Volume 22

JULY 2005

22. 8: THE CULTURE OF INADEQUACY 7.30.2005

I have often wondered what the role is of “style” in human experience. Style really seems unnecessary. At first it appears to derive from an impulse to be different , and then it becomes something that many people want in order to be the same . Something gets represented as a style initially when it deviates from the norm, but then it become the style when it catches on. And then, of course, it must be replaced; it must go out-of-style . It seems that the prime function of style is to make capitalism work, that is, to provide innovation, the rather superficial innovation of appearances, so that new products (really old products in a new style) can be marketed. And marketing is the other essential ingredient in getting things into style.

It can be easy to associate style with innovation, as when, say, Giotto began to represent the subjects in his paintings as more realistic, rather than, the style -ized figures of medieval art. That was a change in style, but also an innovation. Now compare this with what has been called “hip-hop style.” You know, that's young kids who wear baggy pants so that they are just hanging off their hips (doing it well means that your boxer shorts have to show, and these have to be just about falling off so that the butt is partially exposed.) Hip hop means you also have to wear your baseball cap backwards, your sneakers unlaced, and well, you get the idea, nothing really innovative (perhaps even something regressive) is taking place here.

Way back in the 1960s I read a book called The Hidden Persuaders. It was about advertising and how it is used to get people to want things, things they don't even need. (I think I was interested in advertising back then but dropped the idea in a rare moment of moral attentiveness.) I wasn't interested in style, because it seems I personally have been, if mostly inadvertently but sometimes with unshakable resolve, mostly out-of-style . There was a period in the 1970s that I tried being in-style, with the result that there are some photos around that I would pay good money to retrieve. I never had much respect for people who just must have “the latest thing” what ever that thing is, just because it is the latest, not because they need it, or often even like it.

But I remain amazed at the power of marketing and advertising. I believe that the people who do this stuff (“Madison Ave types”) can get people to buy or do just about anything. Like religious authorities, they make people feel guilty, not that they aren't going to get into heaven, but that they won't be in style when then get there (assuming that “you [still] can't take it with you”). I have had very few quarrels with my lovely, wonderful daughters, but what provoked most of them was their purchasing of (first teens, then) women's fashion magazines with airbrushed models that were patently designed to make any reader feel like an overweight, badly-dressed, socially-inadequate,pimple.

Now each year the dieties of personal style convene in Paris or Milan to tell the idiots who simply must be in-style at any price what they are to wear. These “new line” fashion extravaganzas are like a convention of several casts of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and 5'11” tall bulimics that walk like they're trying to pass a DUI test. Soon thereafter the slaves to fashion will bare their midriffs (no matter how expansive), wear white boots (or is it black this year), or bell-bottoms, or hip-huggers, a hem-line that is either higher or lower than last year's, but generally doing what they are told. But “fashion” is at least fashion. It doesn't pretend to be much more than being novel for any reason other than being new. It's really much ado about very little.

Not so with the latest fashion for the young set, personal disfigurement. Tattoos—they're not just for drunken sailors any more. At least if you lay out too much money for some stupid outfit that makes you look like a bulemic who never purges wrapped in something made of mylar and feathers, you will be able to drop it off at a Second Ave. re-sale shop. Not so with that logo of your favorite heavy metal band that takes up much of your upper arm, that polychrome art nouveau vine crawling enticingly up from the seam of your buttocks, or the old girl(boy)friend name one your forearm to which you've you have added an obscenity. They are there pretty much there for good, a reminder that every time you aren't hired for a job that there are more styles than personal disfigurement. When clothes and hair styles change your skin won't.

A lot of style has to do with the presentation of self, with appearances. Plastic surgery has given personal appearances some “substance.” Not all cosmetic surgery is concerned with style, but big boobs were not the style in the 15 th century, the early 20 th century and they may go out of style again. When it is estimated that nearly a quarter of adult women have had breast enhancement, it owes a goodly percentage to style. Men who don't want to spend the equivalent of two day a week in the gym to acquire the Adonis physique currently in vogue can have pectoral (and other) enhancements, and/or exercise the steroid option.

There was a time no long ago when people wore the same style (sometimes the same) clothes for their entire lives. Admittedly, that may also have been a time when there was also not much change in science and technology that could improve lives. And that is the point here. Capitalism is not much interested in the difference between style and genuine innovation. It requires changes in style to advance profits, to engender consumption, because consumption means profits. The problem is that marketing necessarily blurs the ability of the consumer to discern the difference, playing a shell game that subtly inserts want where there is no need , style without substance, and elevates form over function. The end product is a compulsive consumer in a perpetual state of induced inadequacy, and whose prime social contribution is the yard sale and the landfill.

_____________________________________________

22. 7: IS ANYBODY THERE?: Metaphysical Musings No. 3 7.23.2005

I often imagine our prehistoric ancestors, sitting around a campfire, the scary night only yards from its periphery of illumination. Beyond, in the inky dark were strange sounds, calls and growls, and the spooky reflections of the retinas of beasts. I imagine that our ancestors knew, intuitively, but also by experience, that they were prey to these beasts, and that they soon discovered that one way of keeping them at bay was to offer sacrifice to them, to throw some joints of meet into the darkness, maybe, cruel as it may sound, sacrifice one of their own, and elder no longer of use, or a child (“there, but for the grace of God, go I”). The beasts were demons, in time some to become devils, others demanding gods. Seers, and shamans would emerge who would claim to know that the demons and gods wanted and who would interpret events as their will. Their ability to assuage the fear would become a great power.

We fear what we don't know. That's what got religion started in the first place. That's why we worship and pray, make sacrifices, prostrate ourselves before altars and statuary that represents . . . what? Something that terrifies us. So we create fables, or confabulate historical incidents into miracles and parables, because we need to connect our lives to something. So we get bibles and torahs and qurans and ridiculous books about the “end time” and the “rapture,” and then we grow afraid that if we are not acceptable to the priests, rabbis, mullahs, and pastors and others who pull their power from these myths, then we are not going to get the 72 virgins, the rapture, or will not spend eternity looking into the face of God, but frying our butts in Hell. We try to assuage the fear of the unknown with the fear of being excommunicated from organizations—religions—that are built of the hubris of alleging that they knows the unknown, and speaks for unknowable deities.

That's why religious institutions are ultimately about control; and nothing controls people better than fear. They need to make sure that parents plant the first seeds of that fear in their children, and then the nuns, or the madrassas , or the bible classes, prayers in the classroom, and all the other paraphernalia can pick up on it, whip it up, to the point where you'll do just about anything to keep that fear of devils and going to hell at bay. You'll pray and fast and tithe, and maybe lacerate your back with flails. You'll go to Jerusalem and carry a cross through (what is erroneously reputed to be) the via Dolorosa. I didn't do that, but I did go to the church of the Holy Sepulchre, and went into the inner sanctum and stood next to the sarcophagus that was supposed to have held the body of Christ for three days. I watched as some East European women dressed in black came in on their knees, hysterical, weeping, kissing anything that look like it might be holy. You might make a haj , swirling around the kaba and making sure that you perform all of the required acts, like stoning the devil, or whatever, so that you can be called “haji” and be regarded as “holy” in their neighborhood. Or you might dress up in a Hasidic silly suit, grow your sideburns into Shirley temple ringlets, have strings flapping around your ass, and wear a black Smokey the Bear hat or a phylactery box on your head at the Western wall. Or, you might skulk around women's clinics waiting for a clean shot on a doctor who performs abortions. People will do a lot of stupid, silly, and nasty things if they think it will assuage the fear. They will call it faith, but the kernel of that faith is fear. They say that the “love God,” but they are much better at hating what and whom they believe is opposed to what they are told God wants. They'll hate anybody who tries to breach the walls of credulity they have constructed to keep the fear at bay.

Then, of course, some of them feel that they can assuage the fear of the fate of their own souls if they get out there and win over some souls to their way of thinking. Never mind that for centuries they did this by threatening their “converts” with death, or torturing them until they would profess any belief. They wage wars, pogroms, inquisitions, whatever it takes to show others the “love of (their) God.” The fear comes to be represented in the form of the other faiths , the faiths of the infidel, the ones that are not the one, true faith . . Like most opiates there is always somebody coming along with one they claim works better. This is because the various infrastructures of power and privilege that are built on this foundation of fear are in competition with one another. They have been sending out their faithful, festooned with crosses, crescents, and stars of David to slaughter the infidels of other beliefs. They are doing it just as much, and as well, as they ever did it.

OK, I'm being ecumenically insensitive to several religions. But a lot of this stuff works . It helps to assuage the fear, and then the religious institutions have to deal with doubt. Doubt is that little nagging residue of fear than is sublimated, but not eliminated. Churches have to do a lot of what I call doubt management . This is especially necessary if the faithful begin to doubt that the institution itself is really the right one

Where did religions get this idea that God has anointed them as the one, true faith ? Would this wonderful God, up there, decide: “Oh, I think I will create all these religions, but only one of them will be the one that will win and get to spend eternity looking at my face. It's like a game, and will keep Me from getting bored, since I'm up here with all these boring saints. I'll watch them scramble around, fighting and killing each other, so that the winner from all the carnage can claim that they are the one, true faith, the only path to salvation. But maybe I'll fool them with a trick ending. This game is even more fun than the one I created where I make people of different colors and then watch them go at it over who is the best color. Nah, I wouldn't want to believe in a trickster God.

Benedict XVI can kneel at his prie-dieu with incense burning, Gregorian chant chanting, and inspirational frescoes by Renaissance masters inspiring, but he'll get no closer to God (maybe further away) than a simple priest, or just a real Christian, comforting a dying AIDS victim in the Congo. He doesn't know any better than you or I what is on the other side of death, if anything. Of course he can't show his fear; that would not be good for his job. He is the prime salesman of a form of immortality, of being resurrected, “saved,” joined with your creator for eternity. It's a heady promise, but you must cede him the power to control your life, you must follow his way, not that of the others, the infidels, apostates, and devil-worshippers. You must give him the power, power that is fashioned from your own fear. And you must give him your children, so that they in turn may be inducted, their fears nurtured and fashioned so that they will, unquestioningly, be willing to praise, tithe, and if necessary, march to the battlefields of Armageddon to defend the true faith. Throwing him a mere bone of propitiation just won't do these days.

______________________________________

22. 6: MADRAS ON RAINY DAYS, by Samina Ali, 2002 [BR] 7.20.2005

All novels have a bit of biography in them. But some are suspiciously very biographical. Samini Ali's biographical information – a Muslim Indian woman raised in both India and America – mirrors her central character, Layla in those particulars, and tantalizingly, perhaps more. But never mind that; such is the prerogative, perhaps the necessity, of a debut novel.

I chose to read this book because I am drawn to literary settings in places I have visited. Madras, on the Indian subcontinent lower eastern flank, is a port city I remember mostly as crowded and steamy, but with alluring beaches, and there was an unfortunate encounter with a crazy woman with a monkey. As it turns out, most of this novel is set in Hyderbad, with Madras reserved for a brief, but plot-turning episode. Never mind that disappointment also; the real journey in this novel is into the world of the Indian Muslim woman, a journey behind the veil and the ambiguity of the chador .

Layla lives in two world's, but in deference to her parents, they themselves with a Indian-American backgrounds, consents to a arranged marriage to an Indian-Muslim young man who aspires to himself go to American with his new wife. Typical of Muslim women Layla's local world consists almost exclusively of relations with women, her mother (who has been relegated to a “second wife” position by her father new wife), aunt's, and female cousins. Traditions, especially those related to the marriage, a process that take's several days, and the servile status of women in general and especially to their husbands, provide the dramatic tension of the novel.

Madras on Rainy Days confirms the fact that Muslim women have few choices in life; their main goal is to find a man, or more likely have one found for them, to marry and serve, the serving also involving breeding. Outside of marriage there is nothing but exclusion and suspicion. But for educated and more sophisticated like Layla, there are other prospects, perhaps not in India, but then there is always America. [1] Maybe this fall-back position is always in her mind, but Layla seems bent on being a good Indian-Muslim wife.

What might have been a tedious excursion into that world is made more interesting by Sameer, Layla's Western-dressing, motorcycle-riding husband. Sameer has already been compromised by a riding accident that leaves him with a gimpy leg he disguises as best he can with lifts in one shoe, but Layla overlooks that in favor of his tall stature and good looks. It may be easier to overlook in that Layla has her own “secret,” the pregnancy she has returned with from an encounter with her former American boyfriend. Despite these difficulties the marriage, rather the several days of marriage as is the custom in India apparently for both Hindu and Muslim ceremonies, takes place with yet another secret to be exposed. This last element requires some explicitness by the author in portraying the sexual relations of the newly-married couple.

As more of the Muslin world as been dragged through contemporary events the mysteriousness of that world has become more intriguing. Only recently have Muslim women had the courage or position to come forward with views into its more shadowed reaches, particularly that part obscured by the seraglio [2] , the chador and sharia . When it comes to the chador , or burkha an interesting observation is made by Ali: that rather than seeing themselves as trapped inside these garments, some women feel paradoxically “liberated” because they could see others, and yet not be seen by others. It is a curious notion of “empowerment,” but then much of the long-obscured women's position under Islam remains behind a veil of secrecy, repression and perhaps some self-denial.

________________________________________

[1] This novel was published in 2004, but perhaps written before the events of 9-11. The assurance of easy admission to the US has changed since then.

[2] See, for example, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Valide, a novel of the harem , !986, and Marianne Alireza, At the Drop of a Veil , 1971, about a California woman's tenure in an Arabian harem. Also worth reading is Indu Sundaresan, The Twentieth Wife , 2002

22. 5: TREASON IN THE OFFAL OFFICE 7.16.2005

If you have any Republican friends left (Yes, I do, and some of then might be reading this) and the very term “Republican friends” doesn't seem these days like a contradiction in terms, then you are well acquainted with the Republican predilection for invoking Bill Clinton's sexual misadventures in the Oval Office (they like to say “Oral Office,” a little bit of Republican humor there). They love to go on about that, which usually gets them into Mr. Bill's alleged “desecration of the OO,” as if a head of state never got head for state ever before in the OO. It's just that other heads of state never had such a big contingent of vicious, hypocritical Republican jerks around to pull a private, consensual sex act into the national plaza, publish it like pornography, and work it up into articles of impeachment.

The Mr. Bill thing comes up pretty regularly as outranking any other malfeasance that might be committed in the OO—not Dick Nixon's self-indicting tapes, his foul language, his fulminating about Jews with his pious pal Bully Graham, for example. Then there's Reagan's inability to remember anything about Iran-Contra. OK, maybe he couldn't remember, but what about his snoring? Nothing, of course about the bald faced lies and deceits of the current OO (now Oafal Office) occupant that has resulted in the deaths of thousands. That should take care of the other Republican rhetorical gimmick—that it wasn't the sex act itself, it was that Mr. Bill lied about it. He did, but nobody got killed because of that lie. Nope, for those die-hard right-wingers, Mr. Bill's BJ trumps them all.

OK, I think it's time we asked our Republican friends how they feel about treason coming out of the White House. Would the commission of an act that jeopardizes the security of the country out rank an act that compromised some marital vows and messed up a blue dress? Well that's what the prez's buddy and advisor, Karl Rove, has done. Mind you, a guy who once stole Democratic stationary and sent out bogus letters on it, among his other little tricks, is more than capable of picking the phone and blowing the cover on a covert CIA agent working on, of all things, finding out about enemy WMD! Might we be able to jump that one above Mr. Bill's indiscretions?

Rove is as close to the OO and the prez as Monica ever was (Hmmm, ya never know . . . ). Does Georgie-Boy know the truth about Karl's proclivities for getting after people and then lying about it. Yes, lying. Rove, rather than saying that “oral sex isn't sex” is attempting to say that saying Mr. Wilson's “wife” rather than her name, and then testifying that he “never said her name” is not really blowing the cover of CIA agent Valeria Plame. Sure, like the reporters he leaking this to would not be able to find out who is the wife of Joseph Wilson. Gimme a break! Does he think he's talking to a bunch of dorks from the Red States? Georgie-Boy probably knows, but he's too stupid to figure out that he might be able to protect his own lies, but Rove might be another matter.

Even the White House Press Corps seems to have been able to find their testicles over this one. The Secretary of Prevarication, Scott McClellan, was willing last year to say positively that Rove had nothing to do with outing Plame, which is against the law; now he says he “can't say anything about it because it's an on-going investigation.” That one sucks, and Scott's a master liar. But Rove might get snagged on a perjury charge; Scott will just go on to be a PR guy for Enron or a tobacco company.

This saga may have legs if only for its ironies. Sleazeball Robert Novak was the only one to put the information in print. He's running free, supposedly from some secret testimony he gave investigator Fitzpatrick. Judith Miller of the NY Times , [1] also got the call from Rove, but she's elected to go to jail, probably to protect her friends in the administration. The incriminating info (email) has come from Matt Cooper at Time magazine, who figures he shouldn't go to jail to protect a liar, or for whatever reason.

Anyway, there's a lot of lying going on, but will it supercede “I did not have sex with that woman,” or will your Republican friends go to the well once again. Yada yada, yada . . . yes you know, and they never, ever lied about sex , right . . .?

Maybe we should give our Republican friends something other than sex to think about. [2] For example they could help us to figure out what is it about OO (which is about to stand for “Oink, Oink”) that people who occupy it and their minions lie so much? Maybe it's the oval. Maybe we should give it a new shape. How about the Rhomboid [3] Office. Let our puritanical and hypocritical Republicans friends think about that for a while.

___________________________________________

[1] She was, of course, Ahmed Chalabi's little cozy up, and dutifully filled her articles with his bullshit about Saddam's WMD and helped Georgie-Boy get us into this mess.

[2] They only think about it, and then it's usually other people's sex they think about.

[3] A parallelogram with adjacent sides that are not equal, stupid.

22. 4: STAR WARS OF THE WORLDS: The Revenge of the Metaphors 7.13.2005

It has to be no great revelation that sci fi flicks about aliens must really be about the abiding problem that the human race has with itself – we humans just can't seem to get that tolerance thing working. Now War of the Worlds (not the Orson Wells radio version, nor the 1953 one with Gene Barry) is about to be released under the practiced alien eye of Steven Speilberg.

For years films about alien invasions tended to regard our extraterrestrial visitors as unwelcome guests. Dozens of them had the simple plot of aliens bent on conquest that had to be vanquished with the assistance of some military or technological device. Movie audiences became inured to the response to the first citing of an alien was to kill it, like some unwelcome bug you found in the shower. There were exceptions, some of them thoughtful, and I had favorites, such as The Man from Planet X , and a British film whose name always escapes me, but is about a curious vessel found in the London that was apparently used by a “civilization” of insect-like creatures who became extinct from endless wars. But most sci fi alien films have been unimaginative and stupid, with aliens that are typically bi-pedal and our size and, of course, spoke English.

The latest version of the H.G. Wells classic represents something of a sea change in Steve's approach to exobiology. I'd like to be able to get into Steve's head because he's the guy who really got the cuddly alien phase going with Close Encounters of the Third Kind , in which cuddly Richard Dreyfus gets to go off somewhere with cuddly almond-eyed aliens with long skinny arms and oversized heads. He also did ET , the stuffed animal version of cuddly alien with over-sized eyes in over-sized head (but that one had one heck of a finger). Now, he's reverting to the really Alien alien thing—nasty buggers that want to eat us and destroy our planet before we get a chance to complete the job.

The Alien series truly deals with out inter-species problem; hence it is more ecological in its implications. It is basically a throwback to The Lost World , where humans end up contemporaries of T-Rexs, which of course is reprised with a more sophisticated premise in Jurassic Park . The question of whether humans can or want to co-exist with velociraptors is essentially one addressed by human ingenuity, or technology. But then you can guess what the answer to that one is by watching an Orkin commercial. “It's us or them. ZAP the bastards!”

For a lot of this we have Steve and George to thank; two talented adolescents who are rich enough to indulge their sci fi fixations and get even richer doing it. Lucas's space critters are not quite as cuddly as Spielberg's; they have weird appendages, drool a lot, can be ornery, and often untrustworthy and fat. One is definitely gay and looks like a cross between a camel and Barney the purple dinosaur. So Lucas's aliens are just like us, a rather unpleasant sort if I may indulge my misanthropic mood.

If Lucas weren't so devoted to his series—and I think that he and a couple hundred pimple-pussed teenagers may be the only ones left—I would offer the notion that the title of his last Star Wars, The Revenge of the Sith actually contains an anagram in the title. Is it really SITH ? What would George do without war? Well, something much better, actually, like his much earlier (and cheaper), and deeper, THX 1138. Speilberg seems to have taken the metaphor that we can all live together (except that ET really wants to go home, and you can't blame him.) Lucas takes the other approach—would you want one of those drooling creatures in that bar dating your sister?

I just finished watching on TMC It Came From Outer Space, a Ray Harryhausen-effected 1950s version of the war of the world's genre. Flying saucers with goofey-looking Pillsbury Dough Boy looking aliens wanting to take over the earth, but their saucers are undone by a scientist who makes a weapon that screws up their gyroscopes and they crash into obvious models of the Capitol Building, The Washington Monument and other government buildings. This is an early version of Independence Day, metaphor for “we hate our government and this is how we metaphorically trash it.” Of course, these all owe allegiance to that masterpiece of the sub-genre, The Day the Earth Stood Still . What better admonition for our nuclear proliferation than an Englishman (Michael Renne) from another planet telling us to get out act together or he will have his robot, Gort, fry the whole shebang.

In the 1970s something else showed up—alien abductions. And I really want to know what's behind this phase. People were whisked away from dark roads and crop circles to space ships where aliens always seemed to be poking around their genitals. What was that alien fascination with our genitals? I didn't notice any genitals on those little gray critters that Speilberg came up with; maybe they're envious of ours. Does it have something to do with the fact that these abductions seemed to arrive about right about the time we junked Freud for Valium? Just a quick hypothesis for any psych students out there in need of a thesis topic. Anyway, that bit of self-abuse seems to have abated for the time being.*

Are alien science fiction films really all metaphor for our endless problems with race and immigration? Sometimes I think that everything is a reflection of our problems with race and immigration and that the only way to solve it is if every variation in humankind had its own planet well separated from other planets by vast reaches of space. Then the universe could quietly go from the Big Bang in over a few billion years a well-deserved implosive end that could be called The Big Bore.

Part of the War of the Worlds premise is that we humans might only be able to tolerate each other when we are threatened by an alien enemy. Only then might we stop being Serbs and Croats, Greeks and Turks, Israelis and Palestinians, Sunnis and Shiites, etc. A common enemy might “teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.” We need evil aliens that come with their flying machines to destroy our precious buildings, and kill or enslave us. Only then can we form “coalitions of the willing” to save our earthly culture and vanquish the alien evil. Bring those ugly buggers on!

Yah, sure.

Klaatu Barada Nikto

______________________________________

*Although I must admit to a fantasy of dressing up in an alien costume and abducting Angelina Jolie.

22.3: THE GOSPEL OF JUDAS , by Simon Mawer, 2001 [BR]

The true believer has a relatively easy time of it. Unshakable, uncompromising faith, buttressed by the congregation, and the authority of dogma, relieve the credulous of much heavy intellectual lifting. The apostate, in a world of true believers, can seemingly never rest. It is hard work to prove, even to oneself, what is not there really isn't there .

Many years ago I stumbled on an obscure paperback in the bowels of an English bookstore in Rome's Piazza di Spagna. It was titled The Jesus Scrolls , by Donovan Joyce. We were staying in Rome for several days, the perfect place to read a book that offered studies and plausible hypotheses that composed a quite different version of the life and death of Christ than I had drummed into me during many years of Catholic education. It introduced me to a whole “literature” that I subsequently too up with relish, and which I, too eagerly, expounded to family and friends with the annoying intrusiveness of a “convert.” These books, such as The Passover Plot , by Hugh Shonfeld, were works of non-fiction, but it was often the freedom to speculation and imagination offered by fiction that had as much a ring of plausibility.

The RC Church seems to attract most, if not all, of the narrative speculation about the existence of evidence that might bring this elaborate confabulation of dogma. Liturgy, money and power to its knees on something other than genuflection. It's a tempting target, much more so than the decentralized and far less interesting Protestantism with its myriad manifestations from High Anglicanism to low circus tent Revivalism. Protestantism is not one of the “great” religions; is a “Johnny-come-lately” cheap imitation. Catholicism did all the heavy lifting in Christianity.

Mawer's The Gospel of Judas therefore is one of a genre composed of both fictional and non-fictional accounts that question that of the New Testament. Richard Ben Sapir's The Body , for example, revolves around the possibility that humans remains found in a sarcophagus in Jerusalem might be those of Jesus Christ, hence so much for the resurrection. The Jesus Scrolls has Christ surviving the crucifixion , perhaps by design (that sponge of gall might have been powerful drug, for example), as does The Passover Plot , and ending up with a group of Essenes until eventually committing suicide with the other occupants of Masada during the Roman siege. Such accounts, of course, challenge the notion of Christ's “resurrection.” The very lynchpin of Christianity! Prove that one and there will be moans heard from the Vatican to Chuck's Church of Risen Christ and Monster Truck Repair of El Cajon, California.

All of the findings of Qumran, and other niches of scrolls around the First Century C.E., dusty, crumbling rolls of papyrus in Hebrew or demotic Greek present a tempting hook for novelists to hang a “what if the New Testament isn't the only existing account. Mawer has, of all people, Judas writing a gospel (which really isn't “good news” for the Church) in which Iscariot claims that the Master did indeed nor only die, but that the body suffered putrefaction like any human body. It will be recalled that Judas was supposed to have hung himself right after the crucifixion, unable to bear his shame and guilt, not pick up an pen and write and eyewitness account that, if authentic, would have pre-dated by some years the gospels of Matthew, mark, Luke and John, narratives that are not always consistent with one another.

Mawer weaves this into a more elaborate story of a priest in Rome who is an expert on such scrolls, and is vexed himself by that staple of novels about the Vatican, celibacy. This unfortunate homage to the priestly pulp of Fr. Andrew Greeley distracts from this readers interest in this title because the author appears to concentrate more plot and narrative depth to his protagonist's biography that what the “Judas scroll” might have had to say about Christ's. Moreover, it muddles the fate of the scroll and what its effect might be upon the Roman Catholic Church and upon the Christianity in general. Nevertheless, the Judas Scroll probably won't be the last discovery of a scrolled gospel, real or imagined, that might inform or entertain us about perhaps the most significant historical/mystical event of the West.

_____________________________________

22. 2: OH SAY, CAN YOU PASS . . . 4.7.2005

He passed, und proud of it. Ya.

Programming on NPR today quite understandably included segments related to the celebration of our independence. There were views of politicians and soldiers from Iraq, coverage of Bush's message, etc. One piece, however, caught my ear—the test that newly naturalized citizens must take before being granted citizenship and immediately being approached my an Army recruiter.

There are apparently 100 questions on the test and, being a citizen by birth, I have never had to take it. But I was under the impression that it had questions on it like “How does a bill become a law?” “Who is fourth in succession for the presidency?” and “How many toilets are there on Air Force One?” I thought it would be a pretty tough test; one designed to filter out people with trick questions like “How high was the fence you climbed over at the border?”

But no, the questions were real “gimmies” like: Who was the first president of the United States?” What are the 49 th and 50 th states to join the union?” “What do the stripes represent on the flag?” and “What is the fourth of July?” “Who was Abraham Lincoln?” On this last one there are supposedly six acceptable answers. Six! I thought he was Abraham Lincoln, 16 th president of the country. I would assume that “he is the drummer for The Rolling Stones" is wrong, as would be “he was the first Jewish president,” (Hmmmm, I dunno, he looked a little Jewish, don't you think?) and “he was the man who designed the Lincoln automobile.” But what do I know? I was just born here and didn't have to study for this test, which apparently is just an exercise in rote memory designed to filter out people with Alzheimer's.

Yet five to ten percent of those who take it fail; that's more than the failure rate used to be for guys named Mohammed taking a test for a pilot's license. Still, more than 15,000 people will become Americans today and some of them might end up teaching Political Science in a university your kid goes to.

I'm not kidding; here's the link. C'mon guys, Osama bin Dumbkoff could pass this test.

So, I'm proposing some new questions for the test. One's that get at whether people understand what America is really about. How would you do?

1.What is the “nukular option”?

a. how George Bush pronounces “nuclear option.”

b. one decision we might take to use our WMD to kill more Iraqis

c. a underhanded change by Republicans in the rules of the Senate confirmation process

2. How many Iraqis were on the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center?

a. five

b. nine

c. those A-raabs all look the same to me (if you chose this answer go directly to question No.8)

3. What do we mean by “Social Security” in America?

a. they give you some numbers and a little card

b. what makes you think we really mean Social Security

c. first you gotta get rich. A good way is to become a CEO of a large corporation (energy is a good business) and then cook the books a little, get the workers to put their pensions where you can get your grubbies on the money, set up a great “golden parachute” in case things start to go awry, and oh, don't forget to collect your nice little rich guy George Bush tax cut before you leave.

4.Where are Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction hidden?

a. in Hans Blix's garage

b. have we done a body cavity search on Saddam?

c. it doesn't matter, the rationale has been changed to regime change, stupid

5. How big is the American's government's deficit?

a. bigger than a bread box

b. about this big (use fingers to indicate)

c. bigger than it ever was and getting bigger every . . . (see, there it goes again)

6. What is “No Child Left Behind?”

a. a program to put better rear view mirrors on school buses

b. George Bush's excuse for sitting on his dumb ass in a kindergarten classroom for several minutes after he was told a second plane had crashed into the WTC

c. when you say, “Hey, honey, you seen Billy Bob, he was out play'n outside a few minutes ago and we gotta get to the monster truck ralley . . .”

7. What is the “Patriot Act”?

a. something like the Bill of Rights, without the rights.

b. another name for the Super Bowl

c. it's sorta like when you act like you wanna make people believe that you're a real American, not one of those liberal kinds of people who don't go to NASCAR races, and you put lots a flags on your pick-up or SUV, and those “Support the Troops” ribbon stickers on yer car (next to the little fish thingy that means Jesus liked to eat fish), and you act real proud to support our president, you know, sorta like that.

8.OK, how many Iraqis does George Bush want you to believe crashed into the World

Trade Center?

a. all of them were Iraqis

b. they were Iraqis impersonating Saudis

c. actually, one of them had a mother who was herself half Iraqi on her father's side (so we are going to declare war on Iraq and kill that whole family and the surrounding village and make America safe and secure and bring peace and democracy to the Middle East, and get gas down below two bucks so we can drive our Hummers and take up two parking spaces in front of Wal Mart and, hey, you want to be an American suckah? well, you pick this answer and get your ass down to the Army recruitment office. NOW!)

9. Should America allow same-sex marriages?

a. well maybe some of them will work out; the different sex ones don't

b. no, the next thing those liberals will want in inter-species marriages

c. is that a proposal? You're kinda cute.

10.Which of the following forms of transportation has wings?

a. an automobile

b. a ship

c. a tay- yaa -ra

[Hah! You answered “c,” didn't you. A tay- yaa -ra is Arabic for “airplane.” Gotcha Muhammad! You're next tay- yaa -ra ride is going to be to Guantanamo, you terrorist!

______________________________________________

22.1: THE LAW OF THE LAND 01.01.2005

This land is your land, This land is my land

From California, to the New York island;

From the red wood forest, to the Gulf Stream waters

This land was made for you and me.

How could the “liberal” (almost) side of the U.S. Supreme Court come out against the “little guys,” the homeowners of the City of Kelo, Connecticut [http://straylight.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/04-108.ZS.html], who whose flag-flying homes appeared on a 60 Minutes segment like a besieged little village holding out against the rapacious forces of capitalism?

How could the conservative (certainly) side of the court, dissent against the businessmen trying to revitalize commercial prosperity in a town suffering the ravages of economic decline?

If the there seems to be a bit of role reversal here—the liberals supporting the big guys (here being the City government and business), and the conservatives supporting the little guys, it's because land economics and law in America don't quite fit the usual political profiles. It often seems, when viewed historically, as if the law, when it comes to the way in which it relates to land and land use, is like a square dance always calling “change partners.”

A little background helps here. Strangely, zoning, the practice whereby government restricts what can be built on a parcel of land to uses determined to reduce problems like nuisances and conflicts, among other purposes, was first installed in cities not by socialists and liberals, but by private enterprise. It New York City, in the early years of the 20 th century, businessmen were concerned that residential development was taking up the best commercial land. So they pushed for zoning that would “regulate” land use and “protect” business interests. But zoning has long since been seen as a “liberal” idea, and in fact, zoning is under siege today in many places, always by the conservative vanguard for “de-regulation.”

Secondly, Zoning, and it's regulatory companion, Planning, were first pushed in American not by those regulation-crazy Democrats, but by those laissez-faire Republicans. It was Republican Herbert Hoover who, when he was the Secretary of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in the 1920s, who created the Standard Planning and Zoning Enabling acts for adoption into state constitutions. [1] Businessmen aren't stupid, they know that good land use can be good for business. They have a problem when regulations put the public interest ahead of their interests.

And that's where things start to get dicey. After The Great Depression and WWII the centers of American cities were not in such great shape. They were older, more run down, had minorities moving into them and middle class moving out of them (helped by the new Interstate Highway system). Downtown businessmen were soon losing out to the new suburban shopping centers. Liberals saw a need to build low cost and opublic housing, conservatives saw a need to revitalize center city commerce. Hence, the Taft, Wagner, Ellender Bill, (notice that its bi-partisan) to create Urban Renewal. [2]

But this wasn't just new development this was re -development; that is, government had to get the land together in sufficient packages to make urban re-development plans work. The cities, or their redevelopment authorities (usually with a lot of businessmen sitting on them) mostly acquired land by negotiated (fair market) purchase, but had the power of eminent domain in their pocket if needed. Eminent Domain is the state's power to “take” your land, paying you “fair market” compensation, for a “public purpose.”

And that's where things can get really dicey , because the city, using the state's powers, can take your bland to build a public housing project, but they might also want to take it to assemble a land package which would then be re-sold, or leased to a private enterprise, like a shopping mall. Now it can be argued that this is a public purpose if the purpose is to revitalize the urban economy, i.e., new jobs are created by the construction, new workers in the businesses, new sales receipts, and new property taxes.

And that's the rub. How you feel about the public interest and your private interests can depend on whether, as they say, it's your ox that is “being gored.” So now we should be able to see a little more clearly how this seemingly makes conservatives out of liberals and vice versa, when it comes to land regulation and land redevelopment. (I used to ask my grad students if they would shoot a guy who had a deadly, communicable disease but refused being quarantined. [3] )

But the “fear factor” can make a difference. Should we tremble? Not really. No businessman is going to come and get government to condemn your family home to build a McDonald's or a Wal-Mart if your property isn't a good location for his business. Businessmen don't do things for principle, but for profit. And if you property is worth something for business, they will probably make you a good deal, and you just might want to take them up on it (or hold out until you can really put the squeeze on them). Anyway, it is often the case that some residential properties are in areas in transition, on the cusp, so to speak, between residential and commercial. So it's usually a good idea to take their money and run for a quieter and cleaner location.

But that's not what made the plaintiffs in Kelo vs City of London sue to stay put in their homes—it's that they want to stay put in their homes, and they claim that their property is an unjust taking because it is not for a public purpose . The liberals on the court must feel that the city has to be able to take actions that will revitalize the local economy, which means getting together land for private enterprise. The conservatives on the court are seeing this as big, bad government picking on the little guy.

I'm retired from teaching, but I would like to go back one time and ask my grad student: In order to save the city from ruin would you shoot Justice Souter . . . or Justice Scalia?

Lock and load.

_____________________________________

[1] Planning and Zoning are functions of local governments, which are creations of the State, not the Federal government; hence, the Federal government can encourage the States to engage in such practices, but not force them. All the state do.

[2] This became law in the Housing Act of 1949 and the Housing Act of 1954 (as amended). Note that the Federal government cannot itself engage in urban renewal, although conservatives sometimes portrayed it that way to scare people and create opposition to its usage (successfully in places like Indianapolis and San Diego, for example). But the Feds made it enticing by picking up part of the bill for acquiring (usually by negotiated purchase) the land for redevelopment projects.

[3] The usually recommended that they would get somebody else to kill him. Remember, my students were going to become bureaucrats.