The Post in Which I Restore My Honor by Offering Glenn Beck an Apology

Wayne's World 2, in my opinon, is one of the most awesome movies ever made, in spite of the fact that it was written in a mere 90 minutes.

For those of you who have never seen it (or have forgotten it), the plot is basically that local cable TV show host Wayne Cambell is visited in his dreams by Jim Morrison and a naked Native American dude to host a giant concert. On mere faith, Wayne sets out with his cohort Garth to make Waynestock the most awesome event ever. Hilarity ensues and a couple of alternate endings later Aerosmith shows up! Hooray! The concert is a success.

Now, today was Glenn Beck's much awaited "Beckstock", aka "The Restoring Honor Rally". I seriously doubt, however, that Glenn was taking his marching orders from Jim Morrison and a half naked Native American. Nope, I reckon we need look no further than the big JC himself.

Was I watching today? No. There were more important things to do this morning (go for a bicycle ride, watch Arsenal beat Blackburn 2-1, play with my daughter, do some homework, etc...). But, I did see some of Glenn Beck's closing remarks and I watched his opening remarks as well as Sarah Palin's speech in the middle of the rally. I think I have seen enough to make a post.

And yeah, I owe Glenn an apology (notice now that we are on a first name basis!). I may have said he was going to float across of a bunch of silly ideas and I may have also compared him to Benito Mussolini, though I never said he was LIKE old Mr. M, I just said in that one picture he sort of LOOKED like him. That's all.

After this rally though, I think Glenn looks more like Jerry Fallwell than anybody else.

But first, the apology. Let's get that out of the way: Glenn, I am sorry. You are not Benito Mussolini. And the stuff you talked about today was not silly. Honoring our military and others who have given so much to this country is a very important and good thing to do. And on the surface of things, I agree with a lot of what you say. It would be great if we all turned to God and enjoyed the personal relationship with Him that you seem privileged enough to have. It would be awesome if we all found a guiding moral compass, patched up our wrecked institutions, decided a person's character is the most important thing, put on our tri-corner hats and made America great again.

During the entire event Glenn never exploded into a politcally fueled rage, he didn't so much as mention the president (the pastor who said the closing prayer actually prayed for him), and he even kept Sarah Palin reigned in, who's speech mostly focused on three war stories that showcase American Honor and on the fact she herself is the mother of a comabt veteran.

In this way, Glenn has heaped coals on all of his enemies heads. And while I don't consider myself an enemy of Glenn Beck, I am definetely feeling the heat.

Apologies done, I will say that there is still tons to quibble with, setting aside even the differences in theology. But I got two main gripes:

On the idea that this nation was founded as a Christian Nation I am still a hard sell. I think there is plenty of room for debate there. I would agree that many of our founders were Christians and I would also agree that culturally we were definetly Christian for a long time. But it can also be said that many of the founders were nominal Christians, deists, and something very close to atheists - Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson the most notable. Oddly enough, these are the three founders whom Beck has had painted (or did he do the work himself?) and can be seen on his show, emblazoned with the values of "Faith", "Hope", and "Charity".

You can also make the argument by looking at the documents that founded our nation. It's been a while since I read it (and I probably shoud do so again), but I am pretty sure our constitution doesn't mention God once, not even with a cop-out like "Creator", which is a reference to God but not necessarily a Christian. I would argue that in our founding Enlightment ideals were equally important to Christian ones, if not more so.

There are lots of people who would disagree with me on that, but that is where my reading of history takes me.

And sure, it's hypothetically true that maybe if we had been founded 20 years earlier, and certainly 20 years later, the founders would have likely gone ahead and made us a Christian Nation, providing the freedom to worship in whatever denomination you wanted. But for some reason (could it be divine providence?) we were founded when Enlightenment ideals were at their height, deism was in vougue, and religion was being challeneged by Enlightenment figures everywhere...cheif among them Thomas Paine, a guy Beck also likes to hang his hat on. But I don't like the argument of "Oh, if we had been founded here, then...", becuase as Ted Morgan notes in Valley of Death, playing the what-if game only serves to make history more palatable.

Yes, I am one of those terrible people who think we shouldn't be led in prayer in public schools or before or after football games and you shouldn't put up your nativity scenes or minorahs in the public square. You want to jot off a quick prayer to God before a test, asking that you don't screw up, and that later maybe that cute girl who sits two seats ahead of you will actually talk to you today? Go for it. You want to get together with members of the other team after a game and pray to God on the field under your own leadership? Fine by me. You want to put up your nativity scene on church property next to a road where people can see it? Cool. But the moment it is led by a public figure or actually goes completely in a public space, I vote no. And that is the way the law is read today by the courts today. You want to chanage it? I suggest you try to amend the constitution. I will campaign hard to try to defeat it.

So anyway, if Glenn Beck wants to take us down that road, I am not with him. A personal religious renaissance is one thing; making the actual State a Christian one, or even a theistic one, is out for me. The state must remain neutral in all qusetions of religion as much as possible.

Second thing: it will be interesting to see if this changes his show any. Beck says we need to get back to a place where character is the most important thing. If that is the case, he shouldn't demonize people with decent character who have arrived at a different point of view. There are plenty of liberals or progressives out there who are people of merit and character. He should stop calling them the Cancer of Our Society.

He should also stop professing hatred for certain political figures, such as Theodore Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson. Roosevelt, at the least, was a man of impeccable personal character and integrity. You can disagree with them all you want to, but stop saying you actually hate them. Hate, Mr. Beck, is not a Christian virtue, even the hatred of the dead.

Well, lets leave Glenn Beck in his post-rally state, which I am sure is one of satiated contentment. If he has any respect for our capitol or the monument beneath which he held his rally, he will pick up a trash bag and one of those trash picker upper sticks and get to work picking up all the refuse that his disciples have left behind. They may believe in Beck's 12 values, which do have some similarty with the Boy Scout law. But unlike the Boy Scouts, I doubt everyone at the rally subscribes to "Leave No Trace" principles and did a sweep of their area to make sure they left the Mall looking as beautiful as they found it. Glenn better hurry: there is a naked Native American dude on the way, and if he sees the mess everyone left behind he is going to start crying.

Another Quick Post

Hey:

I was hunting around for some info on Glenn Beck's "Plan" which he may or may not be revealing to America this weekend. I'm trying to prepare so that when he does reveal it I can counter with a quick response of my own. Much like quelling a zombie attack, the only way to stop silly ideas from spreading is to destroy them comprehensively and rapidly.

But I've been caught a little flat footed. School has started. Katy Perry released a new album. And I am restrained by meditating that no one is really reading this, so its likely that my rapid response will fall on deaf ears (or rather no ears, or eyes. Whatever).

So I saw this picture online. I admit, its not very flattering, but it reminded me of someone....



I will give you a hint. His first name was Benito....

Anyone for Tennis?

Somebody please play tennis with me. I was going to limit this invitation to my facebook friends, but I figured I will let the whole world have a crack.

There is a court right next to my house, which appears to be in pretty good condition. I got a racket that is gathering dust and a body that desperately needs the exerscise. I have a natural desire to be locked in competition, but from the safe distance that a tennis court and a net provide.

I am not very good, especially considering I haven't played in over a year. But I will try my hardest; it is all I ever do.

Actually, let me qualify that note on my quality: I am very poor at tennis. Never had a lesson in my life, never even really been in a serious game. I just like knocking some balls around.

And that's it I suppose. An open invitation. You knock and my door (address witheld), and if you a racket in your hand and a crazy looking headband we'll have ourselve a game, as long as I am not working on my class, writing a post, cooking dinner, doing laundry, playing with my child, etc. etc.

Oh, and you got to pay your busfare. I am strapped for cash. Otherwise I would join a tennis club.

I've taken this about as far as it can go. See you guys next time.

A couple notes on real life

Just a couple things I felt like sharing with you (and by extension, the world).

First, the English Premier League started on Saturday, and I am very excited. This is not a soccer blog, but I usually mention it when big things happen.

This year there is a lot on the line: my dad, brother and I have entered into a friendly wager: if you guess the winner of the league, the rest of the pool has to buy you the book of your choice (naturally, within financial reason. No first edition Austens or anything like that). Between the three of us we ended up picking the three teams most likely to win; Chelsea, Arsenal, and Manchester United. So one of us is going to lose. Come on Chelsea!

I didn't get to watch any games this weekend, but I am very excited to see that I will be able to watch some replays on ESPN360. Words cannot describe how awesome this is. Sometimes I think the internet isn't worth the trouble; but right now I love technology.

Second, for what its worth (and I figure its less than two cents), they should build that mosque (though isn't it more of a community center?) in New York City. Maybe the ADL is right, and the guys wanting to build the mosque should be a bit more sensitive to what they are doing and the passions they are arousing (at least I think that is there position).

I am surprised to see so many people who would argue that America is no longer true to its founding priciniples come out and argue against this mosque. And yes, I recognize the fact that at America's birth we were a Christian nation in practice if not name and that not every founding father was a Thomas Jeffersonish agnostic. BUT, like it or not, our constitution as it currently stands and as it is currently interpreted by the courts says that we all can worship as we chose (or not at all), and therefore there is nothing wrong with building a muslim center on private property.

Should Imman Rauf itemize his funders? I don't think that's necessary. If I wanted to build a church on the same sight, I probably wouldn't have to tell anyone who is donating to the church to make it possible (and those people very well may wish to remain annonymous). IF everyone in the nation is still to be treated equally (which again, our constitution as it currently stands and is interpreted by the courts says that should be the case), then Imman Rauf should be subjected to no more scrutiny than anyone else would who wanted to build a relgious center of anykind.

So there you go. You want to go ahead and change the constitution? Make us a Christian Nation? Go ahead and try. I'll vote against that wholeheartedly, becuase that is not what this country is all about.

And Newt Gingrich? If he is going to seriously run for office, he better stop demanding that Saudi Arabia start building churches building in their country. I mean, yeah, it would be NICE if they did, but that's not so much what they are about. We can't bend our principles on relgious freedom just becuase other countries have little or none at all.

Books You May Not Like -- The Crimson Petal and the White

I first heard of The Crimson Petal and the White while I was a part of the 36th Zombie Hunter Killer unit operating out of an abandoned mission in lower Mexico. Worst spring break trip EVER. We are on the offensive, huffing around the countryside looking for zombie lairs. Locals kept coming to us, babbling about a "Diablo rojo" that had cracked open the padre's skull like a ripe melon. Someone told us some crazy shit had gone done at the defunct Church's Chicken outside the village.

And there it was. A dilapidated Church's Chicken, one of the last monuments to a horribaly ill conceived international expansion by the minor fast food chain. It was dark inside. I saw (and smelled...ugh!) what remained of the padre, and in the darkness we heard a voice.

"Zombie Elmo loves your brains. Ha ha ha!"

It was high pitched. Chilling. We knew we were dealing with a seriously evil force.

"Zombie Elmo is going eat you! Mmm-hmm. Yes."

The ensuing battle was short but incredible, but that is not what we are about here. So let's fast forward about 15 minutes. Before we poured gasoline all over the place to set it on fire I noticed that the dead padre had a copy of The Crimson Petal clutched in his hand. I knew what it was about, and I found myself surprised that a padre would be reading it. It made me wonder who he was before a horrible red fuzzy zombie decided to eat him.

So, when I got back and saw the book in the library, it caught my eye. I read it and just this past summer I decided to read it again, desperate for a summer read after slogging my way thorough A Patriot's History of the United States.

It is, I am a little embarrassed to say, one of my favorite books. You follow the fortunes of Sugar, a british whore who hooks up with William Rackham, a minor perfumaries heir who is adrfit in life with a mad wife and a negelected daughter (who cuts a very, very sad character). Sugar is sooooo sweet (if you catch my drift) that he decides he must have her all to himself. He takes the reins of his family's business to afford purchasing her outright and setting her up in small, sumptuous lodging.

For her part, she desperately tries to become woven into the fabric of his life so that she will be indispensible to William, be it as a carnal oasis or an advisor on business matters.

It's not a very complicated plot line, not even really orginial one (there are lots of elements, I am told, borrowed from the Victorian novels of the past), and its not particularly action packed. But its writing is SO GOOD. Michel Faber toys with you, addresses you directly as he welcomes you to the dark, cold streets of London, and then very slowly works you into the story until you are inside the minds of the characters. He writes omnisciently, knowing all, and when the book ends he offers you one last parting shot that makes you feel about as used as a cheap whore from St. Giles...or, if you prefer, about as jaded and dazed as a patron shoved out the brothel's back doors, two shillings paid and seed spent.

And that hints at why you might not like this book: Michel Faber is writing in the 21st century, and has the latitude to be far more frank about what goes on behind closed doors than Dickens or Eliot ever did, and he uses that latitude liberally, sometimes cringingly so. If you don't like reading about pissing, shitting, or fucking (thankfully not all at once), then this book probably isn't for you.

And that's why I say I like this book with a good side of guilt. There is a lot going on (be it meditation on servant relations, the steady advance of technology, etc.), and the actual sex scenes are short way stations in the 800 page novel, but sex is very much under the skin of everything in this book.

And in that way, I'm not sure I buy the dust jacket's bold proclamation that it deserves to sit on the shelf next to The French Lieutenant's Woman, which is probably THE post modern victorian novel. John Fowles has way more issues woven into the story than just sex. Darwinism, the waning of the aristocracy, marriage, amateurism, upward mobility, time jostle side by side with lust on the page. And the actual lack of bedroom scenes in Fowle's book actually give it more erotic tension then Faber's nothing is off the table approach.

But I have tried to the The French Lieutenant's Women twice and I didn't make it. Faber's book is way more readable, and he gets props for that. If you are looking for a dark story set in an immaculately rendered Victorian backdrop, look no furhter. You've got it.

Nutella. Peanut Butter. The World

It simply had to be tried.

Peanut Butter. Nutella. Can they be smashed together in a most delicious multi-cultural culinary tryst?

They do, after all, have so much in common. Peanut Butter is good on bread. Ditto Nutella. Peanut Butter, at least to me, is also just fine straight out of jar. Nutella, again, ditto. Both lend themselves to being followed with a cold glass of milk.

Both are, also, not particularly good for you.

But then, they have their differences. Peanut Butter pairs well with its long time partner, jelly (or jam, if you prefer). Nutllea? Maybe in some circles, but for me not so much. Peanut Butter sticks to the roof of your mouth. Nutella? Not so much. And Peanut Butter is more of an old stand by; been around a little longer than Nutella.

And then of course, Peanut Butter is 100% pure 'Merican (though I think it might have first been made in Canada). Nutella is a purely Eurepoean, the hazelnut and chocolate spread being invented in Italy to stretch cocoa a little farther the postwar rationing environment.

War. Rationing. What could be more European than that?

So much more than culinary Nirvana is at stake here. We are talking about re-uniting a frayed alliance, that special alliance between the USA and Europe, battered by war, ignorance, and different interpretations of Football, under a banner of friendship. If Peanut Butter and Nutella can get together and make something beautiful...well, who knows what is possible?

When an idea like this seizes you, you can't let it go. You can't stand idly by. Not while the fate of western civilization hangs in the balance.

Damn the calories. Damn the fat. Give me that bread. Let's do this shit.

And so I did. And you know what?

We're doomed.

Peanut Butter and Nutella are just...incompatible. I mean, yeah, you'd think it would work, becuase Peanut Butter and chocolate make a wonderful pair; but there isn't enough chocolate in the Nutella to fire up that particular relationship. And the peanuts offset against the hazelnut? On paper, you'd think it would work (what's wrong, after all, with mixed nuts?). But in practice? Eh.

So yeah. They're exclusive. As far as all that other stuff is concerned? Well, it looks like Europe and America will keep drifitng farther apart until a repair to the relationship is just impossible.

Sorry Afghanistan. I tried. But I couldn't save NATO.

The Second Crepe...Better Than the First, but Still Pretty Crappy

Yeah, so its time for the second crepe. The crepe pan is getting warmer, we've remembered how to make them, and soon we'll be a veritable French pancake factory.

There's a couple things you should probably know about me before regular service begins.

1. I am waging my second boycott against Mel Gibson. The first was begun right after Apocalypto came out, and I was just sick of all the violent movies. The man had to be stopped. So I made it clear that I wouldn't watch another Mel Gibson movie until he was in a movie in which he did not express himself through violence.

I made it for a couple of years, but I finally caved. Mel Gibson didn't live up to his end of the bargain; I was simply feeling magnanimous after the election of Barack Obama. Or something like that. I can't really remember. Maybe it was because Chelsea won the premiership.

Of course, now Mr. Gibson is in all kinds of trouble for other reasons, and until his name is somehow cleared, the boycott is back on.

He pops up in these posts from time to time.

2. Politically, I lean to the left, flirting here and there with moderate positions. My idealism of my college years is wearing thin, and I am becoming much more of a pragmatist, I would say. But on some fundamental questions I remain firmly on the left.

I have recently been encouraged to expose myself to some right wing views after my facebook posts started taking a definite political turn. It didn't go so well. I read some Glenn Beck and Larry Schweikhart, and I listened to a little Sean Hannity. I was pretty unhappy with them, and I would say that my little period of Glasnost has not moderated my views much.

I've given up for now, though I still like to check in on Hannity so I can make fun of him from time to time. I think I am on a collision course with Ayn Rand next year, who seems to be providing the intellectual support on which these guys spout off.

3. God Help me, but I love Doughnuts. I don't eat them often, because I know that every bite eat is hastening my death...and yet they are so delicious....

4. In the tradition of many writers, I'm not adverse to putting a couple of silver bullets* in me before I sit down at the computer.

That's really all you need to know about me.

Have a spunky Punky Brewster kind of day.

* I would never actually drink silver bullet, or whatever that beer is for. I hope that's not a euphemism for some sort of bizarre sex act (this is NOT that kind of Blog). I'm a Bass man, at least for now. Hey, Napoleon drank it, so it must be good.

Oy!

Oy:

So instead of doing dishes tonight I started a blog! I've been writing facebook notes for a while now (I've got over 70 to my name) and some friends of mine said that it was time I put my diatribes in public. So....here goes nothing.

But of course, I have alterior motives. I want to be discovered so that I can write a book about the summer I spent working my way through Anna Karenna and blogging about how it made me feel and what I learned from it...which will eventually be turned into a movie staring Brad Pitt, whom I often am confused with. I don't understand why; my beard is way cooler than his.

Its late, and I fear I am not doing myself justice as a writer. I just wanted to put something out there and get the first post out of the way becuase, like the first crepe made of a batch, the first post of a blog always is lacking something.

AND I still got a sink full of dirty dishes to do.

So, welcome. There is some old cheese in the fridge and some scotch in the pantry. Get comfortable, put on some slippers, and get ready for some craziness. I promise its coming. You won't be disappointed.

Later,

Mr. M