On Target

From over at DED Space, here's another reason why you should give your money to Target and not Wal-Mart --

I mean besides the fact that Target has cooler stuff and gives (some) of its money to the Democrats. (It gives some to the Rethugs, too. But Wal-Mart gives all theirs to the Rethugs, no shock there.)

The whole post is worth reading, so go read it, but here's the excerpt that got me:

This holiday season, Target has come under fire for strictly enforcing its "no solicitation" rule at its stores: The Salvation Army has been banned. That is fine with me, since I refuse to let gay-hating bigots handle my money. But it has incensed some of the Christian crowd. Target, to its credit, has stuck with its policy.

Naturally, stepping in to take advantage of the Christian Right's pique, is Wal-Mart, which has promised to provide matching funds to the Salvation Army. Better they should provide a safe working environment, stop union-busting, pay women equal wages, quit bullying their vendors, and honor their disability policies, but who cares about those things when you can work yourself up into a righteous Baby Jesus-inspired lather?

Meanwhile, Target has quietly provided the salaries for two Minneapolis Police Department cold case detectives for 2005. The cold case file is always the first to go when funds get tight, and Minneapolis is no exception. I'm not keen on a corporation doing what the government should be doing, but at least the detectives will be there next year, and since corporations escape paying a lot of taxes, I suppose it all works out.

(My emphasis added, since I emphatically agree.)

http://dedspace.blogspot.com/2004/12/wal-mart-our-lord-and-savior.html#comments

War Crimes

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Christmas Wishes

Took the kid to wander the mall today, mainly to get her out of the house, the mall in Fort Smith being nearly useless.

We met one of her teachers there, working at the candy store. Ah, America: that amusing place where teachers are paid so well they have to take minimum-wage jobs working over their luxurious holiday breaks. This is an outstanding, highly-trained teacher, by the way, one of the best I have ever met: working at a candy store on her ten-day Christmas break.

That was depressing enough, mind you, but a bit down the way I ran into something that knocked the wind right out of me.

Here in Fort Smith the mall has a tradition. It puts up these artificial Christmas trees, and schools and businesses from all over the community “adopt” trees and decorate them. All very cheery and sweet.

The kid and I were walking around admiring them. She likes Christmas decorations. She liked the trees with rainbows on them, and the ones with sparkly candy canes, and the ones with bookmarks done by cancer patients from the hospital, she thought that tree was cool too.

We came to the tree done by the elementary school out near Fort Chaffee.

It was decorated with American flags.

Someone had had the bright idea to have the kids write their Christmas wishes for the country on these American flags, using white stripes of the flags for lines.

I’m guessing what the teachers were expecting, maybe, were heart-warming patriotic messages. And there were a few of these: “I wish everyone in America would have a very good Christmas!”

And “I wish America would be a strong and Happy Country.”

But mostly, and overwhelmingly, the children had written things like this:

“I wish my brother would come home from Iraq. I hope he doesn’t die there.”

“I wish the war in Iraq is over soon. I wish my daddy comes home.”

“I wish the world wouldn’t have wars. I wish we could have peace.”

And this one, which just killed me:

“I wish my cousin wasn’t dead. I wish their never was a war in Iraq.”

The kid asked me what the flags said. “What’s that one say? What’s that one say?” she demanded.

“They’re wishing there wasn’t a war,” I said, and said, “Come on, let’s go buy some candy.”

Damn that Bush.

Earthquake

This is awful -- an 8.9 on the Richter scale earthquake, though it was the resulting tsumais and tidal waves that have killed so many: nearly 12,000 dead so far, and plenty still missing. Nearly a million people affected altogether.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/26/international/asia/26cnd-quak.html?hp&ex=1104123600&en=0ea28c971eb1c23a&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Voting With Their Feet?

This (http://www.escapeartist.com/EFAM_Special_Supplement/Special_Supplement.html) is obviously an advertisment, not an actual article -- yet I've seen it on more than one blog already. A few people are taking it seriously. (Not all of them are blogs I take particularly seriously, mind you -- one is our old buddy Vox Day (http://voxday.blogspot.com/) --

The gist of the article is that more and more young, educated, talented Americans are voting with their feet: expatriating. Taking their brains, talent, and money and leaving the country. Buying land and businesses in "Australia, Panama, the Dominican Republic, New Zealand, Canada, Argentina, Costa Rica, [and] Belize."
Why?

Vox Day thinks it's taxes. As he says, "The Internet is destroying the ability of national tax authorities to prey on those stuck living where they work," though I''m not sure what that has to do with the case in point, since what we're talking about is people moving away, not people investing in foreign countries.

The guy writing the article thinks it's Bush's re-election. As he says, "Everything we sell and promote, from relocation reports to offshore seminars has doubled in sales volume since the Bush reelection."

I know a lot of academics who have been talking, since the Bush re-election, about teaching jobs in New Zealand and Canada and England -- and I know a few who are actively looking. I don't know how serious the brain drain actually is yet.

I know I'm not going. This is my country. It doesn't belong to Bill O'Reilly or Rush. If we leave, it does belong to them.

On the other hand, well, if a significant portion of our talented folk do vote with their feet, that's not a good thing.

And if the allegiance to ignorance and repression that Bushco and O'Reilly and Rush's crowd seem committed to is driving our brightest and most talented away, shouldn't someone besides Vox Day and some guy running ads be noticing that? Doing a story on that?

Be nice if we had a functioning media in this country, wouldn't it?

I mean, I know the SEIGE ON CHRISTMAS is a lot more exciting, but hey...

Washington Post And the Christmas Seige

Here's an article from the Washington Post, attempting to be all fair and balanced -- cites both the ACLU and the ADF on the Great Christmas Seige.

(You'll remember the ADF as the charming folks who sued the school two days before Thanksgiving, the one that they claimed "banned" the Declaration of Independence? When actually the school principal just objected to a fundie teacher using the classroom to preach the word of Christ to his third-graders?)

Anyway, according to the article, the Far-Right religious folk claim to feel "that traditional values are under attack from all different angles," according to Erik Stanley, chief counsel for the Liberty Counsel -- and that's why they've started this seige on Christmas fuss, not to mention the gay-marriage protests, and the hard-core press against evolution being taught in the schools.

Because not-teaching evolution is a traditional value. I guess.

Or maybe ignorance is?

Also from the article:

"Those on the other side of these battles say the Christian groups are wildly exaggerating the threats from a phantom enemy for the purpose of mobilizing evangelicals to contribute funds (some groups are explicitly using the Christmas issue to raise money) or to become politically active. On the Christmas fight, the American Civil Liberties Union, the group most often cited as the enemy of traditionalists, says it has not filed a single case blocking Christmas displays this year and cites half a dozen instances over the past year in which it has fought on the side of more religious expression."

The article goes on to say:

In the case of secularizing Christmas, it is more difficult to demonstrate a widespread threat.

"It's very convenient for Christians to say the culture has changed and they've lost power, but Christians have never been stronger politically," said Marci A. Hamilton, who teaches at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York and has written a book, "God vs. the Gavel: Religion and the Rule of Law."

She said the threat to Christmas "is not secularization, it's pluralization. The law doesn't say Christian symbols have to be taken out of schools, only that it can't only be Christian, it has to be pluralistic."

The conservative groups agree there have been no recent legal cases limiting religious expression. [Conservative] Liberty Counsel's Stanley said threats to Christmas have not jumped this year. "I think the response to those threats are increasing," he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23279-2004Dec23?language=printer


(My emphasis added.)

So there is no seige on Christmas -- there's a Far-Right movement to invent a bunch of noise to make it sound like there's a seige on Christmas.

Why isn't the media doing a story on that?

That Was Charming

We made a valiant attempt to get to New Orleans for Christmas, so the kid could do the Christmas thing with her grandparents, but first a giant exciting snow and ice storm hit Northwest Arkansas, putting about two inches of ice on the highways -- and, interestingly, in Arkansas? When that happens? The state police don't close the roads.

They leave them open.

Just to see what happens, I guess.

Maybe to thin the herds a little?

Maybe because this is one of those states where it's Bubba's right to do whatever Bubba wants to with the SUV Bubba bought with Bubba's own money?

Hell if I know. All I know is there we were, eleven o'clock at night, in seven degree weather, driving on the only road going into Jacksonville, Arkansas* that was still not blocked by an overturned SUV, semi truck or multi-car pile up ---

And this road was Highway Five.

A scenic route.

With cliffs.

And trees.

And mountain overlooks.

And did I mention the two inches of ice?

We did, in fact, reach Jacksonville alive. But I might never recover. And the kid said, afterwards, very quietly and politely, "That was a scary drive. Those trees looked like zombie trees to me."

We were stranded in Jacksonville for two days, and have just returned to Fort Smith on Christmas Day -- we thought about trying to reach New Orleans today, until we turned on the weather channel this morning to find it was now snowing there.

In New Orleans, BTW, when that happens? The state police close the roads.

Pretty funny when the police in New Orleans are the sharp ones.


*Where I had earlier, eight hours earlier, via cellphone, nabbed the last unreserved hotel room in a sixty mile vicinity

Bill's Talking Again

So I was waiting for House to start -- if you haven't caught it yet, that show House on the Fox network, Tuesday nights before NYPD Blue is a lot of fun, mostly because (a) the main character, Dr. House, gets to be so wittily insulting to everyone and (b) it's medical puzzle solving, so it's like a mystery novel and medical show, all in one tidy packet -- it does get all heart-warming at least once in every episode, I have to warn you, but you can do what I do and go get some ice cream during that bit.

Anyway. I'm waiting for House to start and I'm skimming through the channels looking for something to watch and I notice Bill O'Reilly's on. Well. Here's my chance, thinks I. How long can I take?

About six minutes, as it turns out.

He's got this really shiny guest on. A Christian writer who has written some tome about how if you think positive Jesus will give you a shiny life, and lots of money. Or something like that. I'm not sure, because Bill wouldn't actually let him talk about his book much. Bill wanted to talk about how Bill couldn't do much positive thinking because Bill had to fight, yes, FIGHT against the evil secular humanists who wanted to change this country -- this country that used to love Jesus, don't you know, the way the Founding Fathers meant it to -- you know that's how the Founding Fathers wanted it, don't you? he paused to ask the shiny writer of the book about thinking positive thoughts for Jesus.

Gamely the shiny writer grinned a shiny grin and said yes Bill, of course Bill.

They wanted it that way for practical reasons, claims Bill. Because a population that's religious behaves better, says Bill.

Of course, says Shiny Jesus Writer, though, to give him credit, with some hesitation.

Now people, secular people, they want to change this country. And they're wrong and they're bad, says Bill. And they're coming after ME. And I have to fight them. I have to read the BAD EVIL things they write. So I can't think positive thoughts, the way you say I should. Do you think that's wrong? Counsel me! Counsel me!

What Bill is talking about is his great Christmas Crusade. Only, of course, no one is "coming after" Bill. No one's coming after Christmas, either, no matter what Bill and his buddies claim. This whole tempest is one of their own brewing. It would be funny if it weren't (1) stupid and (b) self-fulfulling.

Media Matters does a run-down on the whole thing here:

http://mediamatters.org/items/200412220006

I'd like to just ignore it, and to ignore Bill, and Rush, and Ann Coulter, and the rest of these yapping liars. But their lies become the world that half of America believes is real -- and then it is real.

The teen pregnancy rate thing is a good example -- ask most Americans what's going on with teen pregnancy. Most of them think the rate is increasing, and that it's higher now than it's ever been. The truth, of course, is that the rate is now lower than it's been since the 1950's. (See here for the stats on that: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0193727.html )

But the disinformation squad has been yapping their lies so long that people now believe we've got some sort of teen pregnancy crisis.

Same thing for the War on Drugs -- and Crack Babies -- and the "failing" public schools -- and a number of other issues. By feeding the public a steady diet of lies, key figures created crises that we still are dealing with.

Well, this soi-distant assault on the Christian religion is one that I'd prefer not to see succeed. I happen to like living in a country that has freedom of, and from, religion.

Oh, and by the way? That bit about the Founding Fathers? Bill's wrong on that one, too.

Heh

I'm not sure why this amuses me so much, but last night, while doing some last minute shopping at the Wal-Mart for guinea pig fodder, what did I see in the Christmas aisle but --

A Gingerbread Nativity Scene?

It was a Build-Your-Own Gingerbread Creche, complete with Mary, Joseph, a shepherd, two wooly sheep, and a cute as a bug baby Jesus plus a manger to put him in, also a stable. You and the kiddies build the stable, see, and then you decorate the whole thing, and place it under the tree and --

Well, eat it, I guess.

"I wanna eat Baby Jesus, Mommy!"

"No, I do!"

"All right, all right! We share in this house! Billy, you get Baby Jesus's feet, and Sally, you can eat His belly, and Cindy eats his head."

See, it's better than letting the kiddies build gingerbread houses at Christmas-time, right? Because you know what those represent, don't you?

Supporting the Troops in TX

This one is odd.

A North Texas soldier called up to fight in Iraq has had his son taken away from him and given to his ex-wife, because he's going to be out of the country, apparently, or because he's going to be moving around a lot -- or something. The reporter who wrote the story doesn't bother to make it clear exactly what's at issue.

What is it with these reporters?

http://www.woai.com/news/state/story.aspx?content_id=CC580570-C785-45A8-A52E-C63F6511E741

The reporter says it's got nothing to do with Iraq, that it's because in "recent years, Texas family court judges have been increasingly unwilling to allow children to be moved around the country by a custodial parent." But earlier in the story it was made clear that the kid wasn't being moved around -- he was living with his stepmother in Mineral Wells.

So it sounds like something else is up, at least to me.

Would have been nice if the reporter had bothered to find out what -- and then shared it with us.

Popular Culture -- Seriously

So I was over reading Amanda at Mousewords (a blog I recommend, if you haven’t already come across it – -http://mousewords.blogspot.com/2004/12/otherness.html#comments )

And she recommends someone named Susan Bordo, with a link (which in case you haven’t noticed I haven’t figured out how to do yet, create nifty links) and I hop on over on the link, which takes me to Amazon.com, one of my favorite places, so I’m reading about this Bordo person, and her book, and I get down to the review section, and I find that some guardian of our culture disapproves of Bordo’s books, and gives this as one of the reasons:

“if you take her pop culture writings seriously... you probably watch too much t.v., and seriously at that.”

I heave a heavy sigh. I think of entering a counter-review. Since I haven’t yet read the book (though I did order a copy) I figure it’s not kosher to do that. But can I just take this space to object?

Let me inject, here, in the interests of full-disclosure, that while my doctorate is in comparative literature, with my three areas of specialty being Greek, Roman, and World Literature, and my two languages being Greek and Latin, I have, nonetheless, spent the past six years working in the area of popular culture, and almost all of that in studying, yes, television. During very nearly all of that time, what I have gotten from the, ah, uninitiated is that precise reaction: "You study television shows? That’s stupid."

This despite the fact that the, ah, uninitiated, when I interrogate them, spend about half their lives watching TV.

This despite the fact that, when they’re my students, and I ask them for specific examples for any damn thing, the first examples that spring to their minds come from television shows. (Not, may I note, despite how much they all love Jesus, the Bible. If they knew the Bible the way they know The Apprentice, hey, maybe we would have a Christian Nation.)

So, yes, television is a serious area for study, and I’m studying it seriously. Why? Not necessarily because I like it, although I do like some bits of it – and in fact I do like the bits of it I’m studying (South Park right now, Buffy for the past three years) – but because it is, in fact, the most significant force in our culture. Anyone who doesn’t believe that isn’t paying attention.

Popular culture is our culture.

What else would be culture, may I ask? Does the person who wrote that comment think Shakespeare is shaping people’s lives these days? Or Mozart is?

Certainly some people listen to Mozart. Some people read George Eliot and Chaucer and line up at showings of Aristophanes. I’m one of them. Middlemarch is, in fact, one of my favorite novels on the planet. (Lois McMaster Bujold’s A Civil Campaign among my other top ten.) But most Americans? Most folks’ culture? It’s television slash movies slash pop music.

So yes, we need to be looking at it. And yes, we need to be looking at it seriously.

We seriously need to know why it is that so many American citizens got so seriously turned on by Gibson’s Passion. We seriously need to know what the texts and subtexts were in that movie – as opposed to what the dominate culture is claiming they were. We seriously do need to know what’s going on that so many other Americans are drawn to one kind of vampire film – the kind exemplified in John Carpenter’s Vampires – while others are drawn toward Ann Rice’s Lestat – and others, a third sort of Other – are drawn toward Buffy, and what exactly is going on with the vampires and villains on that show. Here, too, we seriously need to know what the texts/subtexts are – not what they’re supposed to be, what they actually are.

We need to know those things because the texts and subtexts of the popular culture are what form the culture. My students claim to be Christians, most of them. But, as I have said, not one of them could pass a pop quiz on the Bible. They couldn’t tell you anything Christ said at the Sermon on the Mount, or name six of the ten commandments. But every single one of them would make an A+ on a pop culture exam.

So, yes, we ought to be studying television seriously. We ought to be teaching classes in Buffy and the Survivor and the Simpsons and Sex in the City – you’re damn straight we ought to.

Not only is popular culture a serious field of study, I’d say it might be the most serious field of study happening in English right now.

I'm just saying.

Freedom of Religion?

Apparently only for certain religions.

Over half over Americans, it seems, think we ought to be restricting the rights of Muslim-Americans.

The survey, "conducted by Cornell University also found that Republicans and people who described themselves as highly religious were more apt to support curtailing Muslims’ civil liberties than Democrats or people who are less religious."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6729916/

And this is interesting: " Researchers also found that respondents who paid more attention to television news were more likely to fear terrorist attacks and support limiting the rights of Muslim-Americans."

Watching Faux News & Bill O'Reilly, listening to Rush, and going to church -- they correlate with making you anti-American.

Or at least ignorant about civil rights.

Pretty interesting.

Choose the Blue

Here's a site that tells you what companies donate to which party.

Just in case you're interested.

http://www.choosetheblue.com/main.php

I was interested to find out that both Borders and Barnes & Noble give lots of money to the Democrats.

What is it about being literate that makes you liberal?

Or is that question too easy?

Violence in the Media

A good editorial in the NYTimes today, by Frank Rich, about the failure of the media to do its job: which I do think is at the root of a lot of our current problems.

Of course, at the root of *that* problem is that the media's actual job is to make money, not be a free press. Not sure how we go about solving that, in a country where the true religion is capitalism.

Anyway, the thesis of Rich's editorial is that the country isn't, in fact, anti-Christian, no matter what Gibson, Dobson and Falwell and their buddies would have you believe -- it's just being reported that way by a media that is more interested in creating a professional wresting atmosphere, in order to boost ratings, than in getting at what is actually happening in the nation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/19/arts/19rich.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=

This strikes me as acurate: but, unfortunately, what then happens is that folk who are *only* getting their data from Faux News, Bill O'Reilly, Rush and Gibson and the ilk, tend to believe the version of the world they see presented to them via those venues --and, by believing that world, they create that world. Or so claims the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

That's what makes me nervous.

1984

Just in case you were wondering...

Bush wants you to know, when we're talking about war? We're talking about peace.

And we need to destroy the village to save it.

And truth is a lie.

In case you were wondering.

http://www.hud.gov/news/speeches/presremarks.cfm

(Via Fredrick at BeatBushBlog http://home.earthlink.net/~fsrhine/)