I've got a bright future in sales

"While I was not involved in any inappropriate conduct at the Minneapolis airport or anywhere else, I chose to plead guilty to a lesser charge in hopes of making it go away," he said, blaming this on his failure to hire a lawyer. "I have now retained counsel, and I am asking counsel to review this matter and to advise me on how to proceed."

The retained counsel will have a difficult job, given the two statements that appear on the guilty plea right above the signature of one Larry Edwin Craig: "I understand that the court will not accept a plea of guilty from anyone who claims to be innocent," and "I now make no claim that I am innocent of the charge to which I am entering a plea of guilty."

Who is to blame for this fundamental misunderstanding by the veteran lawmaker? Of course: the media. In particular, the Idaho Statesman, whose article published Monday night quoted a man with close ties to Republican officials as saying he had a sexual encounter with the senator in the men's room in Union Station.

"My family and I had been relentlessly and viciously harassed by the Idaho Statesman," Craig complained. He was so mad about it, in fact, that the word "viciously" at first came out has "vicially."

So, to recap, a Republican congressman, who has been rumored to be gay for years and is soon to be the subject of a local newspaper article to that effect, decides to make his arrest for propositioning a man in a public bathroom go away by pleading guilty. He wants it to go away, so he admits it. And this man makes federal laws. Awesome.

3. In unrelated news, I recently saw Hedwig and the Angry Inch for the first time and was struck by the playwright's grasp of Plato's Symposium. Here, in musical form, is Aristophanes' speech of tribute to Love. Well, more or less. Someone should let Lewis (pbuh) know so he can add this to his course.

Thanks to Ellie for taking the discussion to an even deeper level by mentioning Michael O'Brien, whose book, A Landscape with Dragons, is exceptional. In it, he shows that the problem with much of the modern fantasy genre is that it turns the moral universe upside down. Characters that were once, and always, evil, are now imbued with good and noble traits. His example is the dragon. Once historically and biblically the epitome of evil -- the dragon is now cast as savior. In the case of Eclipse, the vampire, traditionally an evil character, is cast as good.

It's as if the authors of such fiction want to numb their readers to the idea that real evil exists and is consistently recognizable. If you're convinced a dragon, or vampire, can only be deemed bad after you've gotten to know him, you're more likely to give all the dragons and vampires a chance to prove their character before making a judgment. Sadly, the time that passes between meeting a new and as yet unjudged dragon/vampire and deciding whether he's of the good sort, or bad, is a time of extreme vulnerability.

This is problematic because we know there is a dragon, Satan, who's goal is to devour what's good, all the while "masquerading as an angel of light." In the world we inhabit, even a dragon that appears good is evil. O'Brien writes, "Evils that appear good are far more destructive in the long run than those that appear with horns, fangs, and drooling green saliva."

Shall I list the reasons this is dumb?

1. First, it is unbearably ignorant to proclaim the absolute meaning of a literary archetype, such as a dragon. Dragons were once, and always, evil? Chinese dragons are symbols of luck and power, male Slavic dragons are protectors of people and crops, and Wales has a fricken red dragon on its flag. Dragons were predominantly a symbol of evil in the ancient and medieval European tradition, but hardly universally so. It turns out, and this is one of those newfangled postmodern concepts I know, that not everyone is European.

2. I'm not sure what is meant by, "real evil exists," though the attempt to reify evil is a central component of conservative ideology. Presumably she means that Satan exists as an actual independent entity, and Satan is the platonic Form of Evil. Where this gets her I'm not sure, but I and Dr. Lewis would love to know. Do bad people "participate" in Satan, like Plato would say? Hard to know.

3. I also like the assertion that evil is consistently recognizable. It seems to me, and I'm going out on a limb here, that many people have quite strong disagreements over what is and is not evil. Empirically denied.

4. Did anyone else notice the tension between a Satan who masquerades as an angel of light and our ability to "consistently" identify evil? Apparently Satan's angel costume sucks. If the ebodiment of evil in the universe can't even pull off a run of the mill deception, I'm not too worried.

5. The authors of young adult fiction want to numb their readers to the existence and identifiability of evil in the world? I'm sure that's what was going through JK Rowling's head. "Hmm, how about a book in which children do magic? That should make their souls nice and easy to steal! All hail Satan!" ...Or maybe they're trying to write some entertaining books and make a couple bucks. Just throwing that out there.

6. What is the alternative? Should books have only perfectly good and perfectly evil characters, with all fictional tropes rigidly placed into one category or the other? How effing boring. Personally, I know people who seemed good and turned out to be bad and people who seemed bad and turned out to be good. Moral ambiguity, in the epistemological sense at least, is an accurate representation of our lives. There are no white knights or evil stepmothers. A fiction which consists solely of such boring characters is childish and dull. Tolkien, who she cites so approvingly, knew that. The elves aren't purely good, they're also selfish and provincial. The hobbits are mostly good, but can be small minded or weak. Frodo is tempted by evil. Gandalf can be short tempered, and like every powerful character was tempted by power. Gollum is a mess of moral ambiguity.

7. Isn't a vampire who tries to be good an excellent symbol of human depravity and redemption? Seems like it could work, but you'd have to read the book to see if it does.

Anyway, that's enough of that. Again, we can thank FotF for undermining their own moral authority as a couple dozen impressionable minds go, "She's saying good vampires are bad and she didn't even read the book? Perhaps these people aren't infallible . . ."

From one of my least favorite Baptists:

Young, who is a well-known figure in Britain, became famous when he won the first "Pop Idol" contest on British television.  In his view, a public acknowledgement of homosexuality should be a matter of no real interest.  As he wrote, "Coming out should just be a statement of fact – I have red hair, I drink tea, I sleep with the same sex."

It isn't that simple, of course.  And it isn't that simple precisely because there is a deep moral instinct within us that continually reminds that sex between persons of the same sex is not natural or normal.  The very fact of this difference even remains a part of the discourse among liberals who think they believe in the moral normalization of homosexuality. 

The stubborn fact is that most people still notice when two men or two women hold hands in public.  When two men tell their colleagues and neighbors that they are "having" a baby, those neighbors can't help wondering how.

Will Young undoubtedly believes that this inability to see homosexuality as a matter of no consequence is explained by deep prejudices that are woven throughout the culture. But Christians believe that this moral instinct is explained, not by social custom and prejudice, but by the revelation of God in nature and in the human conscience --the very knowledge the Apostle Paul described in the first chapter of Romans.  God has given his human creatures the knowledge that homosexuality is just not "utterly normal."  This knowledge may be denied or suppressed, but it will not disappear.

Okay, let's take a vote. Who thinks (a) that all people in all cultures have condemned homosexuality because of the revelation of this truth to their conscience, and who thinks (b) that Al Mohler needs to take a look around and get acquainted with the real world? You just know those ancient Greeks and Romans were sick with guilt for, you know, a thousand years or so of boy-lovin'. In the history of the world, it is homophobia which is the exception and not the rule. If a disgust for homosexuality were some kind of universal human trait, we would not see the plethora of gay-accepting cultures we find in anthropology.

This is not to say that the morality of a thing is decided by some kind of historical poll, nor is it to say that morality is not universal and objective. But Mohler hugely overstates his case and it is not only possible but inevitable that Western societies will soon find homosexuality to be as unexceptional as left handedness. You've already lost the culture war, dude. We no longer need your sexual Other to maintain our personal integrity.

Max Blumenthal recently released a new video -- which he could have called the "9/11 Generation" with far more justification than Barnett's hagiography -- containing interviews he conducted during a nationwide gathering of war-supporting (though not war-fighting) College Republicans. The video reveals Barnett's 9/11 Generation in its authentic, unmasked form.

Standing tall in the Sheraton lobby, these young political warriors of the 9/11 Generation speak excitedly of wars as they swagger around with their chests puffed out, boasting of the need to show courage and strength to our Terrorist Enemies. But when Blumenthal asks them whether they themselves plan to serve, they stutter and scamper and offer Goldberg-like excuses for why they need not and cannot fight in the Epic Civilization War and, more pathetically still, offer up a laundry list of petty, nagging ailments and Gingrich-like knee problems and Cheney-ite "other priorites" more petulant and self-pitying than one hears from the most cantankerous nursing home patient.

War is an inherently dangerous and reprehensible option, even in those extremely rare cases when it is just. But the worst of all worlds -- pragmatically, ethically, and in terms of character-building -- is to bestow the ability for a nation to embark on one war after the next while allowing its most enthusiastic boosters to evade entirely any responsibility, sacrifice or risk.

This presents an interesting problem: can one support a war and refuse to fight it onesself? Now, as I've explained elsewhere, I think the current wars are both grave errors and, inevitably, miserable failures, but I respect the fact that I could be wrong (though I totally wasn't about those weapons of mass destruction, mind you). There is room for good people to disagree. (Hi, Brian!) But what rubs me the wrong way are those college Republicans, and I knew a few, who are cheerleaders for a war they'd rather other people died in.

Now, of course you can support a war and not fight in it morally if you physically are unable to fight. Or if the military simply won't have you. If the army, for example, had loads of volunteers and you just aren't up to it, then a personal sacrifice might not be necessary to back up your ideological support of the conflict. This is not the case in the present war. The military needs people to fight.

Kant has an easy answer to this question. The categorical imperative states that we should act as though our actions were to serve as a model for all people. We should tell the truth and not lie, because if everyone lied our society would collapse. It's pretty clear that if we advocate war but are unwilling to fight it, and this standard is taken as a universal model, no wars would actually be fought. In fact, the situation would be worse than this since the threat of war would cease to have any deterrent effect. So to advocate a war which one is unwilling to support violates the categorical imperative and is immoral.

Furthermore, the standard position of such people, that others are willing to fight so a personal sacrifice is unnecessary, risks viewing other people as a means to achieve a geopolitical end. The volunteers are objectified in this perspective - their lives are not worth considering as intrinsically valuable since they are tools which one can use to shape the world. It is only by risking one's own life, or at least being willing to do so, that one can appreciate the true cost of the war. It is one thing to pay lip service to "the troops" but this is a mere bumper sticker slogan unless it is backed up by a more visceral identification with the situation at hand.

Or, you know, you could oppose the war entirely and not be willing to fight it.

2. I still check up on my arch nemesis Ted Slater from time to time and he was in particularly fine form here:

For decades the common understanding was that humans and chimps had 99 percent of their DNA in common. Darwinists used this "fact" to support their contention that humans and chimps obviously, therefore, share a common ancestor. Over the past couple of years, this "fact" has increasingly been shown to be utterly false. According to an article in last month's Science Magazine, there's more than a 6 percent difference. A 17.4 percent difference was found in genes expressed in the cerebral cortex. Museums and textbooks and Web sites continue to regurgitate this 1 percent figure, just as many of them continue to promote Embryonic Recapitulation. But now we know better.

The small problem with this assertion is that the article he links to to support his argument actually says nothing of the kind. One of the commenters points this out. (I would have, but he banned my IP address. Fascist.) In fact, as the commenter says (and I verified by reading the article with a university account), the article argues that it doesn't really make sense to say that one genome differs from another by a specific percentage since difference can be mathematically calculated in multiple ways, none of which are clearly superior to the others. Ted's response is priceless:

Chizadek -- the controversy surrounding "1%" has been discussed for a few years now, and I've read several articles that've discussed the data. The article in Science Magazine is merely the most recent to acknowledge the controversy. I haven't read this most recent article in full, only in excerpt, but I have read the other articles in full. Not sure how that affects my argument, that "1%" is no longer a reliable figure.

Translation: I didn't actually read my evidence, but I'm sure it says what I think it says.

This guy is great. I can't tell you how happy it makes me that he represents James Dobson to thousands of impressionable college students. We've got this culture war thing wrapped up.

So I think this shirt is hilarious:



BUT, if I were to wear it would people think (correctly) "What an ironic shirt that clever young man is wearing! He must have a sharp sense of humor!" or would they think (incorrectly) "That guy is pathetic"? I'm torn, but I may buy it anyway. It makes me happy.

I have comfortable pragmatism. I want risky transcendance. I have GI physiology. I want truth, beauty, love, God, the Good, justice, and freedom. I have handed to me a fulfilling, lucrative path in life. I worry that I've given up too early on other, possibly inferior, possibilities.

I also need to stop being so effing emo.

Friends,

I'm going to need to take a break of indeterminate length. Sorry.

...the contrast between McCain the presidential candidate and McCain the reformer can be jarring. McCain's campaign says that he is still studying whether to forgo the public financing and spending limits he has long supported, but that he will not be handicapped by restrictions his competitors will not face in 2008.

McCain the reformer worked unsuccessfully through Congress and the courts to try to stop nonprofit political groups known as 527s from using unlimited donations to run political ads and fund other activities aimed at influencing voters in the run-up to elections. He reintroduced legislation last week to end 527 donations, but there appears to be little appetite in Congress to pass it.

McCain the candidate now expects Republicans to use the same big-money 527 groups in the 2008 elections to beat Democrats, if the groups remain legal. "The senator believes that both parties should be subjected to an even playing field. If Democratic organizations are allowed to take advantage of 527s, Republican organizations will, too," said Mark Salter, a senior McCain adviser.

This is even worse when you recall that McCain's reason for wanting to cut soft money funding was that it allows corporations and the wealthy to buy politicians. But, oh dear, maintaining one's principles is just so . . . hard. It's really best not to try. I'm sure the money won't corrupt him, after all, just those other dirty politicans.

Do you suppose that good people, for the most part, don't want to run for office or is it that the pursuit of power corrodes those good intentions? Maybe both?