Mean People Suck

A few years ago a very succinct bumper sticker was popular. It said, “Mean People Suck”. I smirked with approval every time I saw it. I included mean-spirited people on the previously mentioned “things-I-really-dislike-a-lot” list.

Mean-spiritedness isn’t particularly easy to describe. I know it when I see or hear it, but it doesn’t boil down to one simple definition. A string of definitions might adequately profile mean-spirited people:

· “Mean-spirited” means: characterized by a malicious or petty spirit
· “Malicious” means: deliberately harmful or spiteful
· “Spite” means: ill will prompting an urge to hurt or humiliate
· “Petty” means: trivial or marked by narrowness of mind
· “Spirit” means: the animating force or essential nature of a person

Those definitions probably capture it. Mean people are deliberately hurtful; they look for ways to humiliate others; their actions are rooted in a narrow-minded view of the world. Some of these people are boldly mean; others are like snipers who hide under some form of cover and take single shots at people when least expected. No matter their modus operandi, they are, indeed, spiteful and petty people who are almost universally disliked.

When I look at the meanings above, the definitional characteristic that strikes me is narrow-mindedness, though I confess that characteristic wasn’t part of the profile I had in mind before consulting the dictionary. As I think of it, however, it seems fairly clear that mean-spirited people crawl out of small-minded places and direct their malice toward anyone who dares to think, speak or walk outside their tiny frame of reference.

Anyone who has read more than a few postings on this blog probably has no difficulty predicting where this is going. At the top of my mean-spirited hit list are the religious zealots and political extremists I’ve written about. I can get downright mean-spirited when I talk about these people. Take your pick from this litter. Whether Christian, Muslim, Jew, Republican, Democrat, or some other hard-core religious or political devotee, if s/he is occupying the low ground on either end of the bell curve, you'll find a poster child for mean-spiritedness. On the other hand, take your pick from among the many, many people who occupy the higher ground around, ironically, the statistical mean, and you’re not nearly as likely to find meanness. Moderation has a way of … well … moderating the thoughts, emotions, rhetoric and actions of the people who are broadminded enough to see the possibility that there could be another possibility to see. The “higher ground” reference is meaningful – the folks in the middle of the spectrum can see farther and thus can take in more “views”.

The low-ground, lowlife denizens on the extreme right and left can’t admit the possibility that anyone who disagrees with them could have a point of view worth considering. But, rather than express their differing view in a decent manner, they employ humiliating or hurtful words and actions, words and actions that say far more about them than about their intended targets.

Sadly, this meanness seems embedded in a mean person’s nature. However, having a higher view of human nature than many of these folks do, I don’t think that’s actually the case. I think their meanness is embedded in their insecurity, which is embedded in their fear. Their meanness is a defense mechanism, intended to protect themselves and their ego from the things that go bump outside the narrow limits of their world, which is their version of “the night”.

Unfortunately, these people do hurt and humiliate others. After all, their targets are also insecure and fearful to one extent or another, and are thus exposed and vulnerable to these snipers. That leads me to conclude that the best defense against mean-spirited people is personal well being and a strong sense of “I’m OK, even if you’re not OK.”

In the meantime, while each of us is clawing our way to such well being, we should bring back the bumper sticker that makes it clear how we feel about the mean-spirited people among us, the so-called adults who are still acting like schoolyard bullies. They’re cowards; and they suck.

Dead Children

I watched a child die. It’s an eviscerating and emptying experience. Your breath disappears; your pupils become fixed; your heart seems to stop; and a portion of you dies, too.

Then something happens. It’s as though the spirit of the child, or at least some portion of the light and energy that leaves the body of the child, enters the bodies of their loved ones who are present. It’s as though new people are born in the presence of that dying child. In this altered state, certain events that happen around these people from that point on are experienced in an entirely different way.

Since that morning in March 2002 my wife and I are unable to hear about the death of a child without reacting. I hope we reacted to the death of children before March 2002, but I don’t remember how often or the extent to which we did. We react now, at a visceral level. We instantly think about the parents, the siblings, the other family members, the friends, the neighbors, the classmates, the teachers, and the unknown others whose lives were just altered.

Children are dying around the world in numbers that stun the mind and heart. I’ve mentioned the ONE Campaign wristband that I wear 24x7, to mark the death of 30,000 children each day from the effects of extreme poverty and aids – that’s one every three seconds. The world now watches children being killed in an acknowledged genocide in the Darfur region of the Sudan. More than 400,000 people, many of them children, have died there, where Muslims of Arab decent are killing Muslims of African decent in a civil war. Since 1998, 1,400 people, many of them children, have been killed every day In the Democratic Republic of Congo in another civil war – well over 4,000,000 people.

In Northern Uganda, another tragedy is unfolding for children. The rebel army in yet another civil war is raiding villages at night and kidnapping children and forcing the boys to fight and forcing the girls to marry the rebel soldiers. Children too young to do either are being killed. As a result, tens of thousands of Ugandan children now leave their villages every evening to walk as long as two hours to go spend the night in protection centers, many of which are little more than cages. They sleep together crammed so tightly that they can’t roll over. Then, every morning they walk back to their villages. These “night walkers”, as they’re called, are the lucky ones. The ones who are forced to fight in the rebel army are being forced to kill other Ugandans – many of these abducted “killers” are not yet teenagers. If you have not yet heard their story, visit www.invisiblechildren.com and see for yourself. My daughter alerted me to their story being told on Oprah’s show yesterday. I recorded it and watched it last night – the impact was visceral.

The world, however, is not being eviscerated and emptied by these deaths, because the world is not sufficiently present. The world is looking but it doesn’t see; it is listening but it doesn’t hear; it is thinking about what is happening but it doesn’t feel what is happening. The principle of the sovereignty of the state has seemingly paralyzed the world. Note the continual reference to civil war in these stories. If one country crosses a border and kills a couple hundred people in another country, there is an eruption of outrage around the world. If one country in a civil war kills a couple hundred thousand, or even a couple million, of its own people, there are a few scattered cries for action, but little happens. Nothing erupts. We cannot intervene in the internal matters of a sovereign country, we’re told. The U.N. cannot do anything meaningful in Darfur because the Sudanese government, which is sponsoring the Janjaweed militias that are doing the killing, will not allow them to enter. So, that’s it? Game over? We just tell the children there, “Your cause is just, be we can do nothing for you.”

The events unfolding in these countries almost make the brutality of Saddam Hussein’s regime look like … well, if you’ll pardon the indelicate reference … child’s play. What would happen if the world formed a coalition and dedicated its resources to these problems? Far fewer children would die; perhaps hundred of thousands if not millions of children would be saved. What separates the rapes in Uganda from those in Baghdad? What separates the sectarian killing in Sudan from that in Iraq? What separates the desperation and the plight of young children in Africa from those in the Middle East?

Could it be something as malignant as our self interest? The Middle East is important to us; Africa isn’t? I’m going to avoid playing the race card because I choose not to believe that card is in play. I think it’s more about money, and economy, and resources, and produced goods than it is about anything else. I think some book somewhere suggests that “the love of money is the root of all evil.” All evil – and that includes the evil of children dying from preventable causes. The answer probably lies in the wise counsel given by Deep Throat: “Follow the money.”

My response to all of this has been incremental – become aware of an issue; become informed on an issue; talk about it with others; wear a wristband every day; make substantial donations to more carefully targeted charities and NGOs; send written communication to senators, representatives and the president. But, all of those things can be done while sitting in a chair.

It’s probably time to get out of the chair. The death of children is the first thing on my list of things I most dislike. How long can I continue to take “dislike number one” sitting down? The unnecessary death of children is something worth getting angry about, and worth standing up for.

I'm Mad About Being Angry

Recently one of my children sent around one of those survey exchanges in which you answer a dozen or more questions that are intended to reveal things about yourself that your family and friends might not know. The questions range from favorites books and movies to the things you most like or dislike in general, or about yourself in particular. In return, you get the scoop on the others who are participating. Every once in a while as you answer these things and read the answers from other you can run into interesting bits of information and you can occasionally tap into a vein that runs through a number of responders.

In this recent survey, one question asked us to list “four things I dislike very much”. My answer was:

1) The death of children from any cause
2) Mean-spirited people
3) My own anger
4) The arrogance of power or presumed “truth”

In the next few days I want to address each of these answers. Today I want to focus on the hinge in those answers, which is also the vein that got tapped in others who responded to the survey. It’s about the anger that courses through so many of us, through too many of us. Several other survey respondents simply chimed in with, “Yeah, what he said about anger.” Three of the things I am most angry about are found in the other three answers.

There’s good news and bad news in answer No. 3. The good news is that those of us who gave that answer are aware of the anger within us. The bad news is that those of us who gave that answer are filled with enough anger enough of the time to be aware of it, bothered by it, and include it in our list of most disliked things. That awareness then gives birth to a sense of responsibility to do something about the anger that bothers us. Then, if we fail to do something about that anger, we get angry about that, too. A completely separate topic is the anger that we’re not aware of. Who knows what lurks in those shadows.

Anger can be a killer. Anger is stressful, to say the least, and stress produces cortisol, among other things. Cortisol is a corticosteroid hormone that gets released when we’re responding to stress. It increases our blood pressure and blood sugar levels and suppresses our immune system. In the normal stresses we face, cortisol helps to restore balance in our system, which is a good thing. But, if we’re under prolonged or chronic stress then too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing. Long-term exposure to cortisol, for example, damages the hippocampus, which results in impaired learning. Maybe that explains why angry people don’t seem capable of learning anything!

Short-term anger happens. It’s a part of life. That’s not to say that we can’t avoid short-term anger. I believe we can avoid almost all of it, particularly the instances when it’s nothing more than an expression of our threatened ego. If we think about the most peaceful people we’ve known in our life, they’re almost certainly the people who are least prone to angry responses, of any kind or duration. They’re secure enough in themselves to not be threatened by the myriad of things that produce short-term anger and stress. I admire these people and I aspire to be more like them. It angers me that I’m not.

But the real killer is the prolonged or chronic anger that we hold on to and won’t release. That anger acts as an ongoing stressor that continues to pump out the cortisol and inflict other damage, seen and unseen. People who seem gripped by a pervasive negativity about life are victims of this anger. People who give answers like I gave above can be victims of this anger. People who demand fairness and justice in this life can be victims of this anger.

This blog reflects my anger, and that troubles me to some extent. I wish it were a little more balanced and I hope it becomes more so as time passes. I enjoy a good deal of peace in my life and it would be nice to express that, too. On the other hand, this blog presents an opportunity to express the anger I feel on topics that matter to me, which helps me to let go of it to some extent. On some days the list of things that I’m mad about makes my mind look like an air traffic controller’s radar screen – a bunch of wildly blipping dots that are all trying to land on the same space at roughly the same time. Sometimes the sense of urgency I feel about a topic makes writing about it the equivalent of an emergency landing. But, if you’re plane is on fire, an emergency landing is an exceedingly good thing.

I sense that a lot of people around me are also struggling with anger. It seems endemic. For many of us, our modern lives are filled with marvelous technology, convenience, mobility, opportunity, and a fair amount of prosperity, and yet we’re angry about a lot of things that just don’t seem right to us. That, of course, signals that we’re passing judgment on a lot of things. For many others, their lives are not filled with the things just mentioned, and they’re angry about that, sometimes for good reason.

What’s going on? My theory is that we have 24-hour, global communication systems that bring the people and the events of the world to us constantly. The Internet, 24-hour cable news shows, and cell phones keep us informed of the good, the bad and the ugly minute by minute. We’re inundated with information, all of which acts as a nearly constant stimulus in us on one level or the other. Fifty years ago most of us wouldn’t have a clue about what is going on in Darfur; or what nonsense just popped out of Pat Robertson’s mouth this morning; or the details of the latest round of school violence across the country from us; or the hour-to-hour accounting of the Enron or Michael Jackson trials. We wouldn’t see video of the war du jour on TV every day and night; we wouldn’t have the constant input of “investigative journalism” prying the lid off of every possible scandal in every dimension of our society. We didn’t have C-SPAN to scare the hell out of us each night as we watch the people who are supposedly driving the ship of state. Fifty years ago, we read the morning paper and/or listened to 30-minutes of nightly news, maybe.

Then, add to this the fact that we’re better educated now and have an increased ability to process this flood of information. We’re reacting to something almost every hour, and the reaction is often an angry one. The fact that we’re educated allows us to think that our judgment is sound. The fact that we’re egocentric allows us to think that our judgment matters. Then, give us blog technology and we think that we should publish our judgments for the betterment of our family, friends and the rest of the free world.

Time to stop. I have to read the paper; listen to the morning news; go online for news updates; and then check my email. There will be a blog entry lurking somewhere in all of that, I’m sure.

Comments

To those readers who post comments here: thank you! I read them all; I enjoy them; I appreciate anyone and everyone who takes the time to submit one. Even though the comments are moderated, meaning I get to decide whether to post them, all of them have been posted.

I rarely respond to the comments, not because I don’t care about responding, and not because I don’t have a response, but because I can barely find the time and energy to write what I’m already writing. Comment “chains” might be too much. But, I don’t want my silence there to send the wrong signal to anyone. What you say matters to me. Thanks, again, for saying it.

Answer the Phone - It's an Adventure

It was 30 years ago today that I graduated from law school as a member of the charter class of the Brigham Young University School of Law. Thirty years – you can put that over in the “I don’t believe it” column.

It’s a little revealing that when I wrote my blog profile I made no mention of being a practicing attorney other than to check “Law” in the drop down “Work” section. That wasn’t an intentional omission; I didn’t realize it at the time. But it’s a revealing omission. While my career has been meaningful and productive and has supported my family well, I don’t particularly identify with being a lawyer. It’s what I do; it’s not who I am.

I accepted a commission from the U. S. Navy Judge Advocate General Corps in October 1974 during my second year of law school, which committed me to three years of active duty after graduation. At the time of my commission I was a Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Army Reserve, having served as a finance specialist for the previous 5+ years. I had wanted to be an officer since the first time I put on a military uniform and law school unexpectedly opened a door to that possibility. I knew nothing about the JAG Corps when I started law school but it wasn’t long before I developed an interest in becoming a trial lawyer and that interest led to looking for opportunities to get immediate trial experience. The JAG Corps presented that opportunity.

The summer after being commissioned I headed off for four months of active duty, first attending Officer Indoctrination School in Newport, Rhode Island. One of the interesting aspects of that experience was living in a co-ed dorm with women next door and across the hall. That wasn’t common in 1975. It took about three days to put it in the “no big deal” category. After finishing OIS I went to the Naval Legal Services Office at the San Diego Naval Station where I served as an intern Trial Counsel (i.e., prosecutor). I tried 14 special courts martial and got convictions in all of them. I was on the way to a trial practice and began seeking orders to a trial center as a permanent duty station.

Those orders arrived early in my third year of law school. I was going the Navy trial center in Charleston, South Carolina. Two other law school students at BYU had also joined the JAG program. When their orders came one was headed to the trial center in Guam and one to the trial center at Subic Bay in the Republic of the Philippines. Overseas service had not crossed my mind but as soon as I learned where my colleagues were going I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I called JAG HQ. They said nothing was available, but they’d keep me in mind.

Several months later, the phone rang – there were no slots open in any overseas trial center but there was an independent duty slot available – the Staff Judge Advocate for the U.S. Naval Communications Station in the Philippines. The Navy recruiting slogan was, “It’s not a job; it’s an adventure.” So, after a quick family consultation, I gave up the trial center job in Charleston and accepted the adventure in the Philippines.

After graduating from law school and passing the Utah State bar exam we headed back to Newport where I attended Naval Justice School for three months. From there, it was off the Philippines. As the end of that very rewarding two-year assignment approached it was time to finally get orders to a trial center. No problem – I was going to be sent back to San Diego for the third and final year of my commitment. Then the phone rang.

It was JAG HQ saying that I’d been nominated to serve as the Assistant Staff Judge Advocate at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, another option that had never crossed my mind. If I wanted this assignment I had to extend my commitment so I could stay there at least two years. It sounded like an adventure; so, after a quick family consultation, I tossed in the trial center job, again. It was a great choice.

At the end of my active duty service in September 1980 I accepted an offer from a law firm in Salt Lake City. I was going to work in their litigation section, where I would finally begin to develop the trial practice I’d set out to develop five years before. Then the phone rang.

After being in the firm only four months I learned that it was merging with another firm in town. The other firm had a national reputation in natural resources law – mining, oil and gas, and water law, with a specialty in developing resources on Native American land. It sounded like an adventure; so, I tossed in the trial practice for the third and last time. Truth be told, the four months in the litigation section were incredibly tedious and well short of an adventure. I was mired in pre-trial discovery work and had already realized how few lawsuits actually make it to the courtroom.

Off I went into the world of oil, gas and mining law. I never looked back. I quickly developed a decent level of expertise in these areas and I enjoyed the work and the corporate clients I served. When an economic downturn in late 1984 caused my clients to cutback on their use of outside counsel I decided that it was time to look for opportunities “in house”. That led to an outstanding offer from Shell Oil, which, after a quick family consultation, I accepted. In July 1985, we moved to Houston.

The work in Houston was OK, but it felt limited. I’d heard that the work in our California office was very challenging. That sounded more like an adventure. Once again I volunteered for an unexpected duty station; once again the phone rang. We were offered a transfer to Bakersfield. Because we had two kids in junior high at this point, the family consultation was a little more involved. But, we soon learned that if we promised to buy a California home with palm trees and a swimming pool, then we were cleared for takeoff. Apparently, our kids thought California sounded like an adventure.

The move to Bakersfield in July 1987 eventually produced everything that I wanted to accomplish in my corporate practice. The job has been very good to me and very good for me. There are no unachieved goals. I will hang up my attorney spurs in the not-too-distant future fully satisfied with my career; no regrets. I’m a fortunate man.

That’s the thumbnail career path. More could be said about each stop along the way, and I may drop some career references into my postings from time to time. But the fact remains – my job is what I do; it’s not who I am. My life has been an adventure, but the adventure has almost always been about “answering the call” and heading out to an unexpected horizon for new and different challenges. A few of those have been work related, but most of them have been about people, places, and experiences in the other dimensions of my life.

Like I said, I’m a fortunate man.

Pass the Dessert

Last month, my daughter-in-law started a family blog in which she chronicles the day-to-day events of her life while raising two of my grandsons (one is almost three; the other is almost one). It’s a marvelous window into the joy and challenges of raising young children. It also serves as a rearview mirror to the days when my kids’ mother and I were doing the same thing. Reading her journal entries stirs some wonderful memories and warm emotions, as well as a little melancholy about the passage of time.

But, I’m in another rewarding phase of my life now – a time when I get to enjoy adult relationships with my grown children. Each of those relationships is still developing and each one is quite different because each is a unique reflection of where a given child is in her or his life. I look forward to what awaits me on the horizon. Fortunately, nice encounters are already coming my way.

On Sunday I had a long and stimulating conversation with one of my sons regarding a HOTS posting. We disagreed on several points I had made, but the discussion was cool, calm and collected. Then, on Monday and Tuesday my wife and I had a great email exchange with one of my daughters on a fairly sensitive topic regarding family dynamics. Each of us truly benefited, because each of us kept the exchange cool, calm and collected. In each of these instances there was a readily apparent mutual respect, a nice sense of balance, and a shared willingness to listen and learn from one another.

Yesterday, my youngest son bought me lunch. I believe that’s the first time he’s done so (if I’ve forgotten an earlier time, I apologize). As an aside, he left a nice tip, slightly over 20% (reference “The “Biltmore” HOTS posting on March 23). Four of my six kids, appropriately the four oldest, have now bought the old man a nice meal or two. The two youngest will do so in due course, I’m sure. It’s a minor but nonetheless noteworthy milestone, one that speaks to emerging independence. It’s also a nice form of “Thanks, dad.”

Last month, my son-in-law picked up the tab for a large and not inexpensive birthday dinner for my daughter. As we all stood up to leave the restaurant, his step-dad and I turned to each other and had the same thought at the same time. We smiled at each other and simultaneously said, “It’s a great transition, isn’t it.” Indeed. It was like dessert.

There is great joy in raising young children. Being a meaningful part of their ongoing process of growth and discovery is about as good as life gets. But there’s also great joy in building adult relationships with the children we’ve raised. In many ways, that’s where the “payoff” is, if you will. For many parents the payoff comes in the form of certain classic milestones, such as college graduation, career accomplishment, some other successful achievement, marriage, and the birth of grandchildren. Those things matter, to be sure. But, for me, the most significant reward comes in the ongoing emergence of meaningful and substantive relationships with children who have become decent, caring, contributing people and in seeing that my children remain committed to a lifetime of learning, because that portends a lifetime of continued growth and development for them. If you feel like you’ve helped get your children rolling on their chosen paths, it’s nice to see that they’re still gathering momentum as they continue along those paths. Who doesn’t like to see their past energy and effort still being manifest where it matters the most.

Don’t get me wrong: grandchildren certainly get rung up in the reward column, too. That’s a special relationship in its own right, but it rarely becomes as profound as the parent-child relationship. Grandchild are just darn good fun; and when the day comes that they stop being darn good fun, that’s when you turn to your kids and say, “Good luck with that. By the way, when are you buying lunch, again?”

I’ve said before that more than anything else I want peace for my children. When I come away from a fulfilling encounter with one of my children and I feel peaceful about it, then I’m very pleased because I know that I just got that sense of peacefulness through them and thus I know that there is peace in them.

That’s dessert.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Today would have been my mom’s 84th birthday. I can’t believe it’s been almost seven years since she died unexpectedly in July 1999. I think about her almost every day, and almost every thought is accompanied by a sense of loss. I miss her.

Moms are like that. They worm their way into your heart and you can’t ever get rid of the feeling that you’re part of them and they’re part of you. Not everyone gets warm and fuzzy about their mom, but most of us do. It’s a one-of-a-kind relationship. Motherly love is so often unconditional and that sets it apart. That’s not to say moms don’t have expectations; they do. They simply tend to keep those expectations separated from their love. Their capacity to forgive is amazing.

Moms nurture us and that’s the purest form of love. Nurturing involves nourishing us; promoting our development; fostering our growth and well being on every level; educating us about the world around us. That’s an extension of the womb; an extension of birthing, of laboring and delivering into the world; a continuation of the giving of life.

My mom shared a birthday with Adolph Hitler, a fact her family never let her forget. We joked that some karmic force had mandated that all dictators be born on April 20th. She’d smile at that; but it was a bit of a tight-lipped smile. Mom ran a tight ship and employed a relatively short leash, which was probably necessary because my dad’s work frequently took him away from home. Even when he was in town he’d get home pretty late. While mom occasionally invoked the always popular “Wait until your dad gets home” threat, by and large, she ran the home.

When it became time for the obligatory rebellion against the restraints of home, my relationship with mom and dad experienced the usual strains. There was, however, an unusual element in that experience that clearly played a role in our relationship for 20 years. Mom didn’t like Mormons.

Her dislike was deep-seeded and sprang from her childhood. Her dad was born into the Mormon Church and had LDS ancestors that stretched back to the 1840s in Nauvoo, Illinois. One of her ancestors was a body guard for the Mormon prophet, Joseph Smith. After Smith was killed by a mob, those ancestors came across the plains in the Mormon migration to what would become the state of Utah. Several of their names are engraved on a pioneer memorial that marks the 1849 – 1850 Indian war associated with the settlement of Provo, Utah.

Mom’s dad wasn’t a devoted Mormon by any means. He took after his father, whom mom described as “a bit of a rounder”. Her dad married a Methodist from central Texas and that brought an immediate end to any hint of Mormonism in my mom’s immediate family. It also brought critical judgment from her extended family, the aunts, uncles and cousins who remained in the church. It also set mom apart from a large percentage of the people in her small eastern Arizona town, which had been settled by Mormon pioneers dispatched from Utah and had remained a Mormon stronghold over the years.

Mom told me, “I was never good enough for those people; nothing about my family and my life was right in their mind.” She never forgot that sense of estrangement and moral judgment; it colored her view of Latter-day Saints for the rest of her life. At times her antagonism would boil over, like when she yelled, “That damn church is out to get us!” after having a falling out with a Mormon bishop over a business matter.

Against this happy background I joined the LDS Church in 1968 at the age of 19. My “leaving home”, the natural act of becoming independent from my parents, took on an added dimension. I hadn’t just left home; I’d left home for the Mormon Church. Mom quickly assumed that her son would judge her the same way that all other Mormons, in her estimation, had judged her.

The defining moment of separation, which I will regret until the day I die, came on June 8, 1971, the day my first wife and I were married. As devoted Latter-day Saints we were determined to be married in an LDS temple. Non-Mormons, like my parents, aren’t allowed in any Mormon temple. Therefore, my mom and dad waited in an adjoining building while their oldest son got married. Photographs aren’t allowed, so they never saw so much as a picture of the event. They were gracious about it. But, now that I’m a parent, and as my daughter’s wedding approaches, I hate thinking about that day. A constant, usually unspoken, tension entered our relationship and stayed there for the next 20 years.

Mom smoked almost all of her adult life. Once in the early 80s she and dad came to visit my family in Salt Lake City. As mom entered our home our son greeted her at the door with a hug, a kiss and a pronouncement, “Grandma, you can’t smoke in our home.” My wife and I had long since decided that my mom could smoke in our home. Her visits were few and far between and we felt we could tolerate it for short stays. Our son’s pronouncement was his own initiative. After hearing it, mom’s next step was back out the front door. They checked into a nearby hotel. When I caught up with her, she finally, but very reluctantly, accepted that this young boy’s admonition hadn’t come from his parents. But that recognition brought forth a long and sharp lecture about what the Mormon Church was doing to my children and what impact it was having on our extended family. She let it all out that night.

When I left the Mormon Church in 1991-92, my relationship with mom changed almost overnight. It got better and better as time went along and I can say without hesitation that it was the best it had ever been at the time she died. I’m beyond grateful for that, but I also regret what might have been. We lost some good time during those 20 years. We let an impersonal institution get between us. Thank God for bringing us both back where we belonged.

Mom was adamant about people remembering her birthday. You could “miss” any other holiday or event, but you’d better not miss her birthday. All she required was a phone call or a card; gifts were appreciated but never expected.

Happy birthday, Mom! I love you.

The Flyers Are Coming

This weekend I received a campaign flyer from a Reb who I’m almost certainly going to vote for as our state Assembly representative. Even though I am going to vote for him, this flyer is a prime example of how vapid American politics has become.

The cover is nice – good picture of a relaxed guy with no tie and a simple invitation that says, “Let’s Talk.” Good start. I also note that there’s no indication of party affiliation, which has become a standard means to get recipients to open these flyers rather than round file them.

Inside, we begin with a 196-word “Dear Voter” letter. It begins with a joke by saying, “I am an independent businessman not a politician or a bureaucrat.” That’s pretty damn funny. Of course, it wasn’t intended to be funy. My simple mind leaps to this logic – if you’re running for political office for the first time, then you’re trying to become a politician. You’re aspiring to be the very thing that you’re criticizing. The idea that someone can hold political office and not be a politician is just silly. It’s also a hackneyed comment because every rookie in the political farm system uses this introduction. If this guy wins, he won’t make the same statement the next time he runs. Besides, shouldn’t we be supporting political candidates who actually want to become politicians?

The next sentence tells us, “For more than 30 years, I have lived, worked, and raised a family in Kern County.” There’s not much there to set him apart from a couple hundred thousand other people. Then he finally opens his London Fog coat to reveal, “I am a real Republican who believes in the foundations and values of the Republican Party.” Finally, I can relax. He’s not a fake Reb; he’s a real one. What the hell does that mean? Every Reb and every Dim thinks that they’re the real deal. I’m also a little troubled by the word picture that depicts a party with multiple foundations. Shouldn’t there be just one foundation? Does this suggest interchangeable foundations, tailored to meet each building occasion?

Next we read the always popular bullet list of things he’s going to do in the Assembly with his “30 years of business experience and common sense”. First, I’m impressed that he’s already racked up 30 years of common sense. That’s something that I and almost everyone my age have yet to achieve. This guy is my age, so now I know how unique he is. But, I digress; back to the bullets. They’re blanks – lots of noise; but no impact. They’re threadbare statements of ultimate outcome, repeated time and time again in almost every political race by – you guessed it – politicians! See, it took less than 200 words for this guy to become what he said he wasn’t in his first sentence. You can’t dip your finger in the ink well without getting it stained.

He doesn’t utter a word about what he intends to do to achieve these outcomes; perhaps because he doesn’t know what he’ll do. After all, if he knew, why wouldn’t he tell us? Because he knows that if he tells us, then he might reveal too much and that’s just never a good idea in a campaign. Real politicians (i.e., real Rebs and real Dims) don’t ever tell you what they’re actually going to do. They just promise that they're going to make the world a better place.

Now that I think of it, there’s another joke buried in this flyer. It’s the one about a rookie politician thinking that he’s going to arrive on the capitol scene and do anything that really matters. Pretty funny, huh. First, this guy will be part of a decidedly minority party in the Golden State. Rebs in Sacramento don’t really do much of anything these days except scream “bloody murder” at every mugging they receive in the alley behind the capitol building. Second, this guy will get introduced to his minority leader and minority whip and they will explain to him what he’s going to do and not do as a brand new politician. Rookies – you just have to love them because they’re so darn cute.

But, I digress; back to the bullets, which include: reduce the power and influence of big government; support tax caps; protect our resources; support our teachers and education for children; support free enterprise and create jobs; be tough on crime; protect our property. Yawn. No one since Joseph Stalin has run on the opposite of these statements. So, at this point, all we know is that this guy is not a communist.

Now we come to the closing in his letter. It’s special. We’re told that, as an Assembly member, he “will question the status quo, work hard, use my 30 years of business experience and common sense to improve and maintain the quality of life for all citizens in Kern County.” Gosh, where do we start? He’s going to question the status quo, not change it; just question it. That must be some kind of existential exercise. At least he’s going to work hard at it, which at first blush seems like a good thing. But, wait, if politicians are slime buckets, as this candidate implies, then shouldn’t we look for ones who aren’t hard working? Wouldn’t a lazy politician be better for us?

I really love that fact that this man is going to maintain and improve our quality of life, both at the same time. Quite a trick, actually. It seems like he’d have to pick one or the other, because if he does one I’m not sure how he’s going to claim that he’s done the other. But, then, I’m not a politician. The real magic is that he’s going to do this for every citizen in the county, which is something no other person in the history of politics has pulled off. Improving the quality of life for the rich and the poor; the healthy and the sick; the old and the young; the well educated and the uneducated; the teachers and the students; the urban and the rural dwellers; the Rebs and the Dims; the laborers and the managers; the public and the private sector employees; the wise and the stupid; the givers and the takers; the greedy and the generous; the selfish and the selfless – well, that’s just not going to happen so spare us the rhetoric.

There are several more panels in this flyer but they're more of the same – i.e., less than hoped for. Just empty words and posed pictures. At least there’s a picture of the candidate with his wife and his dog. The dog appears pretty old. The wife appears very young; young enough to be his daughter. She may be the best reason in this flyer to vote for this man. I wonder if she wants to be married to a politician.

Remember, I am going to vote for this candidate. I can’t wait to get a campaign flyer from one of the bevy of losers that I’m not going to vote for.

Rummy Is No Game

Let me open today’s entry with a few quotes from the retired generals who are calling for the ouster of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld:

"We went to war with a flawed plan that didn't account for the hard work to build the peace after we took down the regime. We also served under a secretary of defense who didn't understand leadership, who was abusive, who was arrogant, who didn't build a strong team." — Retired Army Maj. Gen. John Batiste

"My sincere view is that the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions — or bury the results." — Retired Marine Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold

"They only need the military advice when it satisfies their agenda. I think that's a mistake, and that's why I think he should resign." — Retired Army Maj. Gen. John Riggs

"We grow up in a culture where accountability, learning to accept responsibility, admitting mistakes and learning from them was critical to us. When we don't see that happening it worries us. Poor military judgment has been used throughout this mission." — Retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, former chief of U.S. Central Command

"I really believe that we need a new secretary of defense because Secretary Rumsfeld carries way too much baggage with him. ... I think we need senior military leaders who understand the principles of war and apply them ruthlessly, and when the time comes, they need to call it like it is." — Retired Army Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack

"He has shown himself incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically, and is far more than anyone responsible for what has happened to our important mission in Iraq. ... Mr. Rumsfeld must step down." — Retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton

That’s an unprecedented lineup of opinion from the highest ranks of military leadership. These men spent their careers caring about two things: 1) the successful completion of their mission; and 2) the protection of their troops. In their opinion, Donald Rumsfeld is a threat to both. I am willing to wager serious coin of the realm that as other flag rank officers who are currently serving move into retirement the above list of quotes will grow. It won’t be unanimous, but it will be significant. For example, four more retired generals spoke out yesterday. One, General Richard Myers, was supportive of Secretary Rumsfeld. The other three, Don Shepperd, David Grange and James Marks, stopped short of calling for Rumsfeld's resignation, but discussed "severe" leadership and management errors in his handling of the war, including disregarding military input in general and disregarding calls for more troops in Iraq in particular. It would be dangerous to assume that these recently retired generals are completely out of phase with their counterparts who remain on the line. The odds don’t favor that bet.

Public criticism of civilian leadership by active military leadership is essentially nonexistent in the U.S., and that isn’t a bad thing. The constitutionally-based relationship between them is well defined – the president and secretary of defense are the superior commanders of all military leaders. In addition, the Uniform Code of Military Justice prohibits any officer from speaking contemptuously about the president, vice president or secretary of defense. The line between contempt and mere criticism is not well defined. But without regard to that line, no military officer worth his salt is going be insubordinate in public, no matter how heated a disagreement might become in the private policy and strategy debates that regularly occur in the Pentagon. Practically speaking, currently serving generals and admirals familiar with the fate of Douglas McArthur are unlikely to publicly criticize the sitting secretary of defense even if their criticism falls short of either contempt or insubordination. Like the rest of us, they would like to choose the time of their retirement.

That’s exactly what Major General Batiste did. He commanded the Army's 1st Infantry Division in Iraq, but he declined a promotion to Lieutenant General and a chance to be the No. 2 U.S. military officer in Iraq because he couldn’t accept Rumsfeld's management style. He chose instead to leave the Army and speak out. Others who remain in the service are likely to share his opinion, but they’re soldiers who obey the orders of those above them. Once they retire, they answer only to themselves and to those with whom they served.

It comes as no surprise that the president is 180º out of line with the above opinions. He declared this last weekend, "Secretary Rumsfeld's energetic and steady leadership is exactly what is needed at this critical period. He has my full support and deepest appreciation." That praise is only slightly more glowing than the now famous, “You’re doing a great job, Brownie!”

I don’t think anything else needs to be said by me on this topic. Oh, wait, one more thing should be added. When my son returned from Fallujah almost two years ago he had only one critical opinion about anything connected with the war in Iraq: Secretary Rumsfeld should go.

I support what the troops have to say.

Rolling the Stone Back

On Good Friday, I dropped a shoe on what is probably the most fundamental belief in Christianity. Easter Sunday is an appropriate time for the other shoe to drop. Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which most Christians believe necessarily followed his death as the atoning sacrifice for the sins of all mankind. However, if one concludes that God did not require a blood sacrifice to atone for those sins, then one is similarly free to conclude that God did not require one resurrection to become the means for all other resurrections.

In other words, we are not required to accept Jesus Christ as the only means by which we are saved from sin, resurrected, and permitted to return to the presence of God. There – I’ve said it out loud. I’ve never been in the public end of this pool before. There will be candles lighted in my behalf quite shortly, I’m sure.

It’s a common belief in Christianity that each of us is comprised of body and spirit and that when the body dies the spirit returns to God. It’s also a common belief that our individuality, what truly makes us who we are, is embedded in the spirit, not the body; that the body is merely the glove into which the hand is placed, the temple in which the spirit dwells. Given these beliefs, then in my mind the return of that spirit to God at the time of death is the resurrection! I find peace and hope in that belief. I don’t need to go beyond that to a belief in a subsequent resurrection of the body.

I believe I was present at the moment of resurrection for my mom in 1999 and for my stepson in 2002. I believe others will be present at the moment of my resurrection, which will occur instantaneously upon my last breath.

For me, there is a sense of liberation in the thought of a spiritual resurrection for every person at the moment of death as opposed to a bodily resurrection only after swearing allegiance to some denominational flag. I accept the idea of being resurrected as a form of pure energy and light as opposed to some form of reunited body and spirit. Jesus said, “I am the light.” That is more than enough for me.

I believe that Jesus of Nazareth was similarly resurrected at the time of his death. But, I don’t see why that resurrection had to be a prerequisite for mine, or a prerequisite for the countless people who died before Jesus or who will die after him. I’ve wondered about his curious declaration to Mary Magdalene when she saw him in risen form. He says to her, “Touch me not, for I have not yet ascended to my father in heaven.” I see that statement as an indication that his resurrection occurred upon his death, was spiritual in nature, and that there was no body to be touched. It’s meaningful to me that there are thousands of accounts of other people being seen in similar form after their death, including Christians, non-Christians, and people with no belief in God, Christ or any other form of deity. What few shards of evidence, if we can even call it that, we have regarding the afterlife does not sustain the supposedly requisite connection between the death and resurrection of Jesus and that afterlife.

Yes, I know that the Bible says the tomb was supposedly empty; that Jesus supposedly appeared to his disciples in bodily form; that he supposedly ate with them; and that he supposedly had Thomas touch the wounds in his body. I don’t profess to have it all figured out. But, I don’t believe that any other person professing this or that belief on the subject, now or in the past, has it all figured out, either. After all, the Bible says a lot of things that, except for a few fundamentalists, most Christians don’t consider to be literally true.

Against this background, it would be fair for someone to ask me, “What does this leave of your Christianity, Jonathan? If sins don’t have to be atoned for through shedding the sacrificial blood of the Son of God, and if our resurrection isn’t dependent on his sacrifice and resurrection, then of what does your faith consist?”

I have faith in Jesus as an embodiment of God’s grace and mercy and truth; as a reflection of God’s love and unconditional forgiveness; as a model of selfless service and surrender; as a messenger of hope and joy; as a shepherd to be followed; as an exemplary way to be walked; as a denouncer of pharisaical judgment and arrogance; as a slayer of fear; as a voice that calls me out of the past and the future and bids me be present with him here and now; as a source of light when shadows cross or darkness descends; as a comforter, night and day; as a tree that bears the fruit of the spirit for my spiritual sustenance and well being; and as a prince of peace in the kingdom of God on the earth.

That is more than enough for me; because that is all that matters to me; because that is all that is needed for me; because that is all that is. My pastures are green; my waters are quiet; my path is guided; my comfort is at hand; my table is prepared; my head is anointed; my cup overflows.

In short, I am followed by goodness, mercy and love; and I dwell in the house of the Lord already.

That is more than enough for me.

Will any of God’s children join me in saying, Amen?

It's Time - Bury Bonds

I love baseball. I’ve always contended that you can’t be a real sports fan if you don’t like baseball. You can be a football fan or a basketball fan, but to be a genuine sports fan you have to appreciate the game of baseball.

It’s been said that the hardest thing to do in sports is to try to use a round bat to squarely hit a round baseball being thrown at 90+ MPH. But the appeal of the game goes beyond that. In baseball, with only a handful of exceptions, there are no “plays”. It’s an unpredictable game – every time the pitcher throws a pitch there’s no certainty as to what will happen next. Anything can happen; the batted ball can go anywhere and once it does, multiple options arise instantaneously.

And, unlike football, basketball and hockey, there’s no clock – “It ain’t over till it’s over,” as Yogi, the Cooperstown sage, said. Each game is finished only when it has been decided by the 18 guys on the field. There are no ties; no timed overtime periods; no contrived or convoluted sudden-death rules. They just play until one team wins. It’s a great game.

But two forces have entered the game of baseball and they threaten to bring it down to just another … whatever. First is the logical extension of free agency, which in and of itself isn’t a bad thing. But it has led to a fundamental alteration of the game. Players move from team to team, as often as every couple of years, with only rare hints of allegiance to a franchise or a city and its fans. They market their skills to the highest bidder, period. A few get ridiculously wealthy, earning up to $25 million a year to play a sport that Little Leaguers also play. The message to the fans is, “Don’t take it personally; it’s just business.” Indeed, it’s a business. Businesses are good and valuable, but who buys a ticket to watch one of them? The more a sport morphs into a rotating group of employees just putting in their hours at work and going home, the less appeal it will have to the real working stiffs in America.

The second impact, which is a much greater threat, is from drugs and steroids. Even if the players rotate from team to team, fans can still go “root, root, root for the home team,” because at least the ballparks and uniforms are familiar and the spirit of the competition between cities lives on. But, drugs and steroids can kill the spirit of the game by killing the spirit of the competition. Performance enhancing drugs and steroids are used by only one kind of ballplayer – the cheaters.

Cheaters are a horrific drain of energy and spirit, in sports, in business or in any other endeavor. We learned that fact in grade school, which is where we also learned how to react to cheaters. We hold them in great disdain. Nobody likes them. Cheaters are thieves – they are stealing something they’re not entitled to have, and, of course, that means they’re taking it away from someone else.

My family, like others around the country, was riveted by the home run race in 1998, when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were chasing after Roger Maris’ 1961 season home run mark. Both of them passed Maris’ hallowed 61; Sosa finished with 66 and McGwire set a new standard with 70. It felt good.

Then we watched McGwire appear before Congress and refuse to answer questions about his use of steroids. McGwire had repeatedly denied using steroids, but when placed under oath before the House Government Reform Committee on March 17, 2005, he declined to repeat that denial. His inability to deny such use while invoking his constitutional right against self-incrimination left us with little doubt on the question. Then we watched Sosa, who appeared at the same hearing for the same inquiry, get caught using a corked bat. With that, the numbers 66 and 70 became seriously suspect and the spirit of competition began to leave the building. But, those numbers didn’t matter as much as they could have because in the interim (2001) a new number had been posted at the top of baseball’s home run scrapheap – 73. And that brings us to Barry Bonds, baseball’s version of Public Enemy No. 1, the cheater extraordinaire.

There’s no need to repeat the almost countless charges and allegations about Bond’s use of steroids. Except for the most die-hard and mentally impaired Giants fan, there are few if any people in or around baseball who think this guy is clean. His body is prosecution Exhibit “A”. Now we learn that a federal grand jury is hearing testimony about whether Bonds perjured himself in 2003 in an appearance before another grand jury in the BALCO scandal. In that testimony Bonds admitted that his trainer gave him a rubbing balm and a liquid substance he called "the cream" and "the clear". The source of those substances, BALCO founder Victor Conte, identified "the clear" as the designer steroid THG, and prosecutors contended "the cream” was a testosterone-based ointment. Bonds claims that at the time he didn’t think these things were steroids. He later defended himself by saying he "unwillingly" used steroids. Yeah, right. Poor, dumb, Barry – just another unwitting victim of … whatever.

We can sense the spirit leaving baseball’s weary body.

Bonds currently has 708 home runs, a career total that only trails behind the Babe’s 714 and Hammering Hank’s 755. The three of them don’t belong in the same sentence, much less in the same record book. Bonds has already surpassed a long list of other players who should file a class action lawsuit to have his name struck from the records. Anticipating that the commissioner of baseball will eventually have no choice but to employ the dreaded asterisk for any future reference to Bonds’ stats, sportswriter Bill Chuck has already dubbed him Barry B*nds. If only that were funny.

Cheaters should be given an “F”, not an “*”. If Bonds isn’t tried for perjury or some other drug-related charge, he should be charged with felony theft. He and others like him have attempted to steal the competitive spirit in baseball. That’s a crime against every Little Leaguer who has tried to hit a round ball with a round bat.

With the spirit of baseball leaving its weary body, it’s time to bury Bonds before we end up burying the game.

A Bloodless Atonement

On this day in 1977 and 1978 I first witnessed a religious fervor that introduced me to fanaticism. I’d heard extreme “devotion” verbalized before and had seen media accounts of over-the-top followers of this or that religion, but I hadn’t personally experienced it, literally, in flesh and blood. Then I went to the Philippines for two years. On Good Friday in 1977 and 1978 I saw an array of penitential actions by devoted Catholics who were marking the most solemn day on the Christian calendar. The Republic of Philippines is 95% Catholic so the Passion Week was in effect a national observance.

I saw a remarkable number of people carrying large crosses, reenacting Jesus carrying his cross to Golgotha. I’d occasionally seen someone do the same thing in the U.S., but not in large numbers. It was interesting to see that most of the people doing this were either young men or older women – a Jesus and Mary connection.

More than a few of the young men carried the cross while “walking” on their knees. Before long, blood began to seep through their pants. At a well-known place in Zambales women would crawl on their hands and knees up a steep mountain side to a shrine where they would ask forgiveness for their sins. By the time they got down that mountain their hands and knees were bloody pulps; they could barely stand and walk.

Blood was the order of the day. I saw one young man after another flagellating himself with a cat-o’-nine-tails. Some wore no shirts; others had flogged their shirts into shreds. The object was to shred their backs into a bloody mess. Some of the whips weren’t just adorned with knots; some had sharp objects tied into the knots. The flesh was torn and blood ran freely, soaking into the tops of their pants, occasionally down to their knees. These young men would walk up and down a street, doing this for several hours. Some did it for the length of time that Jesus was on the cross. I saw a couple of instances where one man was whipping another man while the second one carried a cross.

In 1977 I first heard about what might be the ultimate act of penitence. There were several young men in various places in the Philippines who would be crucified each Good Friday. One of these sacrifices occurred about 50 miles from where we lived. This man’s story was that his mother had been ill with a terminal disease and he prayed to God and promised that if his mother was healed he would have himself crucified for 10 consecutive Good Fridays. Whether miraculously healed or otherwise, she lived, and her son kept his promise. On Good Friday 1978 I went to witness this event, which was the seventh year of his 10-year promise.

With the help of friends, he laid down on a cross and large nails were driven through the palms of his hands. The scars from previous crucifixions were clearly visible; they served as the mark for each year’s nails. His feet were not nailed, but rested on a block of wood nailed to the cross. The cross was lifted and held in place for all to see for as long as the man could take the pain, about 10 minutes in 1978. Blood trickled down the side of his hands and dripped slowly into the dirt. The pain was obvious on his face. When the cross was lowered the nails were removed and a doctor began attending to the sacrificial lamb.

A large crowd gathered to watch this event. People prayed or said the rosary out loud; others cried; others just watched with a mix of pain and solemnity on their faces. I took a camera with me; but I couldn’t bring myself to take pictures. The media was capturing the scene in photos and on film. But, I was somewhat overwhelmed, and not in any good or spiritual way. I was stunned and saddened that the day had been twisted beyond recognition by good and decent people trying desperately to signify their devotion to God and their savior.

This scene came to represent something else to me. It signified the extent to which religion can overcome the rational mind and cause people to do things the rest of us can never understand. Every religion produces some analog to what I witnessed.

More importantly, on that day I began to doubt that God would employ blood sacrifice as a means of atonement. The idea that God, as our Father, would mandate that the only means for his children to return to his presence was by having his son nailed to a cross to die in agony as a blood sacrifice, simply began to ring untrue. It began to ring as merely an extension of ancient rituals of sacrificing animals on an altar, a seemingly logical extension made naturally by the leaders of this new Christian sect, almost all of whom were Jews who had been imbued with a belief in the absolute need for blood sacrifice. In their world, God had always required blood atonement; so God would always require blood atonement, from one lamb or another.

Once a Christian takes a step or two back from the cross, things begin to look and feel different. Other forms of man’s desperate need to signify devotion to God start to become apparent. A twisted sense of sacrifice in the name of God or under the mandate of God starts to make no sense whatsoever. Things change, including Good Friday.

For me, this day became a symbol of a bloodless form of sacrifice that we are all called upon to make, one in which we devote ourselves to sacrificing for the well being of other people. We are called upon to give of ourselves, to our families, friends, neighbors, co-workers, fellow citizens, and our brothers and sisters around the world. We are asked to give our lives in the service of others, notably the poor – the poor in wealth; the poor in health; the poor in spirit. We, too, are asked to love others enough to bear their pain; enough to bleed for them, figuratively, if not literally. We are asked to nail our ego to a cross and let it die, so that we all may rise and live better lives.

It is in these ways that we come into the presence of God; it is through our love, service and sacrifice that we atone and become “at one” with God.

I Baptize Dead People

Controversy about a unique Mormon temple ordinance is an example of a subject that could pose something of a barrier to Mitt Romney being elected president. It’s the kind of controversy that under normal circumstances gets a little media attention in a sidebar article on page 10, but in a presidential election it could work its way to the front page.

Mormons baptize dead people. One of the primary purposes of the 130+ Mormon temples that have been built around the world is to conduct baptisms for the dead in a subterranean baptismal font. In large temples, these fonts rest on the back of 12 oxen, representing the 12 tribes of Israel, standing in a circle pointing to all directions on the compass. The fonts are below ground level to represent a person being resurrected through the power of the priesthood and the atonement of Christ. These fonts are beautiful and the ceremony is short, dignified and respectful. It can also be an issue of debate.

First, a little background. Latter-day Saints are seriously dedicated to worldwide genealogical research. The church’s genealogical records are by far the primary source for such research for any genealogist in the world, Mormon or otherwise. Once deceased persons are sufficiently identified (i.e., name, birthplace, birth date, death date), often through old church or publicly available civic records, their names are “submitted to the temple”. Worthy Latter-day Saints then go to the temple and are baptized vicariously in behalf of the dead. Mormons perform this ordinance first for their own ancestors, then for countless others over their lifetime of temple attendance. Mormons, like some other religions, believe that every person must be baptized, among other things, in order to enter into the presence of God after death. Unlike other religions, Mormons believe that this saving ordinance can be performed after death through this vicarious process. There is some archeological evidence that certain ancient societies have had similar practices. It’s not as bizarre as it sounds at first blush; it’s a well-intended act of service.

The controversy arises when the dead people for whom Mormons are being baptized are not just unknown names on a computer printout. A number of years ago, for example, there was a concerted effort to baptize all the signers of the Declaration of Independence. One issue that just won’t go away involves Mormons baptizing the victims of the Holocaust, including Anne Frank and her family. The idea of Jews being baptized in a Mormon temple “in the name of Jesus Christ”, without any permission from their surviving relatives or descendants just doesn’t sit well with a lot of people. Mormons don’t require family permission for such ordinance work after a certain time has passed since the death of the person involved. The LDS Church agreed in 1995 to cease proxy baptisms for Holocaust victims unless living family members gave permission, which would be very rare. It even agreed to remove the names of the previously baptized victims from the rolls being called up yonder, so to speak. But the issue flared up again in 1999, 2002, 2004 and again recently when researchers found that Mormons are resubmitting these names.

How would a Latter-day Saint candidate for president handle this situation? It would almost certainly arise in press conferences in places like New York City or Los Angeles where large Jewish populations live. It could easily become fodder for debates. The candidate would surely point to the official 1995 agreement, but that won’t make the issue go away any more than the official 1978 decision to finally allow black men in the church to receive priesthood ordination made the questions about racism in Mormonism go away.

The “blacks and the priesthood” controversy is another example of an issue that would dog a Mormon presidential candidate. Had that discriminatory practice, which Mormons claim was both instituted and ended by direct revelation from God to the Mormon prophet, ended in 1938 or 1958 it would be less of a problem. Ending this blatant denial of equality in 1978 made the LDS Church rather late arrivers to the civil rights party.

Church beliefs and practices can be an issue for non-Mormon candidates, too. But in Mormonism the stakes get raised pretty high because they believe that their church is “the one and only true and living church” and that all other Christian churches are apostate to one degree or another. Add to that the belief that God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost, whom the Mormons regard as separate and distinct personages, are personally directing the affairs of the Mormon Church through direct revelation to 15 “prophets, seers and revelators” (a designation bestowed on the three-member First Presidency and the Quorum of Twelve Apostles) and you have the seeds of political controversy in a high-profile election.

If a reporter asks Mitt Romney, “Do you believe that God sanctioned the denial of the priesthood to black men in 1977?”; or, “Do you believe that the vicarious baptism of Anne Frank in 1994 was appropriate?”, what does he say? I don’t know; but we may get a chance to find out.

A HOTS commenter yesterday said that if Hilary Clinton and Ted Kennedy can vote for Harry Reid, a Mormon, to lead the Senate Democrats, then I shouldn’t be concerned about Mitt Romney leading the free world. First, I have no idea who Clinton or Kennedy voted for; second, I’m not expressing concern about Romney, I’m saying there may be campaign issues about his religious affiliation; and, third, being elected Senate Minority Leader, an ironic title, in a party caucus and being elected president of the United States are vastly dissimilar undertakings. The “rules” in these two settings are written in entirely different languages.

By the way, I understand that Senator Reid’s wife is a Mormon convert from Judaism. Maybe she is one of the Latter-day Saints who were baptized “for and in behalf of Anne Frank, who is dead”.

Brother Romney, Do You Sustain...

Yesterday I made reference to Mitt Romney, the Republican governor of Massachusetts. There are a fair number of Rebs in the country who regard him as a serious candidate for president in 2008. He has announced his intention not to run for reelection as governor, which many regard as tantamount to an announcement that he will make a run at the White House. While he’s generally regarded as a fairly staunch conservative, positions such as the one he appears to be taking on health care and insurance reform, not to mention his role as the highly successful leader of the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee, could make him appealing to a broad band of voters.

Governor Romney brings an interesting challenge with him – he’s an active Mormon. Recall the sometimes heated debate (i.e., it generated heat, not light) when John Kennedy, a Catholic, ran for president in 1960. The issue then, which seems a little silly now, was whether a Catholic would be controlled or overly influenced by the papacy in his decision-making process. While it seems very unlikely that we would return to that particular debate with any other Catholic candidate for president, John Kerry, another Catholic, faced a denominational-based debate about his position on abortion. If Mitt Romney becomes a serious candidate for the oval throne room we may see the debate return to the 1960 issue – would a Mormon candidate be controlled or unduly influenced by the leadership of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? It’s not a silly question.

I’ve known a lot of fully active Catholics who openly disagree with the sitting Pope or past papal positions without much hesitation. On the other hand, I’ve known almost no fully active Latter-day Saints who would disagree, openly or otherwise, with the Mormon Prophet, First Presidency, or Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. In Catholicism, one may disagree strongly with church leadership and still be allowed to participate in the various sacraments and rituals of the church, with the support of abortion being or becoming a possible exception. In Mormonism, however, to voice public disagreement with the President of the Church, who is regarded as a “Prophet, Seer and Revelator,” makes a Latter-day Saint “unworthy” to participate in the sacraments and rituals of the church.

Active Mormons are interviewed extensively by two levels of priesthood leadership every year in order for the leadership to assess their “personal worthiness” to hold a “temple recommend”, a documented validation that is required in order to enter any Mormon Temple and participate in the “ordinances” conducted there. The first of 14 questions asked is, “Do you believe in God, the Eternal Father, in his Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost; and do you have a firm testimony of the restored gospel?” The reference to “restored gospel” is meant to assess their testimony regarding the Prophet Joseph Smith and his historical account of the “true gospel” and the “one and only true and living church” of Jesus Christ being restored to the earth through the personal appearance and direction of the Father and the Son. The next two interview questions could become political fodder in a presidential campaign:

“Do you sustain the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as the prophet, seer, and revelator; and do you recognize him as the only person on the earth authorized to exercise all priesthood keys [of authority]? Do you sustain the other General Authorities [i.e., the First Presidency, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, several Quorums of the Seventy, and Presiding Bishopric) and the local authorities (a member’s bishop, bishopric, stake presidency, and high council) of the Church?”

“Sustaining” is a term of art in the Mormon Church. With respect to the General Authorities, AKA “the Brethren”, it means following them and their counsel and direction for the church and its membership, pure and simple. If a member hopes to be “found worthy”, to go into a Temple, to be called to serve in positions of leadership, then exceptions are not permitted. As a latter-day apostle of Jesus Christ declared, “When the Brethren have spoken, the thinking is done.” With regard to the local level of church authorities, there is much more latitude. Disagreement is frequent, but kept within certain respectful limits.

Mitt Romney almost certainly holds a temple recommend and would be expected to “sustain the Brethren” at all times while serving as president. The Brethren have taken positions on political matters, such as officially opposing the Equal Rights Amendment, and have spoken about many issues without taking an official position. What would a Mormon president do in office if the man he regards a the only living prophet of God, or the Quorum he regards as the literal reestablishment of the 12 apostles of Jesus Christ, were to speak out or take a position on a matter of national policy or international politics?

It’s not a silly question. Mormons are not Catholics. The Mormon Prophet isn’t the Pope. The Quorum of the Twelve isn’t the College of Cardinals. Mitt Romney may be from Massachusetts, but he isn’t John Kennedy.

Promote the General Welfare

The preamble to the United States Constitution says:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

I call attention to the reference to promoting the general welfare of the people and their posterity. There are few things more central to the general welfare of our citizens than access to adequate health care. At some point we have to deal with the fact that over 45 million people in our country, including a large number of working adults, do not have such access because they have no health insurance. The uninsured rates vary from a staggering 25.1% in Texas to 8.5% in Minnesota.

The State of Massachusetts has stepped into the breach by passing a law that requires every resident in the state to have some form of health insurance. The plan, which uses a mix of financial incentives and penalties to induce compliance, would provide free or heavily subsidized insurance to poor people who heretofore could not afford any form of coverage. Those who can afford insurance but fail to get it will suffer meaningful tax penalties. Those who have existing coverage will, perhaps surprisingly, see their insurance premiums go down, which highlights the cost in the existing system related to medical services provided to uninsured patients.

The bill does not require a tax increase, but will require any business that does not offer health insurance to its employees to pay the state a fee of $295 per employee per year. Remaining costs will be paid out of cuts in other state spending and existing federal reimbursements that are intended to be an incentive for states to reduce the number of uninsured, of which there are 500,000 in Massachusetts.

The initial reaction in certain quarters might be to dismiss Massachusetts as a bastion of liberal idealism but that would be a mistake. This law was overwhelmingly approved in the Massachusetts legislature with broad bipartisan support and will almost certainly be signed into law by a very conservative Republican governor, Mitt Romney. Only two members of the state legislature voted against the measure. The employer mandate appeals to liberals and the focus on individual responsibility appeals to conservatives.

Many other states are stepping into the federal void. Last year 19 state legislatures debated some form of insurance reform, up from 12 the year before. Some are focusing on requiring large employers to provide and pay for insurance; others are focusing on helping small employers offer insurance they’ve previously been unable to offer; others are attempting to first ensure coverage for children; while others are debating ways to provide universal health insurance for all residents. This surge of state-by-state responses, under which Americans could be treated in dramatically different ways depending on where they live, will put increased pressure on Washington, DC to come up with a federal solution that applies equally to everyone in the country. It’s time for such a solution. Polls have shown that Americans want a universal solution and are willing to pay for one. Of course, how much to pay and through what means are issues yet to be resolved and there is a wide range of opinions on those questions.

Businesses are becoming a catalyst in the debate because more and more of them are cutting or eliminating health care coverage for employees as a cost-cutting measure. That trend is increasing the pressure for government imposed solutions that are likely to be paid for in large part by – you guessed it – businesses. Because this issue is so central to the well being of every person and family, it’s not going to go away, particularly as medical costs continue to rise at alarming rates. Therefore, it behooves business leaders to come to the table and become part of the solution. They should pay attention to the warning from the Fram oil filter guy: “You can pay me now, or you can pay me later.” Government is going to do something, and relatively soon. Business leaders shouldn’t wait too long, lest the issue gets resolved without their involvement.

Power to the People

Well, it’s time for my semi-respite from ranting on the HOTS (yeah, that acronym for Hair on the Soap is accidental; I didn’t plan it that way) to come to an end. There are a couple of hot-button issues that need to be addressed. Today, it’s immigration.

In the last couple of months we’ve seem the return of a truly amazing American phenomenon – the opportunity for hundreds of thousands of people to march in the streets of our cities to petition the government, and have it be almost entirely peaceful. It’s always easy to take shots at the French, but they clearly have yet to master this form of free speech as witnessed recently in the streets of Paris. As someone who went to high school and college in the 60s it’s a reminder of the power of the street democracy that arose in response to the Vietnam War.

Latinos around the country, including citizens, permanent resident aliens (green-card holders), visa holders, or illegal immigrants, are now raising their voices to a level where they can and will be heard. No politician in this country is going to ignore any issue that draws 500,000 people into the streets of one city on one day or hundreds of thousands in many cities on many days. Not everyone in those protesting masses can vote, but a lot of them can and all of them are either related to or know someone else who can vote. They’re a force to be reckoned with and this is as good a time as any to bring some resolution to this issue.

I support the plan put forth by the president and the members of the Senate who came close to working out an agreement in the last two weeks. I support a guest worker program that recognizes an important reality – we accept the benefits of a large group of immigrant workers who labor hard in our behalf in this country, and as long as we’re willing to accept those benefits then we need to be willing to legitimize their presence here.

I also support the idea of defining a clear path to citizenship for certain illegal immigrants who meet certain criteria, such as having been here continually for a specified period of time and being gainfully employed. It goes without saying that a very large percentage of the illegal immigrants in this country are hard working people; that’s why they’re here. They want to work hard, earn a decent wage, support their families, and provide opportunity for their children. That's what people have been doing in this country for more than 250 years.

Anyone who is working hard in this country is making a meaningful contribution to the well being of this country, which is more than can be said about a number of our citizens. Again, we can’t accept that contribution, which we do day after day, without providing a reasonable means for the contributors to be here legally.

The proposal being advanced by the president and a large number of senators accomplishes these objectives while still recognizing that illegal immigrants who have recently come here need to return to their homeland and start making their way through a newly established process that provides a way for their legitimate return to the U.S. if they comply with that process. The proposal also recognizes that employers must start complying with the law or face serious penalties for failing to do so.

I do not support the House immigration bill that instantaneously converts all illegal immigrants into felons and imposes severe penalties on current employers of illegal immigrants. That draconian response does not recognize the reality of who is doing what for whom in this country. It’s nothing more than a Potemkin village erected to impress the ultra-conservatives who act like this issue is the single most important challenge to American security, which it’s far from. There may be a day in the future when steps like this are appropriate, but that day hasn’t arrived. We need to take the time to work through a solution that is more in keeping with current workforce needs and that will bring everyone to the resolution table rather than making everyone dive under that table.

I know it’s popular to say that illegal immigrants are doing work that no one else in America is willing to do. That may be generally true, but it’s not really the point. If illegal immigrants weren’t doing the work they’re doing, I’m fairly confident the marketplace would adjust by raising the wages for that work high enough to draw someone else into those jobs. That adjustment would be bad for everyone. It would be bad for the immigrants who would lose jobs that pay far better than anything they can get “back home”, jobs that support and provide future opportunities for their families. And, it would be bad for the American consumer who would have to pay significantly more for products and services due to the increased cost of labor to provide them. Some Americans speak glibly about being willing to pay that higher cost, but there are a substantial number of Americans who can’t pay that higher cost. A corporate executive may be able to pay $10 for a head of lettuce, $10 a pound for tomatoes, an added $50 a night for a hotel room, or an added $100 a month for necessary home services, but many Americans, especially the poor and the elderly, can’t.

I don’t mean to imply that we should exploit the needs of immigrants or support the greed of their employers by paying substandard wages to immigrant workers. I only mean to say that we should legitimize the presence of the people who are doing the work they do here and let the market set its wage rates with them present as opposed to setting a rate in their absence.

One other thing – can we stop employing rhetoric that purports to link illegal immigrants from Mexico with our concern about terrorism and homeland security. There has been not one iota of connection between Mexican immigration and terrorism and I don’t know anyone of sound mind who considers that to be even a semi-serious concern. Permeable borders are a problem that must be addressed, but not for the purpose of preventing the entry of subversive Mexicans who intend to undermine our security. Terrorism is a clear threat to homeland security, but we shouldn’t spend one minute or one dollar addressing that threat in the context of Mexican laborers.

Giving Tolerance a Bad Name

I watched part of Buck Owens’ funeral on TV on Sunday. It was broadcast on all of our local channels. There were wonderful tributes from family members and several country music stars performed songs that were moving and perfect for the occasion. Then, along came the sermon.

The funeral was held in a Baptist mega-church and the sermon was given by the senior pastor. Back in the early 90s one of my kids started attending that church, which under normal circumstances would not be a big deal. But when a Mormon kid starts attending a Baptist church it’s a very big deal, in both churches. This pastor decided that he needed to visit me, ostensibly to ask if it was okay for my son to be attending his church. I was already well into my extraction from Mormonism so it was fine with me. It quickly became clear, however, that he was really visiting me to determine if my departure from this “cult”, as Baptist leaders love to call the LDS Church, was real. I recall his stern demeanor as the cross-examination unfolded. There was a dark cloud of skepticism hanging over him. He may have been trying to determine the depth of my son’s commitment to Jesus Christ by testing the depth of his father’s remaining commitment to Joseph Smith. I’m not sure. The point is that it wasn’t all that pleasant. Well, it wasn’t all that pleasant listening to him again on Sunday.

After making one reference to Buck, the pastor launched into a standard Baptist salvation message – the one about how there is no path from spiritual death to eternal life in the presence of God other than through accepting Jesus as one’s personal savior. It’s pretty hard for a Baptist preacher to pass up an opportunity to deliver that message to a large gathering, so it wasn’t unexpected. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop there. It quickly morphed into a critical commentary on modern culture and our ill-advised embrace of tolerance. That’s not your everyday sermon at a funeral.

One gets the impression that Buck Owens was a fairly tolerant man. He seems to have embraced a very diverse group of people in his life and there’s not much evidence that he was inclined to pass moral judgment on others. He didn’t exactly live his own life along the straight and narrow path. Nonetheless, the pastor used Buck’s funeral as an occasion to criticize anyone inclined to walk the crooked and wide path of tolerance.

His premise was as follows: at one time, tolerance meant that we treated those with whom we disagree with respect and dignity; but, now, tolerance means that every opinion is equally valued and true.

Let me start by saying that I apparently haven’t bought into the watered down version of tolerance that this pastor decries because I don’t value his opinion, nor do I regard it as true. I’m not that tolerant.

Second, I would probably shut up on this subject if I saw this man and others like him actually adhere to the old-fashioned version of tolerance that he seems to hold up as a model value. If only they did treat those with whom they disagree with respect and dignity then we would live in a better world. But they don’t. People of this ilk heap disrespect, indignity and moral judgment on those with whom they disagree. Please, someone show me a meaningful example of respect shown to Latter-day Saints by this man and I will call him tolerant under his own definition. Branding another group as a satanic cult from which people must be saved is just a little short of the tolerance mark he espouses.

Someone show me the respect and dignity that this man and others like him have extended to Mormons, Muslims, homosexuals, most Democrats, liberals of any affiliation, women who get abortions, the makers of R-rated movies, the Pope and the Catholic Church, not to mention Teletubbies and Sponge Bob. The men behind the bully pulpits of the Religious Right pass out their special form of intolerance, however defined, almost every Sunday, even at a funeral service.

This pastor declared that in this day we have reduced sin to pedophilia and terrorism. I haven’t. I still include taking the name of the Lord in vain as a sin and when I hear a man profess to speak in the name of the Lord as he passes ultimate judgment on others then I know that the odds are high that sin is in the air.

My hope is that everyone within the sound of a voice like the one I heard on Sunday will, indeed, reject the temptation to adhere to the modern-day version of tolerance he defines. My hope is that they will listen to his opinion and find it to be untrue and of no value.

But, I’m being intolerant; so that probably puts my opinion about the man behind the pulpit on Sunday in the same bucket as his opinion about so many others, which only proves, once again, that we’re all more alike than we are different.

Enough is Enough

I was two-thirds of the way through a different entry for today when I suddenly had to stop and shift gears. I have to say something else this morning. I have 11 young, strong, courageous “faces” in my head and I can’t ignore them; I can’t even wait 24 hours to acknowledge them.

Nine of those “faces” died in Iraq yesterday. Seven of them were Marines. Two of them were “sailors”. But they weren’t just any sailors, not when they’re with the Marines. It’s almost certain that the two sailors who died yesterday were Navy corpsmen.

A colleague at work was a former Navy corpsman. His nephew followed in his uncle’s footsteps. But, now, following in those footsteps is going to be infinitely more challenging because this young corpsman got hit by an IED in Iraq and is likely to have both of his legs amputated. He’s in Bethesda Naval Hospital in Washington, DC. His uncle tells me that there are literally thousands of stitches in his nephew’s legs and the damage is so extensive that there’s not much hope of saving either leg. This young, strong, courageous man is the 10th “face” in my head this morning.

The 11th “face” is my son’s. My oldest son is a Navy corpsman. He was in Iraq. He got “hit” and seriously wounded by an IED. The worst wound was a third degree burn on his leg. He came home alive, for which I will be eternally grateful.

But – every time I learn about another corpsman who is killed in Iraq or Afghanistan I die just a little. I can feel the explosive concussion that just hit another family, another father. I react at some level as if it were my son. It’s just too goddamn close to home and it hurts.

These corpsmen, these kids, are something else. They step into the teeth of combat with nothing more than a 9MM pistol in a holster on their thigh. You can imagine the circumstances under which they would be required to use that pistol – “up close and personal” is the phrase that comes to my mind. Their mission in Iraq isn’t to kill the enemy insurgents; their mission is to save Marines who the insurgents are trying to kill. That’s another reason why the loss of a corpsman is a different loss. They are there for one purpose – to bring care and comfort to others. They don’t deliver death; they stand between death and the wounded. They look death in the face and say, “Fuck you; you’re not getting this guy is there’s anything I can do about it.” We need to mass produce these kids and plant them all over the world, wherever other people are wounded and suffering and need a little care and comfort.

It’s an amazing thing to watch the high regard and respect extended to Navy corpsmen by the Marines they serve. Marines don’t have much use for sailors, by and large. But they see corpsmen as one of their own. They are brothers and sisters together in harm’s way. I’ve previously told a story that exemplifies this, but I want to tell it again.

Early on the morning of February 19, 2002, we were at Camp Pendleton to send my son off to Iraq. The battalion commander, a colonel, came on the scene and called the troops to assemble. My son started to fall in with the others. But, the colonel turned to him and said loud enough for everyone to hear, “Not you, Doc; you stay there and spend time with your family.” It brought tears to my eyes that morning and it does again as I type these words. At that moment, that Marine officer represented not just the Corps, not just the military, but all Americans saying to one young, strong, courageous man – thank you, son; what you do is something special, something deserving of a salute from all of us. Marine colonels don’t salute Navy petty officers in the usual way; but on that morning I saw one do it.

Thank you, son. What you do is something special, something deserving of a salute from all of us. I salute you.

And, I salute the corpsman in Bethesda; and I salute the two corpsmen who paid the ultimate price for their devotion to duty yesterday; and I salute all others who step into combat with nothing more than that 9MM strapped to their thigh; and I salute the Marines and Army soldiers they serve with; are wounded with; convalesce with; heal with; come home with; and die with.

But – enough is enough. Enough hands, arms and legs have been amputated. Enough third-degree burns have been grafted over. Enough young men and women have died. Enough families have suffered.

Enough is enough.

Delayed Departure

I had another topic to write about today, but I’m too giddy, too lightheaded over the impending announcement that Tom DeLay, the Reb congressman from Texas and former majority leader of the House, is not only withdrawing from his reelection campaign but is going to resign from the House.

There is a God in heaven. It seems that freedom is on the march after all! Democracy is spreading all across the Lone Star State! Liberty’s bright light is sending at least one roach running under the stove! These are the kind of sentences I write when I’m lightheaded.

DeLay is a former exterminator, both in his career before being elected to Congress in 1984 and in his role in the Reb party apparatus. His job was to exterminate any form of opposition to the ultra-conservative agenda. In the course of driving out the pests and rodents that scurry along the marble hallways in the Rayburn Office Building, he got exposed to too many toxic substances. He poisoned himself; he got sick with the power of his office.

Every middle-school student who has had a basic civics class has learned that power has the overwhelming potential to corrupt, especially those who wield it with arrogance and utter disregard for the rules of engagement. Tom DeLay is the face of arrogance in power, as witnessed by the almost eerie smirk on his face when he stood for a mug shot after being indicted, arrested and booked on charges of illegally funneling money to Texas state legislative campaigns. That picture makes him the poster child for the campaign to eradicate the disease of corruption due to the prolonged exposure to too much power.

Now, with two of his most senior aides, including his deputy chief of staff, having pled guilty to crimes in the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal, DeLay can hear the footsteps of justice bearing down on him like an Oklahoma linebacker. People like DeLay do not, repeat, do not resign from power “to pursue other interests” or “to spend time with their family”. They resign because other interests are in hot pursuit of them. In this instance the pursuer is a prosecutor and DeLay has read the Book of Daniel often enough to be able to read the writing on the prison walls. DeLay may well want to spend time with his family, before he starts serving time with some guy named Bubba from Beaumont.

The prospect of Tom DeLay going to jail with Bubba, Jack, or his former aides is increasing with each passing step in the judicial process. While it’s tempting to descend into crass delight over this fall from power, that isn’t the reason to view this prospect with hope. The video showing a former majority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives being led in handcuffs into the slammer is just about the ultimate civics lesson for all middle-school kids, and for any “adolescent” politicians in Washington, DC, Austin, Texas, and the other capitol cities in America.

DeLay has told Time magazine that he feels “liberated” by his decision and that he will now spend his time pursuing the goals of getting Rebs elected to office and – sound the alarm – get the children off the street – “forging a closer connection between religion and government.” It’s hard to imagine any Reb, other than one running unopposed in an overwhelmingly conservative district, wanting Tom DeLay’s help at this point. Standing next to this guy, with the toxic fumes still rolling off him, is not exactly a high priority photo opportunity. But, if DeLay has money to spend, he’ll find someone who will take that shot.

It’s the second of his stated goals that should make our skin crawl, just like it does when we realize a spider is crawling on our neck or a roach is headed up our leg. Forging a bond between religion and government is the Iranian model of government. It’s the form of freedom that Islamic fundamentalists want to spread throughout the world, and they’ve found a blood brother in Tom DeLay. Tom DeLay is an aspiring ayatollah; he is an American version of the Iraqi Shia cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr. I swear this guy would form a militia if he thought it had a chance to survive.

He and his fellow hard-line clerics in the Middle East speak the same language of fundamentalist oppression of anyone who believes anything other than their version of inspired truth. They have discerned the will of God and they are on a mission from God. Before this mission is said and done, we will see Tom DeLay don the robes of a Christian martyr and he will be hailed as such in conservative Christian churches and conservative talk shows across the land. In that role, he will once again be spraying his special brand of poison in every home and in every mind and heart he enters.

Men like Tom DeLay are a clear and present danger to freedom in America. When they step out of the klieg lights that shine on the national stage, they should still be watched very closely. Just because a roach runs under the stove, doesn’t mean it’s out of the kitchen. It’s just waiting for the lights to be turned out so it can feel liberated and can emerge to pursue its goals.