to the general public. The CD is U2's "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb." So far I don't know what led them to choose that name for the album, but it is attention-getting, no doubt about that.

I won't do a full-fledged review here. I am just noting the occasion. Listening to it at a fairly subdued volume on my boombox at work, my first response to the music is that it sounded very much like a mainstream hit rock record, nothing terribly bold or innovative, but I don't think that U2 is really aiming for that kind of a sound. They tried that in the 90's on the Zooropa and Pop albums, neither of which are considered to be among their best, from what I understand. I should be clear, I have followed U2 at a bit of a distance over the years. When Boy first came out, I was more into gritty underground punk rock and lumped them in with the other New Wave bands trying to come over from England and Europe in the early 80's. October didn't make any impression on me. Then War came out and they began getting attention in Christian circles as a cool band with acceptably spiritual lyrics. I remember Contemporary Christian Music magazine naming them the top Christian band in 1984 or '85 and getting some flack for that, since U2 weren't "explicitly" Christian and had even tried to distance themselves from such an identification when it became apparent that they were having that label applied to them. But I still didn't buy that album.

I did buy The Unforgettable Fire though. On cassette. Lost it somewhere along the way. I didn't like that album as much as I had hoped to, though there were some great individual songs. Some of it was just atmospheric for where I was at back then. Then I think Rattle and Hum came out, the Live at Red Rocks somewhere in all that too, then awhile later, The Joshua Tree. Well when that album came out, I was just not about buying music at that time. My children were being born and it just didn't make much sense to purchase rock music - so I grew to learn those songs from hearing them on the radio all the time, but not from listening to the album as a whole. And after that, I just remained aware of U2 from the sidelines - I saw bits on TV about the Achtung Baby and Zoo TV concert tours, became familiar with Bono's larger-than-life persona and generally considered them a cool band, for what it was worth. Around the time that Pop was released, I was getting back into rock music as an active object of study, egged on by some co-workers who raved about how great the band was/is. I thought the techno elements of that project were interesting, but when I borrowed it from a friend, I didn't feel inclined to go get my own copy. Then All That You Can't Leave Behind came out a couple years ago. I was impressed with that one. So I borrowed a copy from the library and burned my own on to a CD-R. :o)

But this time I decided to go ahead and get into the event of a new U2 release. I went to Best Buy today, the day it was officially put on sale, and bought myself a copy, so that I could discover the music at approximately the same time as millions of other people around the planet. That is a fun thing to be a part of and to think about. I passed on the chance to buy the CD/DVD/book package and even declined the CD/DVD package as well. I don't find U2 as visually compelling so I didn't see the need to spend an extra seven bucks for some music videos and a "making of" documentary. I'm still not that big a fan!

My Testimony

Yesterday on my pomoxian email list, I wrote up a brief summary of my beliefs about God that seems good enough to me to post here:

God has made a big, positive difference in my life. Before I seriously allowed myself the possibilty of having faith in God - that is, to trust, to pray, to hope, to believe that God was real - my response to life was bitter, confused, unfocused and self-destructive. Through a long chain of events though, God's presence and interest in mylife became apparent to me and I made a commitment, when I was 21 years old, to live the rest of my life in relationship to God. A lot has happened since then, and my "description" of God has changed in different ways, but my commitment to our relationship has not.

The truest things we can say about God are generally the simplest - but they are hard to prove and the closer we look at those statements, the more difficult they become to understand. God is good. God made us. God loves us. God is infinite. God is within us and around us. God fills the space between us. God knows us and guides us and provides for our needs. God comforts us in our times of sorrow. God is pleased with justice, mercy and peace. God watches over the creation and leads people to find redeeming value in the face of loss and tragedy. God gives us strength to persevere through adversity, hope to work through discouragement and love to steer us away from anger and desires for revenge. These are the most important things that I know about God as I write this, perhaps there are more I could add if I gave myself more time to ponder the subject.

The story and knowledge of God has been handed down to us from past generations, and so it's close to impossible to talk about God in a meaningful way without learning about those traditions and using the language that was developed about God a long time before any of us were born. Christianity is where I learned my "God-talk" so I can't really talk about God much outside of that frame of reference, though I recognize that a lot of what we (humans) have learned about the world around us and our own history isn't clearly incorporated into the spiritual vocabulary of Christianity.

Still, Christianity, especially in the teachings and story of Jesus, expresses the character and nature of God in moving and memorable ways. By closely examining the gospel traditions, I believe that a person can learn about God in a way that transforms our understanding, renews our thinking and enriches our perceptions of what life is and can become, on both the individual and collective levels. But like any other tool or cultural artifact, the Bible can be misunderstood and misapplied. There is no shortcut to knowing God, nor is there a risk-free method of imparting that knowledge to other people. God's world, our world, tends to be a dangerous place.

Cher & the Village People

I had another opportunity to work a concert at the Van Andel Arena last night, and this time it was a show featuring the performers named above.

In terms of cultural significance, I have to think that these two acts are probably the least "relevant" of the various acts I've seen over the past several months while working as a volunteer for the Wyoming Park High School Marching Band. Listing them off from memory, they include Metallica, the Eagles, Shania Twain, Simon & Garfunkel, Van Halen, Incubus... and maybe there's one or two I've forgotten? Mostly "oldies" acts, except for Incubus and Shania, and maybe Metallica, who are still producing new music. Cher and the Village People are clearly running off the momentum of past glories. But they are drawing crowds in 2004, so I guess "relevance" is in the eye of the beholder.

Anyway, on to my impressions of these artists. First, the Village People. They are, of course, the disco troupe from the late '70's that featured caricatured gay archetypes (the cowboy, the cop, the construction worker, the Indian, the leather dude, the army guy) and achieved immortality through the big hit "YMCA" as well as lesser hits like "Macho Man" and "In the Navy." I didn't actually get a chance to see them perform, since my duties required me to stay behind the concession stands running cash register and pouring beverages. But I got quite a show just watching the crowd milling around the corridor in front of me, as well as my colleagues who got into performing their own version of the YMCA dance when that inevitable moment came at the end of their alloted time on stage.

The Village People have successfully managed to reduce the level of homophobia in our society, I will give them that much credit. I would imagine that a lot of the middle class suburbanites doing the dance and laughing about the groups campy carrying-on throughout the performance once harbored attitudes toward gays that were more hostile than they are nowadays. But they still probably voted in favor of the "gay marriage ban" amendment that recently passed here in Michigan. OK, fine, that's where they are at, and personally I don't have much of a stake in that argument either way even though I voted "no" because I don't like the idea of constitution-by-referendum (I voted no on Prop. 1 also.) I digress!

Overall, the Village People didn't seem like they had much talent, when they performed material outside of their slim canon of hit singles. Not much as far as vocal ability was concerned - in fact, some of their wailing was pretty badly off-key. But they can bellow out the anthems well enough, and I imagine there was some bold choreography going on - they had better be athletic, if nothing else. I understand that only two of the original VP's are still touring - the construction worker and the Indian - so they could probably hire some younger, buffer studs to shake their booty to the throbbing disco beat. And the whole program was based on a pre-recorded soundtrack. There was no band playing behind them, since I heard the same tracks (including the band's intro) played sans vocals during the soundchecks.) As if that matters at all.

Overall, the Village People performed for the sheer fun of it. There really wasn't much to be bothered about here - they weren't the Main Attraction, to be sure, but given the sizeable following that Cher has in the gay community, including them on the opening bill seems like a logical and welcoming gesture on the part of the concert promoters. Judging by the elated, gleeful, even joyous response that their performance of "YMCA" drew from the audience, I would say that there are worse things in life to be than a Village Person.

On to Cher... What can I say? I'm not a fan, but there's a part of me that deeply admires someone who has dedicated so much of her life to producing innocuous, cheerful entertainment to those who do appreciate her style and flamboyance. All she asks in return is for their adoration. And a sizeable cash donation to get inside the door. Tickets were in the 40 - 80 dollar range.

This was advertised as the "Never Can Say Goodbye 2004 Farewell Tour." This is her third annual Farewell Tour, during each of which she has made sure to stop by Grand Rapids for "one last time." Last night, she said words to the effect that she would really be wrapping up the touring life once the current itinerary comes to its end. All I can reasonably conclude from that is that she doesn't plan on playing Grand Rapids ever again. I imagine that she could take up a long term residence in Vegas if she continues to have the itch to perform - her stage show is pretty much a travelling casino-style revue already.

She draws an interesting crowd. A lot of gay couples of both genders, but also a fair number of families, mostly moms with their daughters and a few hubbies dragged along, guys doing the right thing I would suppose. And a sizeable contingent of straight women out with their female friends who probably enjoy Cher's combination of exotic female empowerment and spectacular stagecraft for sheer entertainment's sake. All in all, a bit under 9000 people came out to see her, about 3/4 of capacity.

She opened with an interesting choice - a cover of U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." I had never considered Cher to be a "profound" artist until that moment... I also saw her perform a few songs with my own eyes. One featured her riding in on a mechanical elephant in a harem outfit, and the song was some kind of Middle Eastern sounding chant, nothing familiar to me that I could guess a title for. Then she did a disco number called "All or Nothing at All" (or something like that) featuring a pair of scantily clad acrobats frolicing about 20 feet above the stage, wrapping themselves and each other in long white draperies, simulating various "love acts" though not too raunchy, let me be clear. A lot less provocative than what happens at a Britney Spears show, I have no doubt. Speaking of Britney, Cher also dissed her, Jessica and Ashlee Simpson and other nameless young starlets, about their reliance on lip-synching in concert and TV performances. Cher always sings, apparently, though she understands the girls' reasons for using shortcuts. She even jokingly called them "bitches" as she challenged them to follow in her long-term showbiz footsteps.

I also saw her do a medley of her oldies: "Half-Breed," "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves," and "Dark Lady" which was mostly remarkable because they showed old video clips of her performing those songs from the early 70s when they were radio hits - alongside live shots of her singing on stage. It was amazing to see how identical her face today appears compared with her face from thirty years ago! Michael Jackson should have consulted with Cher before choosing his plastic surgeon...

That's about all I have to say about Cher. She's a born entertainer. Julie and I didn't stay to the very end - after Cher came on, the audience was enraptured and business dried up immediately. This is remarkable, because all of the other acts I've seen had a fairly steady stream of customers heading our way to get snacks, drinks, a breather, whatever. I could tell that for a lot of people at those other shows, they were there mainly to hear a few particular songs, or just out for the event itself, or they lost interest in the middle portion of the show where the band was plowing through the more mundane hits in their respective catalogues... But Cher's crowd didn't seem to want to miss a thing - and if you are there to take in the wonder of her costume-changes, lighting effects, stunts and comedic banter with her loving audience, even quick potty breaks mean you're likely to miss something important. So we were happy to take in a bit of the spectacle, but even happier to get home by 10:00 pm, with the permission of our crew leader of course. Funny to think that some people had paid lotsa dough to get inside, here we were with a free shot to take in most of the show, but instead had better things to do with our time. Like head back to suburbia for a good night's rest after a long, busy week!

Comments for the 25th Annual Meeting of IGE

(Here is a short address I composed this afternoon, which I delivered at our meeting tonight...)

Good evening to you all. I’ve been asked to welcome our friends and members and to facilitate tonight’s meeting, and I’m pleased to do so. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Dave Blakeslee, and I’m a board member of IGE, going into my fourth year in this role. I have looked forward to this evening for several months now, and I trust that we are going to enjoy our time together.

As I think most of you know, this is not simply another annual meeting of IGE. It is the 25th such gathering, which marks a significant milestone by most people’s habits of measuring these things. A quarter of a century is a long time by some accounts. For a small, idealistic, visionary, grassroots, volunteer-staffed and financed social activist organization like ours, it’s a very long time indeed! A lot of effort, much “labor of love” has gone into sustaining the Institute for Global Education ever since that night in November of 1980 that saw Ronald Reagan elected as President of the USA and also marked the first public meeting of IGE. A lot of history has been made over these years. Not all of it good, not all of it bad. There have been many troubling developments, many mournful tragedies that have taken place, paths marked with tears and with blood that our efforts have sought to prevent, or our protests have spoken out against. There have also been notable accomplishments and times of reconciliation – moments where peace and understanding have grown and flourished as a result of our commitment to upholding these values. Such achievements are typically quiet, going unnoticed and undocumented, but they are important nevertheless and we need to hold on to them however we can in the face of the disappointment and discouragement that current events and political leaders can so easily and quickly produce.

So my purpose here at this moment, and in these introductory words, is to thank each of you for being here. Thank you for continuing to work on behalf of the ideals that led to IGE’s formation:

• the vision of a world living in peace
• striving for justice
• preserving our natural resources
• protecting human rights
• pursuing non-violent ways of dealing with conflicts
• ensuring that the basic needs for shelter, sustenance and well-being are met for as many people as our abundant environment is able to provide.

Some would say that these ideals are utopian, unrealistic, impractical, impossible. Perhaps, even probably, they are correct, from a certain point of view. But that isn’t really the point. We all have to make choices in this life as to what priorities we choose to pursue, and I’m proud to be associated with the members of IGE who have aligned themselves with these principles. I believe that whatever the prevailing political sentiments may be, whatever pundits and commentators may have to say about the “mood of the voters” as judged by the outcomes of our recent elections, IGE is on the right side of the issues.

Our hearts and our solidarity are aligned with the common people of the world, and with the trends and philosophies that will lead humanity to a more positive and peaceful future. We stand for the right things, even if they are not always the popular things.

Let’s not be naïve about it though – if we want to make an impact on our culture, if we want to support the development of a society that can live in peace with our global neighbors, we have a lot of work to do. We have many obstacles to overcome along the way. Our guest speaker tonight, Rev. Peter Dougherty, will speak on this theme of perseverance, and I’m sure that we will benefit from hearing some of the wisdom that he has acquired over many years dedicated to working for peace. Tonight will also offer an opportunity to learn more about the people who will lead IGE into our 25th year and many more to come, as well as time to reflect on the past. For now, though, let me conclude my words by encouraging each of us to envision what it is that we would like to see IGE become, and what we can personally commit to doing in order to realize that vision. Perhaps you have some ideas, questions or comments to contribute to such a discussion. There will be time later tonight to hear from as many of you as would like to speak. And whether you are a long-time supporter of IGE, or someone new to this organization, let me assure you tonight. Those of us who sit on the board, who’ve been entrusted to carry this legacy into the future, will do our best to enhance the qualities that have made IGE a vibrant community resource, and a much-needed source of inspiration and vitality in a hurting, fearful world. Thank you for your consideration of these thoughts.

CornerHouse Cafe

A new coffee shop opened just down the street from my house this week. This is a significant development for me - a nice nearby hangout spot where I can go for some quiet journaling, meet people, etc. I'm heading out there with my wife right now!

Ramones Raw

I picked up a DVD the other day, titled "Ramones Raw." A compilation of home video and concert footage culled from the pioneering punk band's 20 year career. I didn't even know it was available but I saw it on sale at SunCoast Video the other day and figured I should get it.

The Ramones were a pretty important motivating influence for me to get into a band myself back in the late '70's. Man, that seems like a long time ago!

Frequent, shorter posts

I'm now using the new Mozilla Firefox web browser and I've set it up so that this Blogger Dashboard page will be more readily accessible so that I will be able to update this blog more often than I have been. Not that a new browser can do much to make me more focused, but it provides something different enough for me to anticipate that I will change my habits.

Anyway, I've been getting emails and reading on websites that the election ain't quite over yet - that there are still plausible scenarios where recounting ballots could expose Bush's apparent win as either a blatant theft or simply short of the necessary votes in Ohio, after all the provisionals and recounts are run through with fine tooth combs.

I'm not really expecting much to come from that effort - but it could be interesting to see where it leads. The way that the legal and governmental systems have been managed by the Bush team leads me to believe that they will find a way to maintain their grip on power and that they won't really have to work all that hard to do so because there are a lot of compliant folks who know which side their bread is buttered on. My interests are more along the lines of engaging in cultural transformation projects - getting people to think differently on an individual level. That's where real change occurs. I'm not connected enough to become a power broker and I don't think that I will ever be good enough at that game to make much difference. So I will do what I think I'm better at, which is just engaging in discussions with people in various forums that get them to re-visit some of their basic assumptions in the privacy of their own minds. Where it's safer to begin challenging the status quo, to whatever degree one is comfortably ready to do so. From there, action eventually proceeds. But forcing people into enlightenment has never proven to be a winning strategy, for anyone involved.

One More Post-Election Post

Here is what I had to say to my fellow local peace activist friends on the WMJPC list, on November 4:

Now that we are in hindsight mode re: the 2004 election, I like many who oppose Bush am looking back a bit and trying to make sense of this long process we've been through. My dread of GWB goes pretty much backto the time when he first began getting press coverage as a frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 1999. Of course the 2000 election debacle, his verbal and intellectual ineptitude and his aggressive/regressive stance on so many issues have offered ample confirmation of my initial negative impressions of him as a political leader. Pretty much from the time it became clear that Bush would become the American president, I've been looking forward to the day that we would see him leave office. Obviously, our best opportunity to hasten that day has passed without success. Now we hear talk (by the winners) of a "mandate" and an even more insistent push to pursue an unadulterated right-wing agenda, aided by increased majorities in the House and Senate. The ailing health of William Rehnquist raises the likelihood of not only Supreme Courtvacancies but the possibility of a Chief Justice Scalia. We also have to reckon with the conviction of the neocons that their version of the Iraq war has won popular support, freeing them to take a more brutal approach to "settling the problem" of Falluja and other insurgent strongholds "once and for all." I could go on to list all of the other wrong directions that a second Bush term will pursue, but I think most of us already get the picture...

As discouraging as these prospects are, I am also grappling with the reality that a substantial majority of voters have enthusiastically endorsed this vision and rejected what I considered a "mild to moderately" progressive alternative put forth by John Kerry and the Democratic Party. One only has to look at the electoral map to get a sense of how geographically dominant the conservative perspective has become, and how unlikely it is for many of the political views espoused by the member groups of the WMJPC to gain widespread acceptance any time soon. This is not a very pleasant thought to digest, but it seems to me unavoidable. The Kerry campaign represents the political Left's best effort at pulling all the forces together to convince the American public that there is a better way than Bushism to manage our affairs. While over 50 million people agreed with that sentiment strongly enough to vote for one candidate to do the job, it wasn't enough to gain access to the office. So in terms of organized political power, we are on the outside looking in, and will have to deal with that for at least the next several years, and probably longer.

I am aware of the suspicions that many have raised about the legitimacy of the election results, particularly concerning the returns from Ohio and Florida. I've seen the word "Diebold" used as a verb to describe altering vote counts from the controversial touch screen machines that leave no paper trail behind. Voter suppression efforts in these and other battleground states have been alleged and may get as much substantiation as were the problems of the 2000 election. But we've seen how relatively ineffective the avalanche of anti-Bush media turned out to be as far as convincing Bush supporters that the president had engaged in misconduct. While it remains important to produce documentation of official misdeeds as they are discovered, our confidence that such evidence is going to result in changing people's minds has been shaken. How many more books, videos, magazines or websites are needed to convince the public that our president and our government are not working in the best interests ofthe common people? So at this point, for numerous reasons, I am not feeling very positive about investing much hope in the political process or appealing to our elected representatives to make the kinds of changes that we'd like to see. At the very least, a breather is needed. I don't advocate an apathetic or apolitical stance, but I just don't expect to see a widespread popular surge of support for our opposition to war or many of the other positions we take that run counter to the directions that Bush will pursue. Nor do I see much point in casting blame or indulging in sectarian infighting as a way of sorting out "what went wrong." I know that voting for Kerry represented a serious compromise for many of us, who overlooked aspects of his record or rationalized the concessions that he had made in order to become an acceptably mainstream politician to a broader number of voters. Given the final outcome, perhaps there are some who now wish they had voted for Nader or Cobb or someone else. I don't think that way - personally, I'm glad to know that I live in a Blue State. Both geographically and culturally, I'm feeling more Canadian and less American these days, and this election result kept Michigan in that enlightened, truth-valuing and life-affirming "region" that covers the Northern Seaboard, the Upper Midwest and the West Coast. If you don't mind indulging me in a bit of profane venting, let me quote our esteemed Vice President and tell the Red States to go fuck themselves.

There, I said it, and it felt good! :o)

And having said that, I have to wrap up this message and get ready to leave. Personally speaking, there is a lot to feel discouraged about at this point in time, especially considering how much better it would have felt to be celebrating a Kerry victory and seeing Bush humbled in the way that he really deserves, not in the smug way he claims to have been humbled by the election results. (Note I didn't say his"re-election.") I have tons of respect and admiration for people like Nancy and Linda who put such monumental effort into getting out the vote, and others in our coalition who continue to pursue the vision of peace and justice. We will have to find ways to continue this pursuit in the communities we live in and the larger-than-politics causes that we support with our labors, our finances, our talents and our prayers (for those of us who believe in that sort of thing.) Take the time to reflect, regroup and re-engage when you feel ready.

Now we at least have a better idea of what the cultural landscape for the next few years will look like. Let's get ready to celebrate 25 years of IGE and all the other good things we have to look forward to, all the positive changes that we can be in this world!

Post-Election Posts

OK, the historic election of 2004 is ten days past and I haven't blogged about it yet. I have emailed about it though, so here for posterity's sake are my thoughts on what happened:

(posted to PoMoXian group on November 3)

I was up 'til 2 am, back up at 6 am, have been in a training session all day (thankfully, a physically active, rec therapy training.) After all that, I'm feeing pretty invigorated, actually.

Yes, I am disappointed to see my preferred candidate lose, no doubt about that, but he still won my state (Michigan) which was all I really tried to effect, and I continue to believe that he was the best one for the job. More voters disagreed with me, but I'm used to that. The outcome of the vote has no effect on my own confidence in the rightness of my positions. Kerry is simply not the man that a majority of our fellow citizens want to see in the White House.

I'm ready to observe just how Bush goes about addressing the numerous problems that I and others believe his administration has created for all of us. And I plan to continue on with my peace and justice activist work as I would have if Kerry had won. Despite my regrets over the final outcome, I am glad that there was a relatively clear resolution, not just for president but across the board in Congress. I really dreaded the idea of a prolonged recount, accusations of cheating and all the bitterness that would have followed another scenario like we had in 2000. We came closer to that than I would have liked, but Kerry appears to have done the right thing. Falling three million + votes short doesn't put him in the position to try and salvage an electoral victory through litigation.

I do have questions for the Bush supporters though - just how bad does a president have to screw up in so many different areas before he is held accountable by the voters? What kind of changes do they expect their leader to implement in his approach to governing to make this second term a success? Will they finally be able to get beyond liberal-bashing as their response to the objections raised by people who are concerned about the effects of their policy decisions? What kind of consideration will be given to the strong concerns raised by Kerry and his supporters?

My sincere hope is that Bush and his allies will be able to brush some of the chips off their shoulders and start conducting themselves like the "grown-ups" they often claim to be. While I don't necessarily intend to give his administration a free pass now that they have a mandate, I am willing to concede that the Republican Party is clearly and indisputably the dominant party in American politics today and that Bush has been legitimately elected based on his perceived merits. That doesn't eliminate my sense that the 2000 election can be characterized as "stolen" but at this point, it's no longer an issue - the voters had a chance to correct the situation but didn't choose the alternative presented to them.

But more than anything else, I'm just relieved to have the election over and done with. I have a lot of other things that have been getting less than my full attention so now I can move my life closer to normal again.

That's what I have to say for now!

(Later that same day, also to PoMoXian, in response to some comments about the efforts of Sojourners and other "progressive Christians")

IMO what Wallis and Sojourners did in this election is just the beginning of what's going to have to be more fully developed in years to come if "the Christian perspective" is going to mean anything other than right-wing fundamentalism in the popular consciousness. I agree that Wallis is easily dismissed as a moderate or liberal by many of the Christian base voters who went for Bush. Wallis, like most of the theologians popular on this list, doesn't utilize the same basic fear motivators that pretty much drive the more conservative churches. No one is afraid that disagreeing with Wallis' teaching is going to send them to hell.

Likewise, I think that Kerry supporters generally speaking tend to be less fearfully concerned about falling victim to a terrorist attack, or if they are, they have concluded that neither presidential candidate is really able to keep them safer or minimize the risks in a meaningfully different way than their counterpart. Bush's supporters, however, really seem to take comfort in having him as their protector, their strong commander in chief, even according to some views, a kind of "divinely appointed shield" that we would risk losing if we voted him out of office. It seems quite clear to me that a lot of his support rests on people who subscribe strongly to the notion that Bush is president precisely because of his religious views and the fact that his supporters lift him up in prayer more fervently than do Kerry's. I see this as a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy - enough people believe it to help make it happen - even as I'm kind of astounded that this kind of belief really is as prevalent as it appears to be in a wide cross section of the country. I know that this is how my mom, my mother in law and many of my other relatives tend to view it. They may express it in different ways, but there is a calm assurance that Bush is the man that God has put in charge in this country at this time, and that his political
adversaries have a different, untrustworthy "spirit" about them.

It makes little or no difference how much scripture a liberal or moderate Christian might quote at these believers - they would say that most Kerry voters are missing the bigger points or voting in favor of unrighteousness because they love the darkness more than the light, and they are just trying to confuse the issues.

But I still think we have to articulate our theological message in political terms - by appealing to some motivator higher than base fear, suspicion or paranoia. It does seem like a lot of people are stuck there in some ways, religiously speaking, even though within such a view of life there is still room for warmth, joy, love, fulfillment and other similar qualities as long as one "plays by the rules" and doesn't challenge the status quo. I am confident that views like those espoused on this list still have a high level of popular support and that popularity is growing across the culture. It just hasn't grown politically dominant. Yet!

Going to Church with Al Gore

I love living in a swing state! Yesterday, the Grand Rapids Press carried an article announcing an itinerary for ex-VP Al Gore's trip to Grand Rapids as part of a get-out-the-vote effort prior to Tuesday's general election. He was scheduled to visit four predominantly Black churches in town today, doing a brief drop-in during their regularly scheduled worship services. I was intrigued to see what such an event would be like, so I decided to visit one of them this morning. My initial choice was Macedonia Baptist, the first one on the list, but when I got there, it was just before 11 am, there was no readily available parking nearby and I just got the sense that I should go somewhere else. So I went to stop #2, Brown-Hutcherson Ministries. When I arrived there, it was just after 11, the service had started at 10:45 am, and the choir was in full swing. I was welcomed to an aisle seat in the back row - the place was almost completely full.

So having never visited this congregation before, I didn't know exactly what to expect, but I enjoyed it all nevertheless. It turned out to be a fairly traditional worship service as far as African-American Christianity is concerned. The choir did a lot of singing, the congregation joined right in, the spiritual atmosphere was lively and uplifting, but not, in my opinion, stagy or overwrought. The music continued for a few numbers, then there was a break for announcements and prayers, but no mention of the distinguished visitor that I was expecting, then some more singing, even more full-throated than before. By this time, it was getting to be around 11:45 am. Gore had been scheduled to show up at 11:30 but I figured he would run a bit late, but just as I was starting to wonder if maybe there had been some change of plans, who should I see walking up the aisle but Al and Tipper Gore themselves, looking just like I remember them from TV!

The Gores strolled to the front row and took in a good portion of the singing, and then were introduced several minutes later by Pastor Moody. Al was given a standing ovation and proceeded to make a short speech that ran about 10 - 12 minutes or so. Maybe a bit longer. He indulged in some self-deprecating humor about the 2000 election and the humbling effect that no longer being a government official had on his lifestyle. He told an anecdote about how he and Tipper had once been spotted at a Shoney's restaurant in rural Tennessee and heard a muttered comment about "how far down he had come" by a patron in the next booth over. And when he referred to that same incident in a speech he gave later in Nigeria, it had been translated to the effect that reports emerged that the Gores were planning to operate a low-budget family restaurant! Which of course became fodder for Leno, Letterman, etc.

But that was just the chuckle-inducing warm-up, of course. His main point for the trip was GOTV, of course, and he basically encouraged those in attendance to think back on all that has happened over the past four years and to vote accordingly. The congregation expressed its loud vocal support for him and the cause he represented, and I was pleased to be able to share that moment with everyone else in attendance. I do believe that our country would be better off today if Gore had been named the 43rd president, but that argument is moot, I suppose. Coming somewhat into contact with the security bubble surrounding President Bush yesterday, and seeing how easy and casual Gore's arrival on the scene was, it seemed to me that as a person, Al Gore probably had the better run of it, but he had chosen to place himself in the nation's service and I regret that he didn't get the chance to do so, especially in comparison to the directions pursued by Bush since Jan. 2001.

These things happen for a reason I suppose, but who knows exactly how to figure out what those reasons are? All we can do is learn what we can from the past, and act on those lessons. The confusing aftermath of the 2000 Presidential campaign demonstrated how fragile democracy really is, even after all these years and how strongly institutionalized we all thought it had become. Each election is a uniquely American work of political art, so to speak, and we owe it to our neighbors and our descendents to make the experiment work to its best potential. Al Gore came to church in Grand Rapids, Michigan today to remind us that we all have to do our part.

Bush Appearance in GR

October is almost over with, it's been 3 weeks since I've entered anything here, but no one seems to be reading anyway! I won't bother catching up on recent events, other than to say I've begun a new job at Wedgwood and I'll probably describe more about that later. And I'm glad that the Red Sox won the World Series.

Today's main event was an appearance by President Bush in downtown Grand Rapids. I have been too busy in general lately, including working a hockey game at the Van Andel last night, but I made the decision to go out and protest the event this morning even though I felt more like just relaxing at home. Thinking it over, I simply concluded that I couldn't pass up the opportunity to make a final public statement this close to the election.

The WMJPC wasn't able to get any kind of a coordinated response together on short notice, so I just went down there as myself, without wearing my WMJPC t-shirt. Instead, I wore my Detroit Lions baseball cap and a matching blue pullover. When I got downtown to DeVos place, I quickly found a good parking place and jumped out to survey the scene. There was a medium sized crowd gathered, with the usual assortment of signs pointing out the misery and failure of Bush's Iraq policy and some seasonal commentary along the lines of "Boo! Bush!", "Bush is Scary, Vote for Kerry!" and "GW Bush: the Great Bumpkin" which I found kind of amusing (note that Halloween is tomorrow...)

I found some familiar faces and hung out with them, not having a sign of my own to carry. But I had a big piece of cardboard and some markers in my car, and after milling about for several minutes, I returned to my vehicle and made a sign that said "Middle Class Suburban White Guy Football Fans Against Bush." Yes, I know I have used that gag before, but it just seemed to fit the occasion. The pro-Bush crowd going into DeVos was definitely cut from the demographic that I represent, so I wanted to send the signal that the Republicans don't "own" guys like me as much as they'd like to assume. And the sign got me lots of positive response, people wanting to take my picture, etc. which is always kind of a fun thing.

I didn't get to see his motorcade either coming or going though. He entered the building from a different direction and though I waited for awhile, I eventually ran out of patience for him to make his departure so I left after about two hours of sign-waving and socializing. It was a fun event, not as intense or high energy as his July visit, or Kerry's own trip to GR a few days after he accepted the Democratic Party nomination. I think most of us are feeling a bit played out on the protest thing, at least for now. The real energy is going into the upcoming election, a much more meaningful event of course. But I'm glad I went, just to be a part of the movement to restore values and integrity to our government.

I'm feeling good about Kerry's chances on Tuesday. Almost enough to be surprised if Bush really does wind up winning. But anything can happen. I just know that no matter what, I and the other peace activists in our society have our work cut out for us. Investment futures in violence are still drawing way too many buyers.

Gary Dorrien

On Monday night, I worked the book table at a lecture delivered by Professor Gary Dorrien, who teaches at Kalamazoo College about an hour south of here in western Michigan. His talk was based on a recently published book, Imperial Designs, which offers a lot of documentation and analysis of the neoconservative movement in high-level American politics over the past ten years or so. Of course, the neocons are the primary ideological force that drove us into the war in Iraq, including among their numbers such key figures as Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Scooter Libby and many others who hold strategically important roles in the executive branch and military leadership of our government.

Rather than try to summarize the argument Dorrien made in my own words, I'll offer a link to an article he wrote covering much of the same territory, though here he gets more into theological interpretation of these developments than he did on Monday. Still, the second half of the article in particular consists of the same material he used for the lecture.

Dorrien is not a light or easy read, but I find his analysis helpful in both providing some needed historical context and giving us an inside look at the intentions and the playbook of the key figures that have been steering US foreign policy over the past several years.

Pearl Jam/Vote for Change Tour

Last night I was able to attend the Pearl Jam concert here in Grand Rapids, part of the Vote for Change Tour sponsored by MoveOnPAC.org. The objective of this tour is to generate voter support to unseat George W. Bush among the fan base of the numerous artists who've agreed to participate. I feel pretty fortunate to have been able to get in (for free!) by virtue of the fact that some friends of mine in the West Michigan Justice and Peace Coalition worked at a voter-registration table. I spent a bit of time there, but I was actually surprised to discover that there wasn't any space reserved for local political action or advocacy groups to promote their messages or announce upcoming events. I had brought along a stack of handouts promoting IGE, WMJPC, Peace Presence and other information that I thought was pretty much in sympathy with the political views embraced by MoveOn and Pearl Jam. But for the most part, other than the register-to-vote table, it felt just like any other rock concert.

Which isn't to say that it was anything less than a wonderful, glorious evening. I enjoyed the show quite a bit, even though I am not a die-hard PJ fan. Unlike the vast majority of the 20-something crowd gathered there. I only own one Pearl Jam CD, a triple-disc live set that was recorded in Pennsylvania on May 3, 2003. That show was the last night of their tour and it was (and still may be) the longest concert ever performed by the band. I figured it would be a good way for me to get a sense of what they are all about. It's a good set, lots of music, some great between-songs commentary and stage banter from Eddie Vedder, and I do see evidence of the charisma that so many of his fans are drawn to.

But since I don't have intimate knowledge of most of their songs, what they are about, the bands history, etc., I was more of a spectator than a participant. No matter. Pearl Jam are a great, powerful, awe-inspiring live band and I relished the occasion to be in a packed-full arena celebrating the raw exuberance of rock and roll music. This was a much different atmosphere than the relatively sterile and pre-programmed environment of the Van Andel Arena, where I've attended a lot of musical events over the past several months. (Check the blog archives for my reviews, going back to May of this year...) The DeltaPlex is a lot like the old warehouse-y barnlike arenas I went to back in the '70's where I saw bands like Queen, Aerosmith, Kiss, Ted Nugent, etc. back in their heyday. Vedder actually had some disparaging comments on how it was the most non-interesting building he'd ever played in, viewed from the outside, and the interior was even worse. But he said it wasn't about the space, but the crowd, and the crowd was fantastic. They really love this band, they sang along from the opening lines of most songs, they surged with excitement and enthusiasm as the music went through its various build-ups and crescendoes, and it's obvious that Pearl Jam are masters of working a crowd and giving highly loyal, smart, well-informed fans something to look forward to every night. They are one of these bands that never plays the same set twice and continually weave new cover tunes and obscure old numbers from deep in their back catalogue into every show. For the Grand Rapids concert, they played, for the first time ever, so said Ed, "Kick Out the Jams" by notorious late-60's radical activist/hippie outlaw Detroit rockers the MC5. I definitely got into that song, it was a real treat for me, probably the one song that I knew better than most of the kids in the audience. So that got me pumping my fist, and made me want to get more Pearl Jam recordings for my collection. It feels really good to discover a truly excellent rock band that I can dig into, learn more about and appreciate on a variety of levels - powerful music, right-on politics, anti-commercial instincts, artistic creativity and spontaneity, working class ethos, dedication, longevity, and more. Of all the groups on the Vote for Change Tour, I am glad that Pearl Jam was the one that chose or was chosen to play (for the first time ever) Grand Rapids, Michigan. It would have been nice to see Bruce Springsteen (who was in Ann Arbor that night, along with R.E.M.) and I admire all the other acts who got involved. But if we could only have one show on the tour, this one was the right one for this town, and for me personally, no doubt about it.

Here are some links to the Grand Rapids Press review and a PJ fan site that has the set list and perhaps eventually some other concert reviews. I will probably post mine there too.

September Wrap-Up

I'm back now. After a couple of weeks of not entering anything here, I'm going to try to pick up the pace once again. I dropped out of blogging partly because of busy-ness, but also because I get the feeling that no one is reading any of this stuff and I can see why. It's my diary and most people have many other priorities than catching up on the details of my fairly commonplace life. Though I think it's a useful, purposeful existence anyway, I don't make much of a habit of reading others' diaries so why would I expect anyone to check in regularly on mine? But if anyone wants to leave a comment and prove me wrong, please do!

OK, so here's what's been happening. My son Derek had a seizure on Friday, September 17. It occurred at the end of a long day for him, where he'd been marching in a parade and the high school football game. He'd also not eaten very much all day. But it was still very emotionally draining to see this happen to him again. He's not had a seizure since he was 5 or 6 years old, when he had a series of them over the course of several months. Even now, a couple of seizure-free weeks later, it still wierds me out to relive that moment when his eyes rolled back and he just drifted away from all of us for a few minutes, coming back a bit later, after 911 had been called and some concerned friends and relatives who happened to be at the house around 10 pm gathered around to see what was happening to our dear son. I could, but I won't, try to put in the words how much love and tenderness I felt for Derek at those moments. I love all my kids, but he has a special place in my heart, partly because of this sense of physical vulnerability that he's had since early in his life, but also because he has such a sweet, pure, enigmatic soul.

So we wound up going to the emergency room and going through some tests, deciding that overall he is probably OK, got over-exerted and underfed from the busy day and that as long as we or he keeps an eye on his food intake, we probably won't have too many more of these problems.

Moving on to other things. IGE and various peace/political/activist events have been keeping me busy, usually a couple of times per week at least. On Monday, I moderated a workshop on draft awareness, military service and conscientious objector status at Grand Rapids Community College. We've also had the regular WMJPC meetings and some rearrangement of furniture and office space at IGE. Tonight, Cate Edwards (daughter of VP Candidate John) is appearing at the Wealthy Theatre where the first Kerry-Bush debate of 2004 will be broadcast on a big screen. I'd like to go, but Julie would rather have me stay home so I will. But we will watch the debates and hopefully have some fun with it. On Sunday, I am hoping to work at the Pearl Jam concert at the Deltaplex, part of the Vote for Change tour sponsored by MoveOn.org, but I'm not certain that I'll be able to get in. WMJPC is supposedly going to have a table there but I haven't heard of any definitive plans. Gotta check with Jane about this. The next night, Monday, I will be working the book table at a lecture given by Gary Dorrien on his new book, Imperial Designs. Tuesday is the IGE board meeting and Thursday, IGE is hosting an open forum talk on the presidential election and what's a peace activist to do in choosing between Kerry, Nader, Cobb or some other alternative? And I think that pace may continue up until the election, and then who knows what kind of madness we'll be dealing with after that?

And now we've resumed working at the Van Andel Arena (I was at the Phil Collins concert, the Professional Bull Riders competition and the Ringling Brothers-Barnum & Bailey Circus over the past two weeks.) We're signed up for a Detroit Pistons exhibition basketball game, and a Cher/Village People concert in November, and there are a lot of Griffins games that I could choose from too, but we'll see. Most are on Friday nights and I might want to do other things...

I won't even get into work stuff here, but there's a lot going on. Mostly good/manageable, but there are some thorny and potentially wrenching/emotional situations going on with a few of our staff that I will need to help resolve.

It's dinner time, I'll link this stuff up later!

David Cobb, Presidential Candidate

I got the chance to meet a presidential candidate, up close and personal today, though only for a few minutes. He's David Cobb, put forth by the Green Party to lead our country as the President of the United States of America. He did a short campaign stop in downtown Grand Rapids today, more a media event than a large rally. By the time I got there, which was close to wind-down time, there were only a few bystanders present, as well as media reps and cameramen. Not a very big deal from all appearances, but the fact is, Cobb is a bonafide candidate on many, maybe most state ballots, and I got to shake his hand and also get in some pictures with him, which I will try to get a copy of and post here at a later time. His website has a lot more information about him than I can say - I mainly went because my friend Jane, who is a dedicated Green Party organizer as well as an ally in my work at IGE, helped coordinate his visit here and told me about it. I am probably a good potential recruit for the Green Party somewhere down the line, but for now I'm looking to stick with Kerry and give the Democrats one more chance (at least.) If they can't pull it off this time, in 2004, then I may just go Green for keeps.

Hijacking Catastrophe

I just saw a powerful documentary last night titled Hijacking Catastrophe which lets the words of Bush and his key players speak for themselves in demonstrating the injustice of the war in Iraq and the general conduct of American foreign policy toward the Middle East under the guise of the War on Terrorism.

From the website, here's the synopsis.

SYNOPSIS: Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire examines how a radical fringe of the Republican Party used the trauma of the 9/11 terror attacks to advance a pre-existing agenda to radically transform American foreign policy while rolling back civil liberties and social programs at home. The documentary places the Bush Administration's false justifications for war in Iraq within the larger context of a two-decade struggle by neoconservatives to dramatically increase military spending in the wake of the Cold War, and to expand American power globally by means of military force. At the same time, the documentary argues that the Bush Administration has sold this radical and controversial plan for aggressive American military intervention by deliberately manipulating intelligence, political imagery, and the fears of the American people after 9/11.

Narrated by Julian Bond, Hijacking Catastrophe features interviews with more than twenty prominent political observers, including Pentagon whistleblower Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, who witnessed first-hand how the Bush Administration set up a sophisticated propaganda operation to link the anxieties generated by 9/11 to a pre-existing foreign policy agenda that included a preemptive war on Iraq.

Joining Kwiatkowski in a wide-ranging, accessible, and ultimately empowering analysis are former Chief UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter, former Pentagon analyst Daniel Ellsberg, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Jody Williams, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Norman Mailer, MIT professor Noam Chomsky, Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin, defense policy analyst William Hartung, author Chalmers Johnson, Army Special Forces Master Sergeant Stan Goff (Ret.).

At its core, the film places the deceptions of the Bush Administration within the larger frame of questions seldom posed in the mainstream: What, exactly, is the agenda that drove the administration's pre-war deceptions? How is 9/11 being used to sell this agenda? And what are the stakes for America, Americans, and the world if this agenda succeeds in being fully implemented during a second Bush term? (end of synopsis)

This film is similar to Fahrenheit 9/11 without the trademark sarcasm/satire/silliness of Michael Moore, which makes it less entertaining but also harder hitting and not so easy to dismiss (though some obviously will anyway.) It also won't rake in over $100 million. :o)

But if you get a chance to see it, or want to order a copy for $20 and show it to friends, I recommend it highly.